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PBS channel hopefully back on air this weekend

If all goes according to plan, Office of Public Information director Fagafaga Daniel Langkilde says KVZK-TV’s PBS channel is expected to be back on air this weekend.

 

As previously reported by Samoa News, a power outage on the night of Jan. 5 caused all KVZK channels to go off the air, and when the power was restored that same night, a surge burned out the circuit boards in the satellite receivers and decoders.

 

This equipment is usually protected from power surges, however, the batteries in the particular UPS unit which are supposed to protect all the PBS satellite equipment recently failed, leaving the equipment unprotected that night, Fagafaga explained.

 

After consulting with the PBS Engineering Department which provided all the satellite equipment for KVZK, they are now shipping loaner equipment which is expected to arrive on today’s cargo flight, he said and noted that KVZK is shipping back all the damaged equipment so that they can be replaced or repaired by the manufacturer.

 

Meanwhile, KVZK over-the-air channels are once again being received in all areas of the Manu’a islands, after they were down for sometime.

 

Fagafaga said two KVZK engineers traveled to Manu’a after receiving calls from several residents there that they were no longer receiving the KVZK broadcast signal.

 

Upon arrival, the engineers discovered that a recent air conditioning failure in the building where the TV reception equipment is housed had caused the equipment to shut down. 

 

He said the AC has since been restored, but the TV equipment needed to be manually restarted. While in Manu’a the engineers also took the opportunity to run tests from the homes of those who had called in, and found that they needed outdoor antennas in order to get good reception. 

 

“Those families have been advised to purchase outdoor antennas to improve their reception,” Fagafaga said.