Power surge knocks OZCAT, Vallejo’s community radio, off the air

VALLEJO – If you’ve turned on your car radio set to listen to OZCAT at 89.5 FM and heard only static, rest assured it will be back.

The nonprofit community radio station was hit by an apparent power surge that burnt out their broadcasting equipment at the beginning of June. They were able to restore the broadcast on the internet after about two days, but the radio broadcast signal is still down. 

Station co-founder Katie Martinelli, who DJs under the handle “Katie Cool Lady,” said the radio broadcasting could be back as soon as the next couple of weeks.

“It's been a lot of worry and frustration,” Martinelli said. “We think we found something that might be the culprit, and then we got the part, and we put it in and didn't change anything. “

The station is now broadcasting from a smaller, less user friendly mixing board set up in the hallway while they look for replacement channel board parts, and ship the transmitter out for repair. Until repairs are complete, their radio broadcast signal only spans about eight blocks instead of all of Vallejo and parts of adjacent towns.

Martinelli said they want to quash any rumors that the station is off the air due to funding cuts or political censorship. The station has a very low budget. Nobody takes a salary, and it operates out of the ground floor of Martinelli’s home rent free. This allows the station much more independence than an operation like National Public Radio that has relied heavily on federal funding.

DJ “Dr. G” Guillermo Herrera said that the station can’t play favorites in a city as socially and ethnically diverse as Vallejo. “We have content that is established to be accessible to all the segments of our city,” he said. “In a town like Vallejo, we have to feel blessed with our diversity. That's part of the reason why we're not beholden to big money bags.”

OZCAT loves diversity of opinion. The two most political shows on the station are by Hererra and DJ David Marsteller Jr. Martinelli described Marsteller as the station’s resident libertarian, the political opposite of Herrera, who she said doesn't represent a generic viewpoint of either the left or the right. Yet in spite of their political differences, in their personal lives they’re friends.

OZCAT is not a political station. Its focus is primarily on arts and entertainment. OZCAT’s mission is to promote local artists and to bolster the community with an eclectic mix of music, arts and literature shows, and local event announcements. “Our DJs, our hosts, they are Vallejo people. It's not only certain groups are allowed to be here,” Martinelli said.

While broadcast radio may seem to be going out of style as more people shift to digital streaming, a lot of people still listen to radio in their cars. And radio can be an important source of information during power blackouts when computers and cellphone towers are down. 

OZCAT survived as an internet-only station between the time it was busted for operating as a pirate station in 2007 and when it was granted an FCC license in late 2009. 

Several community groups reached out to the station with offers to hold fundraisers before the cost of equipment repair was known. “A fundraiser would be more meaningful if we had a much bigger budgetary disaster. But so far, we've been able to overcome this,” Herrera said.

So far the station has spent about $400. on replacement equipment. The transmitter repair is expected to cost about $1,200. But without the station’s volunteers who stepped in to help with repairs, Martinelli said,  “We couldn’t. We’d be gone.”

In the meantime you can stream the station online, or with the TuneIn Radio app.

“We want to thank the community for all their support and concern,” Herrera said. “We would like to work with those who want to do benefit shows, but we feel like next year for our 20th anniversary that we want to reach out to these community organizations.”

OZCAT Radio’s 20^th anniversary will be on June 6, 2026.