Fort Collins Youth Broadcasting

On March 29, Youth Broadcasters e-mailed several organizations about transmitter donations, and we also e-mailed Mr. Saperstone at PSD about putting up a broadcast antenna at PHS.

On March 30, YB followed up on Mr. Sapserstone’s e-mail, as well as e-mailed the Northern Colorado Amateur Radio Club and KRFC about mentoring and helping to fill out the FCC construction permit. Most likely, we’ll be working with someone at KRFC, and we’ll be calling their volunteer coordinator to get someone setup to work with us.

Also earlier today, we called Kevin Houchin and he gave us some pointers to getting the NPO setup. Special thanks to Kevin for his support in this area.

This is one proposed structure that’ll be put into organization bylaws once we write them.

• Directors
  • Administrator
    • Oversees the station
    • Keeps things going
    • Fills in for any missing directors or members
    • Responds to complaints from the public
    • Primary representative with licensing agencies including the FCC, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etcetera
    • Responsible for approving new members and some director positions
    • Is voted in by Members and is in place for two years maximum
  • Programming Director
    • Responsible for approving new shows and coordinating shows with each other
    • Responsible for the selection of music placed in daytime and nighttime automation
    • Is voted in by the Committee (see below), Members (see below), and the Directors
  • Audio Technical
    • Responsible for documenting all aspects of the airchain
    • Know as much as possible about all components of the airchain
    • Should be fairly familiar with FCC regulations on broadcasting and have an interest in engineering
    • Should be a member of the SBE ($10/year to join)
    • Is chosen by an application process by the Administrator
  • Information Technology
    • Responsible for all streaming media, web content, computer upkeep and the like
    • Should know about SHOUTcast; Icecast and Windows Media Servers are a plus. Linux, PHP, and Java Script knowledge a plus.
    • Chosen by an application process by the Administrator
  • Bookkeeper
    • Responsible for approving any financial needs of Members
    • Upkeep of stations records, should be aware of any upcoming, potential financial problems
    • Should be aware of the station’s financial status at all times
    • Should be familiar with Microsoft Office and Quicken
    • Chosen by application process through the Administrator
• Members
  • Disc Jockey / Show Host
  • Advertisers
  • Salespeople / Donation Drives
  • General Supporters
  • Variety of positions available, are chosen by application and accepted through the Administrator
• Committee
  • H.S. Board
    • Must be enrolled in a Fort Collins high school and able to receive the FM signal from their house to take part on this board
  • Public Board
    • Must be able to receive the FM signal from their house to take part in the Public Board
  • The committees are responsible for providing public advice to the station for programming, concerns, and other input.

Got an e-mail back from Mr. Nessinger regarding our construction permit question. We file the construction permit in the window coming up this fall.

We still have not heard back from Mr. Houchin.

We contacted Ed Stoner with Old Town Property Management to see if there could potentially be any studio space out there in Old Town. That’d be pretty cool if we could get studio space in Old Town. Tomorrow I’m hopefully going to talk to Sandra Lundt at Poudre about putting up an antenna on a football pole (there’s already some sort of tower up there, though), and if that doesn’t fall through I’m going to have to find out more about the Wells Fargo building on College, or some other really tall building.

We also contacted ISS about doing a frequency search and engineering reports.

So we’re waiting to hear back from the following people:

• Kevin Houchin
• membership at Society Broadcast Engineers
• electrical engineering at CSU (not expecting a reply, though)
• Beth Flowers (or other general manager) at KRFC

Maybe we’ll start seeing some more responses in the near future.

Today I e-mailed Mr. Nessinger at the FCC regarding the process of filing a construction permit versus filing for a broadcast license. I am now under the impression that you can file for a construction permit any time you’d like, and you only file for a broadcast license during the time window I spoke about earlier.

I’ve also e-mailed Mr. Houchin with Houchin & Associates to see if he’s still interested in working on developing our NPO.

I’m probably going to call a supporter later tonight too and come up with some strategies for fund-raising, tower positioning, possibly contacting Well’s Fargo to discuss tower space on top of their building, etcetera.

I also want to buy this book: Amazon.com: A Broadcast Engineering Tutorial for Non-Engineers, Third Edition: Books: Graham Jones, it looks like a good read.

Just a few moments ago, I sent an e-mail to HSE, a communications company in Littleton that sets up transmitter and has a person there that deals with FCC licensing.  We contacted them to see if they’d be willing to donate any advise or time to helping us file our FCC applications.

Another thing we have to consider is where to put up a tower or antenna.  Currently we don’t have a place to put up an antenna or a transmitter, so we’re going to have to find one.  It’s been suggested that we contact the Well’s Fargo on College to see if they’d be willing to give us some rooftop space to put up an antenna, but we’ll see.

We did a Google search for business attorneys in Fort Collins. The one we found was Kevin Houchin & Associates. We contacted him the same night and inquired about donating his time to help us create a non-profit organization. We got a response that same night with a yes, they’d be willing.

Unfortunately, we have not heard back from them since, and we’ll probably send them an e-mail tomorrow (March, 26).

On Sunday, March 18, FCYBA contacted the Poudre School District to see if they would be willing to assist in starting the FM station and sustaining it as an “official” school station.

On Monday, we got a response saying that they were not willing to support it; that they had considered doing it in the past, but found it to be too expensive.

Personally we think their estimate was way too much, but I suppose we’ll see as time goes on.

On Sunday, March 18, we contacted the FCC inquiring as to when the next NCE filing window would open. The person we initially contacted could simply tell us that the window was not open at the present time, and gave us the name of someone to contact.

On Tuesday, March 20, we contacted this person and asked about the the filing window. We got a response the next day saying that there currently was none scheduled, but there was going to be a meeting regarding NCE windows the next day.

On Friday, March 23, we got a response saying that there was going to be a window opening in the fall. Perfect timing, the start of junior year.