Randumb Thoughts

Updates when the spirit moves me...

Personal Commentary about current events and issues brought to you by
William C. Walker of WILW Radio.


April 30, 2009

May 2009 Edition...

Randumb Thoughts for May 2009 (part one)

A Lesson In Perseverance or an Exercise in Futility?

I’ll get straight to the point. For the last ten years I’ve attempted to develop a commercial Part 15 AM Radio station. And with each attempt I’ve met with either failure or obstacles that have prevented me from even launching the station. Here is a sampling of some of the issues that have arisen in some of the communities where I either did launch the radio station or attempted to launch the station only to result in having to abandon the effort. I hope that my story will serve as a learning tool for those of you that have faced similar troubles and abandoned your effort. Don’t give up!

I’ve decided to set this column up with year by year blow of some of the events as they transpired that created trouble for the radio station. This seems to be the easiest way to convey the message that is intended with this column and also, to make it easier to follow these events, as they happened.

I’ve decided not to cover the year 1998 even though a lot of events directly related to this subject took place. For the sake of keeping this column relatively short length wise, this will be called Part One and we’ll start with the year 1999 and proceed to the year 2004. Part two which will appear in the month of June will cover the years 2005 to 2009 and then a quick look to the future.

1999

I moved to Cannon Falls, MN to find work and to look at the community as a permanent home for my radio station. Unfortunately, I found no interest in the idea despite the fact this rural town of 3,700 people did not have or never had any local radio.

I then moved to a tiny western Kansas town called Oakley late in the Summer and intended to start my station in that community. Unfortunately, after about a month I threw in the towel when I found far too many people were taking an adversarial posture with my presence in the community.

I returned to Connecticut and sold my Ultra Sensors Trans AM 100 transmitter very late in the year in order to upgrade to the new Hamilton Rangemaster AM1000 transmitter. During this period of transition I worked on a fairly large installation project in a suburb of Boston. In addition I began to do research on communities closer to Connecticut that seemed to offer some potential for a commercial low power AM radio station.

2000

I became a Distributor of the Hamilton Rangemaster and sold my first transmitter and did an installation in northern New York State in the Spring. About that same time I visited the city of Rome, NY and met with the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development to determine whether or not the radio station would be welcome. In addition, I contacted the owner of the Rome Sentinel newspaper to get his perspective on the idea. While the City of Rome was generally enthusiastic of the idea, the owner of the newspaper perceived my station as the enemy and a potential revenue threat to his existing accounts. I decided to put this location on the back burner.

I moved to a small rural town in western Kansas called WaKeeney. I launched the station from a location that proved to be fatal. In addition to being a full mile away from the center of town and the cluster of businesses and homes around it, I had the misfortune to be in a large steel structure which was next to some high voltage power lines. The power lines actually increased my coverage area but took the signal from my transmitter and carried it AWAY from town in the farmland around the town. I could not even get a good signal past the eastern edge of the town. Within a couple of weeks after going on the air, lightning wiped out my transmitter and studio equipment. After this issue arose I decided to leave the air after no more than a few weeks of actual air time.

I also visited Lewiston, Maine, to see if that city offered any potential to develop a commercial Part 15 AM station. Ultimately, I wrote it off due to escalating housing costs. Medina, NY was next on the list and I noted this village of 6,300 people in western NY offered the right demographic for my radio station. This is a place that I kept on my short list for the future.

I finally purchased a Rangemaster transmitter and began testing it in the backyard.

2001

In January I moved to Kansas City and took a job quickly because I was running out of money. More or less this was a quick fix and I decided that based upon past experiences in this area, I would not look at any communities for the radio station in this area. I decided to postpone the search and wait a year or two before again proceeding with the plan.

In December, I quit my job and moved back to Connecticut in order to help my Mother take care of my Grandmother. Again, I had to postpone any idea of starting up a commercial Part 15 AM station.

2002

In the Spring, my station engineer and I decided to get the Rangemaster up and running again to have a little fun when we weren’t working. The station aired seven days a week for a few hours a day, airing mostly music and a little talk and local news and weather. In the Fall we took the station off the air after it was determined my Mother was going to be moving out of her house and into an apartment for the elderly.

During this time I decided to revisit Medina, NY and also to visit a community called Lincoln, Maine. Lincoln is a small town of 5,200 people spread out over 75 miles some 50 miles north of Bangor in northern Maine. Lincoln was also added to the short list and was a place I would consider when it was time to move. Subsequent visits to Medina were beneficial and based upon the feedback I was receiving from local people and even the local government I decided that this was going to be the place to move, once my Mother and my Grandmother moved into the apartment.

2003

In January I moved to Medina and got settled into my new home. Soon after though the first rumblings of trouble began to surface and stories started to change. Previous trips to the Code Enforcement office seemed to indicate that I would not have any problems with the plan I outlined for their office. AFTER I moved in their stories started to change and it was apparent that I was not dealing with an honest zoning department. I also found out, after the fact, that Medina had a very corrupt past and present. This explained why I was having so much trouble with the zoning office and Village Attorney. More or less they were making up regulations that would in effect, make it almost impossible for my station to succeed in any capacity other than a hobby or non commercial entity.

Despite the problems, I signed on the air in April of this year and within a couple of weeks, I had another major problem develop that ultimately led me to take the station off the air after just six weeks of operation. Someone had called the State Police in Buffalo and alleged that my station was interfering with a 10 watt Travelers Information Station at the Buffalo International Airport, that my station could be heard some fifteen miles away on the New York StateThruway and that I had been in trouble with the FCC in the past. After just three days the State Police determined I was not violating any regulations and in addition, determined that the charges were false. They indicated that the FCC was not going to do anything about my station because they were aware that I was running a FCC Type Accepted Rangemaster transmitter.

By this time I was livid and decided to put an end to the station in Medina, NY. I put my home up for sale and moved back to WaKeeney in November of this year in an attempt to try to succeed with the station there one more time.

2004

The station signed on the air from an in town location and again, I ran into problems. The biggest problem again, was technical in nature but this time, it was either bad wiring in the house where I lived and located the station or a problem with the power lines themselves. This time around I started to lose equipment after about six weeks and by the time two months had rolled around I decided to pack it in again because it was getting too costly to have to keep replacing equipment that failed so regularly.

In April I revisited Rome, and found a house that I liked and put in an offer. It was a bank owned property and the offer was accepted. Unfortunately it did not close within 30 to 45 days like it was supposed to and after 60 days I put an end to the deal. The bank countered and said they’d take ANY counter offer but I declined and said I’d look elsewhere. I then visited Oswego, NY and found a couple of properties that appeared to offer a viable alternative to the location in Rome. Unfortunately, at this same time I ran into some issues with their City Hall. Not the corruption I found in Medina but clearly some misunderstandings on their part about what Part 15 AM radio was and how the local regulations applied. Ultimately I gave up because the red tape that I had to wade through to simply launch my station was too great.

About this same time I learned that the house I had been renting in WaKeeney was going to be purchased and that I’d have to move by the end of July. At this stage I started to consider a move to Hamilton, Ohio (city of 60,000 near Cincinnati) and Lincoln, Maine. Ultimately I opted for Lincoln because I thought the peace and quiet would do me some good and because I was able to pick up a property for next to nothing.

The move to Lincoln in July went well with no issues. But I soon learned that my new home was a money pit and despite having put a lot of money into fixing many problems, I simply had another problem replace the previous one, and I had to spend even more money to work on that as well. My station engineer and I briefly launched the station for a couple of weeks as a test around Labor Day but nothing came of it because I was too busy dealing with the problems around the home.

Towards the end of the year it became apparent that I was going to have to spend too much money to fix up the property to get it into suitable shape for living. I decided to start looking at houses in the following areas: Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, Auburn, NY and the Jamestown-Dunkirk area of New York.

I’d like to add that during this five year time period, I made several offers to purchase homes or at least looked at homes in most of these communities and in virtually every case, I ran into some kind of problem that prevented me from buying. In the Auburn, NY case, I had a verbal agreement to purchase a home from an elderly woman, but she passed away before the deal could be completed. In a couple of other instances, I made offers on properties but either someone beat me to the punch or the offer was declined. And in every other case either the homes had issues with power lines or other environmental issues that would negatively impact a Part 15 AM radio broadcast.

Next month I’ll pick up where I left off. The year 2005 began in Lincoln but ended in Buffalo, NY.