Monday, September 7, 2009
Dear friends, listeners, donors, supporters, etc:
You probably remember us mentioning on the air, particularly during our most recent fundraiser, a possible power increase and a new antenna.
On Thursday, August 27, we installed a new antenna, equipped to broadcast at our current transmitter power, which is 200 watts.
Installing this new antenna was a good idea. Many of you have already contacted us to confirm that your reception is better and extends further than it has for years, so we are very happy with our decision. Please continue to let us know!
The new antenna was expensive, and it will only be temporary. However, we do not know how long it will take for the FCC to approve our application to increase our power, and it is very important for us is to get the best possible air signal to you.
This brings us to our main task we are working on currently: the application for the new transmitter.
As you can imagine, an awful lot of radio stations, existing and new, are interested in gaining some of the airspace freed by the departure of analog television.
It turns out that getting a new transmitter capable of broadcasting at a higher wattage is a complex process.
A formal application must be submitted (in our case by an engineering company), and only when the FCC invites it. In fact, we were told that if we submitted an application before being invited to do so, that it would automatically be disqualified. The FCC finally invited our application in the second week of August, 2009. It is being completed and submitted as we write this.
Again, we do not know how long it will take the FCC to review and accept/deny this application, but keep your fingers crossed and wish us good luck. However, even if they approve our application and do it lightning-fast, we'll still have a long road ahead of us.
The purchase of a new 3,000 watt transmitter has been estimated to cost approximately $25 thousand dollars, quite a bit more than we were able to raise at our most recent fundraiser. Removal of the old transmitter and installation of the new one have not yet been estimated, but the old one is the size of several refrigerators and is on the 12th floor of the Dennison building.
Furthermore, an antenna which is compatible with the new transmitter has been quoted variously at between $12 and $80 thousand dollars.
As you know, the University's contribution to WCBN is minimal- about $40 thousand a year in the form of an equipment budget and the Chief Engineer’s salary. The rest of our budget is contributed by you during our fundraising activities.
This is not an appeal for your cash, although if you had some lying around we'd be happy to relieve you of it. We’ve received several calls from people asking what happened to the new antenna we kept talking about at fundraiser, so the number of people wondering that must far outnumber those who are actually calling. This is the best answer we can give you right now, but we’re definitely not going to give up on this.
We thank you as always for your support of WCBN and hope to have made some progress by the time we start our next fundraiser.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions about the antenna or the transmitter.
Sincerely
Kristin Sumrall
WCBN Program Director
PD at WCBN dot ORG