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From: bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Bob Sherman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Wondering About Gulf Crisis Coverage
Message-ID: <16191@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 91 09:48:57 GMT
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In <16147@accuvax.nwu.edu> linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison)
writes:

[ stuff deleted]

>NBC's audio was clearly just a plain telephone connection, with all
>the bandwidth limitations that implies.  CNN's audio, though, sounded
>much clearer.  Further, at one point NBC lost the phone connection and
>didn't regain it for some time, but CNN maintained its hookup and even
>piped it to NBC (at a cost that Tom Brokaw had to effusively speak of
>how wonderful CNN is).  Brokaw, in fact, asked CNN how they did it,
>and the reporter was quite secretive.

Bernie Shaw is no dummy. The CNN boys outdid the competition, and he
was not going to tell them at this time, although he did promise to
tell Brokaw over dinner sometime after he returns to the States.

>So how did they do it?  My initial guess was some sort of multiplexed
>multiple phone lines, but it seems that all regular phone lines from
>Baghdad were disrupted.  Any ideas?

Yes, without giving away their trade secrets before they wish to make
them public, let me just say it was a device that is mainly used on
large ocean vessels, oil rig towers in the middle of nowhere, etc and
was rigged to operate off of either commercial voltage with a drop
down device or battery power in the event that commercial power failed
(which it did.) I am glad that I do not have to pay their bill, which
costs several dollars per minute ... for all of the hours they were
using it. They also had with them, a portable electric generator
which they purchased in the Washington DC area before they went over
there, along with tons of Tuna fish, etc.


bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu    MCI MAIL:BSHERMAN