Community radio can now broadcast from remote locations

We introduced you to our new column on Nov. 3 but let me do it again in case you missed it. We're the new game in town, Huntley Community Radio.

Although Huntley is in our name, our signal is heard in your town at 101.5 FM. It's an all-volunteer station, broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

We're quite different from the usual commercial station in that we produce a widely diverse group of talk shows covering news, sports, medicine, travel, books, agriculture, old-time radio shows, local restaurant reviews, and book reviews, as well as local interviews, gardening, real state, homemaking, comedy, finances and more.

In addition to these locally produced programs, we feature about 50 hours of music covering contemporary sounds, jazz, blues, show tunes, great songs from the 1940s,'50s and up, great classical music, in addition to the Elgin Symphony Listeners' Club and concerts, the Beatles, EDM (electronic dance music) - even polka. If your favorite type of music is not listed, just email us at dorothy.litwin@huntleyradio.org and we'll add it to the schedule just for you.

Huntley Community Radio recently received a grant that allowed it to purchase special equipment and they now can broadcast from remote locations. We recently broadcast the Huntley High School's remarkable football games, and we plan on doing more sporting events, concerts and possibly community meetings. The station's next equipment purchase will add call-in features for some of the shows.

We are all volunteers. We create and produce the programs. We operate the station as a nonprofit entity. According to the Federal Communications Commission, which issued the broadcasting license, we cannot sell advertising like commercial radio stations, so operating expenses (while modest) are covered with grants and donations.

If your community has some special event, email dorothy.litwin@huntleyradio.org a short notice and we'll try to broadcast it. We're here to serve our communities - all of them.

We hope you'll tune in. We think you'll be amazed at what community folks can produce. Tune in to 101.5 FM or go online to huntleyradio.org.