NRK to switch to new satellite on 1 June - high power mediumwave to close

[Analoguesat]

Norwegian public broadcaster NRK has announced that it will move all its radio and TV channels to the Thor 2 satellite at 1º West as of 1 June. The satellite will carry all of NRK's regional services as well as the national channels. Conax and Viasat NDS encryption will be used for the TV services. The existing NRK transmissions via Thor 3, transponder 32, will cease on 4 September 2006. The technical details are:

Satellite: Thor 2
Position: 1º West
Transponder: 11
Frequency: 11372 MHz
Polarisation: Vertical
Symbol rate: 24.5 Msym/sec
FEC: 7/8

As well as the move to Thor 2, NRK confirms that it will close the high power mediumwave transmitter at Kvitsøy on 1314 kHz. According to earlier reports, the transmitter will go silent on 1 July. It primarily serves the Norwegian fishing fleet, and carries the so-called Europakanal, a mix of P1 and P2 plus some regional programmmes. NRK says that many of the fishing boats now have satellite TV on board, and a new weather channel for the fishing fleet will launch on 20 June, providing a much better service. NRK's other mediumwave transmitters at Vigra and Røst, and the longwave transmitters at Ingøy and Finnmark, will remain in operation.


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