New Satellite Link

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32232, 26 February 1970, Page 22

New Satellite Link

(N.Z.PA. Staff Correspondent) SYDNEY, Feb. 25. New Zealand telecommunications traffic, now can be flashed to . Britain through the Indian Ocean satellite, Intelsat 111. The new “roufe" has become possible with the opening of the s4m earth station at Ceduna. South Australia. All types of New Zealand telecommunications traffic, with the exception of television. can be fed to Ceduna by Compac Cable across the Tasman and the Australian microwave network. The signals, can then pass direct to Britain through the Indian Ocean satellite. The Australian Overseas Telecommunications Commission owns and runs Ceduna. which is on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. An O.T.C. spokesman said yesterday that Ceduna offered further route diversity for New Zealand's telecommunications system. New Zealand was already able to reach Britain and other places by a similar combination of cables and microwave links with other nations’ ground stations, which receive and transmit through satellites over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. “So Ceduna really only offers system diversification, plus, of course, added insurance against break-downs anywhere,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman added that what use New Zealand made of Ceduna was over to the New Zealand Post Office. Ceduna is Australia’s third telecommunications ground station, but the first to face westward towards the Indian Ocean satellite, which has been in position about six months. As such it is the only one which can receive direct telecommunications and television signals from Britain. The other two stations, Carnarvon and Moree, face eastwards to the Pacific Ocean satellite, which is not able to receive signals directly from Britain. New Zealand’s ground station will get signals from only the Pacific Ocean Intelsat. Because of the Earth’s curvature New Zealand is not in the coverage zone of the In- . dia nor Atlantic Ocean satellites.

i Thus, television signals from Britain or the east coast of North America, for example, will come to it on relay through one or more ground stations.