Report from Josh Mainka, SNG Engineer

Al Jazeera English

It’s not often a new news channel launches, but on Wednesday the 15th of
November Al Jazeera English finally began broadcasting from its broadcast
centres in Doha, London, Kuala Lumpur and Washington.





The much anticipated AJE had deployed teams to the four corners of the world with the brief to ‘set the news agenda’.

We’d planned and piloted a launch week special from Afghanistan but as often happens in the world of television news, that plan was to change at the last minute.

Andrew Simmons, Africa bureau chief called me unexpectedly from Nairobi whilst I was bouncing over the sand dunes in southern Qatar in my four wheel drive.

‘Josh, I need to speak to you about Darfur’.

His brief was simple, Andrew was heading a team to travel into the Darfur region of Sudan for launch week and he wanted the ability to do multiple live positions and also broadcast live from a hilltop position overlooking an African Union peacekeepers barracks surround by camps housing thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs).

There was only one thing for it, call Broadcast RF.

Within twenty-four hours, a 3.5 Ghz analogue PTV transmitter and receiver plus MTV transmitter and pit lane pole were on their way to Nairobi where the Al Jazeera English team would assemble. Broadcast RF also organized a VHF radio basestation and Motorola handsets for wireless IFB from Finepoint.

After much delay in Khartoum, the team finally arrived in Al Fasher, Western Darfur, base for the launch day broadcasts.

It was decided that the team would broadcast from the Al Salaam IDP camp on the outskirts of Al Fasher. Al Salaam was a mix of many displaced people from various areas in Darfur. We were told the camp would be tense and negotiations would have to take place to explain to the various groups where we were from and what we were doing.

We soon decided on a site for our hired uplink from the Ramattan News Agency and headed off to meet various leaders.



Producer Rob Hodge and I were ushered into what we assumed at first was a stable for camels and mules, to be greeted by the stony faces of eighty tribal elders dressed impeccably in white robes. Internal rivalries soon surfaced as various chiefs argued that our satellite uplink be situated in their part of the sprawling camp so that their people be featured prominently in our coverage. We had an ace up our sleeve though. We explained that with the microwave link, we could broadcast from anywhere in the camp, leaving no grouping out. That clinched it.

The meeting concluded with handshakes and smiles.

We were now ready for launch day.

Al Jazeera reporter Haru Mutasa broadcast live from Al Salaam camp throughout the 15th of November. The link allowed us to move freely around the camp and highlight different aspects of the daily life of the ordinary people caught up it what has been described as the world’s largest humanitarian disaster. Some 200,000 have been killed and over 2 million are currently displaced.

The team then moved on by helicopter to the Tawilla African Union camp, broadcasting from the hilltop position that Andrew Simmons had singled out during his previous visit in October.

A happy correspondent, and a very happy newsroom.