History of
WCOM-FM
Back in 2000, the FCC was in a jam. The radio waves, which are
supposed to belong to the public, were looking a lot like they really
belonged to Clear Channel and other radio mammoths, which
effectively controlled music programming by extracting payola from
musicians to play their songs. In response, the FCC created low power
FM (LPFM)—a new class of non-profit community stations with about
a five-mile broadcast range—to provide communities with an
opportunity to get back some air time. In spite of its limited scope,
LPFM was seen as a threat by big broadcasters, who convinced
Congress that LPFM stations would interfere with their signal. Now
you might not see how a 100-watt station was going to mess up the
signal of a 100,000-watt station (and a later study ordered by Congress
would prove you right) but the lobbyists won the day and convinced
Congress to greatly scale back the FCC's LPFM plan.
Locally, it seemed there would be no available frequencies for our
area for LPFM—at least no one could find any on the FCC website's
“Channel Finder.” But late one night, Ruffin Slater (of Weaver Street
Market's Community Enterprise Project) entered 35 52 51 N and 79 03
50 W and—bingo!—the “frequency available” light came on. It turned
out there was one 50-foot by 40-foot piece of broadcasting turf that
was still available to the community. Ruffin filed the application in
June 2001, and 18 months later the FCC granted a license to broadcast
at 103.5 FM with the call letters WCOM.
License in hand, Ruffin, Peg Nolan, and Jacques Menache went to the
National Federation of Community Broadcasters conference, where
they learned about a federal grant that would fund 75% of the
equipment costs. With the grant deadline only four weeks away, a
flurry of activity produced 20 letters from organizations and 1,000
signatures in support of the station. In September 2003, WCOM's PTFP
grant was approved.
The next step was to find a place 90 feet in the air to mount a
broadcast antenna. The broadcasting site permitted by the FCC was
right next to Weaver Street Market's Southern Village store, and WSM
volunteered to put a tower on its roof for the antenna, but the plan
was nixed by the Town of Chapel Hill. In search of Plan B, Jacques and
his colleague Jake got a three-foot balloon from Pat and Sharon at
Balloons and Tunes, tied it to a 90-foot string, and started looking for
a place it might fit.
WCOM's luck was back when Jacques and Jake found a big, ugly cell
phone tower at the ball field at Culbreth School. Compared to that
thing, H