Service Restored in Girdwood

Thu, August 27, 2009

We have restored our television service to Girdwood.

We appreciate everyone’s patience and thank all of you for your support.

Our efforts to restore service were hampered by poor weather and by the lack of immediately available parts.

KAKM Channel 7 in Girdwood

Tue, July 14, 2009

We are working diligently to restore KAKM television service to Girdwood. The necessary microwave equipment has been placed at the required locations, but we were unable to bring the system on line because of an unanticipated defect on one of the antenna systems. The defect is at a location that is only accessible by helicopter. Therefore, it is necessary to schedule a repair crew, helicopter, and to hope for cooperative weather. At this point we expect to be able to bring up the system by the weekend. Thank you for your patience.

KAKM ENDS ANALOG BROADCASTS TONIGHT (June 12)

Thu, June 11, 2009

Are you ready for DTV?

For many viewers — those using cable or satellite TV services — no change will be needed, but for anyone viewing TV over the public airwaves (via antenna), you must make the switch to DTV if you want to continue to see TV in the future.

LOCAL WALK-IN CENTERS

These centers will be open until June 21 to answer questions and help with specific issues regarding your successful transition to DTV.

Northway Mall

3101 Penland Parkway

Anchorage, AK 99508

M-F: 12pm – 8pm Sat: 10pm – 6pm Sun: 12pm – 6pm

Anchorage 5th Avenue

320 West 5th Avenue, Suite 219

Anchorage, AK 99501

M-F: 12pm – 8pm Sat: 12pm – 8pm Sun: 11pm – 6pm

Analog TV shutoff test: Thu, Jan 15 @ 6:20pm

Thu, January 15, 2009

Thursday evening — January 15, 2009 — KAKM is turning off its analog TV transmitter from 6:20 p.m. to 6:25 p.m. Our digital TV (DTV) broadcasts will continue uninterrupted.

This brief test allows you to determine whether your TVs are ready for the planned permanent shutdown of analog TV broadcasting on February 17, 2009. Simply tune all your TVs to Channel 7 before 6:20 p.m. and see what happens on each of your televisions.

Important: TVs hooked up to cable, satellite or DTV broadcast service will be unaffected. Only the analog TV over-the-air broadcast is being turned off for the test.

If your signal disappears during this 5-minute test, you must take action to prepare for the February 17 termination of analog TV service.

For most older analog-only televisions, you’ll need a DTV converter box: a device that tunes in DTV broadcast signals and makes the picture and sound available for your older analog TV. Such converter boxes are available at many electronics retailers in Alaska. They’re available online from Amazon.com and other retailers. Please note the federal government’s DTV converter box coupon program has recently changed — you may wish to act immediately to acquire a converter box without a coupon.

Viewers on the Kenai peninsula: Your analog TV broadcast service is not going away on February 17. KAKM is currently working to upgrade our translators on the Kenai to DTV service sometime during mid- to late-2009. If you watch KAKM via antenna in Seldovia, Homer, Kenai, Soldotna or other areas on the western side of the Kenai peninsula, you must prepare for the DTV transition, too — you just have more time to prepare than folks in the Anchorage metro area.

You can learn more about the DTV transition via lots of web sites, including the FCC’s own www.dtv.gov web site. Interestingly, Macworld published a succinct DTV FAQ this week that may be helpful in explaining the situation.

Will the transition still happen Feb 17?
Probably, but we’re not sure. The incoming Obama administration, Alaska’s own Congressional delegation and others are currently calling for a delay of the planned February 17 DTV conversion, citing viewer unpreparedness and difficulties with the converter box coupon program. However, no rules have been proposed, the Inauguration is distracting Washington policy developers and other parties lobbying Congress are proposing the deadline stay in place for reasons of cost and logistics.

For now, in the absence of new rules, we are proceeding on the assumption that KAKM’s analog signal will end February 17, 2009 as planned. If a delay is enacted, we’ll post more information here on our site.

Will there be another analog shutoff test?
Yes! In fact, KAKM’s analog broadcast signal goes off the air every single night at midnight, and stays off until 6:00 a.m. So if you’d like another test, just stay up late or get up early and tune to Channel 7. The DTV signal remains available 24×7.

PBS satellite trouble (updated)

Wed, January 14, 2009

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.

DTV converter box coupon program now on wait list

Mon, January 5, 2009

Good news / bad news on the DTV converter box coupon program…

The NTIA announced today that their DTV converter box coupon program has been wildly successful — so much so that they’ve run out of coupon funding. They may acquire additional funding from Congress in the coming weeks, but for the moment, all new DTV converter box coupon applicants (as of January 4, 2009) are being wait-listed for fulfillment either sometime in the future or perhaps never. Here’s what the NTIA has to say for those of you still preparing for the DTV conversion at home:

Consumers who have not taken action or who have applied and been placed on the waiting list are encouraged to take action to ensure at least one TV in their home is ready for the transition on February 17, 2009. Consumers can:

Purchase a converter box without a coupon

Purchase a TV with a digital tuner

Subscribe to cable, satellite or another pay service

Attached is a new brochure which describes the protocol for the Coupon waiting list.

If you do call for a DTV converter box coupon now, a reference number is being given — be sure to keep that number as it will allow you to go online to check the status of coupon delivery. As expired coupons are made available, new coupons will be mailed. NTIA estimates an additional 6 million coupons may be sent once older coupons (already sent) expire. So there’s still hope if you apply today.

Converter boxes are available online from Amazon.com as well as other outlets. Plus, local electronics retailers in Alaska often have DTV converter boxes in stock, too. Of course, if you’re in the market for a new TV anyway, it’s probably best to just buy one from a reseller right here in Alaska — especially if it has a large screen or if you need expert installation help.

NOTE: The DTV conversion will happen for KAKM viewers that watch us via over-the-air (antenna) signals broadcast from our primary transmitter, situated about 11 miles north of downtown Anchorage, on February 17. Viewers on the Kenai Peninsula watching KAKM via antenna will not see digital signals from KAKM until sometime later in 2009.

Questions? Feel free to post them here as comments or Contact Us.

KAKM Signal Update 5

Fri, October 17, 2008

Good News! KAKM’s broadcast TV signal has been solid for about 24 hours and all indications are that we’ve found all the transmission issues and should remain on the air without incident for the foreseeable future.

Of course, we’re continuing to monitor our signals to ensure our analog and digital over-the-air customers can keep watching without incident.

Please accept our deepest apologies and our humblest thanks for your patience as we’ve worked through these challenges.

KAKM Signal Update 4

Thu, October 16, 2008

We have good news, some temporarily bad news and some good news.

The good news is that our engineers found the source of the signal problem at our Goose Bay transmission facility north of Anchorage, south of Wasilla. It was fixed around 5:30pm this evening (Thu, Oct 16).

The bad news is that in fixing the picture for our over-the-air and MTA customers, engineers ended up disconnecting the audio from our analog TV broadcast. So the picture is solid but the audio is missing.

The second bit of good news is that the engineers know exactly what is causing the loss of audio and we expect the audio to be restored to our over-the-air analog TV broadcast by about 7:00pm this evening.

After that, based on engineering’s assessment, the picture and the audio should be solid throughout the night and, well… for the foreseeable future.

Naturally, given the rocky experience of the last week, we won’t be satisfied until we have several days of perfect picture and sound for all our customers. So we’re going to remain especially vigilant in the days to come.

Please bear with us through one last fix and thank you one more time for your patience.

KAKM Signal Update 3

Thu, October 16, 2008

While KAKM’s on-air signal improved during the day Wednesday, it degraded in the evening hours. Our engineers made additional adjustments during Thursday morning (10/16) and are working on one more major correction in the late afternoon hours. Our engineers are feeling confident they’ve eliminated several possible culprits and are zeroing in on one specific element today.

The signal during the daylight hours today has been relatively solid, and as of this writing (about 3:00pm) the off-air signal appears nearly normal. If adjustments this afternoon are successful, we should have a solid signal through the night hours.

We are continuing to actively monitor our off-air signal and relay information to and from engineers in the field. Thanks again for your patience. More news will be posted as we have it.

KAKM Signal Update 2

Wed, October 15, 2008

During the day today (Wed, Oct 15), KAKM’s on-air signal has been steadily improving. Engineers made one change this morning to some of our microwave transmission equipment, a change that takes several hours to take effect.

Then this afternoon, engineers swapped out an additional piece of equipment at our Glen Alps tower site that immediately made a noticeable signal improvement.

For the moment, we are actively monitoring the signal to ensure the improvements hold into the night hours. But we’re hopeful that we’ve found most, if not all, of the fixes required.

Thank you to all our patient viewers for bearing with us. We’ll provide yet another update when we’re confident our signal is fully back to normal.

KAKM Signal Update

Wed, October 15, 2008

As many viewers have already noticed, we’re in the midst of a difficult technical problem with our TV signal.

Late last week we began to experience problems with getting our TV signal out to our transmissition site at Goose Bay, just north of downtown Anchorage across Knik Arm.

This signal problem tends to break up the over-the-air signal (both audio and video) to varying degrees depending upon time of day and other factors. Therefore, anyone watching KAKM via analog or digital over-the-air signals (“rabbit ears” or “antenna” sources) are affected — which is a good portion of our audience. Viewers on GCI Cable are unaffected. Viewers in Mat-Su area on MTA cable, however, are affected, as MTA currently pulls its feed from our over-the-air signal. Some evenings, the breakup is so bad the station is completely unwatchable.

Our engineers have been working every day (and night) for the past several days tracing the source of the problem, working with equipment vendors and, thankfully, getting assistance from fellow broadcast engineers in the Anchorage area. We’re down to three possible problems, each of which are being tested and investigated at this time. We’re working with vendors, including one that’s flying in late this week, and we’re considering even more dramatic and expensive measures.

We’re using our web site, KAKM.ORG, to post updates as we get them. And to help people find these updates, we’re also:

updating our overnight phone system to alert people of the web updates
taking calls at our main number — 550-8400 — during business hours
asking our engineers to take as many after-hours technical calls as they can after hours (in between repairs and tests)
handling e-mail inquiries, web comments and complaints as fast as we can, including a message from our General Manager, Steve Lindbeck
intermittently displaying a “lower third” message on KAKM’s broadcast signal, alerting viewers that we’re aware of the issues and referring them to KAKM.ORG for more info

Meanwhile, we need to let the broadcast engineers continue their work. We’re checking in with them every few hours and as we learn more, we’ll post updates here.

We deeply apologize to our over-the-air viewers for this interruption in service.

KAKM Digital Signal Interrupted Overnight

Wed, July 23, 2008

KAKM’s digital signal will be interrupted overnight tonight in order for crews to make final installation of equipment that will correct pixilation problems that have been affecting the station intermittently for several weeks. The signal will be restored as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.