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Local independent radio station KWSS 106.7 FM, which went off-air this week, will hopefully be back on terrestrial radio in “optimistically, five to eight days,” according to station manager Frank Magarelli.
Magarelli says the station has voluntarily gone off-air while seeking to move to another frequency. “We were working on a long-term project to move to a new channel, a clearer channel,” he says. “And when you do something like that, you file permits to move equipment and such. We gained a waiver to do that, but the waiver expired. So we had to revert to our pre-waiver facilities and setup. We went off-air a couple days to devote ourselves to the project.”
They could have stayed on air, but Magarelli says going silent on the FM dial was “a good faith effort” on the part of KWSS. “We’re independent. We don’t have a budget to say, ‘We’re going to be defiant,'” Magarelli says.
“Once we get a confirmation receipt for the waiver and change [of frequency], we’ll go back on air,” he adds. “We look forward to getting back on terrestrial radio.”
In the meantime, KWSS is still streaming online, and will host a benefit show on July 30 at Club 910.