VOICES of REASON Radio Grant received

Hello Founders and Supporters,

Good News! First: Gene Perry, webmaster for Sustainability Norman, has volunteered to design a website for VOICE of REASON Radio. Susan Cogan, NUUF President and graphic artist, is working on a logo. She must finish prior commitments first, but as soon as those are done Susan, Gene and I will collaborate on building the website. Any input from other artists or graphic designers is most welcome. After all, this is Community Radio!

Also, following the Sustainability Conference program, Communications Professor Clemencia Rodriguez approached with an offer to set up a listserv for us. Furthermore, her expertise in communications is in Radio! We definitely are excited to be working with her and the multitude of resources she can bring to this endeavor. Our “Community” just got a lot bigger!

More Good News! We are in the “short stack” of the FCC’s workload. The FCC has sorted through the 3,600 applications received in October and are now working on those who have no competitors, aka, “singletons.” They have also sorted out a group in the 2, 3 and 4 competitor range which they call the “short stack.” That’s us! All the rest of the applicants have 5 or more competitors, aka, “daisy-chains.” One unfortunate group has 72 competitors. We are incredibly lucky to have only 2 competitors.

The FCC estimates they will work through the “short stack” in 8 to 12 months. All the others will probably take years.

And the wait is almost over. In March we applied for a Unitarian Universalist Funding Grant for $5,126 for Phase One of this project. These funds are designated for the anticipated engineering and attorney fees. These fees would include moving the tower and possibly filing a Petition to Deny. Last week, the Chair of the UU Funding Committee called for additional information. She said a decision will be made in about two weeks. Our discussion was very positive and we are delighted to know that the suspense will soon be over.

Phase Two funding will begin after we are granted the Broadcast License. A Federal grant for Phase Two funding is available and applicants no longer must wait for the License in order to start the application process. We will probably start that grant process this summer.

Thanks for your continued support and donations!

Mary Francis

Our Wish List.

1) We could really use some expertise in grant writing. Contact Mary Francis – mfrancis1@earthlink.net

2) Internet streaming and podcasts are possible prior to actually building the station. Volunteers to help with this should contact Susan Cogan – susan.cogan@gmail.com

3) We continue to take donations and pledges of non-interest-bearing loans. The forms are attached.

VOICES of REASON Radio Grant received

Hello VOICE of REASON Radio Founders and Supporters,

We are pleased to report several new developments.

First, we have submitted a grant to the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program. A few excerpts from the grant are copied below. We have asked for Phase One funding, which we define as pre-license expenses. We anticipate the grant to cover possible future attorney and engineering fees, as well as other expenses.

Second, we have had generous consulting and software donated by Jim Vernon and Kang-Hung Yang. They have coordinated with Susan Cogan and Mary Francis to develop a work/event business timeline, aka Radio Project Timeline, which helps us immensely in our planning. Also, Lucinda Diann has donated her time to develop a spreadsheet of Founder and Supporter info.

Third, the OK Sustainability Network Conference has invited Mary Francis to present a Community Radio workshop on Friday, March 28 at 10:30 a.m. at the Municipal Complex, 201-A W. Gray St. in Norman.

And fourth, we continue to add new Founders and Supporters. As we have reported before, the opportunity to become a Founder (someone who either donates or pledges a non-interest bearing loan) will be held open until the FCC actually notifies us that we have been granted an FCC broadcast license (also called a Construction Permit.) Notification could be tomorrow or next year, since we have no idea where we are in the FCC stack of 3,600 applications. If you know someone who would be interested in becoming a Founder, please forward them the donation & pledge of non-interest bearing loan forms which are attached.

As usual, we attach the previous updates for those who are new to the VOICE of REASON Radio Project.

And “Stay tuned!”
Mary Francis,

NUUF Radio Advisory Chair
405 474-0695

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Excerpts from UUFP grant:
Our goal is to advance our effort to provide a local, progressive message that will encourage civic involvement and increase participation and unified efforts by a wide variety of local organizations interested in public policy dialogue and action. We plan to demonstrate our commitment to building a community which values secular and spiritual freedom, free speech, and the separation of church and state via our VOICE of REASON Radio Project. The outcome would be a progressive, activist community with a liberal perspective, which uses public air space to promote peace, challenge injustice and provide a voice for local issues and peoples who are traditionally ignored by national media and canned religious broadcasters.

A radio station ties a scattered population and its towns together to be the united voice of the people in the area. This is democracy in action. Some of the uses of a radio station are:

• Communicating social programs and services available locally
• Reaching out to underprivileged, isolated, and especially disabled audiences
• A reading service

… Read the full story

Happy Lincoln’s Birthday Radio Founders and Supporters!
Wonderful News!!! – – The VOICE of REASON Radio Project now has over 250 Founders and Supporters!

Since over 100 radio advocates have joined within the last two months, all the previous updates are attached.  I have labeled and done a little cleanup on each one.  (OK, a lot of cleanup.) :^)

We now know that the FCC received over 3,600 applications.  We have no idea where we are in that stack, of course, so the waiting game continues.  The attorney and engineers have warned us that it could be a year or more.

In the meantime, there is plenty to do.  Jim Vernon, Chan, Susan and I are working on a Business Plan and planning to do Podcasts and Internet Streaming.  Our NUUF President, Susan Cogan, is taking the lead on the idea of starting podcasts as soon as we get the Broadcast License.  After the Construction Permit (CP) is granted, Podcasts will introduce our station while we apply for grants and start actual
physical construction of the station and tower.

Once again, I am attaching the Contour for the VOICE of REASON signal, since our new Founders and Supporters have not seen it.

Pacifica continues to hold Wednesday phone conferences for us with guest experts on many topics such as internet streaming, grant writing, budgeting, and hand-holding in general. Several of us are new to radio and the wealth of help and advice provided has been absolutely priceless.  Not only that, once we are up and running, Pacifica has promised us a YEAR of FREE Programming!

Signing off for now!
Mary Francis

Chair, NUUF Radio Advisory Committee

Hello Radio Advocates and Happy Solstice!  It only gets brighter from now on!

We have 41 new folks to add to this VOICE of REASON update, plus the 13 added last week – that makes us a total of 138!!!  (I take my clipboard everywhere I go!)

I’ve also attached (again) a map of the area we will cover … from Chickasha to about Moore.  After the station (89.7 FM) is up and running we can apply for a repeater station to broadcast on into OKC and strengthen the Norman signal.

If you want to be a Founder or Supporter of the VOICE of REASON Project, just let me know and I’ll send you the Pledge Form.  We are holding open the window for Founders until the FCC rules on who gets the license.  That may be a while, since over 3,000 applied!

I have been talking with one of our 2 competitors and it looks like they not only have problems with their engineer, they also have very little knowledge of how the FCC works and have not published their Public Notice nor established a Public File.  In addition, neither of the competitors can beat us on the point system since both are outside the 25 mile radius required for localism. We may not have to do anything to win this, but it’s always better to check out the competition, so that’s what we are doing.

I just spoke with the friendly landowners and it looks like we will adjust our tower site.  The great news is one of our volunteer engineers, Jeff Sibert, has agreed to do that after we all finish our Christmas vacations. One other engineer offered to do it for $500.00 (a bargain, actually) but Jeff is doing it “for the love of community radio.”  He is also the one who alerted us to the engineering mistake one of the competitors made.  Once again, I am just in awe of the generous nature of progressive radio folks.

That’s all from the VOICE of REASON Project!

NUUF’s VOICE of REASON Project is still growing in numbers and pledges!
This update goes out to 84 as a BCC (as requested, for privacy sake.) And there are several I don’t have email addresses for, so we’ll need to mail.

Since our last update (attached those founders/supporters who just recently joined) there have been several developments.

1) The FCC has set a window for settlement opportunities.  If your air space overlaps with another applicant, you are MXed (Mutually eXclusive) andsomeone has to ‘give’ – or possibly withdraw from part of the air space so that overlap does not occur.  If the 2 (in our case 3) MXed parties can agree on new air space that does not overlap, then all can obtain a broadcast license.  The Settlement Period runs until Jan. 7 and after that the FCC will start making decisions about who gets the license.

2) We have discovered that we are MXed by 2 Christian groups.  Both have applied for the same frequency (89.7 FM) and air space as ours (between Chichasha and Moore … see attached map.)  We believe the FCC will throw one out on technical grounds since they “forgot” to include one of the
existing radio stations which covers the area they claim.  Not including that station would have made them the winner.  But FCC rules require them to list ALL overlapping stations and we will point that out after the Jan. 7th settlement period is over, should the FCC not find it earlier and dismiss their
application.

3) The other competitor is not able to claim the localism points (all Board members living within 25 miles of your City of License.)   This gives us the advantage! We are very optimistic. Still, we are searching the competition’s records and application for other errors, and indeed, we have found another
problem and possibly two!  “We’re makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice.” … sorry … just couldn’t help myself.  ;^{)

4) We have also found much friendlier land owners who will allow us to build a tower.  We are planning to make a “minor change” to our application to move the tower site from the “grumpy” land owner to our new friendly folks.  This new site is also going to be cheaper to access when we get ready to build the tower and run electricity to it.  This, of course, requires more services from our engineer, but the savings will be greater than a factor of ten of our engineering costs.  This turn of events put a big smile on my face!

5) On our Wed. phone conference with Pacifica, we spoke with several other engineers and radio station owners who are volunteering to develop some open source software, audio boards and other studio equipment to be shared with all of the “radio newbies” (that’s definitely us, folks) and thereby save a bundle of money on building the station!

I am constantly amazed at the generosity of these… Read the full story

From our Attorney, Michael Couzens!
“Application has been filed.”

Oct. 20, 2007 — And Thursday night, right after we got our exhibits and forms filed, the FCC site crashed!  (Too many others trying to upload their data.)  In response, the FCC extended the filing period to Oct. 22nd (Monday) which gives competitors over the weekend to file for the same air space and frequency we filed for.  Problem: we don’t want them to know our frequency or air space.
Therefore, I will wait until Monday to announce the exact location of our air space and frequency.

(Note added later: A map of our Frequency contour, 89.7 FM, is now attached to all updates. mf)

The next step is to publish legal notices in the paper,  wait for the FCC to process all the applications … maybe in about 2 months, get all our other paperwork, budget,etc. in order and continue to look for pledges of loans or gifts.  According to the engineers, the first two qualifiers (providing 1st NCE service or 2nd service) are eliminated for everyone!  This is a HUGE advantage for us.  Unless there is a technically superior application by one of the competitors (we doubt it, since 4 engineers reviewed the exhibits and data,) the process goes into the “point system”  where we have a definite advantage.

By the way, 2 engineers-Jeff Sibert and Jeremy Styninger,  were volunteers and the other 2, Keith Hammond and Rocky Moncho, worked for under the normal cost!!! The attorney, Michael Couzens also has 25 years experience and national reputation.  Pacifica recommended him and he generously contracted for approximately a third of his normal fee.  When he saw my quote -
“Now is the time to speak truth to religious charlatans.” - his response was, “Right On!”
Once we are granted a Broadcast License, we have 3 years to build.  And the Feds have a wonderful grant program available ONLY for groups who do secular programming … that’s us!  No free money for the Religious Right (or Left.)  Grants range from 75% to sometimes 100% of all capital expenses!
Any good grant writers out there ready and willing to jump in here?  If so, gimme a call and, once we win the license, we’ll jump on that money!!!

I will propose to the NUUF Board that we hold the door open for Founding Members for another few weeks.  To become a Founder, just sign a pledge of support (gift or loan.)  All levels are welcome.  Those who have already pledged should let me know if we may use your name.  (The first few pledge forms I used did not have a place to indicate that … hey, I can’t think of everything!)  Also, a phone number and/or email address would be good to know.  (We know where you live. :^) )

My first venture into the radio acquisition process has been as scary and exciting as a kid’s first… Read the full story