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Wednesday, 24 June 2009

RASD TV

RASD TV is a satellite television station broadcasting Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or more commonly known as Western Sahara.

RASD TV airs Reading from the Quran, religious lectures, nature documentaries I assume a news broadcast but I did not see one.

RASD TV starts their broadcast day with this national anthem at 14:00 UTC/Local Time I am unsure when they close down.

RASD TV can be seen on the Intelsat 905 satellite at 24.5°W which covers most of Europe and what looks like the very north of the country.

I have no idea if they have any terrestrial broadcast sites, although airing a test card like that mainly suggest they do.

Over all the production quality of this channel is very poor, some of the audio distortion is incredibly bad, even resulting in echoes, let's hope they improve.

RASD stands for República Árabe Saharaui Democrática which is Spanish for Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

The territory is a former Spanish colony and I assume Spanish is spoken widely, the channel website is also in Spanish.

The Video

First off we see a test card with the Coat of Arms of Western Sahara with local music playing.

Then the Flag appears and the National Anthem begins to play, and into the start of programming.

I hope you all enjoy.

Posted by remlap at 8:44 AM
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8 comments:

  1. Juat some notes for the record.

    The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is not in practice co-extensive with the territory "more commonly known as Western Saharah". It is that part -- about 20% -- of the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara currently controlled by the Polisario Front. The rest of Western Sahara is at present controlled by Morocco.

    According to Algérie Presse Service, RASD TV's satellite operation was launched on 20 May 2009 -- this being "in addition to a terrestrial transmission for refugee camps and liberated territories of SADR".

    Arabic is the official language of Morocco, though the Polisario -- as its name (Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Rio de Oro) indicates -- clearly uses Spanish.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Keep posting these great comments Kevin, it was available before May 20th, I have seen it once before at 30°W almost a year ago.

    I know little about geography really, so its always nice to know what's what.

    Cheers

    Patrick
    ReplyDelete
  3. After a lot of searching on French- and Spanish-language sites (and learning more than I perhaps really wanted to know about the political history of the Western Sahara!) I've been able to come up with this "log" for RASD TV satellite reception in Europe:

    27.05.2008 - 02.07.2008
    Hispasat 1D (30 W) 11616 MHz H

    24.03.2009 - present
    Intelsat 905 (24.5 W) 11109 MHz H

    PS: Do you know if there is some technical reason why I can't paste text into the comment box on your blog? Means I can't easily use the degrees symbol, for example :(
    ReplyDelete
  4. No idea, possibly your browser, Firefox is fine.

    Also its GHz not MHz for satellite broadcasts ;)

    Cheers
    ReplyDelete
  5. >>its GHz not MHz for satellite broadcasts<<

    Hmm: isn't that a bit like saying "It's m, not mm, for satellite dish sizes"? We ARE talking SI units here, not rods, poles, and perches... ;)

    11616 MHz = 11.616 GHz. We can surely take our choice: I'm sure Mr Hertz wouldn't mind whichever way we go! (For what it's worth, the Google count for Hispasat+MHz is 44,100; that for Hispasat+GHz is 16,000.)

    As for the "non-pastability" question, I use Firefox myself -- but there we go: these things are sent to try us, I suppose...
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  6. Hehehe, I did leave out the fact you missed the symbol rate, these are digital broadcasts.

    Cheers

    Patrick
    ReplyDelete
  7. They were 27500 (Hispasat), 1852 (Intelsat)... Other parameters available upon request!

    By the way, I CAN now paste into the "Post a Comment" box. Hen fyd mor ddigrif, ondyfe?
    ReplyDelete
  8. Welsh - I simply don't have a clue, ah the Gwent Valleys for you.
    ReplyDelete

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