'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@hotmail.com or by calling 505-371-5443.