Cringe at the sounds of KLCC’s “The Natural World”? Start your own program; call it “The Supernatural World” and jabber about aliens 'til you’re blue in the face.

Rush Limbaugh got you down? Kick off “The Carl and Larry Show.” Maybe in a few years people will be slapping bumper stickers on their cars that say “Carl and Larry are right!”

A group of Florence residents have thrown their hats in the air(waves) for a rare shot at snaring one of the remaining spots on the noncommercial, full-power radio spectrum, that swath of frequency on the bottom 20 percent of the radio dial that forbids commercials.

Every so often, the Federal Communications Commission throws open its gates and allows people to snatch up a license to operate a station somewhere along that band. And of the 4,000 applicants who got their acts together for the most recent spate of chances, four applied for a slot in western Lane County.

“This is the last pork chop,” Rand Dawson, a Dunes City resident who’s spearheading the effort, said at a recent meeting of the Mapleton Lions Club. “The last chance the public is going to have to try to obtain this part of the radio spectrum for its potential benefit.”

Only one of those applicants is local, Dawson said. Other applicants represent bigger entities hoping to expand their reach.

But the FCC guidelines favor local groups, so his crew should have the best shot at getting a license, he said.

The content possibilities are endless. The main rule is that the station can’t use commercials to drum up cash. Beyond that, Dawson envisions educational programs, spoken word, news, arts, food and music. One potential contributor is ready to play tunes from his collection of 5,000 vinyl records, Dawson said.

“You’re only limited to your imagination,” Dawson said. “Community radio is really about the interaction between the audience and the people who want to participate.”

Dawson and others are working to raise enough cash to establish a station and then run it, with some help from grants but also from listener pledges and memberships. He envisions the station relying on member support for up to 80 percent of its budget, with maybe the rest coming from business endorsements.

The western Lane County group isn’t the only entity on the coast waiting for word from the FCC. Some Port Orford residents have filed for a federal license to operate a station in that area.

Linda Tarr, a local artist who’s leading that effort, said she’s working with local schools to develop programming and a high school teacher of media and technology plans to participate in the project with his students.

The impetus for the south coast effort involves its remote locale, Tarr explained. “We don’t receive much news about the state here,” Tarr said. “Jefferson Public Radio has dropped their coverage. We no longer receive The Register-Guard, and The Oregonian only delivers on Sundays. That’s a news blackout for us.”

Tarr wants to partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting for radio news and find other ways to deliver information to locals. “The area is isolated,” she said. “But there’s a lot of community energy here.”

Both the Florence and Port Orford organizations will likely borrow a script from Astoria’s community radio station, KMUN.

That endeavor is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month and continues to offer bedtime stories, news, children’s variety programs and other tidbits, with bylaws in place that mandate 75 percent of its programming be local.

It was on that station, Dawson said, that he heard the best argument for community radio, from a third-grader.

“She said, ‘Community radio is good, because it forces you to be imaginative,’ ” Dawson said. “ ‘And also, you don’t have to comb your hair.’ ”

Copyright © 2007 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA

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