Baltimore's WJZ-TV engineer believes radar transmission causing

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Oct 4, 2001 by Staff

It's just a blip on a screen, really, popping up every 20 or 30 seconds and then disappearing again.

Rick Seaby knows the blip is a radar transmission, and he blames that transmission for the satellite interference he and other broadcasters on the East Coast have had recently, but he doesn't know where it's coming from, where it's going, or who's generating it.

He can guess, though.

"I don't want to speculate, but we didn't have this problem before Sept. 11," said Seaby, an engineer for WJZ-TV.

The satellite interference is described as minor, causing only brief transmission problems.

Though others dismiss the interference as most likely caused by solar flare-related atmospheric choppiness that is not uncommon this time of year, Seaby says his specialized equipment at WJZ tells him "with certainty" that the radar transmission is to blame.

"It was pretty easy to tell what was going on because of where the signal was located -- not in the satellite band but adjacent to it, and because of the fact that it kept popping its head up every 30 seconds or so," he said.

But if Seaby has solved the mystery of the on-again, off-again disturbance, which has affected broadcasters and others dependent on satellite communications along the East Coast sporadically, then he may be the only one.

The Satellite Industry Association and the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, both based in Northern Virginia, say they've heard nothing of the kind.

A spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., speaking only on background, said he doubted that any of the NORAD aircraft patrolling the Eastern skies could have been responsible for disrupting civilian satellite transmissions. The atmosphere is the more likely culprit, he said.

Jeff Beauchamp, general manager of the WBAL Radio, agreed. Though there has been some satellite transmission disturbance lately, this is the time of year for it, he said, dismissing alternate explanations as possible but highly unlikely.

Liz Chuday, a WJZ spokeswoman, said "we don't know where it's coming from" and "it doesn't help to make conjecture." But she said, problems, first noticed by station officials Sept. 12, have abated since the installation of an inexpensive radar filter on WJZ satellite receivers.

"It was more of an annoyance than anything," Seaby said.