WMEB increases station range By: Sam Cohen Maine Campus Staff Writer
Posted: 3/23/09 http://media.www.mainecampus.com/media/storage/paper322/news/2009/03/23/News/Wmeb-Increases.Station.Range-3678772.shtml WMEB, the University of Maine's student radio station, is on schedule to become the most powerful college station in Maine - a more than $40,000 project that could expand the station's coverage to Waterville. The Federal Communication Commission approved an increase in power from 680 watts to 10,000 watts that will come into effect by fall 2009. This power boost will increase the station's coverage, according to Michael Murphy, the WMEB station advisor. "The edges of our coverage right now are Pittsfield and Belfast. I know that we'll be reaching close to Machias. In the other area, we'll get close to Waterville," Murphy said. The increase in power will also allow stronger coverage of areas the station already reaches. "It will fill in the weird holes where the signal cuts out. Bangor, Orono, Old Town and Veazie are going to be completely covered," said Tom Grucza, WMEB's station manager. Two years ago, the University of Maine System Office notified WMEB of an opportunity to apply for a wattage increase. According to Grucza, the FCC has "relaxed a lot of red tape" for educational stations. WMEB applied and was approved six months later. The station has invested approximately $1,600 into legal fees to expand, not including the university system's costs to investigate the expansion. "We saw that we could apply for more wattage and said, 'Hey, we need to jump on this,'" Grucza said. Concert revenues and the Student Activity Fee paid for the more than $40,000 upgrade. "We've spread this out over the course of three years of budget," Murphy said. "Once this is done, our operating costs won't increase that much." According to Grucza, the large cost is the reason for the smaller spring concert program. "We're trying to put on a good show for not a lot of money," Grucza said. Usually when a station applies for a wattage increase, there is a debate involving neighboring stations to see who needs the watts the most, according to Grucza. The relaxed rules allowed WMEB to skip this step. The approval took six months because the FCC had to make sure the increase wouldn't bump other stations off the airwaves or encroach on any Canadian stations. The permission timeframe is inflexible; WMEB has until October to implement the changes. "It's a one-time deal," Murphy said. If the station does not expand now, it could not ask the FCC for expansion permission later. The tower for WMEB is located on Witter Farm in Old Town. According to station engineer Bill Ducharme, the change will incorporate a new antenna array. The current antenna uses 440 watts of power, and with the antenna gain, it radiates the 680 watts of effective radiated power (ERP). The new, slightly larger array will use 4,700 watts to get 10,000 ERP. "One hundred percent, the wattage increase will happen," Grucza said. Following the approval of the station's application to the FCC, a meeting was held with university administrators to explore future plans for possible WMEB expansion. The proposed plan for a new community station would involve hiring a full-time staff to work on providing programming that part-time workers can't accomplish, according to Grucza. The normal student station would remain the same but WMEB employees would then have the opportunity to work at the community station full-time. The university administration has denied the station the chance to incorporate a plan for the creation of an additional community station broadcasting in high definition. According to Murphy, the group of administrators turned down the idea mostly because of economic problems. "We had a good discussion, and further discussion could be had when the economic climate changes … our ideas weren't so much rejected as tabled," Murphy said. Grucza is understanding of the decision. "They pretty much said they like what we're doing but they don't want us to get any bigger; which was kind of a half compliment," Grucza said. "Coming at it from a money perspective, it makes perfect sense. The community station won't happen within the next couple of years. We're going to have to ride out the budget crisis. There would be a ton of growing pains to do something like that. We just want to get through this wattage increase first." According to Robert Dana, vice president for Student Affairs, the university turned down the idea of expanding the station for two reasons. "[WMEB] was originally commissioned as a training opportunity for UMaine students to be broadcast for the benefit and enjoyment of the UMaine community," Dana stated in an e-mail. "Moving away from that essential mission of service to the UMaine community was not thought to be a good idea. Second, the move toward a much bigger enterprise associated with a community radio station would involve the initial and ongoing application of a substantial amount of new money. Given the fiscal climate the infusion of new monies was not thought to be wise or necessary since the station was and is meeting its prime objective of service to the community." WMEB is working on rebranding itself in conjunction with the power increase. The new slogan for the station is "college radio in a class by itself." They are working on a number of improvements to the station Web site, including a "now playing" widget, which would allow listeners to check online for songs they heard on the radio. "We want to make it easier for listeners to interact with the music on the Web site and to develop a more cohesive identity for the station now that we're serving more people," Grucza said. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
