From the satellite farm to the outlet

Published March 8, 2011
By Senior Airman Veronica McMahon
379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- The deployed servicemember finishes his 12-hour shift. He's tired. He hasn't seen a day off in weeks. All he wants to do at the end of his shift is to relax for the night. And more often than not, relaxing involves a remote and some cable television.

The ability to unwind is enhanced by the two-man shop in the 379th Expeditionary Communications Squadron, who call themselves 'Cable TV.'

"'We bring you closer to home,' that's our shop motto," said Tony Bonilla, 379 ECS cable television director.

"Our goal is to bring diversity to our military community by offering a variety of programming. We want to be able to reach our demographics and keep everyone up-to-date with news and sports events of the world."

Mr. Bonilla and Chris Sykes, 379th ECS cable television technician, are on call everyday, all day to keep 45 channels operating at all times. Many channels broadcast news, sports, or movies.

"Our primary job is operational maintenance of the base's cable TV," Mr. Sykes said. "We [maintain] everything from the satellite link, to distribution networks, all the way to the end user."

Cable TV begins at the 'satellite farm' where the satellites catch the programming signals.

This is also where the FM radio signals come in. The team routinely checks to ensure the satellites are catching the signals, which high winds and inclement weather can disrupt.

From the satellite farm, the FM radio signals broadcast from large outdoor antennas to the base populace. The cable TV signals go to what they call the 'head end,' a large room filled with equipment that supplies the base with the cable and American Forces Networks.

The team spends their days monitoring the signals and making repairs to maintain the correct programming. From there, the signals disperse to the base via fiber optics or copper wire.

According to Mr. Sykes, sports and news are the stations in most demand.

"We do a lot of support in sports. Big sporting events are huge," Mr. Sykes said. "People have an active interest in TV and want to be kept up with what is going on in the rest of the world and back home."

Mr. Bonilla, who has been working cable TV at this location for more than nine years, said he has seen a vast improvement since his arrival to the base when there were only six channels. He said he has seen the number of channels grow and hopes they will continue to grow.

"I really enjoy my job. It's a big contributor to the morale of this base," Mr. Bonilla said. "It helps give the populace a link to an outside world."