About MEMS
Marianas Educational Media Services, Inc. (“MEMS”) is a Guam-based nonprofit organization created in 2001 to extend community-supported, non-commercial, educational radio services to residents of the Mariana Islands. Its founders were broadcast regulatory engineer Robert F. Kelley, Jr., attorney Frederick J. Horecky and non-commercial station manager and volunteer producer Darryl A. Borja Taggerty. Current board members are Darryl Taggerty, Michael J. Perez and Louis L. Ross III. Our broadcast engineer and Chief Operator is Bob Kelley.
Our first efforts were to test extending Guam’s Catholic radio station KOLG to Saipan, using an IP link to an FCC Part 15 transmitter. We then applied for three full-power FM NCE broadcast frequencies on Saipan and in American Samoa during the 2007 application window.
While waiting for the FCC’s decision, Northern Marianas College reluctantly ceased funding its NPR-affiliate campus station KRNM, which had been designed and constructed by Mr. Kelley ten years earlier. MEMS offered to assist with immediate cost-saving measures and managing the station as volunteers, and requested NMC to perpetuate its broadcast service by transferring the license to MEMS. The transfer was approved by NMC and the FCC in September of 2009. MEMS subsequently requested a bulk transfer of stranded station hardware assets, which was also approved. KRNM and its translator license K206BM thus became MEMS’ first broadcast services, at 88.1FM and 89.1FM. Its local studios were eventually dismantled, while the translator continued to simulcast Public Radio for Guam. KRNM 88.1FM has been operating at the minimum level required to maintain the license. Most recently, KRNM is being prepared to carry classical programming from The Classical Station, WCPE, in North Carolina.
Licenses for KBTB, KMOP and KCKD were approved in 2011. KMOP was offered to Dr. Edwin Supit for his Melodies of Prayer inspirational Christian programming, while KCKD was offered to the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa for Catholic programming. Under MEMS, KCKD became a full-time rebroadcaster of EWTN’s radio service. Both stations were outfitted for unattended operation via IP at Kannat Tabla. Control studios are maintained at Suite 301 Sunny Plaza, Tamuning, Guam. KBTB (now KVPP)’s license was acquired from MEMS in 2012 by a religious broadcaster in American Samoa.
Currently, MEMS’ stations are silent, due to an undetermined extent of damage incurred during high winds in September 2021. We were operating on spares and auxiliary equipment following significant losses suffered in Typhoon Yutu. In January 2020, we traveled to Saipan to inspect new potential transmitter sites and compile a detailed list of equipment to be replaced. Since then, COVID-related travel restrictions have prevented us from traveling to replace and upgrade our transmitters and antennas as planned.
MEMS will approach the Marianas community once again for support when its services are restored and stable.
Future projects include producing Micronesian radio programming in vernacular languages on Guam.
