Be honest — prior to January, how many people had ever heard of Anik E-1 and Anik E-2?
Despite odds being better to win Lotto 6/49 four weeks in a row, these two satellites, heartbeats of Canada’s communication system, decided on Jan. 20 to swirl out of control within 24 hours of each other.
Suddenly television channels (for cable and satellite viewers) become fuzzy grey static on the tube. Daily newspapers scrambled to receive news that day.
One of the satellites was recovered, but the other has been reduced to a multi-million dollar piece of space junk. Will this mean astronomical (no pun intended) increases in private insurance costs for poor unsuspecting Canadians?
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Our newspaper appeared unaffected by the fiasco in outer space, but personally it affected my household. I am still bewildered about the selection of TV channels I receive.
As my three usual cable channels cleared up from static fuzz, I became the “happy” recipient of three CBC channels: Saskatoon’s CBC, French CBC, and now Montreal CBC.
The main advantage so far has been I can see Prime Time News an hour earlier. This gives me an hour to phone my friends in the same time zone as me and mysteriously predict what Pamela and Peter’s top three stories that night will be.
So what did my other two cable channels become, thanks to the Anik satellites?
I received my sports network back. Fine.
But on Channel 7, instead of movies, I receive Satellite Yukon.
I have in the past week alone learned what seals eat (when they’re not running away from polar bears), how to spell Inuvik in the native language for the area, and appreciated that our lowest temperatures in Saskatoon don’t even come close to the expected “highs” in Tuktoyaktuk.
