New Haven Independent

Hipolito Cuevas (pictured above) is the operations manager of a new low-power radio station called Super Max WEPA Radio. It’s at 1700 on the AM dial. Unlike his immediately previous effort to bring news, public affairs and music programming to New Haven’s Latino community, this one is legal. He held a public event Monday celebrating the station’s launch at its 129 Church St. studio.

Cuevas began his career at age 25 in 1991 as the manager of 1220 AM radio, when it had a (perfectly legal) Spanish-language format called Radio Musical. Quinnipiac University — then College — bought the frequency in 1996 and renamed it WQUN, with a different format.

Cuevas then inaugurated La Nueva Radio Musical 104.5 FM, a 10-watt station that was never licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. He kept it on the air for two years, moving the transmitter from place to place, often just a quick step ahead of federal authorities. The FCC finally shut the station down in 2000 after Cuevas lost a court battle that galvanized supporters of non-corporate, low-power “pirate” community radio. (Click here for a 1999 article on that battle.)

Cuevas said he was inspired to create a new station by the fact that, seven years after he was shut down by the FCC, no other Spanish language station emerged to serve a community growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, he said, he hopes to run his news and talk format (with plenty of Latino music too) with a four-hour block to serve the Caribbean community in the morning, and a four-hour block to serve the Mexican community in the evening.

The new station is only one-tenth of a watt; thus the delicious irony of its moniker, “Super Max,” as embodied by the station mascot, pictured. It’s unlicensed but legal because it’s so low-power that it fits under the FCC’s Part 15 Community Radio Station regulations. It went on the air Oct. 15, at a time when the FCC, with a Republican majority, is trying again to eliminate cross-ownership limits on media giants, and thus shrink, not expand, the diversity of voices on the airwaves. (Click here for more on the effort to stop the FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s plans.)

Through several transmitters around the city (which he’s describing with a wave of his hand), Cuevas said the signal can reach most of New Haven.

“We’re trying to give a voice to people who don’t have a voice,” he said, “and a lot of the time they don’t have access to the local issues, to local politics, and that’s very important.” Click here here to hear more of his thoughts on the subject.

Cuevas, 41, suffered a massive heart attack several years ago, and his diabetes has caused a major loss of vision, requiring him to use a magnifying glass to read the computer screen. He is now “retired,” living on disability, and working as a volunteer at the station. He’s partnered with local entrepreneur Rafael Rodriguez, who has provided financial backing for the new station. He hopes to bring on paid staff in the future.

There’ll be plenty of community involvement, too. Cuevas said he’s partnering with Fair Haven K-8 School to do a program on the discovery of Puerto Rico. “Discovery?” this reporter asked. Cuevas acknowledged that controversy swirls around the view that Columbus “discovered” Puerto Rico and the other islands of the Caribbean he claimed for Spain. “I know many people say, ‘We weren’t discovered; we were always here.’”

He added brightly, “That would be a good topic for a show.”