MUMBAI: Free-to-air Hindi general entertainment channel Sahara TV is going digital from Tuesday, 10 December. Sahara has also set up its own multiple channel digital uplink earth station at Noida with both playout and uplinking facility.

The digital feed will be available on transponder 10-V of AsiaSat 3S from 10 December from 7 pm onwards.

With the digitalisation as well as uplinking facilities in place, the stage looks to be set for the launch of Sahara's proposed bouquet of news channels, including one national and 30 city-based news channels, in early 2003. While Sahara officials were not forthcoming on a launch date, it could well be 26 January 2003 - Republic Day. This would also fit in well with the nationalistic image that the Subrata Roy-promoted group is strong on.

Sahara TV head Sumit Roy was quoted in an official release as saying: "The preparation work is already done. We have already commenced our analogue services on transponder 10-V and 1-V of AsiaSat 3S in order to facilitate switchover by our sanchar saathis (cable operators)."

While the channel will be switching to digital on 10 December, the analogue feed will continue on transponder 1-V during the seeding of digital receiver boxes. Sahara plans to continue with the simultaneous telecast of digital and analogue feeds for a month after 10 December.

All playout and uplink for both digital and analogue services of Sahara TV now originates from Noida, with infrastructure comprising high-end digital encoding equipment with statistical multiplexing in MCPC (Multiple Channel Per Carrier) domain,

Digital Feed Technical Specifications
Mode: Free to Air
Satellite : Asia Sat 3S
Orbital Location : 105.5
Downlink Frequency : 4020 Mhz
Polarisation : Vertical
Orbital Location : 105.5
FEC : 
Symbol rate : 27.25M-SYM/SEC

Analogue Feed Technical Specifications
Downlink Frequency: 3660Mhz
Polarisation : Vertical
Audio Sub-carrier: 6.3 Mhz

Information about the digital receiver boxes for cable operators is available at the following numbers: 
Mumbai : 022-56901310 
Delhi : 011-23704100 
Kolkata : 033-22827137
Bangalore : 080- 5321640