Well, I am sorry to say we did not make it to full-time on-the-air by the end of 2015.  But we are making some good progress and I am confident we will meet our deadline in the summer of 2016.

We have been running on-the-air tests, broadcasting for most weekends since November 14, 2015.  We missed a couple of weekends around Christmas for travel and other obligations.

The weekend operation has been very beneficial.  We have been figuring out our equipment and giving it a “burn-in” test.  Our transmitter actually had a failure which we were able to repair.  And our audio processing is getting better each time.  I think we have most of the system working in pretty good order.

For content, we have been using a schedule of selected items from our library of readings.  Each hour starts with a longer selection  (over 30 minutes)  or two medium selections (20-30 minutes) followed by fill-in at the end of the hour from shorter selections. We do get some repetition just because our library is not yet as big as it should be.  But I think it makes an interesting broadcast and I enjoy listening to it.

When we go “live”, we plan to have certain hours dedicated to chapters of longer books, that’s where we are aiming.  But even then we will have a need for the fill-in at the end of the hour.

We are learning how the scheduling software works, how the equipment works, and how the signal gets out.  Learning a lot!

Plans for the future, besides getting on-the-air full time, include internet streaming, addition of RDS to the over-the-air signal, and an integration of our broadcast schedule with the website and social media.

For the moment we have left fund-raising behind.  And we will probably need to come back to that as things develop.  Over the course of 2015 we made a number of presentations to local community groups and had a lot of positive feedback and a few contributions.  I would like to see that grow.  But we are focused on getting on the air to meet the cut-off date requirement of our broadcast license.

Hello!

We have some progress to report.  We ordered and took delivery of (we hope) our last piece of required equipment.  Now we have some substantial configuration work to do.

Our goal is to be on the air before the end of the year and we are making steady progress.

And, a hearty Thank You to the Columbus Rotary Club who allowed us to make a presentation at their September meeting.

I am up a little early this morning and going through the mental checklist about our radio station building project.

I am so happy that we have a working antenna, transmission line and transmitter.  We have a computer with a library of audio books.  And everything is connected together so that we can play the audio books through the transmitter and out over the air.  It works!

Now that the end-to-end operation works there are some other equipment spots to fill.

We need a second computer for downloading more audio books and adding them to the library.  An older laptop should work.   Then I will need to install our  system software and configure it to be able to access the playback library.

We must have the EAS/CAP emergency broadcast box.  Since the FCC recently changed the rules it is not practical to buy a used one, so it may be our single piece of shiny new equipment.  After it is acquired we will need to configure it and place it in the “audio chain”, that series of boxes between the computer and the transmitter.

We need more configuration on our playback/library computer so that we can remotely turn the station off if required.  That’s part of the FCC rules.

Somewhere down the line we want to add RDS to our system.  The idea is to configure it to show the current work being played.  (RDS is that thing in your car radio which shows text while the radio plays.)

Streaming! can’t forget streaming.

And website integration of the schedule, the streaming and links to text.

Keep an eye out for a backup power system, a hefty UPS and maybe a generator.

And, be still my heart, maybe a shed or trailer which we could use as a transmitter room.

Ok, ok, don’t wander too far from the goal:  getting a station on the air.  EAS/CAP is required, a second computer is required, remote on/off is required.

I removed that pesky thermometer from our home page.  I was hoping it would be an inspirational tool to help people see how we were making progress.

I decided the thermometer had outlived its usefulness.  It was saying we still need X amount of money based on our wishlist of shiny new equipment.

We are making progress!  But most of it is by going with inexpensive alternatives to our wishlist.  I wish we could buy the new stuff, but I’m more happy that we are checking off the boxes and getting things built even if it means using used or re-purposed equipment.

Yesterday we were up on the tower doing some prep work for our antenna installation.  I hope to get back up there soon and get our antenna installed. When that happens we will be in a position to start some test transmissions.  That will be exciting!