LAKE COUNTY — The community radio station KPFZ 88.1 was on the air Saturday afternoon after what station manager Andy Weiss said was 12 years of waiting.
“It was kind a test and it was success,” Weiss said Monday. The station broadcast sampler music and station identification for approximately two hours after being off of the air for more than two years.
The station broadcast at 104.5 FM, a low-power frequency that reached only portions of the county between 2001 and 2005.
Weiss explained that the station made a difficult choice to go off of the air in order to save money to build a larger station that would reach all of Lake County and four neighboring counties.
The station has until April 25, 2008 to start broadcasting, or the Federal Communications Commission will pull its construction permit, according to Weiss.
After getting a grant from the Lake County Board of Supervisors, raising funds and putting up a transmitter and antenna atop Mount Konocti to broadcast via studio satellite in Lakeport, Weiss called said Saturday was a “big moment.”
“Our job was to link the two together through a wireless Ethernet system, which is a computer system basically just like you have at home where you have a computer in every room of your house. In a house, the wireless computer network extends a couple hundred feet. In our case, it goes about 20 miles. Because that”s a little tougher to get working, we tried last weekend and it didn”t work. This weekend in the middle of a snowstorm on Mount Konocti we got it working,” Weiss said.
“That”s the final step in getting this radio station on the air. It”s a done deal,” Weiss said.
The station currently has 30 programmers lined up to broadcast shows ranging from music to talk. Another 12 to 15 will undergo training March 8, according to Weiss. He added that the station has 168 weekly hours of programming open, and that about half of the current list had two-hour shows.
“We should go on the air in mid-April with about 45 programmers, and we”re looking for more,” Weiss said. Potential programmers should submit and application, go through a training and then will have a live test spot on the air. Anyone interested in becoming a programmer may contact Weiss at 274-2152 for more information.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
