Page 26 - ECF-Thrive-March-Spring-2025-flipbook

orbit s
signal
CKUA
ment orbit
satellite
willing to accommodate an entire network of vendors
while coming up with a huge chunk of money to cover it.
The former satellite had been in space for a few
decades, so, while it was stressful to know it was coming
to an end, it was not a complete surprise.
With the old network, CKUA would transmit a signal
from its offices in Edmonton to Calgary, and then the
signal would take a left to Mississauga, Ont., where it
would be uploaded to the satellite.
But if the weather was bad in Mississauga, it might
knock out a signal, even if it was a beautiful day in
Alberta. “So, it was this weird thing where we’d get
these satellite outages and it’s like, what’s going on?
Well, there’s a storm in Ontario. It’s hard for people to
understand it,” says Carnes.
Summer storm season in Ontario was brutal, so
sometimes the crew wouldn’t know the network was
even out in certain parts of the province until they
received phone calls or emails from listeners.
“We were also dealing with older systems and
we had challenges with it, so rather than lament the
challenge, we went into it, like: OK, how do we make
lemonade out of this?” says Carnes.
It was a chance to partner with Network
Innovations, a global company with Canadian
headquarters in Calgary.
One of CKUA’s board members worked there and,
when he was told about the situation, he thought Network
Innovations might be interested in helping out.
26 Together we thrive
26 Together we thrive
“It was an investment in CKUA, but we
were able to distribute that not only to
service the thousands of listeners in
Edmonton but the tens of thousands
across the province as well. So, it had a
residual benefit on the community side
of things.”
— Marc Carnes