Satellite Transmission Services

Overview | Uplink Fundamentals | Arranging for an Uplink

Overview
The Wisconsin Educational Communications Board (ECB) operates satellite transmission ("uplink") equipment in Madison to assist the state's educational community in distributing educational courses and workshops. It also facilitates the delivery of satellite feeds for public television as well as commercial and cable networks. The ECB is able to transmit to Ku-band satellites.

Among the educational programming distributed via the ECB's uplink are:

• graduate-level courses for the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Engineering,
• workshops on a range of topics offered by UW-Extension, and
• professional development programming produced by the Satellite Educational Resources Consortium (SERC).

The uplink also has transmitted live and videotaped segments for national distribution. For example, the uplink has carried live interviews conducted in Madison for such programs as "The McNeil/Lehrer Newshour" (PBS), "The Today Show" (NBC), "The CBS Morning News," "Nightline" (ABC), and "Crossfire" (CNN).

Uplink Fundamentals
The first component of a successful uplink is a having either a live or prerecorded program or segment to transmit. Playbacks of prerecorded material can be handled by the ECB's Telecommunications Operations Center (TOC).

Live productions, whether they originate from a studio or from the field, must be able to transmit a microwave signal to the TOC. The ECB can receive microwave signals from four video production studios on the UW-Madison campus, as well as from studios at UW-Green Bay, UW-Stout, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Milwaukee, and Milwaukee public television station WMVS-TV.

Arranging for an Uplink
The first step in arranging for an uplink is to contact the ECB to reserve use of the uplink. Then, you need to make arrangements to access or lease time on a satellite transponder (i.e., a channel on a satellite) either through the ECB or through a broker. Ku-band transponder time can be leased for approximately $600 per hour as of Feb 2006.

The ECB's uplink capability can transmit only one signal at time to a Ku-band transponder. If the ECB's uplink is booked with another event, the ECB can deliver your signal to a commercial vendor that can transmit to a Ku-band or C-band transponder.

The uplink is located at the Wisconsin Public Broadcasting Center, 3319 W. Beltline Highway, Madison, WI 53713-4296. To schedule an uplink or for information on current uplink service rates, contact our Technical Operations at 608/264-9692, fax 608/264-9659.