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Low-Power Fm Slo-O-O-Wly Taking To The Air
BILL VIRGIN P-I reporter. Seattle Post – Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: Sep 23, 2004. pg. C.2

Abstract (Document Summary)

Low-power FM stations are what the name suggests – limited- range, non-commercial broadcasters. LPFM was opposed by established broadcasters who said the dial was too crowded to accommodate new stations that likely would interfere with their own signals. LPFM advocates say the existing broadcasters simply didn’t want the competition and that they’ll provide the local content most radio stations have given up.

Low-Power Fm Slo-O-O-Wly Taking To The Air
BILL VIRGIN P-I reporter. Seattle Post – Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: Sep 23, 2004. pg. C.2

Abstract (Document Summary)

Low-power FM stations are what the name suggests – limited- range, non-commercial broadcasters. LPFM was opposed by established broadcasters who said the dial was too crowded to accommodate new stations that likely would interfere with their own signals. LPFM advocates say the existing broadcasters simply didn’t want the competition and that they’ll provide the local content most radio stations have given up.

Full Text (889 words)
Copyright Hearst Communications Inc., Hearst Newspapers Division Sep 23, 2004

RADIO BEAT

Remember low-power FM radio?

You are forgiven for not recalling; deployment of the service has moved at a glacial speed.

Low-power FM stations are what the name suggests – limited- range, non-commercial broadcasters. LPFM was opposed by established broadcasters who said the dial was too crowded to accommodate new stations that likely would interfere with their own signals. LPFM advocates say the existing broadcasters simply didn’t want the competition and that they’ll provide the local content most radio stations have given up.

The Federal Communications Commission Web site lists just two applications granted in Washington state for low-power FM stations, in Spokane and Kettle Falls. Another 18 construction permits have been approved, for locales such as Coupeville, Olympia, Morton and Aberdeen. Still more are pending.

Slowly but surely, though, more LPFM operations are making it to the air. One that hopes to do so in the first two months of 2005 is KMRE-LP (102.3), to be operated by Bellingham’s American Museum of Radio and Electricity.

Jonathan Winter, the museum’s president and curator, believes the station could cover as much as six to 10 miles of radius, depending on the terrain. “This station is really going to be an extension of the museum, re-creating radio as it was in the 1930s and ’40s,” Winter says. That means not only radio from the era but original programming. Until the station makes it to the air, the museum is Webcasting at ww.americanradiomuseum.org.

One group that had high hopes for LPFM but has been thwarted in its attempts to get on the air is Voice of Vashon. Jeff Hoyt, the organization’s president, said Voice of Vashon’s application was bounced for running afoul of the rule that requires three channels (think of each point where you can tune on the FM dial as a channel) separation from other stations.

In the meantime, Voice of Vashon has developed its own Web stream (www.voiceofvashon.org) of programming ranging from a local morning show to music programs, even syndicated material (“Democracy Now”).

Hoyt says Voice of Vashon has looked at a host of alternatives to getting on the air from micro-transmitters that don’t require a license to wireless Internet. At one point someone even channeled Voice of Vashon’s Web stream (without the station’s knowledge) to a pirate broadcasting operation. What Hoyt is hoping for now is that the FCC will open space for a non-commercial FM operation, although the dial position he has in mind would require a waiver on the separation issue.

Voice of Vashon has “money in the bank and we’re paying our bills” with extensive community support, Hoyt says. “The challenge for us all along has been to keep internal morale high.”

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or [email protected].

Posted as Good Faith Fair Use: Transformative, educational, nonprofit use of articles, stories, or essays less than 2,500 words, factual in nature, not for use as entertainment or reward, the use is instructional, the place is non-profit multimedia and the use will not negatively affect the value of the copyrighted material.

Resurrect local radio
Edward Wasserman. Knight Ridder Tribune News Service. Washington: Nov 16, 2004. pg. 1

Abstract (Document Summary)
LPFM refers to tiny, nonprofit radio stations — 100 watts or less, about the energy of a light bulb, compared with commercial behemoths 500 times bigger. They have limited reach, perhaps 3 1/2 miles. But while a commercial station averages more than $2.5 million to buy, an LPFM can be operational for as little as $6,000.

Resurrect local radio
Edward Wasserman. Knight Ridder Tribune News Service. Washington: Nov 16, 2004. pg. 1

Abstract (Document Summary)
LPFM refers to tiny, nonprofit radio stations — 100 watts or less, about the energy of a light bulb, compared with commercial behemoths 500 times bigger. They have limited reach, perhaps 3 1/2 miles. But while a commercial station averages more than $2.5 million to buy, an LPFM can be operational for as little as $6,000.

Though puny, LPFM has enormous potential: To beam to underserved localities, to provide a forum for voices that existing broadcasters ignore, to rededicate a sliver of the spectrum to community service, to validate local realities and plans, to remind us all that the cornerstone of U.S. broadcasting has for 75 years been something called localism, the geographic counterpart to the federalism that is praised as rapturously as it is ignored.

That’s when the industry woke up, and its supremely powerful lobby, the National Association of Broadcasters, swung into action – – with the assistance of National Public Radio, normally the petting zoo of progressive causes. The broadcasters got Congress in December 2000 to order a study into their claim that LPFM would interfere with full-power signals. Meantime, Congress required hugely wasteful separation requirements: If a community had a station at 101.1 megacycles, it couldn’t get an LPFM at 99.9 or 101.3. That’s one degree of separation. Nor at 99.7 and 101.5, or even at 99.5 and 101.7. The number of potential stations plummeted.

Full Text (823 words)
(c) 2004, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/TribuneInformation Services.

Sometimes, in our lust for the latest gadgets, we ignore proven tools that are already at hand. So it is with media. We’re enthralled with the universe of Internet applications and the burgeoning of cable and satellite TV. But what about radio?

It’s the truly ubiquitous medium. It’s the workmate of every wage- earning stiff who isn’t lashed to a desktop and a desk. It rides alongside every driver who isn’t rear-ending the car ahead while making a cell call. The U.S. home averages nine radios.

However, as anything but an airborne Muzak service (and soapbox for syndicated blab masters), radio is a disaster. Since the 1996 deregulation law unleashed an unparalleled wave of monopolization, the radio service many of us grew up with has vanished. Local newscasts are a memory. Homegrown musicians might as well play on the sidewalk for quarters. Emergency authorities sometimes can’t get bulletins aired in small towns, whose stations are mere relays for robotic music-feeds from half a continent away.

Even without sweeping new regulations, however, the technology exists to change that, at least a little. Meet low-power FM radio (LPFM). Largely unnoticed — this isn’t the kind of issue that broadcast barons have reason to play up — a quiet struggle has been under way since 1998 to restore some of the public value, and local control, that radio once had.

LPFM refers to tiny, nonprofit radio stations — 100 watts or less, about the energy of a light bulb, compared with commercial behemoths 500 times bigger. They have limited reach, perhaps 3 1/2 miles. But while a commercial station averages more than $2.5 million to buy, an LPFM can be operational for as little as $6,000.

Though puny, LPFM has enormous potential: To beam to underserved localities, to provide a forum for voices that existing broadcasters ignore, to rededicate a sliver of the spectrum to community service, to validate local realities and plans, to remind us all that the cornerstone of U.S. broadcasting has for 75 years been something called localism, the geographic counterpart to the federalism that is praised as rapturously as it is ignored.

The fight over LPFM began after the 1996 telecommunications act, which triggered a predatory roll-up of independent stations. Alarmed by the disappearance of locally owned broadcasters, the Federal Communications Commission — under its pre-Michael Powell leadership — began soliciting applications, and by May 2000 received more than 3,400, from community group, churches, noncommercial entities of all kinds.

That’s when the industry woke up, and its supremely powerful lobby, the National Association of Broadcasters, swung into action – – with the assistance of National Public Radio, normally the petting zoo of progressive causes. The broadcasters got Congress in December 2000 to order a study into their claim that LPFM would interfere with full-power signals. Meantime, Congress required hugely wasteful separation requirements: If a community had a station at 101.1 megacycles, it couldn’t get an LPFM at 99.9 or 101.3. That’s one degree of separation. Nor at 99.7 and 101.5, or even at 99.5 and 101.7. The number of potential stations plummeted.

Two years and $2 million later, the technical study concluded, as expected, that the interference argument was bogus.

LPFM has meanwhile drawn widening grass-roots support at public hearings in South Carolina, Texas and California, where representatives of community groups, musicians, social-service agencies and the like turned out by the hundreds.

But Congress needs to rescind its 2000 law so the FCC can clear the backlogged applications.

Last June, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced a bill to scrap the technically ridiculous separation rules and authorize as many as 1,000 new stations, roughly five times the number approved so far. Good luck.

The bill, according to the two Capitol Hill staffers I spoke to, is an orphan. The NAB, despite the study’s all-clear, continues to deplore what it calls “shoe-horning more stations onto an already overcrowded radio dial.” And no lawmaker likes to buck the mighty broadcasters when they rise to their full protectionist fury. In introducing his bill, McCain spoke of a tiny Spanish-language station in Fresno, Calif., a music station in New Orleans that showcases local artists and a station in Rockland, Maine, that’s a local alternative to the outlets of the 1,300-station Clear Channel giant. Too bad for others like them. The media millennium will have to wait a bit longer.

——

ABOUT THE WRITER

Edward Wasserman is Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University. He wrote this column for The Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33132, or e-mail him at edward– [email protected].

——(c) 2004, The Miami Herald.Visit The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.herald.com

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail [email protected].

Credit: Knight Ridder Newspapers

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New Station Will Feature A Familiar Voice
BILL VIRGIN P-I reporter. Seattle Post – Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: Apr 7, 2005. pg. C.3

Abstract (Document Summary)
[Sandi Woodruff] also plans to air the station on a translator transmitter based on Capitol Hill, meaning it also should cover much of Seattle. While the translator operates at about the same power range as LPFM, Woodruff says, the tower can be much taller, so the signal could reach from Renton to Mountlake Terrace.

New Station Will Feature A Familiar Voice
BILL VIRGIN P-I reporter. Seattle Post – Intelligencer. Seattle, Wash.: Apr 7, 2005. pg. C.3

Abstract (Document Summary)
[Sandi Woodruff] also plans to air the station on a translator transmitter based on Capitol Hill, meaning it also should cover much of Seattle. While the translator operates at about the same power range as LPFM, Woodruff says, the tower can be much taller, so the signal could reach from Renton to Mountlake Terrace.

The morning host will be Kacie Sommers, who has worked on such stations as KJR (AM and FM), KISW-FM and KBSG-FM. Most recently she was afternoon host on an FM station in Aberdeen. Woodruff herself will take the afternoon shift.

Once on the air KCFL-LP’s programming will be “fairly free form,” Woodruff says, with an eclectic music mix of current and classic pop, country, adult contemporary and jazz songs, combined with news and information and comedy. Woodruff says she’ll also throw in her own commentary. “I have issues and I want to talk,” she says.

Full Text (733 words)
Copyright Hearst Communications Inc., Hearst Newspapers Division Apr 7, 2005

ON RADIO

A new station – actually, one station on two frequencies – is coming to Seattle and much of the Eastside in the next few weeks, and it plans to debut with a voice familiar to local listeners.

KCFL-LP (104.5) is a low-power FM station that should make it to the air within a week or two, depending on how fast the tower and transmitter can be set up, says Sandi Woodruff, a consulting broadcast engineer who has worked on launching LPFM stations around Washington.

With its transmitter situated in Fall City, KCFL’s home signal coverage could reach as far as Redmond and parts of Bellevue that aren’t blocked by terrain, she adds.

Woodruff also plans to air the station on a translator transmitter based on Capitol Hill, meaning it also should cover much of Seattle. While the translator operates at about the same power range as LPFM, Woodruff says, the tower can be much taller, so the signal could reach from Renton to Mountlake Terrace.

Woodruff has permits for several translator frequencies in hand, but hasn’t decided which one KCFL-LP will use. The lease for the Capitol Hill tower is effective May 1, so the station could debut soon after that.

The morning host will be Kacie Sommers, who has worked on such stations as KJR (AM and FM), KISW-FM and KBSG-FM. Most recently she was afternoon host on an FM station in Aberdeen. Woodruff herself will take the afternoon shift.

Once on the air KCFL-LP’s programming will be “fairly free form,” Woodruff says, with an eclectic music mix of current and classic pop, country, adult contemporary and jazz songs, combined with news and information and comedy. Woodruff says she’ll also throw in her own commentary. “I have issues and I want to talk,” she says.

Woodruff is also planning to put on the air the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento program of novelty and comedy songs.

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Radio head Q&A
Ilene Denton. Sarasota Magazine. Sarasota: Oct 01, 2005.Vol.28, Iss. 1; pg. 31

Full Text (267 words)
Copyright Sarasota Magazine Oct 01, 2005

Fogartyville Cafe co-owner David Beaton led the band of community activists and New College students who brought WSLR-LPFM Radio (96.5 FM) to the local airwaves in August. The nonprofit, noncommercial station offers 24 hours of music and public affairs programseverything from the World Spirit Show to Sarasota Neighborhoods and Suncoast Sports Scene.

Radio head Q&A
Ilene Denton. Sarasota Magazine. Sarasota: Oct 01, 2005.Vol.28, Iss. 1; pg. 31

Full Text (267 words)
Copyright Sarasota Magazine Oct 01, 2005

Fogartyville Cafe co-owner David Beaton led the band of community activists and New College students who brought WSLR-LPFM Radio (96.5 FM) to the local airwaves in August. The nonprofit, noncommercial station offers 24 hours of music and public affairs programseverything from the World Spirit Show to Sarasota Neighborhoods and Suncoast Sports Scene.

It’s all hosted by volunteers, and, because it’s a low-power station, covers a limited geographic range of just three to five miles around its production studio,

” Radio pulls people together, and locally based radio is a community-builder,” says Beaton. “We want people to express themselves.”

Q. What’s your background?
A. Radio’s been a big part of my life. I was in a radio club in high school and at Michigan State I worked on the college NPR station.

Q. Who are your volunteers?
A. We have 30 to 40 local programmers: lawyers, doctors, middle school kids acupuncturists. an hour each weekday will be hosted by Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences students; there will be a block of Spanish music blocks from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Q. How are you funding the station?
A. We raised about $25,000 from the community to get started. New College is giving us studio space, and we’re goint to sell memberships and have fund-raising concerts. .

Q. What void are you filling?
A. Getting information out that is not heard on mainstream radio. We’re about sustainability and decent social justice. Out goal is to engage people, but we won’t be airing views form the extreme right.

Q. So I guess you won’t be running the Rush Limbaugh show?
A. Rush Limbaugh is on enough programs as it is.

Ilene Denton. Sarasota Magazine.

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Low-power FM’s powerful pal
Sam McManis. The Sacramento Bee. Sacramento, Calif.: Jul 18, 2006. pg. E.1

Abstract (Document Summary)
Only two nonprofits in the area — KDEE (97.7 FM) in Rancho Cordova-Citrus Heights and KDRT (101.5 FM) in Davis — received LPFM licenses. Both went on the air in 2004, but their 100-watt signals don’t reach Sacramento.

Low-power FM’s powerful pal
Sam McManis. The Sacramento Bee. Sacramento, Calif.: Jul 18, 2006. pg. E.1

Abstract (Document Summary)
Only two nonprofits in the area — KDEE (97.7 FM) in Rancho Cordova-Citrus Heights and KDRT (101.5 FM) in Davis — received LPFM licenses. Both went on the air in 2004, but their 100-watt signals don’t reach Sacramento.

The one low-power station that does broadcast in Sacramento, KNOZ (96.5 FM), does so without a license. The “pirate” station recently was fined $20,000 and ordered to shut down by the FCC’s San Francisco office. As of Monday, KNOZ was still on the air.

Oui, oui: Our award for the most original local TV news report goes to News10’s Jonathan Mumm, who did the voiceover for a story on the Sacramento French Film Festival entirely in French — with subtitles. Mumm pulled it off with elan. His accent and hushed, come- hither vocal intonations brought to mind Maurice Chevalier.

Full Text (1015 words)
Copyright The McClatchy Company Jul 18, 2006

You know what we need in Sacramento?

More radio stations.

“What?” you might ask, incredulously. “You gotta be kidding. We’ve already got enough ranting talking heads, both left- and right- wing. We’ve got too many stations playing old Eagles and Foghat tunes. We’ve now even got two country stations with almost identical playlists.”

Yes, more.

But not more of the same.

We’re talking about low-power FM stations, which came into existence in 2000 when the Federal Communications Commission began allowing licenses for 100-watt stations to nonprofit organizations.

The application process proved too onerous for many local nonprofits after Congress — bowing to pressure from the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio — quickly passed the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act of 2000 to severely curb the FCC’s licensing authority.

That legislation increased the number of channels that low-power stations must protect from interference on each side of its signal from two to three. In urban markets, where the radio dial often is crowded, it became nearly impossible for stations to find room to broadcast.

Access Sacramento, which airs two community television stations (Channels 17 and 18 in town), and a handful of other nonprofit applicants in 2000 saw their hopes of getting low-power licenses dashed because of the change in the requirements.

Only two nonprofits in the area — KDEE (97.7 FM) in Rancho Cordova-Citrus Heights and KDRT (101.5 FM) in Davis — received LPFM licenses. Both went on the air in 2004, but their 100-watt signals don’t reach Sacramento.

The one low-power station that does broadcast in Sacramento, KNOZ (96.5 FM), does so without a license. The “pirate” station recently was fined $20,000 and ordered to shut down by the FCC’s San Francisco office. As of Monday, KNOZ was still on the air.

Now, there may be hope for the little guy in Sacramento.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has introduced an amendment to a wide- ranging telecommunications bill that would reduce the number of channels protected from interference back to two.

If passed, that could open slots for Sacramento nonprofits to get slots.

“We’re excited,” says Ron Cooper, executive director of Access Sacramento. “When that window of opportunity comes, we’ll be there.”

Access Sacramento already airs a radio network, The Voice, on its two cable access TV channels — but you must press the secondary audio program button to hear it. The Voice, which features music of many genres and community news programming, also broadcasts at www.accesssacramento.org.

“We’d just need a transmitter and a tower, and we’d be ready to go (on radio),” Cooper says. “We’ve been ready for 20 years now.”

Cooper hopes it won’t take another 20 years before The Voice can finally be heard on the radio. At KDRT, it took four years and a lot of work to reach the air.

“It wasn’t easy, even though we had no interference from neighboring commercial stations,” says Jeff Shaw, KDRT’s station manager. “Just running at 100 watts, we have to protect like we’re running a 9,000-watt station. It takes a lot of resources.”

Even if McCain’s amendment makes it into the final telecommunications bill being debated in the Senate, it won’t help a “pirate” station such as KNOZ go legit. Rules state that to receive a low-power license, a station must not have broadcast illegally in the past.

Access Sacramento has stayed on the right side of the law, biding its time.

“This is important,” Cooper says, “in creating opportunities on the air for speakers other than white males from major corporations to offer a breath of fresh air on the radio.”

Chopper coming: Have you seen the cool new station promo on Channel 3, the one that looks like an outtake from “Apocalypse Now”? The spot opens with eerie synthesizer music reaching a crescendo with sounds of chopper blades mixed in. Then a helicopter rises over a setting sun, followed by the words (white on black): “IT’S COMING.”

“It” is KCRA’s new helicopter. No word from KCRA honchos on when it will debut, and they’re also being mum on what fancy things it will do.

Here’s an idea: Maybe KCRA can sell its old helicopter to Channel 13, which has been promising for a year to get a chopper.

Movin’ on down I-80: News10 afternoon traffic reporter Julie Durda — best known for her daily traffic Webcasts from 3:30 to 6 p.m. — will leave the station Monday for a similar position at KRON in San Francisco. Durda will do traffic and become a VJ (video journalist) in her new gig.

Oui, oui: Our award for the most original local TV news report goes to News10’s Jonathan Mumm, who did the voiceover for a story on the Sacramento French Film Festival entirely in French — with subtitles. Mumm pulled it off with elan. His accent and hushed, come- hither vocal intonations brought to mind Maurice Chevalier.

So what’s the deal? Is Mumm originally from Paris?

Would you believe Lynchburg, Va.?

New star at 4 p.m.: Channel 13’s 4 p.m. news is a week old, and the highlight is the breath of fresh air that is the station’s Web site editor, Vanessa Amezquita. The anchors chat up Amezquita about what users are viewing on the station’s Web site. She’s funny and articulate, and has better camera presence than some of the “talent.”

By the way, that new face on the 4 o’clock news Monday is Bridget Cannata, who comes here from KSHB in Kansas City.

And finally: CBS Radio laid off 115 employees last week, and Sacramento’s KHTK (1140 AM) and KYMX (Mix 96) took a hit. Station manager Michael Hernandez was among those given the pink slip.

The big surprise was word that Ken Kohl, vice president of KCBS and another station in San Francisco, was being laid off. Kohl was the operations manager at Sacramento’s KFBK (1530 AM) and KSTE (650 AM) until last fall, when he left to go to a larger market.

Media Savvy by The Bee’s Sam McManis runs Tuesdays in Scene. He can be reached at (916) 321-1145 or [email protected].

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Low on power, high on enthusiasm ; Scrappy radio station offers Sarasota an eclectic mix of programs — all on a budget of $25,000
ERIK MAZA [email protected]. Sarasota Herald Tribune. Sarasota, Fla.: Jun 26, 2006. pg. BS.1

Low on power, high on enthusiasm ; Scrappy radio station offers Sarasota an eclectic mix of programs — all on a budget of $25,000
ERIK MAZA [email protected]. Sarasota Herald Tribune. Sarasota, Fla.: Jun 26, 2006. pg. BS.1

Abstract (Document Summary)
With the money raised during the fundraiser, [Arlene Sweeting] hopes to move the antenna to the Jewish Community Center, which is ideally centered between the signals of the Bible Broadcasting Network and WINK in Fort Myers. At present, those two signals are so strong, they have severely curtailed the reach of WSLR.

A resident of Sarasota for 23 years, [Joe Jacco] is the prototypical host at WSLR, a self-admitted hippie long on spirit but short on experience.

[email protected] Joe Jacco starts his “The Revolution Starts Now” program, which features protest and folk music, at the WSLR studio in Sarasota on Thursday. The station started a weeklong on-air fundraiser Friday.

Full Text (823 words)
Copyright New York Times Company Jun 26, 2006
After almost a year on the air, WSLR 96.5 FM is still not much of a radio station.

It can’t be heard beyond Interstate 75 to the east, or beyond Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way to the north, where the Bible Broadcasting Network’s transmitter holds sway.

It still doesn’t have much of an audience, though it bills itself as the community’s radio station.

It does, however, have something most struggling radio stations don’t: spunk, and about 80 spunky programmers dedicated to making it work.

In the past year, the station manager, Arlene Sweeting, has assembled a programming playlist that caters to every niche in the community without a voice on the dial — from scrappy 8-year-olds to aging hipsters.

On Friday, the station began its first weeklong on-air fundraiser, in hopes of raising enough money to move its antenna to a new location and fund its $25,000 bare-bones budget.

Already, it has received an anonymous $10,000 matching grant.

“If everyone in Sarasota listened at least once, then we’ve accomplished our goal,” said Joe Jacco, host of the ’60s music show “The Revolution Starts Now.”

“We’ll always be low-powered, but we won’t always be unheard- of.”

Although it hasn’t made waves, as one of its founders announced last July (ripples is more like it), the station now produces two weekly half-hour local news programs, 57 regular shows and broadcasts more than 60 hours of uninterrupted music a week.

Three of the regular shows — “Hip Hop Summit,” “Leafy’s Chinese Hour” and “Give Peace a Dance” — were added within the past two weeks.

With the money raised during the fundraiser, Sweeting hopes to move the antenna to the Jewish Community Center, which is ideally centered between the signals of the Bible Broadcasting Network and WINK in Fort Myers. At present, those two signals are so strong, they have severely curtailed the reach of WSLR.

A new antenna 20 feet higher would finally allow WSLR to reach the New College of Florida campus, among other spots.

Sweeting says she also wants to start paying the news director, Ed Ericsson, whose biweekly program provides in-depth features about the area and uses student and community-based reporters.

The list doesn’t stop there.

Sweeting’s wish list includes a production studio, an ISDN phone line for a more reliable signal, an Arbitron subscription to measure audience size and an Internet broadcast. She can’t afford any of that stuff now, but the list speaks to the undaunted ambitions of the station’s founders.

“We’re not struggling to pay the bills, but we lack the funding to take it to the next level,” she said.

The idea for WSLR began about six years ago when the Federal Communications Commission started handing out licenses to low-power stations, and people like Sweeting started applying for their own frequencies.

Low-power FM was created for non-commercial community stations that broadcast at less than 100 watts. According to the FCC, there are 712 such stations across the country, including 42 in Florida. There are about 500 other stations seeking licenses now across the country, including 50 in Florida.

There is just one broadcasting in Sarasota: WSLR.

The goal behind the station was to create an outlet for people like Jacco, who had grown dissatisfied with radio stations that were too commercial and too repetitive.

A resident of Sarasota for 23 years, Jacco is the prototypical host at WSLR, a self-admitted hippie long on spirit but short on experience.

Although the focus of his show is on protest songs from the 1960s, “The Revolution Starts Now” is a mixed bag of attitudes and styles.

All of his shows end with the Steve Earle song that inspired the show’s title, a tune that might as well have been written about the scrappy underdogs at WSLR.

“The revolution starts now, in your own hometown, in your backyard,” the song goes

It doesn’t matter if it takes a while for WSLR to find a real audience, Jacco said. For now, the important thing is that people in the community are finally getting involved.

“We’re just like WMNF 25 years ago,” he said, referring to the non-commercial radio station of Tampa that became the first community radio station in the state in 1979.

For Jacco, Sweeting and the rest, it doesn’t matter if the studio is inside a house that’s still under construction.

It also doesn’t matter if the antenna hasn’t been moved, or that Sarasota still hasn’t tuned in, or that the station is sometimes reduced to a hissing sound on the radio dial.

They want to make waves.

“We aim to be grassroots radio,” Jacco said. “I feel like an evangelist when I talk about the station. It’s my cause.”

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