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KRNM: No live programs for about another week
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Posted on Jan 22 2005
By Marconi Calindas
Reporter
KRNM will not be buying any new equipment for its satellite dish—at least for the moment, according to KRNM station manager Carl Pogue, which means the radio station may not be able to provide live programming for about another week.
“This [buying new equipment] is not an option for the station at the moment,” Pogue said, adding that he is constantly communicating with the station’s engineers in Las Vegas, Nevada, who will arrive this weekend to speed up the resumption of their live programming.
The Bermuda-registered Intelsat IS-804 satellite that provides telecommunication, digital, and radio link-ups to several areas in the Pacific—including the KRNM radio station on Saipan—lost its “174” signal last Jan. 15, isolating a wide swath of the Pacific, including American Samoa, Tonga, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Tokelaus, Vanuatu, and parts of Antartica.
Although KRNM managed to go back on air using a back-up system, its live programs such as news have been highly affected.
Intelsat had suggested to its clients to readjust their satellite dishes to receive feeds from Intelsat’s new “180” signal but Pogue said this did not work for them. He said KRNM attempted to readjust the recommended receiving signal of its satellite dish but found out that their satellite dish could not be readjusted to receive the new frequency.
As such, KRNM radio will not be broadcasting live programs possibly for a week or so, said Pogue. He said that if Intelsat cannot direct its feed to the original format that the radio station used to receive, the station will not be able to bounce back to regular programming.
Pogue said that he is communicating with the National Public Radio in Washington D.C. and Public Radio International in Minnesota. NPR and PRI are the providers of most of KRNM’s shows. Both have adjusted their own satellites to the new signal Intelsat suggested but KPRG Guam and KRNM on Saipan are having difficulty receiving the feedback.
