[EAS] Funding for CAP conversion

[Ken Booth]

If you are a small-budget station as we are, you may be struggling with the cost of upgrading to CAP. In our case our old 911D box would need to modified to add a extra input channel in order to use a convertor box. The total cost of this was not much less that that of buying a new all-in-one system. We felt that it was well worth the extra $'s for the enhanced features of the new equipment and we embarked on a fund-raising drive to cover the cost of the new equipment.

Now comes the interesting part - I was contacted by someone from our local county department of emergency management (DEM) who told me that they may be able to help with the purchase and they did in fact buy the equipment for us (the equipment belongs to them and we get to use it at no cost to us).

We got lucky - the DEM supported us as we are the only station on our island and are non-profit and they had funds available from their local budget. It's certainly not a slam dunk, but it may be worth while contacting your local DEM to ask if they can support you.

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Regards, Ken Booth
Chief Operator, KLOI-LP Lopez Island Washington 102.9FM