PBS satellite trouble (updated)

Wed, January 14, 2009
Posted in Technical Updates

Viewers may have noticed this morning (Wed, Jan 14) around 9:30 our children’s programming went haywire. We’ve traced the trouble back to the satellite signal and found the PBS channel we use is experiencing interference from an unknown source. PBS and the satellite operator are working to figure out who’s creating the interference and how to stop it.

More news as we have it.

2:00 p.m. Update – PBS has mostly restored their various satellite signals and normal KAKM programming has resumed. We’re still working through some technical challenges behind the scenes, but we’re hopeful that things are back to normal.

The prevailing theory for the outage is that extreme levels of Inauguration coverage prep in Washington, DC created the problem. It’s possible one of the myriad TV news services feeding live video from DC set up their satellite link to point at the wrong satellite, thus canceling out the PBS feed.