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Fire Strikes KICY Radio
NOME, AK (August 18, 2005) - Fire destroyed radio station KICY's tuning house
on Wednesday morning, knocking the station off the air, said General
Manager Dennis Weidler, (shown inspecting fire damage) and putting its
three towers out of commission. The Covenant radio station will not be able to broadcast a non-directional AM signal for at least several days and probably will not be able to broadcast directional signals until next summer, said Weidler. A replacement system first needs to be installed, and tuning it will take up to a month, says Weidler. "It's meticulous work," he adds, involving measuring the signal at 500 geographical points determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). "We will be off the air for a few days," Wielder said in an email, "then on at low power. Our first order of business is to get the tower lights back on. "
"We will be reconnecting to the West tower as a temporary fix as it is physically closer to the new transmitter building and we have transmission line which will reach," Weidler says. When the non-directional tower is back working, the station still will be able to broadcast to nearby Chukotka, Russia.
The fire was discovered after the station was knocked off the air at
7:30 a.m., Weidler said. When Weidler drove to the site three miles east
of Nome, he found flames shooting through the roof.
Replacing the tower and building will cost at least $150,000, Weidler estimated, adding he expects insurance to cover the expense. Alaska State Troopers were investigating the cause of the fire. The tuning house is shown in this photo from the 2001 dedication of KICY's transmission site KICY Alaska Dedicates New Transmitter, Station More information will be posted to this online Covenant news report as it becomes available.
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Weidler said he hopes station personnel will be able to get KICY's
western tower ready in several days to broadcast the non-directional
signal, which has been used to broadcast English-language programming
from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. The work will involve rerouting a transmission
line the western tower.
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