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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Part 1 of this article covered the ups and downs experienced by WOAS-FM during the first two decades of its existence. \u00a0The \u2018next twenty years\u2019 began in 1997 when the Ontonagon Board of Education, UPPCO, and our listeners ponied up $9000 to rehab the station and get us back in fighting condition. \u00a0It was a two year labor of love, \u00a0but if there is one unchanging lesson I have learned from being the General Manager of WOAS-FM, it is \u201cthere is always a \u2018next project\u2019 waiting around the bend\u201d. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1997, the first item of business was renewing our license with the FCC. \u00a0Mike Bennett had taken care of details like this in the decade before I became GM. \u00a0I learned what I could from Mike before \u00a0he left and everything else had to be picked up on the fly. \u00a0It took me a while to find them, but in the three foot pile of mail I was sorting were FCC documents reminding us that our license was up for renewal. \u00a0With only three months to spare, we got the paperwork sorted out, our renewal was processed, and we were still a licensed broadcast facility. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The next task in the renovation process was drawing up wish lists of \u201cneed to have\u201d vs \u00a0\u201cwouldn\u2019t it be nice to have\u201d equipment. \u00a0The \u201cneed to haves\u201d included a new transmitter and a new broadcast board, but we could not afford to get both with our $9000 funding being spread out over two years. \u00a0Fortunately, a little sympathetic help from the business office and a helpful vendor allowed us to get the new transmitter and board up and running while we limped along with what cassette and CD players we had that still worked. \u00a0The rest of the electronics would have to wait until the next year, but we did not have to worry about the transmitter failing or the broadcast board going up in smoke.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As luck would have it, the OASD buildings were also undergoing some much needed upgrades during the 1997-98 school year and one of the items on the list was new carpeting for the library. \u00a0\u00a0WOAS occupies two of the former library study rooms for our production and broadcast studios, so I asked if we could get new carpeting, too. \u00a0\u201cSure you can,\u201d was the reply I got on a Friday afternoon, \u201cAs long as both rooms are empty by Monday.\u201d \u00a0Fair enough! \u00a0It took the full two days to get everything out in the hall, but one week later, we had new carpeting and two empty rooms. \u00a0It was literally like having a blank canvas to fill as we decided how to lay out the two rooms that had not been rearranged much during the previous twenty years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Unfortunately, Mike Bennett and I both suffered from T-RP syndrome which we both agreed was inherited from our parents who developed it living during the Great Depression. \u00a0It stands for \u2018Teacher-Rat Pack Syndrome\u2019. \u00a0This can be defined as \u2018never throw away anything that might be useful some day – even if it is broken\u2019. \u00a0With a limited amount of space in our studio rooms, I swallowed hard and began hauling the broken down second hand cabinets and shelves down to the custodian\u2019s area. \u00a0Some got repurposed as storage space for maintenance stuff (apparently custodians also have T-RPS), and some when into the dumpster. \u00a0\u00a0Marge Etapa was serving as the Library Aide at that time and when she saw what I was trying to do, she offered to scrounge some of the old elementary library shelves for us to line the walls with. \u00a0The woodshop kids involved in radio made new cabinet doors for the broadcast area and hung new doors between the studios. \u00a0The next task was to maximize the limited amount of floor space by putting things back into the studios as efficiently as possible. \u00a0Most of the woodshop work was fueled by plates of cookies provided by Marge proving once again the barter system was still alive and well. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The transition between using vinyl records and CDs was in full swing, so I picked up enough pine lumber and dowels to make wall mounted and table top CD racks for the broadcast studio. \u00a0Once they were assembled, Roger Ruuti attached them to the brick wall where the cart machine tape rack used to be. \u00a0A cart machine used 8-track tapes on which PSAs, promos, announcements and other vital broadcast information was recorded for playback. \u00a0WOAS had two cart machines in the early years but by the time I came on board, they were not being used at all, having been replaced by cassette tapes and players. \u00a0Out with the old and in with they new as they say. \u00a0The two table top mounted turntables were also displaced by CDs so the albums we had left were recycled through St. Vinnies and anyone else that found a need for them. \u00a0Who knew vinyl would be making a comeback, but hindsight is always 20\/20, isn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jim Bradley had been instrumental during the original building phase so we leaned on him again to get the new transmitter and board installed. \u00a0He and a buddy of his came in and set up the whole shebang. \u00a0\u00a0In two days and we had a new station literally from the carpet up. \u00a0We gave the first broadcast slots to those radioheads who had hung on through the year of everything slowly falling apart and then started seeking out new day and evening shift volunteers. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The day shift DJs were told to develop their own formats. \u00a0To accommodate the volume of syndicated programs we began receiving, the evening shifts were divided into five categories: \u00a0Monday became \u2018Blue Monday\u2019 (featuring blues), Tuesday was designated \u2018folk night\u2019 (cycling around the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour and Acoustic Rainbow programs), Wednesday was dubbed \u2018Americana music night\u2019 (with the Midnight Special forming the core for that night). Thursday was set aside as the \u2018alternative music\u2019 night (to give us a place to use the large number of CDs were were getting from the Home Grown Music Net and our friends at Powderfinger Productions), and Fridays were simply labeled \u2018Free Form Radio\u2019 (as in, \u2018whatever we wanted to program at the end of the week\u2019). \u00a0As the Porcupine Mountain Music Festival grew, we began setting aside part of Friday evenings for PorkiesFest Radio. \u00a0PFR gave us a chance to feature bands who had performed at PorkiesFest, have applied to perform at PorkiesFest, and (in some cases) bands who we would like to see apply to play at PorkiesFest.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It would (again) be very difficult to start listing all of the folks who came forth over the last twenty years to share music with our listeners without missing some. \u00a0It would be appropriate, however, so say \u2018thank you\u2019 to those many volunteers because they are the reason we have been able to stay on the air. \u00a0As the school district has grown smaller ( reflecting the population decrease fueled by the area\u2019s slowed economy), it has been more difficult to find people willing to join our broadcast family. \u00a0The end result has been more younger students (some as young as sixth grade) trying their hands in the after school slots and more syndicated programming filling the later evening shifts. What hasn\u2019t changed is our mission to be YOUR SOUND CHOICE for music of all kinds in Ontonagon County, but even this mission has been tweaked by advances in technology.<\/span><\/p>\n