I've spoken here before about KSJU 91.9 FM, the 100 w non-commercial full power community radio station that tried to get going here in Friday Harbor. The Construction Permit ran out Feb 10, but I got on the Stubblefield Group List (Prometheus) and plead to save it back in late January.
From then to now, due to the work of a number of people including the engineer Michael Brown (Portland, OR) and Skagit Valley College (my suggestion to take over) outside the San Juan Community Radio board, in less than a month and a half, the station is licensed and on the air, complete with transmitter exciter/power amp ERP 100 W, digital EAS/CAP system, SAM broadcaster running playlists. A lot of effort went into it, but the station is indeed licensed.
Now there is time to work on transferring the license to SVC, apply for relocating the antenna and dedicated signal relays, set up programming, online connections, building a studio, etc. The stuff is sitting on 2x4's on a shelf in the tiny server room at the extension college, the antenna is on the roof (much lower than it was originally supposed to be), but it sounds great albeit no Stereo (not sure why) at the moment.
My guess is that the SJCR board was tip-towing with the FCC. The fact is, the FCC wanted to see certain things happening. SVC and Michael Brown put it together, and just met the minimum criteria, with probably no more than $4000 worth of borrowed second-hand gear.
Knowing what you're doing counts. The above even included the fact that the FCC didn't accept Michael's computer model, so he and co-worker had to build it on site (all day on the roof in the rain ... these guys are heros) in order to get the hard data in on time.
Very excellent, Ken Norris, great help from Tiny Radio to make the LPFM lift off the ground into the air!
You are a true radio man, including manager, engineer, programmer and talent, all in one person.
On top of that you submit sample women's voices to far away part 15 stations.
Big time time stuff.
It's always good to hear about a save!
RFB
Yep, we might not see another filing window for this type of station (Class A Non-commercial) in my lifetime!
Looking forward to the window for LPFM sometime toward the end of the year. FHTR might go that route if I can gather enough green energy.
It's not likely that KSJU operating under Skagit Valley College will do livecast interviews, live events, and reports like I do, but I hope it becomes a great local learning resource for radio engineering and broadcasting skills. There are already people interested in those things.