As you read these words, we’re within a few short weeks of beginning to use our expanded studio — the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios — as an active broadcast and production space! It’s an exciting moment for our mission, as we’re nearing the end of a project that, through your ongoing generosity, prayers, and support, we’ve been pursuing for more than five years.
The expansion and renovation of our 1990s-era, downtown Nome studios, as Static readers may well know, will accomplish several crucially-needed goals. Not only will our studio annex give us more space for the many audio production and live broadcasting needs that KNOM requires, each day, but they’ll also allow us to operate with less overhead costs and maintenance, thanks to modern hardware pieces that are more easily repaired, better connected to the internet, and more energy-efficient to operate.
In recent months, much of our recent work has concerned selecting and implementing new broadcast hardware pieces (such as microphones and sound boards), as well as custom-fitting or installing more basic items like desks, other furniture, and energy-efficient LED lights (as Static readers may recall from our May and June issues). In all of these efforts, we’ve been buoyed by the generosity of the thousands who have donated to our years-long digital studios campaign, as well as the handful of foundations and endowments whose grants have helped make this large-scale project possible.
We’re very thankful, too, for the expertise and careful work of Anchorage engineer Van Craft and Nome electrician Pat Knodel. Van, pictured at top, is shown examining one of the new workstations our digital studios will use, while Pat is shown helping to install a sound board in one of our new studio rooms. (Other images: computer and networking components in the hardware racks of our digital studios.)
In the coming months, keep an eye in the Static for reports on the first broadcast from our new studio spaces — an event we’re hoping to coincide with our 45th anniversary — as well as on the studios’ official dedication in early autumn.
We’re so grateful to you for helping make this studio project a reality. Stay tuned for more!
