Central Michigan University Public Radio powers down antenna for repairs.

By Noah Shepardson
Edited By: Dan Schultz and Trisha VanKoughnett

The Central Michigan area will be without its local public radio station 89.5 WCMU as crews power down the radio antenna to make repairs Sunday Feb. 3rd. According to the CMU public radio page http://www.wcmu.org/ and an e-mail sent out by John Sheffler, Director of Radio, the powering down of the tower was to permanently repair the tower. If the repairs are not completed now the station could be down for as long as a month. Weather delays, however, have slowed the progress of these repairs.

“Repairs were made to one of the twelve bays located on the radio antenna,” Randy Kapenga, Radio Engineer for CMU public radio said. “The bay was removed and replaced.”

Central Michigan Public radio has been broadcasting for over 30 years and has garnered many faithful listeners.

“I guess I will have to listen to NPR (National Public Radio) that broadcasts from Delta College in Saginaw,” said Tim Fitzgerald, Journalism professor at Central Michigan University. “I didn’t even know that they were shutting it down and making repairs to it.”

The repairs, however, are not over. There is another damaged bay that must be replaced, but due to bad weather those repairs cannot be completed. Radio broadcasts are still ongoing, but at a limited capacity. Central Michigan public radio can still be heard streaming live at http://www.wcmu.org/radio/listenlivepage.html