For the week of October 29 - November 4, 2003

Fund-raising goal
reached for new
NPR transmitter

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

Boise State Radio, the Boise-based affiliate of National Public Radio, has reached its fund-raising goal to erect in the Wood River Valley a new full-power broadcasting station for its NPR News 91 programming.

Jim Paluzzi, general manager of Boise State Radio, announced Monday that the broadcasting group has raised $120,000 for the project, the estimated amount needed to convert its existing low-wattage radio transmitter on Bald Mountain’s Seattle Ridge into a full-power radio station.

Boise State Radio in June received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to proceed with the project. The new radio station is slated to be called KBSS.

Paluzzi said work on the approximately two-week-long construction project should start "as soon as the snow melts next spring."

KBSX, Boise State Radio’s flagship station for its NPR News 91 broadcasts, currently transmits to the Wood River Valley area on FM channel 91.1 from the Bald Mountain repeater station, called K216CY-Sun Valley.

Boise State Radio plans to replace the existing 8-watt translator with a new 700-watt transmitter on Seattle Ridge. As planned, the new transmitter would utilize Boise State Radio’s standing broadcast tower, company officials have noted.

The KBSS station is not planned to include on-site staff. The station is planned to broadcast KBSX programs and an array of NPR programs, plus local and regional news stories that would be generated by a new central Idaho news bureau in Twin Falls.

 

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