FAIR IS FARE Campbell, left, and Nisi spearhead CHIRP’s annual record fair at Pulaski Park Fieldhouse—the only event of its kind within Chicago city limits.

Photo: Erica Gannett

On July 12, 2007, Shawn Campbell’s dreaded “doomsday” became reality: Loyola University announced it would reclaim control of its radio station, WLUW 88.7 FM, abandoning an arrangement it had held with local noncommercial beacon Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ 91.5 FM. Since 2002, CPR had managed WLUW’s operations and developed the college station into a self-sustaining, listener-supported entity that relied on fund-raising to cover salaries and expenses. Making matters worse, someone had leaked the announcement to Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder, ensuring that everyone knew by the first evening of the Pitchfork Music Festival, where the independent radio station hosted one of its two annual record fairs.

Loyola’s reasoning was simple enough: It wanted the station back for its new communication school. And Campbell, WLUW’s program director, wasn’t left out in the cold; she secured her current position as a producer of CPR’s local news and culture broadcast, Eight Forty-Eight. Yet the 37-year-old Lincoln Square resident immediately began mobilizing support for an independent community station. By August 1, 2007, she formed CHIRP, the Chicago Independent Radio Project.

Campbell admirably used WLUW’s abrupt about-face as an opportunity to start fresh with a truly independent entity beholden to no one. “I’ve got to make sure [the station] continues,” she recalls thinking. “There are all these great volunteers who put so much time and effort into it, and we can’t just let that all go.” Campbell sent an e-mail to the WLUW listserv introducing CHIRP and explaining the nonprofit’s intention to pursue a low-power FM radio license. She then began planning the first of many benefit concerts.

Instantly, she faced one enormous obstacle: Current federal restrictions prevent CHIRP from occupying a number on the local dial due to the “third-channel adjacency” rule, requiring three empty channels between each station. Under that controversial standard, Chicago’s dial holds no room for new stations. Yet Congress is expected to pass a bill, the Local Community Radio Act, eliminating that regulation. The LCRA has gathered broad bipartisan support and, in Campbell’s words, enough “critical mass” to pass in next year’s 111th Congress, if not in a lame-duck session this year. In the meantime, Campbell’s leading an effort to launch the station online.

The audience for Web radio has grown exponentially in recent years, as demonstrated by stations like Seattle’s public-radio behemoth, KEXP (fueled by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen). As Campbell sees it, “Chicago is their second-biggest market outside of Seattle, so obviously there are people here who are willing to go online to listen to a cool music and arts-oriented community radio station.” Still, while she cites the benefits of Web broadcasting, such as expanded listenership both nationally and internationally, she acknowledges its limitations: “The people you shut out [online] tend to be underserved and underrepresented on the air.”

On October 1, CHIRP signed a lease to secure studio space on the fourth floor of the DANK Haus, the German cultural center in Lincoln Square. To wire the new studio, CHIRP enlisted Shellac bassist and well-regarded sound engineer Bob Weston. Due to ongoing permit delays, construction has not yet begun, but Campbell and Mary Nisi, another former WLUW DJ, have acquired most of the equipment. Michael Ardaiolo, an employee at Reckless Records in Wicker Park, serves as CHIRP’s music director.

Since August of last year, the listener-supported organization has raised $45,000. The annual record fair held in April at Pulaski Park Fieldhouse is CHIRP’s most high-profile event. Spearheaded by Nisi, the 33-year old president of Toast and Jam (a DJ service catering to weddings and special events), the Pulaski Park record fairs were the biggest fund-raisers for WLUW during its five-year partnership with CPR and have served the same function for CHIRP this year. Campbell is quick to point out that, even though they’re fund-raisers, the record fairs illustrate CHIRP’s mission: “They’re cool events that give something back to the community,” she says. “Sure, we raise money, but we also talk to a ton of people about what we’re doing. We provide a service to them in bringing together all these great vinyl dealers, local labels and live music all in one place.”

Campbell and Nisi expect the Web station to be up and running by the end of January. Until then, CHIRP, which counts more than 100 volunteers, continues to meet monthly, planning fund-raisers and arranging partnerships with various community-minded orgs. “We want people to connect not just with the music that we’re playing”—an eclectic mix featuring a wide array of genres and eras—“but also with the people on the air. We want them to be trusted friends and advisers,” Campbell says. “It’s those personal connections, that sense of localism and immediacy, that radio is so good at.”

For more on CHIRP, visit chicagoindependentradioproject.org.