Thirty-nine years on Tohoku's transmission routes

Mandate

Renew an ageing transmission network and playout systems within falling revenue, while keeping disaster broadcasting dependable with a smaller team.

Outcomes

• Renewed nine relay stations and moved two valleys of 400 households to fibre delivery, saving about ¥9.4 million a year
• Kept the backbone on microwave and moved fourteen spur feeds to leased circuits
• Introduced an emergency streaming mode that served 58,000 concurrent viewers in August 2025

Decisions in context

Becoming chief technology officer widened my responsibility from the transmitter network to everything between the studio and the viewer: master control, production engineering, information systems and our news stream. Four managers report to me, and I report to the president. My main task is to renew equipment on fixed schedules while revenue falls, and to do it with engineers we can actually recruit and keep in Akita. All three decisions described under Impact were taken in this role. I present renewal and incident papers to the board and report outages to our audit and supervisory board members, but I am not a director. I have learnt to bring the board a clear statement of what each option protects and what it leaves exposed, because directors cannot weigh a risk that the engineering paper has quietly assumed away.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking a first outside directorship alongside it.

Mandate

Bring the relay network and the microwave links under one plan and prepare for the renewal of equipment installed during the digital build-out.

Outcomes

• Completed remote monitoring at all 41 relay stations in 2019
• Extended backup power to seventy-two hours at twelve priority sites in 2020
• Prepared the first ten-year renewal plan for transmitters and links

Decisions in context

This role joined the relay stations and the links that fed them into one responsibility, which they had never been before. I managed seventeen engineers and reported to the executive director for technology. The work was less dramatic than the digital build-out and more consequential. Remote monitoring at every relay site changed how the team spent its winters, because a visit now followed a reading. Extending backup power at twelve priority sites meant deciding, in writing, that the smaller sites would receive less protection. I presented that decision to the board with the household figures for each group of sites. I also prepared our first ten-year renewal plan, which showed that almost all our digital equipment would reach the end of support within the same five years. That plan became the starting point for my work as chief technology officer.

Reason for the move

Appointed chief technology officer and executive officer when my predecessor retired.

Mandate

Run the new digital relay network through analogue switch-off and establish its maintenance regime.

Outcomes

• Completed analogue switch-off across the prefecture in July 2011
• Rewrote winter access plans with eleven municipalities after March 2011
• Began written site records capturing the knowledge of retiring engineers

Decisions in context

I took charge of the relay team a year before analogue transmission ended. In March 2011 the earthquake cut mains power across most of the prefecture, and several of our small relay stations went silent when their batteries ran down. We restored them as roads and fuel allowed. Four months later we completed analogue switch-off on schedule. The two events taught me different things. Switch-off showed that a well-rehearsed plan can carry a large change. The earthquake showed that our plans assumed help would arrive sooner than it could. Afterwards I worked with eleven municipalities on winter and emergency access, and began a written record for every site, because our team was shrinking through retirement and each departing engineer took knowledge we had never recorded. By 2016 the team had fallen from fourteen engineers to nine.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead transmission and network engineering as a combined division.

Mandate

Design and build the digital relay network alongside the analogue network it would replace.

Outcomes

• Built forty-one digital relay stations between 2006 and 2010
• Designed sites for their worst winter access month rather than their survey day
• Specified battery capacity and alarms for every new site

Decisions in context

Kazaminato asked me to join from its contractor because it needed someone who had installed transmitters in winter. I worked within a six-person project team and later led contractor teams at individual sites. The programme was the largest capital commitment in the station's history, and every relay site had to be designed, licensed, built and tested while the analogue network continued. I learnt to survey a site in February as well as in summer, because the access road that looked simple in June could be closed for weeks. I specified batteries and alarms for each new station, using the assumptions about mains power that were normal at the time. Those assumptions later proved too optimistic. The build-out gave me a detailed knowledge of every site in our network, which I still use when the renewal plan reaches each one.

Reason for the move

Appointed to manage the relay network once the build-out was complete.

Mandate

Install, commission and maintain transmitters and links for broadcaster clients.

Outcomes

• Led transmitter and link installations for six broadcaster clients
• Passed the first-class technical radio operator qualification in 1997
• Wrote commissioning checklists adopted across the installation team

Decisions in context

Working for a contractor meant working on other people's networks, each with its own habits. I installed and commissioned transmitters and microwave links for broadcasters across Tohoku, first as a field engineer and from 1998 as a project lead with small crews. The variety taught me more than any single employer could have. One station replaced batteries on a fixed cycle; another waited for an alarm and then waited for us. I saw which approach produced fewer night calls. I also learnt to write things down for a client who would maintain the equipment after we left, and our commissioning checklists became standard across the team. Passing the first-class technical radio operator qualification allowed me to take responsibility for transmitter work. I moved when a client asked me to help build its digital network from the inside.

Reason for the move

Recruited by Kazaminato Broadcasting, a client, to join its digital build-out.

Mandate

Maintain microwave and early fibre trunk routes across northern Tohoku.

Outcomes

• Maintained eighteen microwave hops on the northern trunk route
• Took part in the first fibre section's commissioning in 1992
• Introduced weather and access notes into fault reports for my section

Decisions in context

I joined Dewakita a month after graduating. It was one of the new regional carriers formed after the telephone market opened, and it carried long-distance calls on microwave and, later, fibre trunk routes. I maintained a set of microwave hops on the northern route under the chief of my section. The equipment was reliable; the difficulty was reaching it. Hilltop huts kept logbooks in which every visiting engineer recorded the weather, the fault and the condition of the road, and I came to see those notes as part of the network. I suggested adding them to our formal fault reports, and the section adopted the practice. I also took part in commissioning our first fibre section in 1992. When Dewakita merged with a larger carrier in 1995 and moved its engineering to Tokyo, I chose to stay in Tohoku.

Reason for the move

Chose to remain in Tohoku when a merger moved engineering to Tokyo.