Stanford University via the ATS-1 communications satellite. Other news and music programs were sent to KUAC on midnight Pan Am flights from Oregon. The station also had to survive budget cuts in 1986 that threatened to end the entire UAF broadcasting operation. KUAC also began to expand its coverage into remote areas of the state. This often required innovative engineering solutions. In 1985, a translator was set up to serve Central, Circle and Circle Hot Springs; as grid power was not available at the transmitter site, the facility ran off solar power and was equipped with batteries, allowing it to run during the dark Alaskan winters. In November 1997, KUAC began to air in Nome. Until 1982, the portion of the FM band below 100 MHz, including the typical noncommercial educational reserved band of 88–92 MHz, was reserved in Alaska for telecommunications purposes. As a result, KUAC, as well as other public radio stations in Alaska such as KSKA, operated on licenses that, if sold, could be converted to commercial operation. In 1995, the station landed a $178,000 federal grant to build a new, more powerful facility broadcasting with 38,000 watts at 89.9 MHz—in the reserved band—atop the Ester Dome. By comparison, the 104.7 facility was atop the shorter Bender Mountain at 10,000 watts. 89.9 MHz, initially bearing the call letters KUAB, came to air in April 1997, maintaining public radio service while the studio-transmitter link to the 104.7 transmitter on Bender Mountain was broken. The new facility in the reserved band opened up the ability for the University of Alaska Fairbanks to sell the 104.7 license to a commercial buyer. Capstar, a forerunner to iHeartMedia, acquired the 104.7 license for $205,000 in February 1998. On June 22, that frequency became a commercial alternative rock outlet known as "The Edge"; its call letters changed to KKED on July 10. Since the 2010s, KUAC has contended with years of budget cuts from the state government. Between 2012 and 2017, university funding for the station declined by 56 percent. The station has responded with multiple rounds of staff and service cutbacks. The station eliminated its program director role in 2014. In 2017, KUAC cut ties with the Alaska Public Radio Network—an action contemplated previously—and ceased broadcasting in HD Radio. In 2019, further cuts—from the state, which eliminated all direct funding to public broadcasting, and at the university—prompted the discontinuation of several multicast