A community-run station will celebrate 20 years of rock-and-roll radio — and set a foundation for the future — with a benefit Sunday afternoon at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro.
WCOM co-founder Jacques Menache was on a beach in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, with Ruffin Slater, former Weaver Street Market general manager, when they saw a pirate flag on a tower and went to check it out. They found a man in the building running a local pirate radio broadcast and decided to take the idea home to Carrboro.
Getting a local station licensed and on the air took about four years, from finding a low-power broadcast frequency to getting a license and working with a local public art nonprofit to secure a $50,000 Federal Communications Commission grant to buy equipment. The radio tower was moved a few times before reaching its current location at Scroggs Elementary School in Chapel Hill…