(Unknown if this caused by Y2k)

January 18 2000

Sumy Residents Left Without Central Television

By Serhiy KHANIN, The Day

Programs of the Ukrainian national television channels UT-1, UT-2, and Inter, have not been broadcast to 3/4 of the territory of Sumy oblast since noon January 11.

The television vacuum has been filled by oblast television, a newscaster of which informed the viewers that the above-mentioned channels had vanished from screens due to a power cutoff of the relay station at Bohodukhiv, Kharkiv oblast, through which the signal went from Kyiv to the Sumy region.

Director of the Sumy oblast radio and television broadcasting center, Ivan Teslia, speaking to The Days correspondent, also referred to power outages. He said, the oblast leadership considers the relay stoppage as an extraordinary event and it is trying to put the central channels back on the air at all cost.

In particular, first deputy chairman of the oblast state administration, Oleksandr Vereshchaha, has sent an urgent letter to the Kharkiv governor, asking him to help power up the relay station. Unfortunately, Mr. Teslia failed to answer the question why the station had incurred the wrath of the electricity bodies: he intends to go personally to Bohodukhiv to find out the reasons for this extraordinary event.

Deputy technical director of Sumyoblenerho, Yuri Kuzmenko, assured The Days correspondent that the power outages had nothing to do with the suspension of the relay stations work. In any case, the Kharkiv power-supply people told their Sumy-based counterparts that all relay stations on their territory are connected to the electric main lines, so the cause of malfunction of the Bohodukhiv relay station should be looked for on the spot. Mr. Kuzmenko does not rule out that the television signal transmitter caught the eye of thieves who often steal non-ferrous metals and for whom it is a piece of cake to filch several dozen meters of electric wire.

The Day, Weekly Digest Issue #1; Kiev, Ukraine

http://www.day.kiev.ua/DIGEST/2000/001/issue.htm

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 12, 2000