Last weekend’s wind and rain storm, which caused power outages throughout the Bangor area, knocked WKIT 100.3’s transmitter off the air, and the classic rock radio station still isn’t back to full capacity.
A resulting power surge fried the transmitter, and the radio station, owned by Stephen and Tabitha King, was off air for most of the night on Sunday, and into Monday morning. As of Thursday morning, it’s still operating at low power, with a reduced broadcast area and less volume coming over the airwaves.
“We’ve been operating with a standby generator that turns itself on and off,” said Bobby Russell, general manager of Zone Corp., which owns WKIT, WZLO and WZON. “It’s been a total mess all week.”
General engineer Howie Soule said that as of Thursday morning the transmitter was operating at around 80 percent capacity, and that most of the operating range was back to normal, except on its far outer reaches, as far south as Knox County and as far north as northern Penobscot County.
WKIT staff aren’t sure when everything will be back to normal broadcasting power.
