Morehead State Public Radio at Morehead State University offers locally hosted classical music, smooth jazz and adult hits during the week, along with BBC World News from American Public Media.
On the weekend, the station provides locally hosted Americana, bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz and storytelling to more than twenty counties throughout eastern Kentucky on Class C1 90.3 WMKY(FM), licensed to Morehead.
The station had gotten by with its existing transmission equipment for quite some time, with its two primary transmitters having a combined age of about 50 years, according to WMKY General Manager Paul Hitchcock.
WMKY was able to secure a combination of sources for necessary funding for a transmission plant transformation, which also served as a centerpiece of the station’s 60th anniversary celebration. It complements the studio update the station did through adding Wheatstone blades and consoles in 2023.
“Basically, everything except our antenna on the Kentucky Educational Television tower has been replaced and updated,” Hitchcock said.
Primary equipment was supplied by Broadcast Supply Worldwide and RF Specialties, with installation services provided by Inrush Broadcast Services and Potter Electric.
The public radio outlet’s transmission plant now has a Nautel NV20LT 20 kW solid-state transmitter as its main, paired with a Nautel VX6 6 kW backup transmitter.
The station chose a Burk ARC Plus Touch remote control system with AutoPilot software, a Burk RSI speech interface and Burk environmental monitoring sensors, with Dielectric 4000 series dual switch controllers and switches.
Additional equipment includes a Kintronic LAB4 dehydrator, an Omnia 9 multi-band FM audio processor with RDS, a Barix Exstreamer 500 audio codec, Broadcast Tools audio switchers, a Moseley Starlink two-channel 950 MHz digital STL and a Bext LDR-STL receiver.
Backup power is handled by APC Smart-UPS rack-mount systems.
Funding
Hitchcock has been with the station since 1986 and has been general manager for 23 years. Not only does he oversee ambitious projects such as this overhaul, he also hosts multiple jazz and blues offerings on WMKY.
But he spent significant time researching, planning and implementing the project. Securing funding was one of the largest challenges for an undertaking of this scope, Hitchcock said.
WMKY put together a combination of grants and funding sources to complete the work, including support from the university itself; Public Media Company’s Public Media Bridge Fund; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Rescue Plan Stabilization, Community Service and Radio Interconnection Grants.
Beyond funding, station leadership wanted to make sure the chosen transmitter equipment manufacturer offered both responsive support and dependable hardware.
“Nautel checked all the boxes and once we decided on the NVLT series, there was nothing else to be considered for this project,” Hitchcock said.
Hitchcock also credited the assistance of Sean Johnson at Kentucky Educational Television and Joey Boothe of BSW in bringing the overhaul to completion.
WMKY is now fully operational on the new setup, and Hitchcock is thrilled with the station’s updated sound.
“It just pops and sings beautifully,” he said.
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