Carson City community radio sets up shop at historic Adams House

With its new studio and offices now secured at the historic Adams House on Minnesota Street, Carson City Community Radio KNVC 95.1 may be ready for live broadcasts from the capital city sometime in November or December of this year, station management said Monday.

KNVC is an independent, noncommercial station and is currently airing a well curated stream of non-commercial music from Open Sky Radio at 95.1 FM. The LPFM transmitter is located on a mountaintop between the Washoe and Eagle valleys and can also be heard in the Carson Valley and south, nearly to Markleeville.

Carson Tahoe Health owns the historic Adams property at 990 N. Minnesota and allows the station and its licensee to use the 1920s vintage building for a token fee. KNVC is licensed to the Brewery Arts Center and will share the space with a BAC arts program, said Station Manager Joe McCarthy.

"Carson Tahoe Health has generously provided the use of the Adams House to the BAC and KNVC, free of charge," said McCarthy. "We are grateful for what they have done for us."

A former executive director of the Brewery Arts Center, McCarthy was instrumental in saving the FCC license from expiration.

“Unless I filed the license for the Construction Permit by the 24th of February (2017) the license would have been lost,” McCarthy said. “With the help of Jeff Cotton at Open Sky Radio and others we were able to save the license with hours to spare.”

The project attracted the interest of long-time public media producer Brian Bahouth, now KNVC’s News and Program Director. He said the station plans an informed and eclectic mix of music and a combination of national, international and “hyper-local” public affairs programming.

“KNVC aspires to be an alternative to what you hear on the airwaves in northern Nevada,” said Bahouth. “Several public broadcasting entities beam the same programming at the region at different times. The two are virtually indistinguishable.

"KNVC will be a smart alternative, not only for news and public affairs but for music. Our goal is to provide alternative news and help listeners discover new music. We’ll also do live broadcasts of music and public affairs events. Everything we do is in service to the community and the democratic process. In Carson City, hyper-local includes the state government,” he said.

KNVC is a member of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and there are nearly 5,000 community stations across the nation where a small number of staff and multitudes of volunteers produce programs. Brian Bahouth has worked for a few of the nation’s leading community stations to include nearby KVMR in Nevada City, California.

“At KVMR someone is at the controls 24 hours a day, and usually that someone is a volunteer. The goal of a real community station is to train and empower citizens through the media. Music and politics are too important to be left to professionals, and a large and central part of the KNVC mission is to train citizens in radio production work," he said. "Some volunteers produce news, some host amazing music shows, others are part of a team that does live remote broadcasts of music and political events and others help with curation of the digital music library or answer the phone. That’s real community radio.”

KNVC has scheduled a volunteer orientation on Thursday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. and again on Wednesday, Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. in the station.

For Joe McCarthy, KNVC will become a critical community asset.

“It’s going to be really exciting when we open the microphone for the first time,” McCarthy said. “Carson City is ready for its own media entity, its own public radio station. Along with great music and news, KNVC will play a critical role when we have regional emergencies, from floods to fires. It’s going to be a local game changer, but right now we’re setting up our offices and studios from the ground up and could begin broadcasting as soon as Thanksgiving. We’re excited about the possibilities. KNVC will be a huge community asset when we’re live on the air.”

KNVC General Manager Joe McCarthy can be reached at joe@knvc.org, 775-720-0331 or News and Program Director Brian Bahouth can be reached at brian@knvc.org, 775-299-9898.