BY MICHELLE KIM

It’s been a long time coming, but Weare’s public access cable channel, WTV, and its facilities are nearly ready for public use.

“It’s been frustrating. We’ve been at the 95 percent level all year,” said Cable Committee Vice Chairman Paul Hague. But now, “we’re 99.9 percent there.”

He said they still need a couple of pieces of equipment that will allow the computer to communicate with the DVD player.

“We’re waiting on our contractor, Integrisys, to come up with that final link in the chain,” Hague said.

In the two years and almost $20,000 it’s taken to upgrade the existing equipment and train the cable volunteers, the Cable Committee faced a number of hiccups along the way.

“We’d get ready to go and find out we had to do one more thing,” said Willis Ottery, chairman of the Cable Committee.

One of the biggest challenges, has been maintaining and passing along the knowledge on how to use the equipment, according to Ottery. Weare’s cable channel has no paid staff who can make the channel a priority and the current volunteers, while dedicated, are also busy with regular jobs and activities.

There was a representative from the equipment supplier who had been training volunteers on how to use the new machines, but when he had a stroke and died, he took most of the knowledge with him. So when volunteers tried to record the 2007 town hall meeting for rebroadcasts, they found only blank CDs. It was not until much later they discovered the meeting had been recorded into the machine itself.

To prevent disruptions like that from happening again, the committee is trying to spread the knowledge around and train as many people as possible, said Ottery.

They’re also compiling detailed documentation of how to use the equipment and how it’s interconnected, said Hague.

Cable revenues brought in a little more than $42,000 to the town last year. The Board of Selectmen is working on a new contract with the cable company, said Selectman Heleen Kurk.

Currently, WTV is running notices and School Board meetings on channel 17 and public and governmental meetings on channel 6.

“I think people have largely forgotten about it except for the bulletin board,” said Hague.

Ottery believes the new equipment and editing program should make it much easier for the public to produce shows or notices at WTV’s facilities in the town offices. For instance, it used to require at least six volunteers on the old equipment to tape a show in-studio. Now, it takes only one person to control the three cameras, lights and sound, thanks to a  joystick-like control panel.

There’s also a digital handheld camera available to record events.

“I’d like to see more local programs and let people know more about their communities,” said Ottery.