KUAC-TV, virtual and

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

channel 9, is a Public Broadcasting Service (

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

)

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

Fairbanks, Alaska Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...

, United States. Owned by the

University of Alaska Fairbanks The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for cla ...

, it is

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

to National Public Radio (

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

) member station KUAC (89.9 FM). The two outlets share studios in the Great Hall on the UAF campus; KUAC-TV's transmitter is located on Bender Mountain.

History

KUAC-TV signed on for the first time on December 22, 1971 as an early

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

present to the Interior. It was the first public television station in Alaska, and the only one until

KAKM KAKM, virtual channel 7 ( VHF digital channel 8), is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station licensed to Anchorage, Alaska, United States. Owned by Alaska Public Media, it is sister to National Public Radio (NPR) member ...

Anchorage Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...

signed on in 1975. It originally aired for only five hours a day, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. As the difficulties associated with bringing PBS programming decreased, channel 9 increased its schedule, and now operates 24 hours a day. In 1995, KUAC-TV joined with KTOO-TV in

Juneau The City and Borough of Juneau, more commonly known simply as Juneau ( ; tli, Dzánti K'ihéeni ), is the capital city of the state of Alaska. Located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle, it is a unified municipality and the se ...

and KYUK-TV in

Bethel Bethel ( he, בֵּית אֵל, translit=Bēṯ 'Ēl, "House of El" or "House of God",Bleeker and Widegren, 1988, p. 257. also transliterated ''Beth El'', ''Beth-El'', ''Beit El''; el, Βαιθήλ; la, Bethel) was an ancient Israelite sanct ...

to form

AlaskaOne AlaskaOne (or Alaska One) was a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member network of public television stations based in Fairbanks, Alaska from 1995 to 2012. It served communities in Alaska outside Anchorage. It was operated by the University of ...

, a network of PBS stations serving all of Alaska outside of Anchorage. The three stations formed the Alaska Public Broadcasting Service to air a common PBS schedule. This move was made in hopes of sharing administrative costs.Lean, Reba
AlaskaOne dissolving; KUAC TV taking over

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner The '' Fairbanks Daily News-Miner'' is a morning daily newspaper serving the city of Fairbanks, Alaska, the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the Denali Borough, and the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the farthest north ...

, 2012-06-16. KTOO and KYUK occasionally broke off from the AlaskaOne feed to air programming relevant to their areas, while KUAC-TV used its massive translator network to deliver AlaskaOne programming across the Interior. On November 18, 2011. the APBS board voted to transfer the operation of the AlaskaOne feed to Alaska Public Telecommunications, owner of Anchorage's PBS station, KAKM. In response, UAF, which cast the lone dissenting vote, announced on December 11 that KUAC-TV would break off from AlaskaOne and revert to being a separate locally-focused PBS station on July 1, 2012. UAF contended that a single statewide PBS service would not meet the needs of the Interior. On July 1, KUAC-TV resumed its original branding of "KUAC TV9," while KTOO and KYUK joined with KAKM to form

Alaska Public Media Alaska Public Media is a non-profit organization with member television and radio stations that are part of PBS, NPR and other public broadcasting networks. Formerly known as Alaska Public Telecommunications, Inc., Alaska Public Media relies upon ...

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: In 2004, the station signed on the first high-definition public television service in Alaska.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KUAC-TV shut down its analog signal, over

channel 9, in April 2009. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 24 to VHF channel 9.

References

External links

KUAC-FM-TV

YouTube
naugural broadcast of KUAC-TV on December 22, 1971, including introductory comments from University of Alaska president William Ransom Wood {{PBS Alaska 1971 establishments in Alaska Television channels and stations established in 1971 UAC-TV PBS member stations First Nations Experience affiliates