Live Out of the Box

Jonathan Higgins

A decade ago, during coverage of the First Gulf War, television viewers began to witness the fruits of numerous advances in satellite newsgathering (SNG) technologies and the use of those technologies by the global news media. These developments gave audiences a taste of live events from the battlefield for the first time and fuelled an increasing appetite for immediate news, rather than days-old reports.

The technology that enables newscasters to report events live was developed throughout the 1980s and is based on the SNG "uplink." An SNG uplink is a transportable satellite ground terminal that can transmit material from remote locations, either live or from tape. The uplink can be packaged in either "flyaway" form for deployment by air or integrated into a truck for predominantly metropolitan use. Though "transportable," the flyaway version of the SNG uplink consists of thirty to forty cases of equipment, includes a one to two meter diameter antenna, weighs up to 1,500 kilograms, and requires one or two highly-skilled technicians to assemble and operate. Thus, the logistics of transporting a flyaway around the world was, and continues to be, no mean feat. Apart from logistics, broadcasters had to manage additional challenges, such as the need to secure permission from sovereign nations to import and use the equipment, and the task of organizing a satellite route through which the transmission could be sent…

Jonathan Higgins is Managing Director of Beacon-Seek Ltd., a company he founded in 2000. He is the author of Satellite Newsgathering.