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Local public TV goes nationwide Photo by Bob Pennell Greg Frederick, KSYS production director, takes a reading before filming retired Gen. Merrill McPeak in Medford for a segment of "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" in Washington, D.C. McPeak, a Lake Oswego resident, was in Southern Oregon to see plays in Ashland. KSYS links up retired general, news program By BILL VARBLE Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak has been on "The News Hour with Jim Lehre"r a dozen times or more, but for Southern Oregon Public Television, it's a first. "If it goes well, they'll use us again," KSYS-TV President and CEO Bill Campbell says. "We'll have a name. Lehrer's show is hosting a discussion on the lessons of the NATO bombing in Kosovo Wednesday on public television's premier news show, and News Hour staffers tracked McPeak down in Southern Oregon. A Lake Oswego resident since he retired as Air Force chief of staff in 1994, McPeak says he's in town to take in "Othello" and ``Much Ado About Nothing" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. "They call me every time we start bombing somebody," he says. The plan is to film the general in Medford, send a signal from KSYS to KDRV-TV, which will microwave it to a station in Eugene, which will bounce it by satellite to Washington, D.C. KSYS interim chief engineer Marty Shostrom explored the options, and he's convinced that's the best way of delivering McPeak to Lehrer for a discussion featuring top military experts. News Hour correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth is reporting from San Francisco, and other generals are linked from other cities. On your TV it looks like a piece of cake. Here, it's tense. "To my knowledge it's the first-ever feed for national public television from here," says Campbell. Campbell says it wouldn't have been possible if the station hadn't raised the money to buy new equipment in a 1994-96 capital campaign. Today McPeak faces $80,000 worth of new cameras and a system capable of producing 800 lines of resolution. "You'll be seeing more of this," Campbell says. "We're rockin."' In the production control booth, the general's image -- hawk-like visage, dark suit, power tie -- is on half a dozen camera monitors. Producer-director Bill Haldeman defers this time to a director in Washington, D.C. "I get to sit here and watch," he says at the console. Technicians move in and out of the booth with phone calls and technical comments and questions. "That wire's kind of strange," Haldeman says, looking at McPeak's microphone. "I'll get that," production director Greg Frederick says. "I'm still hearing network feed," McPeak says. "We're not feeding it yet," Haldeman says. Everything speeds up. "Gray line two, probably D.C." "They're linking up." "My only concern is that we're giving them a good, clean signal and it goes well," Campbell says. Which is the point when somebody from D.C. says there's a problem: They need a better uplink. The level of video is too low. That could be caused by a number of things. The result would be a dim Gen. McPeak among the generals on your TV set -- unacceptable. The general looks over some notes, the calmest man in the house, as technicians scramble. Shostrom attempts to fix the problem by boosting what are called color bars. It works. "Oregon, you can drop your bars down," says the voice from Washington. The voice talks to technicians in Chicago and San Francisco, then to KSYS again: "Take down the right side of his face." Haldeman makes an adjustment. "They're stuck with my face," McPeak says. Then the familiar voice of Elizabeth Farnsworth is asking McPeak if the NATO bombing in Kosovo overturned conventional wisdom about air power winning a war. McPeak is smooth and thoughtful-looking as he says that while there were other factors, it was certainly pivotal ... and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer is off and running. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA