Shenzhen tv-uplink

192 193TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 04-05/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 04-05/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine

Satellite Uplink directly from Shenzhen

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Ground Station Shenzhen TV, China COMPANY REPORT

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ë Shenzhen


The 26 Satellite Antennas from SZMG in Shenzhen

Ground Station Shenzhen TV, China

A guard post is located just outside the entrance to the SZMG Ground Station. On the site are 20 reception antennas as well as 6 transmission dishes. Shenzhen is situated directly on the coast; the SZMG Ground Station is only 50m above sea level.

The TV Organization of Shenzhen managed to construct a very impressive Ground Station in the Xili suburb (north of Nanshan on the western side of the big city of Shenzhen) in just a couple of years. Roughly 12 million people live in the greater Shenzhen area and be-cause of all the high-tech companies that call this city home, it’s an area with the highest income per person in all of Mainland China. Many of the worldwide leading Digital TV receiver manufactur-

ers are headquartered here and it’s for this reason that TELE-satellite reports quite often from Shenzhen.

The city has acquired special sta-tus: in addition to the state-run CCTV channels, only one channel from each of the 22 provinces is allowed to be transmitted via satellite. Shenzhen is in the Guangdong province (also known as Canton in the west) and Guangzhou is the capital city with 10 million inhab-

itants. So, only the TV channel from Guangzhou is allowed to transmit via satellite and is therefore receivable ev-erywhere in China. As an exception to the “One TV channel from each Prov-ince” rule, Shenzhen TV can also trans-mit via satellite so that everyone in China and, thanks to satellite spillover, those in neighboring countries, can see what’s going on in Shenzhen.

The fact that Shenzhen TV happens

to be a special station can be seen if you pay a visit to their brand new, ul-tra modern ground station. Our station tour guide is Zhang Bing; he’s been working for Shenzhen TV as a Broad-cast Engineer since 1994 and witnessed first hand the stunning growth of the station. “Shenzhen TV started in 1984”, explains Zhang Bing to us during the tour, “Today there are more than 2000 people working here of which 260 are in the technical field and of those there are 70 Broadcast & Transmission engi-neers.”

The channel has been transmitting via satellite since 2004: “We transmit two channels via CHINASAT 6A at 125E - our HD channel is on 4.040H and the SD channel plus three radio channels are on 3.845H.” The mentioning of the three radio channels, that naturally are

also transmitted terrestrially via FM, points out the fact that Shenzhen TV offers more than just one TV channel. “We’ve been transmitting four SD DVB-T TV channels since 2006. And since 2008 we’ve been using DMB-TH to transmit five TV channels terrestrially in HD. We also offer cable subscribers in Shenzhen 10 TV channels and we’re getting ready for distribution via IPTV.”

Sure enough, Shenzhen TV changed its name to Shenzhen Media Group back in 2006 and is now know by the abbreviation SZMG. Shortly after that in 2007 ground was broken on the Ground Station in Xili. “We have six uplink antennas and 20 downlink antennas”, says Zhang Bing as he gestures to these dishes that have been very profession-

ally arranged. SZMG uses the downlink antennas to receive the transmissions and SNG feeds for their own channel.

He explains to us the function of the uplink antennas: “All of the antennas are used in pairs: one main dish and a backup dish. Two 6.2-meter antennas handle our own SNG uplink in the Ku-band, Two additional antennas for our SNG uplink in the C-band in which the main dish is 9.0 meters in diameter and the backup dish is 7.3 meters wide.”

COMPANY REPORT

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196 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 04-05/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

1. The way to the left takes you to the SZMG Ground Station and to the right is the research center for Shenzhen TV’s employees.2. SZMG reminds you in a friendly manner not to walk on the grass.3. Entrance sign to the transmission building of SZMB in Shenzhen, China

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The brand new NOC at SZMG in Shenzhen, China. Some of the TV screens are still dark and will come to life when their own uplink is turned on.

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200 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 04-05/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

Engineer Zhang Bing gestures to the 9.0-meter antenna and says, "This dish is pointed to INTELSAT 904 at 62E and receives the images from the UK Football League."

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And now for the highlight of our visit: Shenzhen TV will soon be uplinking their TV signal themselves. “Up until now our TV signal was delivered fiberoptically to the Province uplink in Guangzhou. But we’ll soon be uplinking our TV channels from here - we’re in the final stages of the installation.” They will be using two 9.0-meter antennas to handle this task and as always, one will be the main an-tenna and the other will serve as the backup.

The actual start date of their own TV channel uplink is not yet set in stone; maybe it’ll take place when this issue of TELE-satellite is published.

Zhang Bing is “Broadcast & Transmission” engineer at SZMG (Shenzhen TV) and shows us the security camera video monitors for their antenna farm. The other monitors display the incoming SNG signals and transmissions that are being received by one of SZMG’s 20 downlink antennas at this moment.

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1. The satellite signals find their way here: the original signal from the satellite is delivered via fiberoptic cable and converted into the L-band for further processing. SZMG utilizes the most modern technology here.2. Huang Haitao is the Station Manager and leads the small five-man SZMG Ground Station team. He is seen here standing next to the modulators for the uplink of Shenzhen TV that will soon be turned on.3.In the heart of the satellite uplink station: here is the actual transmitter. Even here everything has a backup. Station Manager Huang Haitao has his hand on the main transmitter: “This one has an output power of 3000W.” The backup transmitter has a 500W power output.4. The engineering room at SZMG with the modulators.

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Shenzhen tv-uplink