SatcoDX - TELE-satellite International Magazine

COMPANY REPORT
Uplink Station Teleippica, Italy
From DXer to Technical Manager
A Visit with Mario Sussi from Teleippica
in Lucca (Toscana), Italy
Betting on horse racing is a popular pastime
in Italy. This is due in large part to
Teleippica unifying the horse betting system
and reorganizing the network across all of
Italy. Teleippica in charge for transmission
on behalf of UNIRE’s four channels
of which two, UNIRE TV “gray” and UNIRE
TV “green”, are the actual betting chan-
72 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-11/2008 — www.TELE-satellite.com
nels and, with the publication of this issue
of TELE-satellite, a third channel, UNIRE
TV “blue”, will have started. There’s also
the SNAI-TV channel that broadcasts other
sports betting events as well as a summary
of all broadcasts that is produced with a 15minute
delay for Sky Italia and offered in
their Pay TV package.
■
Mario Sussi in his favorite place: among his satellite
dishes. The large dish in the background is the
6.0-meter uplink antenna pointed to EUTELSAT W2 at
16 east. The small 100cm SNAI dish receives the SNAI
signal that is then combined with the HOTBIRD signal in
their local network. In the background to the left are the
microwave antennas for the terrestrial signal network:
“Sometimes it’s cheaper to transmit the horse racing
signals terrestrially, not to mention they are also less
susceptible to rain fade since here they are transmitted
in the 6 GHz range.”
Naturally, sports betting involves live
transmissions. Mario Sussi is responsible
for these complex transmissions.
He spoke to us about his DXer days in
the past, “I tuned into the first satellite
transmissions in Europe; that was Project
Eurikon back in 1982.” Over the years, his
antenna farm grew larger and larger to