Worldspace Maestro is back on Satellite Radio!!

[matbhuvi]

What is the advantage of Satellite radio (other than portability and variety of music)?
How about the quality of the signal? Will it be better than FM?

 

[reubensm]

What is the advantage of Satellite radio (other than portability and variety of music)?
How about the quality of the signal? Will it be better than FM?

Assume you are referring to signal strength. It yes, the signal strength is uniform across most part of the converage area but line of sight with the sky is key. Your receiver will not work with an indoor antenna for obvious reasons. The sound quality depends on the digital transmission bit rate.

 

[reubensm]

Something's cooking on Asiastar. One channel has disappeared (Capital, which used to broadcase Maestro tapes). Now 2 channels have appeared, both broadcasting Maestro tapes, while Sai Global Harmony is also broadcasting as well. The 2 channels are named IndAud1 and IndAud2, probably referring to India Audio-1 and India Audio-2. The broadcasts are 24x7. Not tried Afristar yet, shall check this coming weekend. Both, the India and Middle East beam and the Far East beam can be received with very good reception quality.

 

[ajay124]

I paid about 12K for my RE WS10, way back in 2000

We bought our Hitachi receiver around the same time for roughly 6K. I was tempted by the Panasonic receiver which had stereo reproduction, but finally opted for the more portable and cheaper Hitachi model. For many years Maestro or Riff used to be playing virtually 24x7 in our house.

It is a sad fact of life that good things seldom last long :sad:

 

[reubensm]

We bought our Hitachi receiver around the same time for roughly 6K. I was tempted by the Panasonic receiver which had stereo reproduction, but finally opted for the more portable and cheaper Hitachi model. For many years Maestro or Riff used to be playing virtually 24x7 in our house.

It is a sad fact of life that good things seldom last long :sad:

Great decision in the end, buying the Hitachi!! Atleast you can use it to listen to FM. My Panasonic receiver does not have the FM option. So when both Asiastar and Afristar burn out (all satellites do, at some point), my receiver will retire from service and become a show piece in my home

 

[ajay124]

The Hitachi receiver has already become a family heirloom without any utility or commercial value except for a certain amount of nostalgic value

The Squeezebox Boom is a great replacement for World Space. Better sound and hundreds of stations! For a few months we used both a Boom and a Touch, but we started feeling that one of them was expendable. I put the Boom for sale because the Touch was performing well as both a radio and as a source for streaming music. Fortunately it remained unsold!

A few months later I acquired a cd player which demolished the Touch as a source. Gradually the reasons for retaining the Touch diminished as we preferred the portability and convenience of the Boom. The Touch is a good option in a hi-fi set up. With good amplification, interconnects, cables and speakers, it is a great product at an affordable price. But my perception had changed. I preferred the cd player for listening to music, and the Boom for listening to the radio.
Therefore I sold off the Touch.

Anybody who is suffering from a World Space hangover should seriously consider the SB Boom. It is a portable and self sufficient radio with superb stereo reproduction. Current prices are very high therefore the SB Radio music player can also be considered. It even looks like the Hitachi WS receiver! All you need is an unlimited broadband connection with ideally 2mbps+ speed and an N series router.

Amazon.com: Logitech Squeezebox Boom All-in-One Network Music Player / Wi-Fi Internet Radio: Electronics

Amazon.com: Logitech Squeezebox Radio Music Player with Color Screen (Black): Electronics

 

[avidyarthy]

I too possess the Hitachi .... bought @ 6K in 2001. Yes, had specifically informed the retailer to provide me with a set which played FM alongwith Worldspace, just in case. That 'just in case' is allowing me (my daughter, in fact) to use the set for all-night FM playback. The entire household (4 nos.) need toned-down music in the background ... even while asleep ...

 

[Dushie]

I also have a Hitachi receiver bought in 2001 for around 6k. Still using it for FM radio, and sleep function. It had gone good duty in the last 10 years. Also bought one BPL WS receiver and used it for a year or so, don't know where that one is lying right now.

If Maestro is working that is good news, would need to search for my antenna and see if i can hook it up. What would be the direction i need to set it up in as its been ages and i dont remember the coordinates.

 

[reubensm]

I also have a Hitachi receiver bought in 2001 for around 6k. Still using it for FM radio, and sleep function. It had gone good duty in the last 10 years. Also bought one BPL WS receiver and used it for a year or so, don't know where that one is lying right now.

If Maestro is working that is good news, would need to search for my antenna and see if i can hook it up. What would be the direction i need to set it up in as its been ages and i dont remember the coordinates.[/QUOTE

its simple, point your satellite antenna to an imaginary position, just over the south eastern direction (in the direction of Singapore) at about 70 degrees and you should receive a strong signal from asiastar.

 

[reubensm]

Thanks to fans of worldspace like our fellow forum member, mishraji, my experiments with Afristar have been doing the rounds on various internet portals. Here's an example:

(Kindly note that this is an article from Jan'2010. Worldspace Africa service has closed down after the article was written)

Satellite Radio - Works in India ? - Page 14 - Team-BHP

 

[akashs88]

Dear all,
I need your support here. I have panasonic es re10 worldspace radio. I dint use it since 10-15 years, yesterday restarted it and I get the information in it as no signal. Can anyone help me how to get it back to function to listen music?

 

[RRR]

If i am not mistaken, World space service shut down about 10 years back.
They had excellent satellite music from around the world.
However streaming is way ahead of it today.

 

[IndianEars]

RRR is correct.

Worlspace went bankrupt n shut service about a decade ago.

The Worldspace L Band satellite is no longer in orbit.

Hence there is zero chance of their satellite transmissions restarting.

Worlspace intended to provide Satellite downlinked music to the countries that lacked adequate FM Radio services. It caught on most in the Indian subcontinent n Africa.

There were some Worldspace receivers which - in addition to receiving Satellite Radio, also received AM MW, SW & FM radio. Those receivers can still be used to receive these terrestrial Radio Signals.

Receivers that only received Worldspace satellite transmissions are now completely useless

 

[reubensm]

clips from my PM replies on the subject for general reading:

thanks for writing to me. Worldspace, the company that provided satellite radio services to India and Africa has closed down in 2005 and their satellites were decommissioned. Hence unfortunately your radio cannot be used any more. This Panasonic model was the most expensive (and best) for the lot in those times however it did not have a FM band and hence, was only useable with the Worldspace satellites. Regards

yes, it cannot be used any more.
I had the same model and when it became as good as a paper weight, I first thought of stripping it and salvaging its parts and after that i thought of adding a small mp3 board and making it a mp3 player, but I bought mine new and it was in pristine condition with original box and packing so I could not make up my mind to do that. Eventually I gave it off to one of our forum members who I think has kept it for display.
Regards.

some interesting information on what happened to the worldspace satellites - Asia Star and Afri Star can be had on wikipedia.

Afristar is currently decommissioned and placed in the space satellite graveyard while Asiastar is decommissioned and used as an orbital placeholder for another satellite (this is like the process of putting your handkerchief to book a seat on a train). Some companies keep old decommissioned satellites in orbit to block the orbit for later use .

AfriStar - Wikipedia

AsiaStar - Wikipedia

Additional Notes: Worldspace assets were purchased under liquidation terms by another new company called YAZMI which was actually floated by Noah Samara who was the original founder of Worldspace. They figured out a new business model, that of supplying educational text-based content to receivers across Africa and even ran some tests using the old Worldspace satellites before the decision was taken to decommission them (some may know that Sirus-XM from the US attempted to buy worldspace and keep it going, but they did not see any commercial value from either Africa and India. In India at the time, even though worldspace had a huge customer base, reportedly about 40% to 50% of the subscriber base, had not paid the subscription and were leveraging mostly the free to air channels or where on short-term subscription packages). Eventually Noah Samara (who ended up spending billions, mostly from Saudi investors, on worldspace, could not raise funds for the new edu-venture) sold YAZMI to a Singapore based company I think who had the same edu-venture plans. The Singapore company planned to launch a new satellite (and use the same orbit as AsiaStar) for educational purposes but eventually shelved the plan. Realistically, with telecom networks and the internet usuage increasing, the edu-venture was bound to be a disaster if launched. Only places in Rural Africa, China and India could actually benefit from such programming (then there was the problem of languages )

As an anti-climax footnote, former worldspace india employees somehow acquired the rights to the worldspace name and attempted to relaunch worldspace through their company Timbre Media (in 2012). They had a tie up with Saregama and relaunched the erstwhile worldspace channels with Indian content. Their transmission medium was essentially by online streaming and online app-based subscriptions. What they did not figure out was that a lot of the India worldspace users also tuned to the international channels like Riff, Orbit Rock, Spin, UpCountry, etc and not just the Indian channels. The only international channel brought back was I think, Maestro which featured western classical content. While erstwhle worldspace users were initiatlly excited, the fact that they now had to use smart phones and the internet to listen, while their worldspace equipment had to be thrown away, did not quite appeal to them (me included, i always wanted my worldspace satellite radio to start singing again). Also Timbre they had some commercial business products as well like providing pipe music packages via streaming, to shopping malls, educational institutions, etc. Technically Saregama was more interested in this business stream as they could get their music that is played at shopping malls, etc licensed and presented them with a revenue stream of sorts. Long story short - the timbre media version of worldspace did not take off as the regular worldspace users quickly lost interest. Infact Timbre media is not heard of these days. And finally, those like me who used to have worldspace channels like Orbit Rock and Upcountry playing at home, almost 24x7, simply migrated to internet radio. Internet radio stations like BigRradio.com Online Radio Solutions LLC. offer genre-based 24x7 programming with dedicated channels, that are free to air. I fell in love with their 80s Heavy Metal Channel and listen extensively to it. They now have an app as well that can be used while on the move. I guess it is safe to say, worldspace now resides on the pages of history, never to be back again

And for those worldspace lovers who waited for their dedicated Christmas Music channel every december, BigRradio.com Online Radio Solutions LLC. even has the same dedicated Christmas Music channels

 

[Naturelover]

Some stations like Shruti and Sai Radio did continue on the Worldspace sets for much after the shutdown.
I have no idea of present situation.

 

[reubensm]

Sai Global Harmony put out a note on their website around that time, saying that they were moving to online streaming, at their website.

After the India service closed down on Asiastar, I had a rig built and was tuned in to the Afristar satellite for a couple of years. The Signals were weak and the tracking angle was quite steep, but I pulled it off, after being inspired by this. All the pay channels on this service were decommissioned - the carrier was there but no content was being transmitted and they were not locked. There were some free to air channels like Sai Global Harmony and NPR on the Afristar. I used to listen to NPR until one day, Afristar also went silent and when I checked the Sai Global Harmony website, I saw this message.

 

[Naturelover]

Any pics of your rig @reubensm

 

[reubensm]

unfortunately i dont, i have using an old C-band dish salvaged from a decommissioned HDFC ATM center. The Bank closed the ATM but left the dish behind, the owner of the building was giving it off to the scrap collector when i had been to another shop in the complex for weekly purchase. It was a 1 meter dish. When worldspace shut, i had no use for it so i scrapped the dish and if I remember correctly, one of our FMs collected the patch antenna which i was using with it, for some experiments. I never took the Panasonic WS10 patch antenna out of the receiver for anything and had an extra BPL patch antenna which I got (I used to work with BPL in those times) with this rig. Prior to this rig, I was using a 5-element yagi coupled with a LNB on a roof top assembly, feeding the Panasonic WE10 with 20meters of co-axial wire. All this was provided as part of the installation by the worldspace dealer (incidentally which was the BPL Authorized showroom, BPL used to be the dealer for worldspace). Lovely memories. I did record the last days of the Afristar with the closing announcement. Must check my video archive and will share it if I find it.

 

[reubensm]

For guys who are worldspace satellite radio aficionados, I've actually dug up an old recording of the 'message of death', recorded on 29 Dec 2009,
check this out.

 

[anirudh panwar]

Was one of the first customers of worldspace......liked it as long as it lasted before it shut shop ...no point for using it n ow when you have streamed music like spotify...unless you are in a area where theres no internet