http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/may/052407jch_hoganheroes.html

'Hogan Heroes' bring digital access

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

PINEHILL — The "Hogan Heroes" plan to help rural communities on the Navajo
Nation escape from isolation.

Thanks to the "Internet to the Hogans" initiative, championed by Council
Delegate Leonard Tsosie, the group known by some as "Hogan Heroes" is
pursuing a big dream.

On May 18, Tsosie along with KNME-TV's Jim Gale and Bernie Bustos, the
division director for Community Services for the Ramah Navajo School Board
unveiled the digital television component of the initiative, the very first
transmission of a digital television signal broadcast in the Navajo
language.

Last week, a stream of cars and trucks began arriving in the Ramah Navajo
community in Pinehill, N. M., and it was obvious that something big was in
the air. These were not just any visitors to the chapter, but a host of
engineers, scientists, educators, librarians, computer scientists and
artists who came from Sandia National Laboratories, Navajo Technical
College, KNME-TV, Navajo Nation Television, the University of New Mexico,
Western New Mexico University, Dine College, the Indigenous Institute for
Native Arts, National Network of Digital Schools, Native American
Television Network, the New Mexico State Library and several departments of
the Navajo Nation.

Tsosie took the lead on this project when he served in the New Mexico State
Senate. The Internet to the Hogan project is a partnership meant to
coordinate telecommunication efforts on the Navajo Nation.

Tsosie said he wanted to insure that no one living in his district and on
the Navajo Nation was left behind without access to digital resources not
even families living in hogans.

He wanted to make sure everyone had access to high-speed Internet service
and digital television programming.

Last week, a large digital television screen was set up in the new Ramah
Navajo School dormitory, as, behind the scenes, Bustos, Gale and KNME-TV's
Engineer Dan Zillich prepared for the initial Navajo language digital
broadcast.

The Ramah Navajo television station is housed in the historic offices of
the KTDB radio station, the first Indian owned Public Radio station in the
country.

Ramah Navajo's digital television station is small. There's room enough for
a control station, and seats for two guests, but it has the capacity to do
what any digital television station can do: broadcast a digital signal on
several channels simultaneously in a community-based radius.

Ramah Navajo's digital signal has a radius of 30 miles.

The premier broadcast featured Navajo language speakers Jeanne Whitehorse,
of the New Mexico State Tribal Libraries Program, and Kee Long, from the
Office of Navajo Nation Broadcast Services.

"This will give the children an opportunity to listen to their language and
watch it being spoken. And, since it's on television the whole family can
get involved. It's the best way to preserve the Navajo language," Jeanne
Whitehorse said

Tsosie would like to see more programming in the Navajo language for
children.

"Why can't PBS's Big Bird learn Navajo?" Tsosie wondered. "We could teach
him. Our children are always watching television, if they could watch Big
Bird and learn Navajo as they eat their cereal in the morning, they could
become fluent in both Navajo and English."

During the digital broadcast, Whitehorse also explained that she teaches
elders how to use computers at the chapter houses. She explains technical
words to them that may not have a Navajo language translation.

"Digital is difficult to translate in Navajo," she says.

Long developed the first Navajo television station, NNTV5. The station will
also transition to digital when funding becomes available, Long said.

Like the Ramah Navajo station at Pinehill, a new digital system will make
it possible for NNTV5 to broadcast on several channels at one time.

Long and his staff are working toward digitizing Navajo language programs.

All public television stations in the country are required by the federal
government to transition from an analog system to a digital signal by
November 2009.

"This is making history. The Ramah Navajo television station at Pinehill is
the first television station to broadcast in the Navajo language through a
digital television signal. It makes a lot of things possible that were not
possible before," Tsosie said. "Nizhoni! (Beautiful!) We're not just
talking, we are doing something."

The next Navajo owned and operated digital television station is planned
for the community of Crownpoint.

John Christian Hopkins can be reached at hopkins1960@... or by
calling 505-371-5443.