A St. Mary’s County church has applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell a construction permit for a non-commercial FM radio station. The application was filed last week by Our Father’s House, formerly known as Patuxent River Assembly of God Church, to sell the permit for 90.3 FM to Virginia religious broadcaster Positive Alternative Radio (PAR).
The station would have been 8,900 watts with an antenna height of 200 feet. But the station won’t be built in St. Mary’s County. Eddie Baker, PAR’s president, told the Bay Net that the purchase of the permit will allow his company to increase power and move one of their stations, WJYJ, which is on 90.5 and licensed to Spotsylvania, VA.
Tim Frink, Our Father’s House business administrator, said the Virginia company hopes to move the station closer to the larger market of Richmond. Baker did not confirm that intention. He said, however, that after the move the station would likely be able to be heard in St. Mary’s County.
Baker described WJYJ as contemporary Christian. That was the programming intention of Patuxent River Assembly of God Church when they sought the station. Frink said the idea was promoted by Tim Gonzalez, a church staffer who was familiar with the programming of the Spirit FM network when he was in college and hoped to repeat that programming for a local audience.
Frink said the church was competing against four of five other entities for the permit during the FCC’s last filing window several years ago. The construction permit was awarded to an Eastern Shore religious broadcaster. But Frink said their engineer found out if the signal was tweaked a station could also be built on the same frequency in St. Mary’s. The FCC approved the permit.
Frink said the church ran into two obstacles. They were unable to raise the money needed to construct and operate the station, but they were also unable to find a tower site in the California area. Frink said the closest available tower was in Dameron, which would not have given them a good signal over the area they wanted to serve.
Positive Alternative Radio is a non-profit ministry organization founded by the late Vernon H. Baker and his wife Virginia. She still comes into work every day at the age of 90 and serves as the organization’s treasurer. They operate 22 stations in Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, West Virginia, Ohio and North and South Carolina. They are headquartered in Blacksburg, VA
According to the FCC filing the purchase price for the construction permit is $35,000.
