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Christian Radio (Note- Was just notified that FCC has a window coming up in Oct. where they will be open to accepting applications for non-profit fm stations.)
Calvary Baptist Church here in Roy, Wa. owns and operates a 1000 watt fm radio station. Our call letters are KWFJ, 89.7 fm. We are non-profit, non-commercial.Our signal reaches out anywhere from thirty to fifty miles. As founder of the church and station I am happy to be able to tell you exactly why we felt the need for the station and to share with you the route and steps we took in putting it together. Our church is in an area that reaches into the deep woods, mountains and forest areas on Western Washington. Even in the immediate area there are roads that are no more than ruts taking off from our black top roads but when you follow them into the woods you may very well come upon a dozen or so nice homes that you could not have guessed were there. I had longed for someway to saturate the area with the gospel message and this started me thinking about the radio station.
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The station exists not necessarily to build up the church but rather to assist the church in obeying the Great Commission. It is as much an arm of the church as the Sunday School department or the Missions program. Last Sunday April 29th. we had a family visit after discovering our station. All our services are broadcast live plus we have two daily broadcast by Pastor Nolan and myself. This type advertizing we would never be able to afford if we did not own the station ourselves.
My experience in radio preaching goes back to my Bible College days. In 1957 I had a fifteen minute program on KICK an AM station in Springfield, Mo. It was once a week early on a Saturday morning and costs $3.00 per broadcast. That was when the minimum wage was $1.00 an hour. When I graduated the church started by Harry Vickery and myself, Baptist Temple, took over the broadcast. Then in Riverside, Ca. I had a daily 15 minute broadcast on an AM station out of Corona plus a broadcast on a Christian FM station out of riverside. For the first five years of our station here in Roy I taught live each morning at 6:30 with a thirty minute program, teaching book by book , verse by verse. The program is rebroadcast each morning at 10:30. In Riverside and in Roy my program was called "BIBLE TIME". Hence the name of our web site.
In starting a radio station there are some general things you need to consider. Where are you going to put it? Do you have space for a tower on which you will mount your antenna? Or will you be able to rent space from an existing tower. Where will your studio or radio shack be? Will your building codes permit a station and or a tower where you plan to have one? We had about eight acres so I thought there were possibilities. When the FCC approved our permit I went to town on getting a permit to build the radio shack and put up a 200' tower. It required a special hearing after notifying every land owner within two miles of our proposed site. You see, several things have to work together for a station to come into being.
I knew of other churches that owned their own stations and I just felt that God might possibly work things out for us to have one also. So I pushed forward but was quite willing to accept the fact that it just might not work out. It was all in God's hands which ever way it went.
The very First Thing you must do is to arrange for an engineer to do a frequency search. This is to find out if there is a frequency even available. If there is none available then you stop right there and go no farther. This should cost no more than $100.00 to $300.00. I had known that BBC in Sprinfgield had started a station so I contacted them to pick their brains and they put me on to James Price, a graduate who was in the business of helping stations get on the air. His company is called Sterling Communications.
His web address is: http://www.christianradio.com/sterling/answers.html . You might plug in "frequency search" on the web and get a more competitive price. I think his son now runs the company since it has been some ten years since they helped us.
There is a lot of work getting a package together to present to the FCC with most of it all being done by companies such as the one I mentioned. After a frequency search shows one available (I understand that some frequencies are reserved for stations such as ours.) you will sign up with such a company to put the package together. This could cost anywhere from $3,500.00 to $5,000.00 plus. It could take them from two to three or four months to accomplish. You can work out payments on this I believe. Then after the package is presented to the FCC it might sit on their desk for from one to two years before you get approval from them, at least that was our experience. Once approval is granted you have one year to have a substantial amount of work done on the station or they can withdraw the permit. The erection of the tower will meet this condition.
(This article will be continued offering more information Staff required, remote operation, etc.)
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5/5/07 Pastor Ken Walters sent this email that has some good info in it.
Brother Walt,
I read with interest your article about Christian Radio. Yes, we have a Christian radio station as well. It is a great blessing to me personally as well as our community.
We chose to affiliate our station with Fundamental Broadcasting Network (www.fbnradio.com) for several factors. One being the very conservative music, with absolutely no CCM at all, period. All the preachers are Baptist with no evangelicals at all on anytime. This is out of the Grace Baptist Church, Newport, NC. The broadcasting is 24/7.
I have a daily 15 minute program Monday -Friday, and our Sunday AM service is on live.
The engineer at FBN can help with the frequency search. His name is David Robinson and can be reached at 1 800 245 9685. He is a godly, separated man for the Lord with a servant’s heart.
There are now a number of local stations affiliated with FBN as well as two shortwave stations, and they stream on the internet. By satellite they cover all Europe, North Africa and 90% of the 10/40 window. If you need more information, I will be glad to talk with you or you can talk with Brother David Robinson, or his wife Alisha, who is a walking FCC rules book. They are a wonderful family.
Pastor Kenneth Walters Southside Baptist Church 1229 S. Anderson Rd. Rock Hill, SC 29730 803-324-0627 http://www.southsidebaptistrh.org
The Tacoma News Tribune did a lengthy article on our station and took the above picture as I was broadcasting "New Age Update" exposing the local channeler.
5/8/07
This past week, 5/3/07 a man called in who had listened to the station for seven years. He was a Catholic with a lot of questions. He made an appointment to meet with Pastor Nolan over coffee at Dennys and the preacher led him to the Lord. I had the privilege of baptising him yesterday.
5/28/07
STAFFING the radio station.
Staffing your radio station will largely depend on who you have available to work with. We get by with one or two men with an engineer on call who lives in the next town of Yelm, some five miles away. If you do all your own programming you will have to determine how many hours you will operate, you may shut down at midnight and resume at five or six in the am. In that case you will have to have shifts to operate x number of hours. Some of your present staff people may be able to handle it. In our case we use the Bible Broadcasting Network via sattelite and the station is remotely operated from 11am one day until 5am the next day. Our man goes in at 5am and puts on our own stuff and then at 11am connects to the network. They do not charge us for broadcasting their programing which is very conservative with no comtemporary music at all. And when they do a fund raiser they send back to us 50% of whatever comes in from our area. It usually runs $200-300 amonth. Of course they are non-profit, non-com- mercial.