NBC correspondent David Bloom has been relying on an innovative truck-based satellite antenna to provide live mobile satellite broadcasts from the front lines in Iraq. The system enables Bloom to broadcast live even when moving at speeds up to 50 miles per hour.

Miramar, Fla.-based Maritime Telecommunications Network (MTN) equipped a special-purpose truck for NBC with a stabilized VSAT antenna designed to provide mobile, in-motion live broadcast capabilities. The antenna stays locked on its satellite-based communications transponder even when the truck and camera are moving at high speed over uneven terrain.

MTN, a provider of satellite-based communications, networking and other services on cruise ships and offshore oil rigs, has been working for months with NBC, a General Electric [NYSE: GE] subsidiary, on the truck-based VSAT capability. The mobile capability removes the problem of correspondents trying to send stories back to the studio while on the move. In the past, journalists have broadcast from stationary satellite transmission vehicles or have returned with their news reports and video footage to the nearest studio. In the dessert of Iraq, that studio could be hundreds of miles away in Kuwait.

–Paul Dykewicz

(Roy Winnick, Kekst and Company, 212-521-4842)