After a rocky spring semester last year, WKNH 91.3 has made leaps and bounds toward the rebuilding of the station.
WKNH had difficulties at the end of spring semester with a weather-related power outage that caused a power surge, destroying their soundboard and a lack of executive board members
Ryan Rotigliano, General Manager of WKNH stated, “At the end of last year we had some tech malfunctions and our website stream was acting up, but now we have a new program, to stream not only on our website again but on apps again, on tune-in apps like that.”
Productions Director Patrick Garcia also commented on the technical progress.
“It was rocky at the end of last year,” Garcia said. “We had multiple technical issues related to weather and aging technology. So those just caused a rockslide of other problems.”
Although they had lost equipment, Garcia said this gave WKNH the chance to upgrade as well.
“Over the summer I devised a plan to solve all of the issues at once; just like an overarching, blanket plan and in the past few weeks I have been able to put it into effect,” Garcia added.
Part of the tech upgrade plan was the recent partnering with a company called Radio.co. This opens up new online services for WKNH both for the website and the FM broadcast, making participation in the radio station more accessible to the off-campus community, both students and non-students.
“They don’t need to put in the same time commitment as on-campus deejays, which really opens up our station to a lot more potential for radio shows and people,” Garcia said. “We have also opened up, thanks to this new software, the potential for completely remote shows for people who might be immunocompromised or have health issues that prevent them from going into public places”
WKNH, after the loss of their soundboard, replaced it with a mixer that is “top of the line for concerts”, said Garcia, adding that it is “not really inviting to look at” and “stressful” if you are not experienced with it. WKNH is investing in two “smaller, more podcast-style mixers” that have “a lot less buttons, a lot easier to control,” according to Garcia.
The filling of the e-board has been welcomed by staff as well, Rotigliano said.
“We are finally at a full e-board, all nine positions are filled. We all have our individual goals,” Rotigliano said. “We started our first e-board meeting with goals for the semester and goals for the whole year.”
“Everyone is making great progress and everyone is doing a great job, it takes some of the work off my shoulders,” Rotigliano added.
Ryan Stone, events coordinator for WKNH, commented that, “So far this semester things have been really good for us.”
WKNH meets Sundays at 8 p.m. in the Madison Street Lounge on the ground floor of the Student Center, with the next meeting Sunday, Oct. 6.
When asked about upcoming events, Rotigliano said there was nothing set as of yet but that people should keep their eyes open for upcoming fall events.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
