WOMR Announces Kickoff of Capital Campaign
Cape Cod???s only community nonprofit radio station to raise money for capital improvements
Provincetown, MA, December 5, 2017: WOMR???s capital campaign for studio and transmitter upgrades has begun and is actively seeking donors, the community radio station announced today.
The aim of the capital campaign is to upgrade aging???and sometimes failing???equipment. This includes studio equipment, the studio-to-transmitter link, as well as installing a generator at the transmitter site located at Mount Gilboa in Provincetown.
The campaign officially kicked off at the Lower Cape Communication???s annual meeting, held on November 18th at the Provincetown Inn. The campaign has complete and full support of the WOMR/WFMR board of directors and the board itself has already pledged 20% of the $250,000 needed to complete the project.
???I couldn???t be more thrilled that we have this campaign underway,??? says John Braden, executive director of the community radio station. ???The new equipment is essential for the station to broadcast and the new studio-to-transmitter link will allow us to keep in touch with our transmitter in a way we???ve never been able to do before.??? The current system requires manual checking in on the transmitter using a telephone; with the new equipment, the transmitter itself would automatically contact the studio in the event of a problem. ???Our broadcast engineer lives in Boston,??? says Braden, ???and under the present system, he has to come down to the Cape to troubleshoot and solve problems. With the new system in place, he???ll be able to do that all remotely. This will greatly reduce our costs for repairs and upkeep as well as extend the life of the transmitter.???
In addition to these upgrades, the station will be purchasing mobile broadcasting equipment that will allow the station to get out into the community in a way they haven???t been able to for years. In addition, the generator installed at the Provincetown transmitter site will allow the station to broadcast emergency information during power outages caused by storms.
In 2012, as a result of a massive windstorm that brought down the tower on Mt. Gilboa, the station raised over $100,000 over course of three months in order to keep community radio alive. The present drive to replace our broadcast equipment will service this thirty-six year-old station well into the twenty first century.
“Once the upgrade is completed not many stations will be as up-to-date as WOMR, currently not many are as out-of-date as they are.??? said WOMR???s broadcast engineer Chris Kelly. The next step is for the radio station to start approaching community banks, foundations, volunteers and other supporters. Anyone who would like to donate may call the station at 508.487.2619 or go to WOMR’s website??https://womr.org/product/capital-campaign/.
About WOMR/WFMR:
WOMR is a noncommercial, nonprofit educational community radio station offering an eclectic blend of music and spoken-word programming since 1982 and broadcasting from Provincetown, Massachusetts???making it ???outermost radio.??? WOMR is not affiliated with any educational institution and derives its financial support from listeners, businesses and funding organizations.