KRNM now back to normal operations

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

KRNM returned to normal operations Monday midnight after the radio station managed to lock its receiver to the new satellite feed from Intelsat. The live feed is coming from another satellite owned by Intelsat and not from the Intelsat IS-804 satellite that moved out of alignment on Jan. 15 and has since been lost.

KRNM station manager Carl Pogue confirmed yesterday that the station has already established “solid connection” with Intelsat’s new satellite feed.

“First, we found on a spectrum analyzer the Intelsat 803 satellite which is located 183 degrees east,” he said, “We were able to adjust the station’s dish, pointing it directly and locked it in,” he said.

He said that, together with engineer Joe Servino of Advanced Engineering, they were able to adjust their receiver to downlink the programs. This has initially proved difficult, Pogue said, as they needed new equipment to connect to the satellite.

When Intelsat’s $73-million, Bermuda-registered satellite lost power on Jan. 15, Intelsat had directed all its clients to switch to a different satellite but some, like KRNM, were not able to connect successfully.

The station, however, decided not to buy one and persisted with Intelsat’s alternative fix to the problem. “We don’t need to buy new equipment, though but it was frustrating that we were down close to nine days,” Pogue said.

Pogue expressed gratitude for the assistance of Joe Servino, White Computer Services, and members of Voice of America who all played pivotal roles in re-establishing KRNM’s stream of National Public Radio and Public Radio International programming.

Pogue said that 90 percent of KRNM shows come from NPR and PRI. The remaining 10 percent are locally produced shows by volunteer students.

He said he is glad that the station’s regular listeners were so patients with the station.

KRNM will slowly start plugging back all its regular shows till it completely resumes normal programming. Pogue said it might take the station a week to catch up since there are shows that were recorded since last week that still need to be aired.

“There will still be a few repeats this week,” he said, “But live feeds are all back to normal now and these live feeds consist primarily of new shows.”

KPRG Guam, however, has yet to restore their feeds, according to Pogue, but he is certain KPRG will be successful in the restoration in the next few days. KPRG is still trying to adjust their satellite to the right frequency because their dish incurred a problem with the antenna. A KRNM engineer reportedly went to Guam to assist KPRG in solving the problem.

Intelsat also has clients from Russia to New Zealand, linking TV stations, radio stations, phone companies and others.