I actually was clued into this little broadcast by a friend who lives on the north end of town; those of us living down south are unable to pick it up, apparently. I have an excellent antenna array and usually get a 96% or greater signal on the locals, but I can’t get channel 43-1.
My friend surmises that New Song Church is operating this station (for instance, check the GPS location of the transmitter) and has attempted to contact someone at the church, but has not received a response. There’s a pretty good paper trail on this station, though:
– It’s licensed by the FCC to a little LLC called EICB-TV;
– EICB stands for Excellence in Christian Broadcasting, and they have a partially finished website template running with a ton of Lorem Ipsum text placeholders.
– EICB apparently has approximately 31 stations nationwide.
– The broadcast they’re transmitting is Iran Aryaee International TV, and their website can be found by clicking here.
– The content appears to be a “Free Iran” sort of theme, as an opposition to the Islamic regime currently in control of Iran. The weird term that stuck out to me was “Aryaee”.
– A cursory Google search for “Aryaee” reveals it to be a term associated with Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persiam transcendentalist religion. The imagery on the ieatv.com website doesn’t look very Christian. So what gives?
Apparently “Aryaee” can also be a racial reference (remember Hitler’s fascination with the Aryan race?) that applies to people of this area, and some claim that the name Iran comes from Aryan. That would fit with a theme of national pride you’d expect from an opposition broadcast, such as a “Free Iran” sort of thing. But why Bismarck?
Often what happens with these little low-power (LPTV) stations is that a local custodian is hired to maintain the physical operation of the transmitter for an out-of-state owner, without doing anything related to content. A satellite receiver is hooked to a transmitter, and voila’ – instant TV station. So…could this be a case of a receiver turned to the wrong transponder?
I don’t see any mention of Iran Aryaee TV on the EICB TV website. Hopefully my friend gets a response back from the parties he emailed soon, I’d love to hear the story behind this one – at this point I’ve got more questions than answers!