Indianapolis gets a new radio station — and it isn't today's top hits

Last fall, the CD player wasn't working in Daniel Chamberlin's Subaru Outback. He didn’t have an auxiliary input to plug in another device, so he turned on the radio, spinning through stations until he hit on one playing music from Aphex Twin's first volume of "Selected Ambient Works."

Chamberlin stopped, shocked. The experimental electronic music — what he called the "holy record for people who came up in the rave scene" — is neither easy on the ears nor in the regular rotation for most radio stations.

He'd stumbled upon WQRT 99.1 FM, the new radio station run by Big Car Collaborative, the Garfield Park-based cultural organization. Since February 2017, WQRT has been running the low-power station out of Listen Hear, the garage-sized building across Shelby Street from Big Car's headquarters at the Tube Factory artspace.

Turn it on at any time of day or night, and you could hear Sonic Youth's "Teen Age Riot," The Velvet Underground's "Some Kinda Love," Tina Turner singing country songs or, on occasion, local sound artist Oreo Jones' "Sound Lab" — where people bring in instruments that can connect to amps to create free-form electronic music.

Punctuating the music are dozens of Indianapolis voices reciting the station ID from where they are, whether that's a tattoo shop or out on the street. In February, Jones curated Black History Minutes on influential black leaders that aired every two hours.

While the station has been years in the making, only in the past few months has it achieved the ability to finish its studio and go live on air from several parts of the Big Car campus. Listeners need a radio or device with an FM receiver to tune in. WQRT isn't streaming online yet, but plans are in the works.

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"It's really a reflection of the art and community and cultural things that are happening," said Jim Walker, Big Car CEO and lead artist.

"We really think about the station as more like an art and community space, but just (in) a broadcast format."

WQRT is among a wave of small, noncommercial, local radio stations taking off after the Federal Communications Commission approved many Low Power FM Radio (LPFM) licenses. To encourage diversity on the airwaves, the FCC in 2000 created a class of Low Power FM Radio licenses that are 100 watts or less. The LPFM stations are for locally-based nonprofit organizations that emphasize education, community, public health or faith, among other causes. Indiana has 49 such licenses, according to the FCC.

Similar noncommercial formats exist in Central Indiana. WITT 91.9 FM, for example, has a similar format but has a full-service license that operates at higher power.

In 2013, the FCC opened up a new window for applications for new LPFM licenses after legislation was passed to allow more stations in larger markets and urban areas. That's when the Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia-based community radio advocate organization, told Big Car it should apply for a license.

"We were competing against probably 20 other local nonprofits just in our immediate vicinity," said Holly Sommers, who manages WQRT and trains volunteers.

"It was a really in-depth process of proving your worth as an organization."

Sommers headed the process to obtain the FCC license, and through that, Big Car learned the ins and outs of running a radio station. The organization rents space on a tower, turned a tiny room into a studio and has been wiring its campus to broadcast events from the art gallery and other areas.

To move the station into a fully functioning state, Walker estimates that the cost is $75,000 to $80,000, not including staff time. Most recently, portions of funding came from a $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation and $150,000 from the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Walker said.

The LPFM's 100-watt stations have signals that are expected to cover a 3.5-mile radius but can be heard further than that, according to the FCC.

WQRT's tower is at Washington and Rural streets. To test the barriers, Walker has driven around and heard it in most of Marion County. It starts to fade out on the northeast side by Castleton, he said. Walker estimated that the potential reach is more than 500,000 people.

"It's such a digital world, and everything's so on demand and perfectly crisp and perfection all the time," Sommers said. "So something that's DIY, something that is affected by weather and traffic and things like that, it's really interesting. It does have a more human quality to it."

The people WQRT has reached so far are already making a difference. Sommers has found ways to engage those who email her queries about what song is playing. She'll ask where they're listening from and if they'd be interested in talking about their musical tastes on air.

Big Car calls it the accidental beauty of discovery. Opportunities for this have decreased as people stay in their own bubbles by self-selecting news, TV shows and music, Walker said.

"The people that love it the most are usually people that didn't come there for it," Walker said.

That was the case for Chamberlin, who started his program, "Inter-Dimensional Music," in Marfa, Texas, before moving to Indianapolis. After hearing Aphex Twin, he reached out to Sommers, and now his show has a home at 3 p.m. Fridays and an encore at 8 p.m. Mondays.

Chamberlin, the social director and communications liaison for the Indianapolis Zen Center, began working in development and grants at Big Car — a job that opened up after he began producing his show for WQRT.

Chamberlin, who grew up in Zionsville, doesn't aim to satisfy commercial tastes. He plays music that intrigues him — death metal, new age music, psychedelic jazz, the Grateful Dead and Indian ragas.

“If you like it, it’s chocolate and peanut butter," Chamberlin said. "If you don’t, it’s coffee and toothpaste."

Want to get involved?

Community call-out meeting: 7-9 p.m. April 9 at Tube Factory artspace, 1125 Cruft St.

Or, email info@wqrt.org.

Call IndyStar reporter Domenica Bongiovanni at (317) 444-7339. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.