Renewal could not be a more appropriate theme for Channel 17, at this time. New people, new projects and direction and new capabilities are the order of the day. The Co Chairs of the Cable Committee are Lori Shactman and Maddy Marcotte. Others that we expect to be soon added are Mickie Conte, Dan Bush and Dave Cantone. We might even have the luxury of a few alternates. Currently our prayers are going out to Lori Shactman, who is bravely fighting cancer. Lori is the Director of The Night Joint.
New programming is anticipated from Sue Sherman and Mickie Conte. More programming is anticipated from Dr. Kevin Greene, Linda Heminway, The Rockingham Church, Dave Cantone, Dan Bush and the gang at The Sad Cafe.
New capabilities include a more comprehensive and powerful system to play back existing programs as well as new programs. During the past year we experienced failure of all of our playback VCR’s as well as malfunction of the robotic playback controller. An additional disappointment was the breakdown of the Community Message Board character generator. We ran the message board off of our editing Macintosh, while the character generator was out for repair, for a week. Our inability to automate playback led to our having to discontinue placing our weekly listings in the Carriage Towne News. The new equipment will bring us into the 21st Century.
We are deeply grateful for all the support we have gotten while going through our equipment problems. We are especially grateful to our representative from the Board of Selectmen, Buzzy Blinn. Through his assistance we got approval to record Town meetings so that they can be repeated. This will make for a more informed citizenry. We plan to initiate this new service in March, when the new equipment is fully functional.
Improvements at the Town Hall include a new public address system, with a feedback eliminator. Another addition will be an Assisted Listening Device for the hearing impaired. All the wiring for the many microphones, is being re-located to the front of the stage. Access to the LCD projector will be available at the public presentation desk. A VCR will be installed in the control room to tape meetings directly. Currently, we can only record the TV signal that we get back from Comcast. During and after winter ice and snow storms, we have lost the unique fiber optic connection that we have for Channel 17.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Carolan
Coordinator
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