PRSS Emergency Procedures

NPR Distribution has extensive plans in place to maintain operations of the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS) in the event of an emergency situation.

Primary Satellite Service

PRSS occasional and full-time public radio distribution services are provided via transponders 1, 3, and 5 on the Galaxy 16 satellite at 99° West Longitude.

Backup Satellite Service

The PRSS service protection plan provides a variety of backup arrangements in the event of either transponder-level failures or a complete satellite failure.

A single transponder failure may be dealt with by moving our services to a reserve transponder aboard the same spacecraft. The arrangements for catastrophic failure of the entire satellite are multi-layered and situation-specific, and are subject to change depending on the timing of the failure as well as the availability of certain other satellites in the Intelsat fleet. Some of the backup contingency scenarios require that stations be able to re-point their antennas to other satellites, either for a few days or indefinitely, should the satellite operator be unable to restore service at the 99 degrees west longitude location. In the event of any service interruption due to satellite failure, stations should consult the messaging system via the ContentDepot portal immediately for information on service restoral.

Interim Service During Satellite Outage

Any significant failure of the satellite will cause at least a temporary interruption of service until the satellite operator can identify the problem and move services to backup capacity, as needed. To fill this gap, NPR Distribution has arranged to feed public radio's full-time programming services-NPR, PRI, BBC, Classical 24, and WFMT's Beethoven Network-to stations via voice grade telephone bridges, until service is restored on backup satellite capacity. Depending on the service outage length, individual producers and distributors who use the PRSS may also institute other means of transmitting their programs to stations. These alternatives may include the use of the PBS satellite for co-located radio and TV stations, on-line audio streaming, and ISDN lines.

Emergency Communications

The ContentDepot messaging system and the PRSS website will be the primary sources of information for stations and producers in an emergency. These primary sources will be supplemented by the NPR Member Stations website (www.nprstations.org, login required); broadcast faxes; and postings to the Pubradio, Pubtech, Dubnet, and A-Reps listservs. Advisory announcements will also appear on the PRSS Operations Hotline (800.433.1283). NPR, PRI, APM, WFMT, and the many other producers and distributors who use the PRSS will be responsible for posting information about alternative options for receiving their programs, using any or all of the above communications channels.

If you have any questions about any of these procedures, please contact Ralph Woods at 800.235.1212, ext. 2664, or via email: rwoods@npr.org.

In an emergency, stations should go immediately to www.prss.org. Also watch the ContentDepot for messages on system status from NPR Distribution.