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KICY Resumes Broadcasting AM Signal
NOME, AK (September 7, 2005) - Radio station KICY-AM is back on the air, but
what will be done with one of its towers is uncertain.
The radio station resumed broadcasting at 6:30 a.m. on Monday, according
to general manager Dennis Weidler. "We were working late into the night
Sunday night," he adds.
The station had been knocked off the air August 17 when an early morning
fire destroyed a tuning house at the base of one of the station's three
towers. Workers rerouted a transmission line to the station's western
tower so that it can broadcast a 10,000-watt non-directional signal. The
signal allows the station to broadcast across western Alaska and into
Russia, but not as far as previously, Weidler says. The station is
broadcasting 24 hours a day.
No cause for the fire has been officially determined, but Weidler says
he believes it was a grounding problem. He believes the problem will be
corrected when repairs to the tower are made.
Workers from the organization that installed the tower six years ago are
scheduled to arrive next week to determine how to proceed with repairing
the current structure. "The base of the tower is leaning dramatically,"
Weidler says. "The tower is in danger of falling."
Weidler says one option is to take down the tower, improve it with a
better ground and then reset it on pilings driven into the permafrost.
"That would give it a better ground," he adds.
Rebuilding the tuner house will not be possible until next summer,
Weidler says.
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