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Some people are just fed up with the saturation of the airwaves with commercials, content delivered to the masses by media conglomerates.
The residents of Harbor Country are one such group. So, the citizens of the eight southwest Michigan communities that make up Harbor Country — which extends from Michiana to Sawyer — went the way of the revolutionaries by creating their own radio station. Radio Harbor County (WRHC), is a low-power FM station geared toward giving the airwaves back to the public.
“Most of us are spectators — we watch television, listen to the radio, sit and take what is handed out; but how many people go out and play, go out and participate?” asks Lee Artz, a media studies professor at Purdue Calumet and founding member of WRHC. “The former creates consumers, but not good citizenry. There needs to be dialogue between people and the world in which we live, and this is a good way to continue this process.”
WRHC-LP, also known as 106.7FM, is a 600-square-foot, nonprofit, 100-watt radio station based in Three Oaks that will soon blanket roughly a 10-mile diameter of airwaves between New Buffalo and Sawyer, Mich. The mission behind the entity: to amplify the undercurrent of the existing population, to share stories, talents, music, ideas and information. In essence, a real community radio station that echoes the unheard voices of Harbor Country.
The station’s slogan is: “100 Watts of Power. 1000 Watts of Community.” The term “community” is vital to the grassroots endeavor. In fact, the whole concept started with the word. Five years ago, the Harbor Country Forum was formed by a dozen citizens from New Buffalo, Three Oaks, and Chikaming to discuss issues of the area.
At around the same time, Artz, future host of “Media Bites,” a weekly commentary show, attended a national conference on public broadcasting and learned of the low-power FM (LPFM) licenses that the Federal Communications Commission FCC introduced in January 2000. The program, initiated by former FCC Chairman William Kennard, was a means to reign in unlicensed pirate channels and offer reparations for the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated radio and set the stage for media consolidation. The idea was for numerous neighborhood radio stations with educational purposes to exist between the frequencies of the existing full-power stations that operated on tens of thousands of watts. The LPFMs were to be run by volunteers who wanted to return radio to its roots, those fed up with the nonlocal automated stations that provide generic content to hundreds of stations. Groups of people around the country jumped at the opportunity, including in Louisiana, Chesapeake Bay, Calif., and Florida, in addition to Harbor Country. “When I came back, I talked to the forum about it and everyone thought it was a wonderful idea,” says Artz, a member of the Union for Democratic Communications. “So we initiated a program for LPFM in the area. We had a short window, just 30 days, to get our applications in to the FCC for our low power licenses. In cooperation with many groups, we prepared applications for three separate low-power FM licenses — one each for New Buffalo, Three Oaks and Chikaming.”
In 2003, the FCC denied New Buffalo’s and Chikaming’s applications on technicalities with frequency availability, but Three Oaks received a permit to build in October 2004. The group had 18 months to build, but the community had the studio finished in six months. Dozens of community members volunteered to help build the studio at 505 W. Locust St., raise an antenna on top of the Three Oaks water tower, paint a mural in the indoor wall of the station, and donate equipment, time and money to get the station up and running. Very much in the vein of an old-fashioned barn-raising, the community built a solid foundation now supported by a roster of more than 50 programmers.
Shows already on the roster include a jazz program with Union Pier resident Robin McBride, a record producer who produced Buddy Miles’ hit, “Them Changes.” “Dial-A-Deal” is an auction hosted by business owners Penny Knowlton of Penny’s Little People and Dianne Ashcroft of the Spectacle Shop in Three Oaks. Listeners also can tune into yoga with local fitness guru Jaime Miciunas, or check in on a weekly roundtable discussion chaired by lawyer Martin Dzuris.
“To get a show, you don’t donate money, you show an interest,” says Gail Isaacson, one of the station's supporters. Once WRHC receives the FCC’s approval to broadcast, it is ready to hit the airwaves with at least eight hours of programming a day. With a tight budget of a couple of thousand of dollars per year for operation purposes, the ultimate goal is to become a 24/7 operation with Webcasting abilities.
“It’s a real positive thing in the area,” says Kim Pruitt, a trustee and chair of fundraising on the radio station’s seven-member executive board. “If you look at the conglomerates, you see just how much they miss out on a lot of details of their surroundings.”
Pruitt moved to Harbor Country two years ago to open her art gallery, Dawning. It was soon after when she realized her new home was situated in sort of a pocket, where news from South Bend and Chicago would come over the radio, but things like the weather would be guess timates since neither location was giving them local forecasts. Now, she’s actively making sure that doesn’t continue to happen. “Radio is something different for me, but the word ‘revolution’ speaks to me when you refer to it,” Pruitt says. “A lot of people seem to be realizing there’s just a need for it.”
According to Artz, there are 1,500 LPFM stations across country. But that number is still small compared with the accumulation of bandwidths owned by a handful of media companies. It’s one of the few ways left for the public to get on the air. “And it’s something for family and friends to do together,” notes Artz, adding, “WRHC only exists for us as a means, a venue to enhance and improve community conversations.”
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