Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev knew the right-wing coup against him had failed because of it.

But for six days this week, Bermudians could not get the British Broadcasting Service's World Service.

The service went off air last Wednesday night and was finally restored at 3 p.m. yesterday.

A VSB spokesman for the station said: "We have had tons of calls. They changed their signal on us and we are now working with them to get it back up.'' World Service official, Mr. Mark Deutsch, said later yesterday it was possible that a signal from the World Service's American distributor had been changed.

He said he was surprised VSB owner Mr. Kenny DeFontes had not been in touch with him. "He knows who to come to and I have not heard anything about it but I will get on to it directly,'' he said.

Mr. Deutsch said London had upgraded the power of the satellite feed for the American distributor and had to change the signal.

"All they have to do is retune their receiver,'' he said. "It should take about five minutes.'' Mr DeFontes said the station had been unable to contact the right people in London over the Easter weekend but had finally been able to correct the problem yesterday.