SATELLITE BLAMED FOR PAGER OUTAGES; LOCAL SERVICE ALSO INTERRUPTED

Ameritech technicians were still working frantically Wednesday to link their pager users to a different satellite.

"We have deployed manpower to reset all of our towers in the outstate area," said Donna Hanschen of the area Ameritech Communication Center.

Millions of pagers throughout the United States have been silent since Tuesday night when some radio and TV relays were interrupted because a $250 million communications satellite lost track of Earth.

Ameritech and Southwestern Bell customers in the immediate Southeast Missouri area were affected.

Many of the pagers were out, said Hanschen and Keith Daum of Southwestern Bell Wireless. Cellular phone users, however, could still make their calls.

"Our goal was to have everything cleared up by late Wednesday or early Thursday," said Hanschen. "But technicians have to physically reset each tower, and we have more than 20 towers in the outstate area."

Technicians throughout the nation have been moving paging services to other satellites.

The Galaxy IV satellite is the villain in the latest communication problems. It stopped relaying pager messages and media feeds late Tuesday when its on board control system and a backup switch failed, and the satellite rotated out of position.

The pager problem was of particular concern to doctors in metropolitan areas. Dr. Steve Dickens, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said he spent the night at the hospital because of the problem.

The satellite breakdown had no noticeable effect on Cape Girardeau's hospitals: St. Francis Medical Center and Southeast Missouri Hospital.

"We checked our pagers first thing Wednesday morning," said Mike Simmons of the St. Francis public relations staff. "They were working and have been working all day."

Southeast Missouri Hospital pagers are linked through a system with JCS/TEL-LINK, which experienced no difficulties.

The report from Orthopaedic Associates of Southeast Missouri and the Cape Girardeau Police Department was the same: no problems.

"All of our physicians use local paging services which work from a tower," said Gerald Nicholson Orthopaedic Associates administrator. "The satellite problems didn't inconvenience us."

Cpl. Kevin Orr said the police department had no trouble with their pagers.

Some radio stations had trouble receiving feeds from National Public Radio. KRCU 90.9, a National Public Radio affiliate on the Southeast Missouri State University campus, played its own music Wednesday morning.

"We used a telephone feed for our news," said KRCU station manager Gregg Petrowich. "And we're feeding from a PBS satellite for other programming."

Some of the PBS programming on Galaxy IV has been placed on Galaxy IIIR.

Southeast Missourian newspaper photographers experienced problems but kept in close contact with the office to override the inconvenience.

PageNet, one of several paging companies whose services were interrupted, estimated that 80 percent to 90 percent of the 40 million to 45 million U.S. pager users lost service.

"This is the first time in 35 years that pagers have gone silent," said John D. Beletic, chairman and chief executive officer of Dallas-based PageMart Wireless Inc. "Virtually all paging companies have been affected to some extent."

PageMart announced on its Internet Web page Wednesday that service had been moved to backup satellites for customers in major cities including Boston, Minneapolis, Cleveland and Philadelphia, and it was working to move service for other customers.

Most paging company executives agree it could take a day or two for their companies to finish switching service for millions of customer.

The only customers not affected were those whose connections are through ground-based radio towers and transmitters.

Some television stations also use Galaxy 4 to transmit feeds of advance shows. But most television stations worked around it, and programming was not affected.

Galaxy IV was launched in June 1993. Its coverage area is primarily the United States and Caribbean.

Technicians were able to send commands to the craft but could not restore its orientation toward Earth, said Robert Bednarek, senior vice president and chief technology officer for Greenwich, Conn.-based PanAmSat, which owns the satellite.