Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Last-minute changes, schedules and information – plus a little programming – will be available through Jamboree weekend this year through Oregon Jamboree Radio.
Tim Ryan of Portland and Don Procknow of Sweet Home are voluntarily running a small radio station this week at AM 1610. The radio station is operating on one-tenth of a watt, enough to get a signal to the Jamboree campgrounds.
“It’s an Oregon Jamboree information station, basically kind of aimed at the campers and the people driving around,” Ryan said. The station will run a loop of information, most of it pre-recorded, with some live programming and some recorded music.
The station was scheduled to go on line Monday or Tuesday.
“We’ll have it running through the following Monday,” Ryan said.
He said area radio stations kind of forget the Jamboree in their programming and the fact that there are a number of folks visiting from outside the area. The idea behind the station is to provide information, from shower schedules and shuttle schedules to last-minute changes and weather reports.
Right now, the basic programming is about a 10-minute loop for each day, Procknow said.
“Various things are repeated. Probably other things we’ll throw into the mix, maybe add songs or something else.”
Testing the signal, Ryan and Procknow were able to receive the station at Community Chapel, Hawthorne and even Foster school.
“You can get it on inside radio, but it’s really designed for car radios,” Ryan said.
Procknow said Ryan acquired the necessary equipment last year.
“We thought it would be fun to see what we could do with low-power AM,” he said.
FM frequencies don’t travel as far, Procknow said, and AM has many more open frequencies. In addition, 1610 is an informational frequency, the kind that usually is used for road information.
The two talked to Jamboree Event Manager Peter LaPonte, who agreed to the idea, and they started preparing a few months ago, Procknow said.
Both men are veteran disc jockeys who have worked at local KFIR radio.
The programming will be as good and as professional as any radio station, Procknow said.
Ryan moved to the Sweet Home area from Long Beach, Calif., when he was 14. He graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1999. He started working at KFIR during high school before moving on to radio stations in Lebanon, Albany, Salem and Portland.
He is now a disc jockey with KUPL FM 98.7 in Portland.
Procknow was born and raised in Sweet Home. He is now a chemical operator with Synthatech in Albany. He has 14 years of experience on the radio, most of it at KFIR and a brief stint with KXPC.
Both have an affinity for AM radio.
With AM, “you tune in and hear a human voice,” Ryan said. FM is like an iPod.
“AM seems to be more hometown, more of a personality,” Procknow said.
The chance to make some hometown AM radio is part of what is driving their experiment.
“I really wanted it to sound like a professional, down-home radio station, like friends talking to you,” Procknow said.