Jonas González Rodriguez first got the idea for Enlace in 1981, and in 1984 Rodriguez sent a letter to Costa Rica's National Radio Control Department. On July 17, 1986, he was awarded a television license under Number 167 for use of the channel 23 UHF frequency in the Metropolitan region of Costa Rica. In 1987, Rodriguez established an office for Canal 23 in
San Antonio, TX in the
Continental Building. In August 1988,
TBN founder
Paul Crouch donated a 10-watt transmitter to Canal 23, and engineer Ricardo Jarquín installed it. Canal 23 began transmitting on September 9, 1988. In January 1990 they installed a transmitter with 1000 watts in the Irazú volcano. In 1991 a trademark was filed for the name Enlace. In 1992, Channel 23 installed three repeaters in
Limón,
Santa Elena and
Cerro de la Muerte. In 1994, Channel 23 opened its first studio, and on August 2 of that year, Channel 23 began transmitting via satellite during
TBN's flagship program
Praise the Lord. In 1996, Enlace launched a 24/7 broadcast on the Mexican satellite Soldaridad 2, thus extending their signal all over Latin America. In 1998, they upgraded their satellite to Pas-5, thereby extending the network's reach all over Europe. In 2000 they upgraded their satellite once again to Pas-9, also on that year Enlace Juvenil TV was launched. On September 1, 2002, TBN Enlace USA was launched as part of TBN's digital lineup; the network planned to start covering the 10 top Hispanic markets of the country in its first year. In 2003, Enlace started transmitting on the satellites Hispasat-1C and Hotbird 6, thus extending to the Middle East. In 2005, Enlace started transmitting on
Galaxy 23 and
Galaxy 19 extending to North America. In 2006 they moved transmission to the satellite Galaxy 14. In 2007, Enlace started retooling their infrastructure in Costa Rica, in addition to launching on the
Nossa TV platform in Brazil transmitting from satellite
Galaxy 28. In 2008, Enlace and Enlace Juvenil received new imagery and look, and they started transmitting on
DirecTV Latin America for the first time from the satellite
Galaxy 3C. == Background ==