station. The transmitter was donated by Phoenix College, whose KFCA had already upgraded to higher power. NAU had also been donated equipment to possibly operate an AM station at 1230 kHz, which was being vacated by KEOS in its move to 690 kHz; however, an FCC freeze on new AM station applications forestalled any use of the frequency. Going regional The small FM station began its effort to transform into a regional outlet at the end of the 1970s. In 1979, it filed to increase power to 100,000 watts to comply with FCC rules restricting 10-watt Class D stations like KAXR; the Arizona Board of Regents included funds in its 1980–81 budget to carry out the upgrade. The university had opted to go all the way because it said such a major upgrade could attract grant support. On August 18, 1980, KAXR became KNAU, a set of call letters that previously belonged to the scrapped freighter Kenneth McKay; the designation had been denied originally to the station because of its use by the ship. The first full-time station manager was also hired as part of the move away from a small student station to a regional NPR station, which would fill one of the public network's coverage gaps. Even though some grant money had already been allocated, budget cuts at NAU almost ended the project before it began and threatened the station's future. However, station officials were able to allay the university's concerns by using university personnel for construction and cutting the budget for studio equipment, and in May 1982, the project got the green light, only to be held up again when an architect's bid for new studios came in much higher than budgeted. In March 1983, after NAU's College of Creative Arts reorganized some offices and relocated speech pathology to another building, space in the Creative Arts Building was identified to house KNAU studios, and the project was approved for good. A transmitter was built on Mormon Mountain, while a satellite uplink was added for the reception of public radio programming. On November 28, 1983, KNAU switched from 10 watts at 88.5 MHz to 100,000 watts at 88.7 MHz. In its metamorphosis, KNAU not only had expanded its coverage area, but it had also hired its first news director, expanded its record library from 300 to 1,500 classical selections, and added more full-time staff. Full public radio status