Coyle has a radio station

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Norm Johnson, who organizes the popular Coyle Concerts in the Woods series, has started a low-power FM radio station for the Coyle Community Center.

“I’ve already had a phone call from someone on Thorndyke Road asking if I could increase the power so they could hear it, too,” Johnson said. The answer is no; the Federal Communications Commission only allows low power for this type of unlicensed radio device.

This kind of transmitter is used in localized environments such as a college dormitory, factory building, sports arena, church, construction site, public garden or, in this case, a community center.

Its purpose is to keep people at the community center informed about such things as the bookmobile’s arrival, the start of a meeting, the filling of water tanks from the public well, catching up on email from the free Wi-Fi hot spot, gardening in the nearby community P-Patch, sharing a ride to town, or that the doors are opening to one of the Coyle Concerts in the Woods.

“Since there is a captive audience there on the grounds, I thought they might enjoy hearing samples of music from future concerts, and hopefully decide to come to one,” Johnson said.

“I thought this would be a good way to tell more people about our ‘Concerts in the Woods’ series, and besides, it was fun to tinker with the electronics. In addition to the FM stereo transmitter device itself, the setup also uses a small USB memory stick MP3 player that reads the MP3 files of the songs and announcements. That makes it very easy to update the programming with new songs. I simply plug in a different USB memory stick with new content recorded on it, then it begins playing and repeats over when it gets to the end. Also note that I set the transmitter frequency to 92.3 MHz, because the address of the community center is 923 Hazel Point Road.”

For more information, visit coyleconcerts.com or call Johnson at 765-3449.