Air-1 gets OK to broadcast in Portland

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher

SCAPPOOSE --

It’s been a long and sometimes frustrating wait for the staff of Air-1, especially those who have been with the radio network since it started five years ago.

But in just weeks, that wait will be over, and staff now say that God’s timing is best.

“We’re just ecstatic,” said Air-1’s Tim Bronleewe.

By June, the high-energy, youth-oriented “Christ-ian hit music” format of Air-1 will for the first time hit the airwaves over the network’s “home” metro-politan area, Portland. A new low-power FM station, KZRI, licensed to Welches, will transmit Air-1 on a 280-watt signal from Mount Hood at 90.3 FM. That signal, in turn, will be rebroadcast on a 32-watt translator at 96.3 FM off Portland’s Mt. Scott, and on a 16-watt translator at 97.7 FM off Bald Peak, near Newberg. Through that trio of signals, much of the metro area will be served.

Air 1 has traveled a circuitous route to reach Portland. Founded in the mid-1990s by local resident “Bob Anthony” Fogal, who in the 1970s founded the K-LOVE radio network and also launched the short-lived “Spirit FM” in the Portland area in the early 1990s, Air-1 began operations with limited resources out of a small basement in St. Helens. But while it was legally able to reach part of the Southern California market, thanks to satellite transmission, it was unable to touch the Portland area because there were no FM frequencies available.

Since then, Air-1 has expanded impressively, thanks in large part to its merger several years ago into Sacramento-based Educational Media Foun-dation (EMF), K-LOVE's parent non-profit organization. Air-1 is nowon the air in 14 states through six stations and 27 translators, and also was the one of the first Christian radio services offered worldwide over the Internet.

The network finally did establish a broadcast presence in Oregon, through translators in Eugene (90,3 and 90.7 FM) and Medford (91.1 FM). And last year, Air-1 moved into spacious, state-of-the-art facilities down the road from St. Helens, in Scappoose. But the staff's longstanding desire to reach the home area remained unfulfilled. Legal negotiations with the Federal Communications Com-mission and other area broadcasters moved at a snail’s pace as EMF sought a way to get on the local FM band. Finally, several weeks ago, the breakthrough came with approval of the Welches application filed three years ago. Bronleewe said engineering studies assured Oregon Public Broadcasting that Air-1’s proposed 90.3 signal would not affect OPB’s 90.1 signal in the Hood River area. After years of waiting, said Bronleewe, it will be a thrill to serve Portland.

“How do you explain how you feel, when you’ve been broadcasting on stations throughout the U.S., but not been able to broadcast in your home area?,” said Bronleewe, who is EMF’s national project manager for signal expansion. “We are so pumped and ecestatic. We no longer have to do the road trips to Eugene to hear the station.”

Bronleewe was among those who worked with Fogal on the launch of Spirit FM 107.5 in 1992. That station was eventually sold to KPDQ operator Salem Communications, which sold the station to a secular company in 1996.

“When we started with Spirit FM initially in 1992, it was our goal to have Christian hit music on ‘24-7,’ ’’ said Bronleewe. “That passion has never gone away.”

The translators in Portland and near Newberg that will carry Air-1 will drop K-LOVE. However, K-LOVE has enough other primary and translator signals locally that almost all listeners will still be able to hear that network.

As for Air 1, Bronleewe concedes that there will be some pockets of the Portland area -- particularly in Beaverton, Tigard and Wilsonville -- that will have problems getting the signal.

He also noted that the Salem area won’t yet receive Air-1, but added, “We are trying to bring a new station in that will cover the valley -- Salem, Albany,.Corvallis. That application has been in for two or three years," he said.

Bronleewe said the Mount Hood signal for Air-1 won't be allowed to increase, because doing so would conflict with the signal of another Christian station at 90.3 -- KZOE in Longview, Wash.

But the translator system will at least cover enough of the Portland area to allow Air-1 to make an impact spiritually.

“When Air-1 comes, it will be here to stay,” he said. “That's beautiful. This is our home town.”