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Tag Archives | Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios

Construction update

By on April 26, 2013 in Photos, The Nome Static, The Nome Static, 2013 (All), The Nome Static, May 2013

Work on our studio expansion project – the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios – has reached an important milestone! Thanks to your continued support, our dedicated construction crew has been able to complete the outside “box” of our annex: its floor, walls, and a sturdy, insulated roof, all of which can be seen, inside and out, in the photos above.

Our studio renovation, as you may know, will convert KNOM’s broadcasting tools from its aging, analog equipment to all-digital hardware, which will be far less expensive and complicated to operate, repair, and maintain. The new construction will be essential to our mission’s continued operations for many years to come.

Now that the outside of our new studio space is close to completion, the more complex work of installing our digital hardware – and raising the funds for this crucially-needed gear – lies ahead. As we go to press, our digital studio funds stand at $487,946.19; it’s enough to pay for the empty building with about $14,000 left over to go toward equipment, which we estimate will cost $358,430. To learn more or to help, visit our Digital Studios page or call 907-443-5221.

 

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Coming soon: a special award – and warmer weather

By on April 8, 2013 in Stories

The winter weather is lingering as the daylight grows, and temperatures are hovering around 5 degrees above zero. Warmer days are just around the corner, and soon, the ice will begin to melt. Many times, however, chunks of ice on the shore of the Bering Sea remain well into June, blowing out to sea only as the summer solstice looms. KNOM keeps listeners up to date on these potentially dangerous ice conditions.

It’s for efforts like these and many others that KNOM will soon be receiving the Crystal Heritage Award from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB); the award honors the community service work of our devoted staff, volunteers, and supporters, and we’re so excited to receive it. National recognition for our little mission radio station is a tribute to the years of service provided by KNOM. We thank the thousands of supporters and the hardy radio pioneers who first put KNOM on the air. For the last four decades, they have poured their heart and soul into keeping KNOM on the air.

You can find out more about this award, the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios conversion process, and all the other things that are happening at KNOM by continuing to explore this website – we invite you to stay a while!

If you have never visited before, you will find a great variety of pictures, information about KNOM’s history, our staff, more than a decade of issues of our monthly newsletter (The Nome Static), programming information, audio files, and a lot more. We are not yet able to stream the KNOM signal due to very poor internet speeds in our part of the world, but we have heard plans of improved internet coming to our region in November. So: stay tuned!

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A roof over our heads!

By on March 29, 2013 in Photos, The Nome Static, The Nome Static, 2013 (All), The Nome Static, April 2013

Our photo gallery is back this month, and as you’ll hopefully glean from the images above, work is continuing at an exciting pace for the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios!

The new building, as readers may know, will be an annex to our existing building; it will be home to much-needed studio space and allow us to renovate our broadcast hardware with digital gear: far more cost-effective, easily repaired, and “future-proof” than what we use now.

The four photos this month show a crucial part of this winter’s work: the (relatively rapid) construction of our new studios’ floor, the erection of its walls, and the laying of panels for its roof. All of these pictures were taken from second-floor vantage points in our current building; as you can see, our intrepid construction crew is working deftly even at precarious heights!

As we go to press, work continues on the roof of the building and on insulation for the entire structure; we’ll have more photos in our May Static. To learn more – or to help our project keep moving forward – visit our digital studios page.

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Construction begins!

By on March 1, 2013 in Photos, The Nome Static, The Nome Static, 2013 (All), The Nome Static, March 2013

In recent weeks, KNOM’s volunteers and staff have become well versed in the sounds of hammers, power saws, and heavy machinery, but it’s all for good reason: construction is continuing for the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios!

After laying the foundation beams late last year, we are now busy building the outside structure of our new studio space. As you may know, our digital studios will expand our working space and, most importantly, renovate it, by allowing us to use more cost-efficient, digital technology.

As you see in the photos above, the support beams for our new studios are quickly being set into place. Work will continue, over the coming months, to finish the outside “box” of the new building, to connect it to our existing structure, and then, finally, to furnish it with digital broadcast hardware.

As we go to press, our studio construction funds stand at $482,296; it’s about half of what we’ll need to finish the full project. We can’t thank you enough for your continued support; to learn more, visit our digital studios page.

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In the frigid air, construction continues

By on February 24, 2013 in Photos, Stories
Digital studios construction, February 13

Construction workers quickly erect the outside frame of the new Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios, as seen from the second floor window of KNOM’s current facilities.

The moon shines from a pale blue sky as ice crystals dance across the tundra, carried by a fierce North wind. The sun makes the snow on the land and sea ice sparkle like a billion diamonds. The ice has stopped shifting (for now), and a few brave souls are setting their crab pots through holes in the frozen Bering Sea, hoping to harvest a winter bounty of crab.

Suffering through cold temperatures and a bitterly cold wind, our construction crew has just finished nailing down the roof structure for KNOM’s Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios. KNOM news director Laureli Kinneen baked a batch of cookies for these hardy men. The crew enjoyed the tasty treats and then went right back to work. Please add your prayers to ours for the health and safety of these wonderful carpenters.

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What’s a “sun dog”?

By on February 17, 2013 in Photos, Stories
A "sun dog" over Nome

During sunrise on a recent morning, a “sun dog” – the partial halo of light around the disc of the sun – was particularly glorious over downtown Nome. Photo by David Dodman.

The bitterly cold temperatures are lingering, but there is more daylight to enjoy. Last week, we experienced a remarkable atmospheric phenomenon: bright, colorful spots of light on either side of the sun, observed as the sun sat low on the horizon. The scientific name is parhelion, but here in Alaska we call them “sun dogs.”

This unique light show is caused by light passing through plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals during very cold weather. The crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays (as the crystals sink through the air, they are vertically aligned, and sunlight is refracted horizontally); this creates the colorful, “phantom sun” or sun dog.

Meanwhile, exceptional things are happening on the ground, too. Our brave construction crew is battling extreme temperatures as they tilt up walls at KNOM’s Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios. Please pray for their health and safety.

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Amid the cold, construction begins for our new studios!

By on February 10, 2013 in Photos, Stories

Evening construction on the digital studios

Western Alaska village temperatures are dropping, and wind chills sometimes reach 50 below. The north wind is relentless, and it is cold! Any exposed skin quickly reddens and is accompanied by an unmistakable stinging sensation, reminding you to cover up or get inside where it is warm.

Even with these cold temperatures, the construction crew building the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios at KNOM are hard at work, setting beams and joists. As we have seen in the past, getting construction materials to Nome is very difficult, and there have been a few delivery delays of critical construction materials. Work is now proceeding, and the crew will soon be attaching the plywood and insulating the floor system.They are a hardy bunch, and we can’t thank them enough for working through cold and windy winter weather.

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An exciting milestone!

By on January 31, 2013 in Photos, The Nome Static, The Nome Static, 2013 (All), The Nome Static, February 2013

It’s both exciting and humbling to report the continued progress of our campaign for the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios. We’ve just passed a crucial landmark; with donations now approaching $500,000, we have enough funds to build Phase 1 of the project, the outside frame of our studio annex.

The digital studios project will expand our studio space (into the lot pictured) and renovate it: replacing our aging, analog equipment with digital hardware that will be more cost-efficient to maintain.

As we go to press, we’re still eagerly awaiting the beginning of Phase 1 construction, which has been delayed, in part, because of the complications of wintertime weather in rural Alaska (as pictured) and the limited construction workforce in our region.

Also, we continue to seek funds for Phase 2 of construction: the renovation of our existing studios and the purchase of new digital broadcast equipment.

We thank you for your continued support and ask for prayers. Together, we’re moving forward! To learn more, visit our digital studios page.

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2012 Financial Report

By on January 4, 2013 in Photos, The Nome Static, The Nome Static, 2013 (All), The Nome Static, January 2013

The fiscal year from July 2011 to June 2012 was unique for our mission; the year saw the transition of KNOM to a new, independent nonprofit entity (KNOM Radio Mission, Inc.), as well as the first steps in our studio annex project, the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios. With your enthusiastic support, we finished the fiscal year in the black. Our income was $2,039,092, our expenses $1,646,678. Nearly all of this “extra” income is dedicated either to our digital studios construction or to other long-term development goals, described in further detail below.

(Click to enlarge.)

As always, the large majority of our income in the past fiscal year came from individual donors. 55.6% of KNOM’s overall income ($1,133,241) was from one-time or recurring donations, while 24.3% ($495,860) came from legacy gifts (funds entrusted to KNOM from wills, bequests, or estates). Legacy giving continues to provide a vital part of our operating budget.

Miscellaneous income – 17.6% ($359,668) – was higher than normal and consisted almost entirely of a settlement KNOM received in April at the conclusion of a two-year litigation against a former contractor. This money is earmarked for a long-term development plan to build financial infrastructure for KNOM’s future sustainability.

The remaining 2.5% of our funds came from interest on our bank accounts (just $826) and related income ($49,497), consisting of program underwriting from local organizations and fees from the National Weather Service, which rents space on our AM transmitter tower to broadcast its dedicated weather channel.

Both our expenses and income over the fiscal year were made higher by our digital studios campaign. While our capital campaign brought in more financial support, our expenses also included the architectural designs and plans for our studio expansion and renovation: a project that will continue, with your support, well into 2013.

(Click to enlarge.)

Our expenses included $361,995 for fundraising (22.0%); $115,698 for this newsletter (7.0%); $245,237 for general operations (14.9%); $239,989 for programming and technical costs (14.6%); and $683,759 for staff salaries (41.5%).

Our full-time volunteers remain an essential part of our operations, and their service – working full-time for room, board, and a small personal stipend – saved our mission about $111,000 in fiscal year 2012.

We saved, also, through new, energy-efficient technologies described in previous editions of this newsletter. In particular, the installation of dynamic carrier control (DCC) – a cost-saving method of power management at our AM transmitter site – paid for itself within three months, and we estimate that DCC will save $35,000 in electricity costs over fiscal year 2013.

As always, everything that we do is made possible through your support. Thanks so much!

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Studio fund: over $400,000!

By on December 17, 2012 in Photos, The Nome Static, The Nome Static, 2012 (All), The Nome Static, Year-End 2012
Moving wood at the construction site of the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios.

Moving wood at the construction site of the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios.

Step by step, our studio renovation and expansion project – the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios – is moving forward as the calendar turns over into 2013.

As we go to press, we’re anticipating the first phases of construction to begin any day. Our contractors will use the special shipments of wood, pictured at top, to build the initial frame of our new, crucially-needed studio space. Thanks to you, the funds are there to make this first phase a reality; our digital studio funds now exceed $400,000! For the latest updates – and to help us keep our studio construction moving forward – visit this page.

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