By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
Submitted July 9, 2008
With a new and steady source of revenue, the Moapa Valley Television Maintenance District (MVTVD) has turned its attention on stretching that revenue to best meet the challenges it will face in the next year. In April, amidst significant controversy in the community, the MVTVD Board voted unanimously to place a $24 annual assessment on every Moapa Valley and Moapa household. This assessment will be collected through the County property tax rolls beginning this month. With this funding source, board members are eager to produce results for the community and to do it soon.
“We are now going to be receiving public funds,” said MVTVD Chairman, Daniel Pray at a District Board meeting held Tuesday, July 1. “The public is going to be watching us very closely and they are going to want to see what we are doing now to make things better.”
Over two years ago, the district formulated a five year plan to improve television service in the community. The plan was focused on two main challenges. The first was to get into a position to be able to receive digital primary broadcast signals from Las Vegas and other areas. The second was to improve the transmission of those signals from the Beacon Hill facility down to the homes in the Moapa/Moapa Valley communities.
The first year of the five year plan proposed to establish a microwave link to convey digital signals from the Las Vegas valley. For the remaining four years, the district would convert its current transmitters, one by one, to digital technology. In the end it would be broadcasting seven digital frequencies accomodating over a dozen different channels into the community.
But it took two years for the district to be able to start implementing the plan. The district has spent that time, and over $12,000 in legal fees, to convince the County that the $24 assessment could be legally carried on its tax rolls.
Given the time that has passed, MVTVD board members now recognize the need to reassess and make adjustments to the 5 year plan. The MVTVD is facing a hard deadline in February 2009. That is when all primary TV broadcasters are federally mandated to convert their signals from analog to digital. Without the proper equipment in place by then, the district would not be able to receive and re-transmit the new digital signals.
“When the plan was first presented in 2006, we had three years before the broadcast stations would be cutting over to digital,” said MVTVD Board member, David Borcher. “We were going to be able to have the microwave link all up and in place well before the deadline. Now, before we have any equipment in our hands, we are going to have to go digital by February at the latest or we will be over a barrel. We need to adjust our plan to the new reality.”
Borcher, an engineer with significant experience in developing microwave transmission systems, stated that a viable microwave link could be established between Apex and Beacon Hill. That link would provide the same quality as satellite TV systems with the same or better consistency in the signal.
But the costs of such a link would be higher than the district could afford in the first year. “You just can’t shoestring the budget on a microwave link,” Borcher said. “There is a substantial investment involved and I really don’t think that there would be funds to do it in the first year.”
Pray told the board that he had been in communication with officials from the Moapa Valley Telephone Company regarding working in partnership with the district and other cable TV providers in the region to bring clear TV signals from Las Vegas. They had looked at the possibility of leasing antenna space in downtown Las Vegas and then sending signals along a fiber network to the Beacon Hill facility where each entity could have access to the signal.
Working in partnership with several other interested parties would help to defray the cost of the project, Pray said. The MVTVD share of the cost to lease the circuit was roughly estimated at $15,000 per year. Additional costs for equipment to pick up and process the signals from the fiber network might also be expected, Pray said.
Borcher considered this a viable alternative to the microwave link. “Even if we had to face an additional $15,000 of start up costs, a microwave would cost three times that much in the front end. Though the microwave would be cheaper on a year to year basis. It is certainly worth looking into, though.”
Borcher also urged that the microwave link be priced out as well and kept as a ‘Plan B’ in case the fiber option didn’t materialize.
Board members recognize though that they won’t be able to cover everything in the first year. They expect to end up with only $40,000 in net revenues to work with in the first year. “We have to face the fact that we can’t do everything that is needed at once,” said Pray. “We can’t do more than the funds that we have available to us this year. So the question becomes what can we do that will give us the biggest bang for our buck.”
Pray suggested that the district work to secure the signals that it could receive at the Beacon hill site. Currently two digital signals out of Las Vegas are available. Purchasing digital receiving equipment would allow the district to continue to use those signals after the February deadline. Strong signals also are received from Utah hill including KSL, KBYU, KJAZZ and Phoenix Fox. Since the Utah Hill site is a translater site many of those signals are expected to continue broadcasting in analog, which would require no new equipment.
“I think that we need to start with the six or seven best signals that we get on the hill now, whatever they are, and focus on them first,” Pray said.
Borcher pointed out that this would not do much to improve the signals being transmitted cown to Moapa Valley homes. “Improving our reception will help a little,” he said. “But it won’t bring a signal to anyone in the community that isn’t already getting it. We need more transmitting power.”
“The thing that we have in our favor there is that we can still transmit in analog even after the February deadline,” Pray responded. Pray said that it might be possible, at least for the time being, to drastically improve the district’s analog transmission. This would be relatively inexpensive to do because, in the face of the national digital conversion, analog equipment is selling cheap, Pray said. Later as more funding becomes available, the signals could be gradually converted over to more solid digital signals.
Finally, Pray felt that the establishment of a community access TV station was important to improve public perception of the district. “We have received a tremendous amount of public feedback in support of this idea and I think that we should make it a priority,” he said.
Pray’s plan involved creating a partnership with the Moapa Valley High School media program. “They already have most of the equipment that is needed to film community events and they have expressed an interest in working with us on it,” Pray said.
The district would then have to purchase a few pieces of necessary equipment that the school does not have available. With that equipment, the board could simply upload content from a computer on a DSL line and then broadcast it to the community, Pray said.
“This community programming could be easily done at a relatively low cost to us and it would provide a tremendous service to the community,” Pray said.
