This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves.

The FCC Seal stamped onto the little yellow card means it is valid for the lifetime of the holder. According to the date stamped on it, the Federal Communications Commission Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit was approved for me on November 10, 1988, a few short weeks after I attended an interest meeting held by the student leadership of the radio station anchoring one full corner of the Communication Arts Center on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus. At that time, claiming airtime on a fully licensed broadcast station required getting a license. Well, the license was really required for the taking of transmitter readings, an hourly requirement delegated to the on-air personnel at most stations. Still, to be on the air at the college radio station, I needed to complete FCC Form 753 and mail it off to the FCC. After the approved version was sent back to me, it was tacked up next to the main transmitter controls alongside all my fellow WWSP-90FM adherents to upholding that station’s commitment to acting in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.

In truth, it wasn’t difficult to get the Operator Permit. It took a signature and a mailbox. I didn’t even have to add a date after I scrawled out my name. That’s how casual it was. It didn’t matter. To me, the little chunk of paper might as well have been the Golden Ticket issued by the Wonka factory. I remember feeling a little nervous that it wouldn’t be approved, which is patently ridiculous because I hadn’t done a single thing to get myself noticed by government officials to that, much less put on some sort of list reserved for figures two dangerous to jot down figures culled from a radio transmitter. Still, it was a relief when the license finally arrived. I’d already been a fully fledged member of the station staff for several weeks by that point, a provisional license standing in for the full thing. Tacking the real one into the cork board felt like a momentous right of passage. That might seem silly, but it represents just how meaningful it was to me to be gifted a formal place in the vast community of broadcasters.

I carried my permit with me well past the time it had any usefulness. The FCC requirement that call for DJs to have them and for them to be posted has long since fallen into obsolescence. I still have my permit, though. I’ve carried it through all sorts of life changes, always keeping it at the ready, just in case. You never know when the airwaves will beckon again.

Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Radio Days” tag.