Friday, October 26, 2007
KPBS Radio 89.5 Maintains Constant Fire Coverage despite Transmission
Troubles
By Lauren Coartney

The Harris fire raced up Mount San Miguel in San Diego early Monday,
burning through power lines by 5:30 a.m. and cutting power to several
transmitters situated at the crest. With no back-up generator, KPBS,
the city's public radio station, lost its signal and went off the air.

One of only two local radio news operations, KPBS had become a crucial
source of information on the 2007 fires, which were engulfing San
Diego from the east. Many city and county officials had been directing
the public and their own agencies to 89.5 FM during news conferences.

"Even when we lost our radio transmitter, we kept broadcasting
continuously via live Web transmission," said Nancy Worlie, KPBS
Communications Manager.

FM 94.9 Partnership

Knowing thousands of people were looking to the station for critical
updates, the radio programming director, John Decker, called several
stations for help before alternative rock station FM 94.9 agreed to
temporarily carry KPBS' broadcast on their frequency.

Though KPBS-TV Channel 15 also went off the air, service to Time
Warner and Cox Cable customers was uninterrupted, since KPBS provides
a direct fiber feed from the university to those cable service
providers.

Not until Wednesday was Rockley Curless, a KPBS engineer, able to get
to the top of Mount San Miguel to check the transmitter. While a
community tenant communications building 10 feet away was completely
destroyed, the building that houses the KPBS transmitter was
unharmed.

"There were even little green plants still around it," said Leon
Messenie, director of engineering. "We feel really lucky."

Currently, the TV and radio stations are back on the air, running off
of a low-power generator located on the SDSU campus. They will return
to full power as soon as San Diego City officials and CAL FIRE approve
generator installation on the mountain.

(reprinted from SDSU)