HARRISVILLE – While the Alcona Music Project Station WXTF-LP 97.9 Harrisville has typically avoided the spotlight, the low power broadcasting station’s continued growth and expansion in spreading its love of music, particularly over the past three months, has pushed the entirely volunteer operation into the foreground.

The nonprofit station was the first low power FM to become officially licensed by the Federal Communications Commission during the most recent, and likely the last, wave of licensing. The Harrisville Institute for Cultural Learning holds the license for the music project station and May 27, 2014 was its first official broadcast.

Volunteer program staff Dave Morey, Jack Guy and Mike Wnuk, all who have been with the station since its launch, agreed the community has started to react to the station in a positive way because the station is not only sharing music but community announcements and events along with many perspectives and viewpoints.

“I think now we have it polished and honed and professional,” Morey said. “The community is reacting to us and we are here to perform a service to the community.”

The station has 25 active volunteers and values having a dynamic group of individuals of all ages and backgrounds.

“We always thought this town needed something like this and now here we are doing it on a weekly basis,” Wnuk said.

Without a program director, Morey said the volunteers are able to share their love and passion for music, which has created a diverse variety and a place to discover. For the community, Morey said the goal is to support all of the area’s nonprofit organizations and they are looking for a way to equally support local businesses through free on-air announcements and interviews.

“Being a non-commercial station we don’t accept any money for advertising so the only obvious answer is to give it away free,” he said. “We are ready for a growth, a rebirth of the area and bring in some new blood and energy and I think we are a part of that.”

Keeping the station open minded and providing a broad spectrum of news, music and opinion in order to bring new perspectives is all part of tuning into the station for a taste of Harrisville.

“Mostly it’s about having a good time,” Morey said. “When it sounds like it’s a good time on the radio then people start having a good time too.”

Guy and Wnuk both said how grateful they are for Morey’s efforts as without Morey, they said, the station still would be only in discussion.

“He’s brought pretty much everything,” Guy said.

After retiring from San Francisco’s KFOG, an FM radio station, Morey decided to move home to Michigan.

“I always wanted to live by the Great Lakes,” Morey said.

While Morey was from the Detroit area, he found Harrisville to be what he was looking for.

“He was pretty big in radio out there and we are just appreciative that he came to our small town and is sharing his talents with us,” Guy said.

In addition to sharing his knowledge of radio with the station volunteers and converting the lower level of his home into a studio for the station, Guy and Wnuk agreed that there are not many people with the magnetic personality of Morey.

“He has people in here all the time, wandering in and out of here. Not very many people are that kind of people. He knows us and it’s like his house is our house. You don’t get that most of the time,” Wnuk said. “It adds a lot to this whole thing, this guy here.”

For Morey, it is exactly what he has always wanted to do.

WXTF-LP has now reached close to 700 likes with listeners throughout the US as the station can be streamed online in addition to radio.

“It’s been a tough listen for some,” Morey said.

Others, however, have shared with the crew how much they enjoy the station particularly in how the station begins each morning with some version of the National Anthem followed by an array of both live and prerecorded shows in addition to a daily global independent news hour and commentary.

“It’s not for people who want to turn on the radio and hear something familiar,” Wnuk said.

While the station is not currently 24/7, Morey said this could be a possibility in the future, but for now, keeping the station about the people and community involved is the priority.

For more information about WXTF-LP 97.9 Harrisville contact alconamusicproject@gmail.com, visit www.979harrisville.org or visit the station’s Facebook page.

Paige Trisko can be reached via email at ptrisko@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693. Follow Paige on Twitter @pt_alpenanews. Read her blog, Scribbles on Pa(i)ges, at www.thealpenanews.com.