U.S. satellite feeds to Iran jammed
 
May be linked to the anniversary of student uprisings
 
By Robert Windrem
 
NEW YORK, July 9 — U.S. government officials as well as Iranian Americans and communications satellite operators confirm that all U.S.-based satellite broadcasts to Iran are being jammed by an unknown group or individual, possibly Iranian agents operating out of Latin America.
 
Over the past several months, private Iranian-American groups have begun increasing their broadcasts into Iran using Telstar-12, a communications satellite over the eastern Atlantic. All are trying to encourage protests against the regime in Tehran.
Iranians, using small satellite dishes, have been able to receive the broadcast, whose mix of news, entertainment and exhortations to protest have gained a large audience, particularly in Tehran. Then on Sunday, the Voice of America began its Farsi-language broadcasts. Not long afterward, the jamming intensified.
 
Over the past few days — as the fourth anniversary of the country’s most widespread protests approached — the broadcasts have been jammed, not in Iran but somewhere in the Americas, according to officials and investigators.
 
The Farsi language broadcasts by the VOA as well as Los Angeles-based ParsTV and Appadana TV are uplinked in the United States via Telstar-5, which is over the United States. It is then turned around at the Washington International Teleport in Alexandria, Va., and uplinked again to Telstar-12 over the eastern Atlantic Ocean.
 
It is Telstar-12 that is being jammed, say investigators for companies working with the broadcasters, cutting off broadcasts not only in Iran but in Europe and the rest of the Middle East as well. In the past, the Iranian government, using high-power transmitters on towers in cities such as Tehran have been able to jam it locally. The fact that TV viewers elsewhere can’t see it was the first hint that the jamming was happening on this side of the Atlantic. Loral, which operates the satellite, declined comment on what it is doing in response.
 
“The jamming appears to be linked to the anniversary of the student uprisings,” said one investigator for a company working with the broadcasters who preferred to remain anonymous. “It’s malicious, not a prank. For us, it began yesterday, continues today. Not only are the Iranian signals jammed, but those of other nearby broadcasters are as well. We have a Chinese client who is being jammed. Newsweek: Tehran crackdown
 
“There are ways of determining the location of the interference,” he added. “It is complex and time-consuming. Basically, you look at minimal interference other nearby satellites are experiencing and then you triangulate.”
But he added, Loral has yet to find the source. “They can’t find the exact location. They say it is probably in the Caribbean or South America.
They are reworking the numbers and may have something better in the morning.”
Finding the satellite carrying the Farsi-language broadcast signals is easy, he added. “It’s on the Internet.”
 
As for the actual jamming, its simply a matter of aiming a strong signal at the uplink transponder on the satellite and overwhelming the Farsi language broadcasters’ signals.
 
Said the investigator: “You need a dish, some power, not too much.
 
You put up a test pattern ... and do a sweep and find the transponder on the satellite you want to jam. It could even be smaller than the standard 6-meter dish. It could be a small dish with a lot of power.”
BBC’s Media Monitoring Service, which provides capsules of various foreign TV broadcasts for subscribers, described the jamming as “a mysterious, interfering signal, rendering the broadcasts unwatchable.”
 
It reported problems began on Sunday, the day VOA began its broadcast, with the worst jamming taking place over the past two days with the jamming extending to all the Farsi-language broadcasts emanating from the United States.
Late Wednesday, monitors reported that jamming had become sporadic.
 
The anniversary of the student demonstrations, the largest since the fall of the shah in 1979, was Wednesday.Pushing Iran risks a backlash
 
The investigator said Intelsat, a big satellite consortium that has a nearby “bird,” is telling people the jamming is coming from South America.
 
(There is a large Iranian community in the so-called “triborder” region around the Igazu Falls area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. There is also a significant presence of the Hozballah organization there with a reputation for violence. Hizballah operators from the region are believed to have been responsible for one or both of the attacks on the Israeli community in Buenos Aires over the past decade, killing more than 100 Israelis and Argentine Jews.)
 
A representative of one of the Iranian-American broadcasters said he suspected the jamming came from Cuba, which has excellent relations with Iran, but offered no proof.
 
Iran’s Minister of Post, Telegraph and Telephone Ahmad Mo’tamedi denies government approval for the jamming and President Mohamed Khatami has called for action to be taken against those responsible, according to the BBC Media monitors.
 
Robert Windrem is an investigative producer for NBC News, based in New York.