For those of you who may have missed the December announcement, here it is again. KNLS will soon have a sister station. The document was issued by the government of Madagascar. Written in French, it gives World Christian Broadcasting permission to put new station, Madagascar World Voice (MWV), on the air. The new station's towers are already built. The new transmitters are on the way, and hope to have MWV on the air by the middle of 2015.
Madagascar is an island nation in the southern Indian Ocean, located about 300 kilometers across the Mozambique Channel from the east coast of southern Africa.
Millions who were previously unable to hear Alaska station KNLS, or who heard it faintly, will now have a chance to pick up a clear signal. For example, we get mail from KNLS listeners from India, which is half a world away from Alaska. Madagascar World Voice will send a clearer signal to India, so we expect the volume of mail from the planet's second-most populated country to increase. Some listeners in India have digital receivers, and MWV will have the ability to transmit a digital signal.
Madagascar World Voice will double the area of the world that can hear music to love, news to know, and a message to live.
World Christian Broadcasting's freshly minted 100 KW transmitters were loaded on a cargo ship in the Port of Houston on January 12, 2015. A few days later the ship sailed, bound for the Indian Ocean. Arrival date is expected to be somewhere around March 25. The ships will cross many, many miles of open Atlantic Ocean before they sail under the tip of Africa to head north to their destination. The two transmitters were built at a cost of $1,000,000 each, so we are praying for smooth sailing and a safe arrival!
Once the transmitters are unloaded at our station, much work is left to be done. They must be installed in the transmitter building that has been awaiting their arrival. They must be connected to the diesel generators that will power them. Technicians from Continental Electronics in Dallas must go to fine-tune their installation. Once all that has been done, we can begin the testing process—which in itself will take more than a month. Once everything is in order, we can begin broadcasting in late 2015 or early 2016.
Initially we will broadcast in six languages: Arabic (covering the entire Mid-East), Spanish (for South and Central America, plus the Spanish-speaking countries of Africa), English with an African sound (for the continent of Africa), Chinese (for western China), Russian (for the populous regions of western Russia, including St. Petersburg and Moscow), and International English (for India and nearby countries where English is a second language).
Between the new station in the Indian Ocean and our other station in Alaska, our programming will cover almost the entire world, except for North America.
(Alokesh Gupta/Radio Activity blog)