KRNM mulls buying equipment to restore live feeds

KRNM Radio on Saipan and its affiliate in Guam, KPRG, are considering the acquisition of new equipment to enable it to hook back up to a satellite that drifted out of orbit last weekend and caused a Pacific-wide loss of celestial-based Internet and telephone connections.

“KPRG Guam is still on the same boat,” said KRNM station manager Carl Pogue.

And with KRNM still without live feedback from the satellite as of yesterday afternoon and their efforts to readjust their satellite dish still ineffective, Pogue said they are already planning to buy new equipment to help them connect to an alternate link.

“Unfortunately, we can’t adjust our equipment to receive the current feed,” said Pogue, “We’re either going to have to ask them [Intelsat] to send the feed in a compatible format that we used to be getting.”

He, however, said the company is still carefully weighing the decision to buy new equipment because they have already incurred a loss in revenue since the cut-off of the live feed from the satellite.

Pogue said the most important equipment needed to hook up to the alternative link costs around $800. The cost of other items in KRNM’s wish list is not known yet, because suppliers have not returned figures on their prices, according to Pogue.

He also said KRNM’s engineers will go back to work this Sunday to again readjust the satellite dish and hope for the best. Their engineers will also take a closer look at the problem on Guam and then apply similar actions, if possible, to Saipan.

As its stands, Pogue said KRNM radio station is still not sure when they will be resuming live broadcasts. However, he said they would be keeping their listeners posted on the matter every hour. Pogue also said he hopes the situation finally gets resolved within the week.

He said majority of the KRNM’s programs depend mainly on the satellite feeds and until yesterday, they were trying to fill the gaps with prerecorded shows and reruns.

In a related story, Intelsat Ltd. has called the incident on its $73-million Intelsat IS-804 a “rare event.”

It also said that they are working double time to bring back normal operations and services to the island territories, including Kiribati, American Samoa, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, the Tokelaus and New Zealand’s territory in Antarctica.

There are also unverified reports that satellite operations returned to normal in the Cook Islands, Western Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Niue, and the Chatham Islands. It, however, noted that problems with overloading could still occur. (Marconi Calindas)