StayAlert/KIXP's FM broadcast mission is to serve the San Juan Islands community by engaging and supporting the Arts, Public Service and Public Safety. Being hyper-local means constantly playing local music and broadcasting public service/safety information.
Our broadcast content is the Community.
StayAlert, our Orcas based non-profit organization was created in 2023. But our public safety broadcast technology has been a work in progress for decades. In 2012, our Executive Director: Allen Hartle deployed a groundbreaking system to support hard of hearing and deaf people in 26 Gulf states. A project funded by NPR laboratories and FEMA.
Our founders, Allen Hartle and Liberte Pedicini moved to Orcas Islands in 2019. Upon arrival, noticing the island's infrastructure vulnerabilities, he began adapting the concept for use here. we immediately partnered with one of the commercial FM's operating on Mt Constitution to "Broadcast" StayAlert messages on their 63,000 watt high power FM. More than enough power to reach all of the islands.
In 2023 we and many other people were pleasantly surprised when after 10 years the FCC announced it was possible to apply for an FM radio station for Eastsound.
We summoned the necessary lawyers and technical consultants to create our application for 102.3 FM and submitted it.
One Year Later
We were granted an FCC construction permit!
We are on the Air July 5th
The antenna on the roof of the studio
Kids from the Funhouse test the equipment
What a 1st Year!
StayAlert/KIXP's FM broadcast mission is to serve the San Juan Islands community by engaging and supporting the Arts, Public Service and Public Safety. Being hyper-local means constantly playing local music and broadcasting public service/safety information. We've created a huge positive feedback loop. Our broadcast content is the Community.
Liberte Pedicini and Allen Hartle at the San Juan Presvevation Trust's Celebrating the acquisition of Turtleback Mountain
Thank You!
We are so grateful to our island community for the overwhelmingly positive response to our StayAlert/KIXP project. When we started, Allen was working in an extra bedroom, with a tiny Internet only media player with about a hundred songs, it was an unintentionally well kept secret.
In contrast, today, thanks to Bruce Harvie's Radio Free Olga archive contribution, we have a music library of over 7,000 songs, related to decades of San Juan Island's recording artists and performances.
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Even before the FCC had approved our application, after realizing the amount of work and time needed to construct radio studios, we took a leap of faith and began converting Liberte's Eastsound Beauty shop into the KIXP Studio!
It is so rewarding to be in the center of town and interact with our friends, neighbors, tourists and even an occasion celebrity. It's a well known fact that visitors can stop by and see the facility, take home a KIXP button or a lollipop for the kids. Suzanne Olsen from OPAL paid us the greatest compliment when she said: "You're becoming Eastsound's Living Room!" Mission Acomplished!
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In our second year, some of our goals include expanding the KIXP FM signal to cover Orcas road all the way to the ferry landing, expand our programming to include News via a relationship with The Sounder, and of course implement our StayAlert technology across all Islands.
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The future looks amazing.​​
Some of Our First Year Collaborators
