I arrived at the Coast Guard station for the first test along with the students to find the rescue craft we where going to use had been broken a few days earlier. Rather than just cancelling us the Coast Guard was nice enough to call in a reserve boat to take us out. This was an even smaller fishing boat owned by a friendly reserve fellow wha was more than happy to drive us around testing my connections, the students balloons and pitching joining the Coast Guard reserve to us the whole time.
LiveU had sent down a backpack unit and an extender box which was surprising easy to set up. We had done a walkthrough on the setup the day before over a conference call and all I pretty much had to do was just to plug everything in, turn the unit on and start he stream. It was really that simple. The streaming site was already set up so our office folks could monitor the stream and all we had to do was some test shots to make sure the stream was good. And surprisingly it was. Since Charleston Bay is pretty much a āVā shape we could actually go out several miles from shore but still be within reach of cell tower or two.
For the first time since I made my first visit to the site I felt confident we had a solution. Even the students ballon tests went off without a hitch. All that was left was a few interviews we needed to shoot to fill out the pre-eclipse show and then it was home to prep for the real thing.