Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Andrew Ranville and Annamarie Sysling are readying Radio Keweenaw, a low-power community radio station to be located in Calumet. They received a license earlier this year and hope to begin programming by the summer of 2025.

CALUMET — A Keweenaw nonprofit is hoping to create a new community radio station mixing archival interviews, educational content and music.

Radio Keweenaw is being launched by the non-profit Rabbit Foundation. The FM station is the joint project of Andrew Ranville and Annamarie Sysling.

Both have media experience, in different senses of the word.

Ranville comes from an art background, where his interdisciplinary work included audio. He started coming to the area regularly in 2011, and has lived here full-time since 2017.

A little more than a decade ago, he began thinking about starting a community radio station. Unfortunately, it came too late for the application window for low-power stations, which the FCC only opens every 10 years.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll have to make a mental note, when they open it again in a decade, to apply,” he said.

By the time he was ready to apply, he was working with Sysling. She comes from public media, working for NPR’s Detroit affiliate before moving to PBS. It’s shown her the importance of public community storytelling and information sources that are hyperlocal and place-based.

“They don’t necessarily always have to be information — also just loving the local flavor and flair that you can get for a place when you hear things like talking and interviews with longtime locals, and local music,” she said. “And also the more experimental kind of things that some people might think are zany or weird, but the people who live in an area are like, ‘That’s my identity.'”

When they met, their shared interests came up quickly. And just in time — the next window opened in a month and a half.

They didn’t miss. The FCC granted Radio Keweenaw’s low power construction permit on Feb. 8 and granted the requested call sign of WFKC-LP less than three weeks later.

With that out of the way, they’re moving on to fundraising and reaching out to people to determine how the new station will be run and what it will sound like.

“I know that there are places where people can find news and headlines and breaking events,” Sysling said. “I think that this is something different. And I think we both have ideas around how it could be different, what the flavor might be … We know what we want it to feel like, but I also can’t anticipate what other great ideas are going to come into the mix.”

Based on Ranville’s rough estimate, building out the new station will cost about $16,700. They’re also building out a donation form where people can set up one-time, monthly or annual donations.

Radio Keweenaw’s website, radiokeweenaw.com, also has a link to a survey where people can indicate what they’d like to hear on the station. About 40 people have responded to the survey so far.

“We’re looking for even more and more feedback, because the more feedback we get, the better informed we’ll be on what the community wants and how they want to be involved,” Ranville said.

As a low-power station (100 watts or less), Radio Keweenaw must be educational, noncommercial broadcasting and have at least eight locally produced hours of content a day.

That will mean reaching out to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community to incorporate indigenous perspectives and storytelling. In other nods to the area’s history, they will look for archival recordings, or material from the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

To convey the sense of place, they also might air field recordings, where “people just turn it on, and they’re listening to Hungarian Falls for the hour,” Sysling said.

Based on the initial responses, people are also excited about listening to, and contributing to, local music programs, Sysling said.

Radio Keweenaw is not the only community station launching in Calumet. Also receiving a license last month was WRJX, which Real People Media hopes will begin airing educational and community programming by the end of the year.

Sysling said they learned about the WJRX news after seeing their filing on the FCC website. She said she’s excited to see what their vision is for the station.

“At this point, we’ve reached out and haven’t heard back from them, but I think that there’s definitely room for two really robust community radio stations,” she said.

Ranville said there’s a high potential for collaborating and sharing resources between the two stations.

“It wasn’t really surprising, but it was also very interesting to be like, ‘Hey, congratulations, you’ve been successful for the construction permit too,'” Ranville said. “And now comes the part where it’s like, ‘OK, how do we make it happen?’ So I think there’s a good chance for collaboration and sharing resources too during the process of establishing ourselves.”

How far will the station reach? Ideally, “coast to coast,” Ranville joked, meaning the east side of the Keweenaw Peninsula to the west. While the normal range won’t extend to the tip of the Keweenaw, Ranville said it would be a “good space” — with Calumet at the center. They also plan to stream online.

If all goes well, they hope to have Radio Keweenaw up and running by the middle of 2025.

“If the support is overwhelming, and it’s not just Anna and I putting together antennas and stuff, I can imagine it going on the air sooner,” Ranville said.

To fill out the survey and see more information about Radio Keweenaw, go to radiokeweenaw.org.