I RECENTLY sat down with Chief Executive Officer of the National Communications Network (NCN), Mr Mohammed Sattaur, and the discussion about my letter to the press concerning the signals of 98.1 FM in Berbice ensued. I would like to share what we discussed, since it does have some national importance. Mr Sattaur has said that the signals of 98.1 Hot FM are available to the far reaches of Berbice up to Moleson Creek. The senior official, in speaking with Kaieteur News, stated that tests which were conducted at Rosignol and other parts of the Berbice area a year ago have proven that the signals of the country’s lone FM station is widely available in the Ancient County.
“We’ve tested it and we have videos of the test”, he added. The remarks came in light of complaints of some persons not being able to pick up 98.1 FM in their homes. Sattaur also announced that the New Amsterdam Technical Institute (NATI) has collaborated with NCN to conduct a technical study to analyze what equipment–antenna or otherwise– has to be installed to collect a perfect FM signal in the homes of Berbicians.
They (NATI) will go into a full analysis of this thing…if the signal is out there, technically you are supposed to get it”, he added. The study by NATI will answer the questions, “Do you need to connect your television antenna; do you need a separate radio antenna…whatever… but the thing is, we have observed people listening to 98.1 in their homes all along the coast, so people know how to do it”, he said.

He noted that persons have become very innovative and connect pieces of wires to their television antennas to pick up 98.1 FM, but the study that NATI will do, will once and for all establish what procedures need to be followed to pick up a good signal.

In responding to a letter writer who responded to the issue of Berbice not getting the FM signals due to sun spots and other technical hindrances from the atmosphere, Sattaur noted that the writer does not know what he is talking about. “Signals, at certain times of the year, especially over water, would get reflected and refracted through cloud cover and all of that”. He noted that radio signals are so mysterious in the way they are transmitted that he recently received a card from someone in South Africa stating that the listener had heard 98.1 FM in that country at one time, “a freak signal or refracted signal”.
He added that the FM transmission system here was redesigned “and the antenna is higher to 420 feet and you’re supposed to get that signal throughout”.
The AM and shortwave signals, he noted, traverse the earth in different ways “and the AM follows the curvature of the earth so you will get AM clear throughout the coastal plain until you run into the mountainous areas and shortwave, on the other hand can be heard all the way to Australia, there are no restrictions”. He noted that shortwave signals are limited in every country and that Guyana was only given two signals, “so we have 3290 for our daytime signal and another frequency for our nighttime signal”.
A new tower was put down at Canal, West Bank Demerara, to boost the AM signal of the Voice of Guyana (VOG) “so we had to run the thing for a period of time and we tuned the tower”.

Testing is almost complete on the 500-foot tower (with another 500-foot tower on the ground) and it will be put into operation shortly. “The problems we had encountered in radio before was that the tower at Sparendaam was old…so it was not as efficient as it should be…so we now have a 20 KW transmitter that is operating, but we intend to bring that up to full power as soon as possible”.

Sattaur noted that he did not realise that it was a big problem that Berbicians were not picking up the FM signals.
Speaking about the reliability of the Internet broadcast of 98.1 FM and VOG, Sattaur said that there were some issues and disruptions, “because the host service, Host Monster out of the U.S., the renewal period came up…so we have sorted through those issues now”. NCN streams its radios and TV signals on the internet, but the radio broadcasts have been irregular over the past couple of months. He added that the service will be very much improved within six months since a new website would be designed.
Sattaur mentioned that about three years ago, they had brought an FM transmitter to be installed in Berbice but decided not to, and took it to Linden instead, since the investment would eventually lead to one where Guyana, in a few years to come, would see radio transmission through antennas and transmitters becoming outdated. “When I came in 2002, I felt that the industry was moving in a different direction, that radio and TV and everything would basically end up as WebTV. I think the future of broadcasting is in WebTV where you would be able to connect your TV and listen to radio, watch TV, browse the internet, everything in one. The only thing that is restricting that technology right now is access to broadband. The technology is available now in the US, and they are now perfecting it”, he added.
The CEO stated that the process is “being held up in Guyana because of the Broadband bottleneck that is created by the monopoly of GT&T but eventually that will have to roll off, so once we have unlimited access to broadband, fibre optic network, the telephone, your Cable (TV), even your electricity might come into your house through one cable”. When that happens in Guyana, it would no longer be necessary to broadcast anything, “delivery to you will be through fibre optic cable”. Sattaur questioned the investment in all the upgrades and transmitters and putting them up all over the place and satellite uplinks and downlinks which cost millions of dollars “when it is all going to be obsolete when you done doing it”.
He did outline the importance of radio transmissions emanating from a terrestrial grid, “because no matter if cable comes to Guyana and fibre optic becomes a reality, it will not displace terrestrial broadcasts and we’re being proved right because IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) is around and we have over 10,000 subscribers on the IPTV market, but terrestrial broadcasts still reach over 500,000 people, close to 700,000 along the coastline, so we are at the stage now, once we perfect our online feeds, we will be able to downlink, via the same internet connection, and re-broadcast, so we don’t have to worry about all these things anymore”.