WTIP is a community-based public radio station in Grand Marais, Minnesota that serves Cook County, one of the state’s largest counties by area but among the smallest by population. Located at the very northeastern tip of Minnesota, Cook County is a land of remote beauty. Generally blessed with cold weather and snow, there is a long tradition of sleddogs, sleddog racing, and dog sledding in this part of the country.
In the early to mid-seventies, the Gunflint Mail Run became a regularly occurring sleddog race in Cook County. After several years of postponing or cancelling due to poor snow conditions, the event was finally able to happen in 2025 with one 10-dog, 65-mile race. WTIP knew they wanted to cover the event live, but they had to figure out some logistics first.
Matthew Brown, Executive Director for WTIP, reached out to Comrex tech support to see if he could use his ACCESS NX Portable unit in freezing conditions. Some previous Gunflint Mail Run races had negative degree Fahrenheit temperatures, so he wanted to be prepared for the possibility of extremely cold weather.
ACCESS NX has not been officially tested by Comrex for use in freezing temperatures, so tech support was unable to guarantee its operation; however, they did note that ACCESS NX does generate a bit of heat on its own and recommended treating it like a laptop. Brown decided to move forward with building out a box for his NX unit to accommodate the weather conditions.
On the morning of February 8th, WTIP went live on location from the 2025 Gunflint Mail Run with hosts CJ Heithoff and Matthew Brown kicking off the sled dog race for their audience. During the broadcast, Brown periodically put his hand inside the box to gauge how the unit was holding up and was pleasantly surprised to find it fairly comfortable temperature-wise.
“We used a plastic container with a wool blanket and a heating pad turned all the way up inside. With the outside temperature around 0°F, the unit worked great! With the heat it generated and the heating pad, it was plenty warm in the box. We named it the BEZE (Below Zero) box!”
Aside from dog races in winter, WTIP also uses ACCESS NX to cover canoe races in summer in addition to high school sports year-round. “Having this equipment really opens up what we can do,” said Brown. “It’s easy to use. The small form factor is great – I’m not having to bring out a bunch of gear for every broadcast. And Comrex tech support has been incredibly supportive.”