FM Radio Vs World Space Radio

[prankey]

If you live in a poor reception area, the SST (sundar, sasta, tikau!) solution is to use a Yagi-Uda terrestrial TV antenna (remember the antenna everyone used to mount on their roofs to catch DD channels? that's the one!), mounted on rooftop, facing the direction of transmitter. 400-500 for the antenna, plus cost of flat cable. Omnis usually have lower gain and will not work in poor reception areas.

Standalone tuners are available from Marantz (new) but will cost quite a bit. Best to buy good used one.
Joshua

My solution is to use a redundant coaxial RF cable to run it outside my apartment premises and connect the regular wire antenna which comes with the AVR! It works great for my otherwise low coverage area and costs practically NOTHING!!!

IIRC, Worldspace channels were 32 kbps AAC compressed. But their quality was surprisingly good for such low bit rate.

FM radio is analog. If done right, it's near-CD in audio quality. Alas, all FM stations use (or rather abuse) their audio processing mainly to increase loudness and thump, thus sacrificing quality.

The days of CD playout or vinyl playout are long gone. Every station now uses audio files ripped from CDs as .wav files, and stored on a playout server, played from playout automation software. But I heard some stations are guilty of playing low bitrate compressed files!

Joshua

I believe it was 64 to 128kbps AAC with majority of programming in 96kbps

Also to be considered 10 "audio only" music channels available at Tatasky @ just Rs. 15/ month. The music on these channels is ad free and bukbuk free. Three of them are Hindi, one international while the rest are regional language channels.
Regards
Vinod

Yes I use it and love it. For Rs.15, its absolutely VFM and with much better quality than WS.

 

[kvandhi]

definitely available in Trivandrum and most of the west coast of India...however reception is possible with clever antenna orientation in places like Chennai as well...i have never been off worldspace even though they closed down their Asia and Africa operations...AsiaStar and AfriStar are very much alive with select programming.

Great news,
Any chennai listeners getting worldspace like before or some restriction in channels.
Let me try my receiver to get afri/asia star programmes.

 

[reubensm]

Here's an extract of an article which I posted on Facebook about a couple of years ago on how to receive Worldspace's Afristar beam in India. Kindly note that Worldspace Africa has hence, closed down and only the free-to-air channels are currently available.

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Worldspace was operating on a 2-satellite platform - AfriStar covering Africa, Parts of Europe, Middle East and Most Part of Western & Central India (including entire South India) and AsiaStar covering most part of Asia. If you look at the satellite footprint maps, you will realize that if you orient your antenna correctly, you should be able to tune into both satellites.

Here is the link to the coverage maps:

http://www.npr.org/worldwide/worldspace

From the AfriStar coverage map, one can understand that almost all of South India, Western, Central and North Western India and Pakistan are covered in the foot print.

AfriStar is located at 21 degrees East Longitude orbital location. Those who understand Satellite Antenna orientation should not have a problem getting your antenna set up. For those who are not technically oriented, nothing to worry, its simple. You may be familiar with the position of your existing worldspace antenna which was to pick up signals from a Satellite more or less over Singapore. So set up your Antenna in orientation with your usual worldspace India position and then turn the antenna in a clock wise direction for about 130 to 140 degrees. Do a band search in this range and you are likely to link on to the AfriStar signal. Try setting up out-doors and then move indoors when you find the most appropriate orientation for your locality. For the techies, the gain received obviously is considerably lower than AsiaStat clocking at between 3.5 and 4db but is perfect for audible reception.

To answer Neena Dayal's query about the receiver, I was one of the first customers of WorldSpace back in 2001 when the service was free to air. They told me that my Panasonic RE WS10 receiver was configured with a universal password to work anywhere in Asia and Africa. I presume there is nothing like Universal Password and all Worldspace radios should be able to pick up both AfriStar and AsiaStar beams. Its all about the antenna orientation.

Please understand that Worldspace satellites coverage areas were mapped earlier on the basis of reception reports received using the patch antennas of the worldspace receivers and the external 5-element yagi antennas. However, in effect, the satellites are more powerful and strong signals were picked up well outside the coverage area by attaching the patch antenna to a dish (received in far off Australia)

Check out this link:

http://www.satdirectory.com/--worldspace.html

Now to the Available Channels:

Currently on AsiaStar, worldspace has turned off all their primary channels with the exception of Sai Global Harmony and the Preview Channel.

Here is the current Channel List on AfriStar:

****Free To Air Channels****

NPR
BBC World
WRN-1
WRN-2
RFI-1 D
RMC MO R
Africa Learning Channel
Preview Channel
Ranin - Arabic Pop
MinZaman - Arabic Classic
BBC - ARAB
BBC - AFRICA

****Pay Channels****

Voyager
WorldZone
Orbit Rock
Bob Rock
The Hop
Up Country
Portion
Flava
Riff
Maestro
CII
Hosanna
Sai Global Harmony
Punch Line

Please note that all the Indian channels included on the AfriStar beam were discontinued after the India Black Out on 31st Dec'09.

For many, this may not be good news but atleast we know that our expensive receivers can be still used.

I am in the process of contacting the Africa offices of Worldspace to try and buy a subscription for the pay channels. I understand that unlike India, they have monthly payment schemes which cost about $5 for the silver package.

Now to the future of worldspace:

The future of worldspace is currently in huge doubt. There are a lot of rumours floating and as with all corporate entities, the information provided is always not a true representation of the reality. The fact is that Liberty Media who runs satellite services in the United States has purchased most part of worldspace (except the India operations). I understand that their purchase includes the Africa operations and that's how its still running. Lets wait and watch for new developments.

By the way, if you were wondering where I am from, the answer is TRIVANDRUM, India

Please feel free to ask questions and I shall try my best to answer them.

WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010 AND LETS KEEP THE WORLDSPACE FLAG FLYING!!

 

[prankey]

I for once don't like patronizing WS after they DUPED us and RAN away. Their sound quality and some channel's programing was anyway terrible, however I never thought they would run away like they did without even bothering the return subscription fee and cost of the equipment.

 

[venkatcr]

I think the whole discussion has become mute now.

http://www.hifivision.com/am-fm-tuners-satellite-radio/18965-world-space-team-back.html

Even if Timbre charges me 1500 a year, I will happily pay. Their collections of songs, and the way they present is simply phenomenal. Who need worldspace when the team is available through other means?

Cheers

 

[Audio Slave]

World Space was nice because of the selection of music and the variety offered. FM may sound good but what will you do of the endless talks that so called radio jockeys vomit all the time over their mics ? Advertisements are another problem on various Indian FM stations.

I don't consider listening to advertisements and radio jockeys, a part of hi-fi experience.

No FM for me !!!

Within and specially outside the Metros, FM Radio in India is still in its infancy stage - very few FM Stations, that too with low powered transmitters, too many ads and jingles and boring non-stop chatter by the joker DJs...make these uninteresting for most music lovers. World Space Radio was a class apart. Internet Radio offers a big alternative to FM Radio with thousands of Radio Stations and huge variety of music to choose according to one's taste. All you need is a good broadband connection with your Desktop / Laptop.

 

[reubensm]

thanks all, nice to know that worldspace is still being talked about...the intention for putting this note up for to let forum members know that some kind of programming can still be received...there are many out there who are aware of this and are trying to purchase worldspace radios from former subscribers for as little as Rs.100. a guy once wrote to me, asking me if I could sell my Panasonic RE WS10 for Rs.100 so that he could listen to Radio Sai Global Harmony