FCC Application & Station News
Thanks to all who helped & donated to Cultural Energy at our house party hosted by Jean Richards in Des Montes on Oct 23. Please contact us if you would like to host a House Party for your friends & neighbors to learn about Cultural Energy & our plans.
We were glad to meet people in Peñasco at the PACA Board meeting Sep 19 and at the Tewa Women United's Gathering for Mother Earth on Sep 24 as we did outreach for our new stations.
Cultural Energy Planning Meeting Saturday, Sep. 17 10 am to Noon at the Kit Carson Electric Coop Meeting room. People interested in helping start our TV & Radio stations are invited to discuss our plans and join committees for Programming, Music, News, Training, Membership/Outreach, Fundraising, etc. This will be the first of many meetings to involve the public in createing policies and direction for the stations. Thanks to all who came & particpated.
Sep 9, 2011: The FCC granted us a construction permit for a 9,000 watt Educational FM Radio station, KCEI at 89.5 FM. Thanks to all the many people who made this possible, including our amazing pro-bono attorney Matt McCormick of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, P.L.C., our engineer Mike Brown of Brown Broadcasting, Anthropologist Don Brown, Archeologist Steve Townsend, Lyle Tourp and Meaghan Fahey of the Ottery Group, our Board members, Máye Torres, Miguel Santistevan, Juman Khweis, Aspen Flowers Espinosa & Robin Collier, and many, many other volunteers! Thanks to our many past producers, especially Mike Tilley, who have established the rich body of work you can hear on our web site and a tradition of excellence. Thanks to our many donors & in-kind contributors, especially John Batis of TaosNet.
Aug 25, 2011: Our NEPA/FCC tower study study is now complete with no tribes or any other public enities raising any objections to the tower. Our FCC application will now be amended with the approval, and we expect granting of our Construction Permit to come relatively soon.
July 2011: Our tower study study is near completing it's public comment period, with approval from NM Fish & Game and the NM State Historic Preservation Office.
May 2011: Our NEPA/FCC antenna structure assessment & notifications for our Picuris tower have been submitted to the required agencies and we await approval. With the ending in the 2011 Federal budget of Dept of Commerce funding for public radio equipment, it will be a challenge to raise money for the tower, transmitter and studio equipment. We will need our community's help in many ways!
May 2010: With the snows finally melting, we are now working on our NEPA/FCC antenna structure assessment & notifications to get approval for our Picuris Mountain location. We have an excellent team of an anthropologist, an archeologist and an environmental firm to assist us in consulting with local tribes, governmental entities and the New Mexico State Historical Preservation Office. Tower foundation and installation design will minimize environmental impact using the most advanced anchoring technologies. Design work is also beginning on our solar array which will power our transmitters to make us the most powerful solar TV & Radio station in the world with a combined ERP of 16 kW.
March 3, 2010: We have received approval call signs for our radio & TV stations will be KCEI and KCEI-LD Cultural Energy Independent Radio & Cultural Energy Independent Television.
February 25, 2010: The FCC has granted Cultural Energy a construction permit for a 7kW LP Digital TV station at channel 18. We have 3 years to complete the work & get on the air to reach some 92,000 people in Northern New Mexico. Thanks to our wonderful attorney Matt McCormick of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, P.L.C., our engineer Don Baad of Munn-Reese, Inc., and Billy Knight in Taos for his help in making this happen.
February 17, 2010: Apparently our lawyer's response was so effective that Highlands failed to even file a response to it. We hope the FCC will act quickly to dismiss their Petition to Deny.
February 1, 2010: Our lawyer has filed a strong and clear answer with the FCC to Highlands University's Petition to Deny of our license and we are confident we will prevail. We will continue our work building both our radio and TV stations.
January 23, 2010: On Dec. 15, 2009 the FCC named Cultural Energy as tenative designee for a NCE radio license at 89.5 FM licensed to Ranchos de Taos, NM. On Jan 14, 2010 NM Highlands University filed a "Petition to Deny" our radio license with the FCC. Both our attorney and engineer firmly believe the assertions made in the Petition are totally without merit, and we will strongly refute them in our legal answers. We remain totally baffled as to the motive of Highlands in filing the Petition, since we can not see how it can result in achieving a license for their competing application for Española.
September 9, 2009: On Aug. 25, we applied for a Low Power Digital TV License at Channel 18 of of Picuris Peak at 7 kW. This signal would reach some 92,000-96,000 people from the south just short of Santa Fe, to the west to Abiquiú & to the north past Questa. At this time, it looks like there are no competing applications that would interfere with this signal. This would allow the rural North to have its own public educational TV station. Building a public TV station will be possible by partnerships with many other organizations.
June 2009: Since applying with the FCC in October 2007 for a full strength FM Educational Radio Station for Northern New Mexico, on June 2008, it was announced that we are in the next group of applicants that will be processed. We thought that this meant we would get a license by the end of 2008, but perhaps because of the transition to the Obama presidency and the Digital TV transition, it is taking longer. We still have to do much work to do and money to raise get on the air. In the mean time, we are working to expand the website with more content to involve people throughout the potential listening area.
If licensed by the FCC, we would broadcast with a C0 class radio license from Picuris Peak at 89.5 at 9 kW reaching from East of Mora to West of Abiquiú and from North of Taos to South of Española, to some 100,000 listeners. Review of conflicting applications is very hopeful for granting of a license, because we provide either the largest new 1st and/or 2nd educational FM service.
We plan satellite studios in such towns as Abiquiú, Mora, Española, Dixon and other communities, where they can produce their own programs. We will also seek to involve youth throughout the region in producing their own programs.
Listen Here to Pacifica's national Sprouts program "Be the Media!" where we are briefly interviewed about the filing, along with many other excited, hopeful applicants.
A Big Thank You to all who helped in preparing our radio application, including our FCC Attorney Matt McCormick in Washington, DC who is providing his services pro-bono, our excellent Engineers; Michael Brown & Mike Johnson of Brown Broadcasting Services, Inc. in Portland, OR, our Board of Directors; Miguel Santistevan, Máye Torres, Aspen Flowers Espinosa, Juman Khweis, and Robin Collier, and previous Board members Deborah Begel, Scott Randolph, and Morten Nilssen. Thanks to Don Badd of Munn-Reese Inc. for our Digital TV application engineering. Thanks especially to those familes who provided reasonable assurance of a tower location, and to those individuals who were willing to provide evidence of their ability to help in the financing of the station startup.
Special thanks to Marty Durlin; former GM of KGNU in Boulder, Norm Davis; formerly of KSAN in San Francisco, David Barsamian; of Alternative Radio, Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan; of Democracy Now!, Ursula Ruedenberg; of Pacifica Radio, Dory Hulbert; formerly of the Horse Fly, Michael Chamberlain; CFO of the New Mexico Community Foundation, and many other individuals who provided special expertise and support in our effort. And all of this would not have been possible with the hard work of Mike Tilley and all our other volunteers who kept our production going while we prepared the application. Thanks also to KVOT, KRZA, KTAO, KLDK, KUNM and the Pacifica network for broadcasting our segments.
Funding for our programs and outreach during the long wait for the FCC window was provided by the members of Cultural Energy, our business underwriters, the Peter and Madeline Martin Foundation, the Healy Foundation, the McCune Charitable Foundation, the New Mexico Community Foundation, the Surdna Foundation through KUNM, and the Taos Community Foundation.
