Tiny Republic Radio Station Faces Static In Return To The Air

Low-power community radio stations such as the popular, if illegal, Republic Community Radio will soon be allowed to return to the airwaves.

The inactive Republic station still faces a major hurdle, but the Federal Communications Commission seemed to have it in mind last month when lifting its ban on anemic transmitters.

Consider:

The new 10- to 100-watt FM stations must be noncommercial and they must be operated, at least for two years, by a local government, association or nonprofit corporation.

Three-fourths of board members must live within 10 miles of the stations - which, at 100 watts, would have an estimated 3-mile range.

An “established community presence of at least two years” of the station is good for extra credit in the event of competing applications.

Check, check, check.

Republic Community Radio operated for three years as a nonprofit corporation composed of a cross-section of Republic residents. With castoff equipment and a lot of ingenuity, the 10-watt station delivered news bulletins and high school sports coverage as well as music. It even coordinated community events such as parades.

A number of other low-powered, unlicensed stations operated in northeastern Washington at the same time, but most of them belonged to individuals. None had the community involvement of the Republic station.

“It was really kind of a neat thing,” said Republic Community Radio President Grant Tolton. “It just struck everybody that it was too bad it was illegal.”

So, Tolton said, board members “were in seventh heaven” last month when the FCC decided to eliminate red tape that made radio licenses too costly for most community groups. Then Tolton and Republic’s other amateur disc jockeys read the fine print.

Past transgressions are not forgiven, the FCC said. Groups are ineligible for a license if they continued to operate unlicensed stations after the FCC told them to stop.

Like numerous others in the “microbroadcasting” movement that prompted the FCC to change its policies, Republic Community Radio continued to broadcast after being told to quit. Tolton said the station remained on the air about a year after an FCC inspector delivered a cease-and-desist order.

The inspector was “real friendly” and seemed to be winking, Tolton said. Everyone knew at the time that public policy was moving toward reintroduction of the low-power community stations that flourished earlier in the century, before high-powered regional stations took over the industry and the FCC banned stations with less than 100 watts to prevent conflicts.

But the FCC wasn’t winking. The agency won a court victory against an unlicensed station in Miami that persuaded Republic Community Radio to shut down in October 1998.

“We quit broadcasting a year and a half ago, so we thought we’d been good for a long time,” Tolton said.

The problem is that the group wasn’t good soon enough to suit the FCC. Anyone who continued broadcasting more than 24 hours after receiving a cease-and-desist order is ineligible for one of the new low-power licenses - or any license from the FCC.

“We could gamble that maybe they won’t remember or that maybe they’ll not investigate very carefully,” Tolton said.

However, he added, the Republic Community Radio board doesn’t want to take any more chances. The board is now scrambling to find people with no connection to the group to form a new organization and apply for a license when the new regulations take effect in mid-April.

That’s a big challenge in a small town like Republic.

“We don’t have a whole big pool to choose from up here,” Tolton said.

It’s especially small if you consider that a large portion of Republic’s 1,040 residents were involved in one way or another with what one businessman called “our little illegal radio station.”

“We really had some original, fun broadcasting up here,” Tolton said. “Everybody kind of wonders what kind of a disc jockey they’d be and, for a while, they could actually be one.”

A land surveyor by day, Tolton hosted a blues show at night. When Tolton and other amateur platter spinners weren’t indulging their widely varied musical tastes, an ingenious system of obsolete computers kept the station running automatically.

Now all that high-tech baling wire in a battered camp trailer will be turned over to a new organization if one can be found.

David Fiske, deputy director of media relations for the FCC, said groups may apply for an exemption from the ban on scofflaws. He offered no encouragement, though.

“In our eyes, it seems kind of mean-spirited - something that some bureaucrat would think of,” Tolton said. “But I’m grateful for the opportunity, so I guess I can’t complain too much.”