xdaniel Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 This doesn't really matter to anyone outside of Europe, I suppose, still I'd like to draw your attention to this for a moment. And I suck at tl;dr, so bear with me here if you're in any way interested in television. Most analogue TV and radio broadcasts via the Astra satellites at 19.2 degrees east - mainly a bunch of German-language free-to-air stations nowadays - ceased during the last night and morning. This ends the rather long history of analogue direct-to-home satellite services at that orbital position, beginning in 1989 after the launch of the first Astra satellite, Astra 1A, in late 1988. In fact, broadcasting began two weeks before my second birthday. Astra 1, as the position was mainly known as before it was officially branded "Astra 19.2°E", was my first encounter with foreign-language television content. Pretty much everything on German TV is dubbed, so - until digital cable came along, and also excluding French TV5 Europe - satellites like Astra and the Eutelsats were the only place to watch television in other languages. And we've only had analogue cable for the most part, besides a few years or so somewhere around 2000. On the other hand, my uncle has had satellite TV since pretty much forever, I guess, which is where - back in around 1997/1998, I guess - I first saw such unusual sights like Cartoon Network, with Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls. Only another few years later would those be seen on local TV screens - dubbed into German. CN was encrypted around 2000, then ceased off analogue several years later. Well, to cut this short, even though it's one I didn't have all that much to do with, this is the end of an era. For the last 23 years, you could point your dish at 19.2°E, set the reciever to 11,288 V and watch German station Sat.1, set it to 11,229 V and watch RTL. Those two, along with ProSieben and 3sat appeared there in the sky in 1989 and stayed there until roughly 12 hours ago. It's kinda sad, really. Astra kinda was a window into a different world, from my standpoint back in 1997. I was 10 years old at the time, and all I had seen of the world prior to that, besides Germany, were the dissolving GDR when I was 3 and we visited some relatives after the wall came down, and one of Greece's islands around 1995 or so (where we even had German newspapers, come to think of it, so... yeah). I could hear other languages - mainly English, but there were also one or two stations in Spanish, I think -, I could see things that weren't yet available on TV locally - ex. I remember listening to an episode of Pokemon on encrypted Sky One. Remember, this was still a few years before we had internet, and even then it was initially using a 14.4 kbps modem, so every little image took some time to download. So, yeah... RIP - Analogue services on "Astra 1" / "Astra 19.2°E" February 1989 - April 30th, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 I remember on Sky like 15 years ago there was a channel called Astra that explained everything about the satellite and how it works and it just looped over and over 24/7, use to watch it all the time, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xdaniel Posted April 30, 2012 Author Share Posted April 30, 2012 (edited) Yeah, I think I've seen that one once before, that was a promo loop of some kind by the operators of the Astra satellites, SES. Also, an update of sorts if anyone cares, all that's left on 19.2°E in analogue now that's an actual service as opposed to a test card or something, is Eurosport Germany (to be switched off in a few hours time) and apparently two or three audio carriers with radio stations on ex-ProSieben and ex-HSE24. What I totally forgot about, but also disappeared over the course of this day, is the Astra Digital Radio system (not up-to-date). SWR and MDR apparently were the last to switch off ADR. EDIT: And it's over. According to other forums, the switch-off info cards on ex-HR, ex-RBB and ex-HSE24 (together with the radio station on the latter) were turned off at midnight local time, as well as the other two radios on ex-ProSieben, and Eurosport ceased off at 1:30 AM. Some of the remaining info cards are said to stay until the end of May or so, the other transponders will be converted into digital ones soon. Those that have already been switched off are likely either broadcasting digital already or are pretty much about to. Edited May 1, 2012 by xdaniel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_smith_account Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 I grieve for you XDaniel, I know your pain.... No, seriously, I do. It was around 2009 that we here in the states experienced our own death of the FTA, namely KU Band satalite TV. For us it was Galaxy 18 at 123°W. A majority of the programming worth watching on American Free to Air was provided on this single satelite by the company Equity Broadcasting. When Equity Broadcasting went bankrupt around 2009, a majority of the worth while programming dissappear. Good memories. If not for the crappy movie channel ThisTV, I may never had seen truly awful crap like the cult classic, Mazes and Monsters, a movie warning you of the evils and dangers of pen and paper RPG gaming. True FTA recievers have no future in the US anymore. Sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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