ANNOUNCEMENT:  A RADIO ON THE EDGE update for Firebare supporters

UPDATE: FCC decision November 9: Firebare is now tentative final selectee in 401 MX group: http://radioontheedge.org/node/26

We finally have news!

Many of you have asked about the status of the application that Firebare submitted to The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on October 15, 2007, for a license to build and operate a new noncommercial educational radio station on the Oregon Central Coast.

Six other conflicting applications from competing organizations were also submitted at that time which made conflicting claims on the public airwaves in this area. Our lawyer and engineer advised us at that time that it would take the FCC two to three years to resolve these mutually exclusive (MX) applications, and, sure enough, on August 3, 2010, 1,023 days, or 2.8 years to the day after filing our application, the FCC duly released their tentative decision on our MX Group #401.

Community Presbyterian Church of Waldport was tentatively selected as the recipient of the construction permit from our group for a religious radio station to be located in Toledo. Their application was chosen winner by virtue of the fact that their proposed station would reach approximately 10% more potential listeners than ours.

The application process provides 30 days for competing applicants to challenge a tentative decision before it becomes final. Consequently, on August 4, we instructed our lawyer to review the decision and determine if there are credible grounds to oppose the FCC decision. He responded in the affirmative and on August 30, 2010, he filed a Petition to Deny on our behalf against the application of The Community Presbyterian Church of Waldport. A copy of the Petition is now in Firebare’s Public File, located in the Public Libraries in Siletz, Toledo and Newport. We’re attaching a copy of the Petition to Deny below for those of you interested in our reasons for disputing the FCC decision.

It has been a long strange trip but we’re now finally in a position to continue our efforts to realize the dream of creating our own real community radio station. The end of the first phase is finally in sight and we’re extremely grateful to all of you who have continued to be interested and supportive during this seemingly endless process. Things should move more quickly now. We will send you updates as we have news and we’d love to hear from any of you who want more detailed information and/or are available to help. Email us at radioontheedge@gmail.com or phone Bridget Wolfe or John Crawford at 541-336-2284.

For those of you wanting to slog through the bureaucratic stuff, the full FCC document announcing the decision can be found here: http://3rdchimp.com/MXNews

NOTE: Firebare's new website is now up and (mostly) functional.  In the future that will be the authorative source of new of and about Firebare's radio project tentatively named "Radio On The Edge."