Back in October 2007, the FCC opened a brief licensing window for full-power, non-commercial stations. FMC and our friends at Radio for People thought this would be the perfect (and rare) opportunity for community arts organizations to get on the dial. We worked to identify qualifying groups, letting them know about the possibility and assisting interested parties with the application process.

Now, the approvals are starting to trickle in. New York State "transmission arts" collective free103point9 was recently awarded an FCC license to launch a 3,300-watt FM radio station on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia Counties.

Freelance journalist and radio enthusiast Mike Janssen (who worked on and has written about the full power licensing process) recently interviewed free103point9's Tom Roe about how they plan to build a community-oriented radio station from the ground up.

Listen to the podcast here (right -click or option-click to download).