Believed to be the only all-volunteer, commercial-free, entirely independent community radio station in New Hampshire, NCCR, which has its studio at Mount Eustis Commons, broadcasts 24/7 as WZNC-LP 99.9FM from the top of the Colonial Theatre in Bethlehem.

The signal reaches listeners within a 10- to 15-mile radius of Franconia Notch. The programming is also streamed online via TuneIn. Now five years old, NCCR was founded in February 2012 by Nate Alberts.

A commercial painter, musician and now executive director of the nonprofit NCCR, Alberts went west to Colorado after graduating from Lisbon Regional High School, intending, he says, “to be a snowboard kind of bum.”

He found lots of great riding, but Alberts also became aware of KBUT, a community radio station in Crested Butte run by some friends. Inspired by what he saw and heard, Alberts returned home to Lisbon and began reaching out to music lovers throughout the greater Littleton/St. Johnsbury, Vt., area with the idea of establishing a similar operation here.

On Oct. 28, 2012, NCCR went live, transmitting a program featuring house, dub and electronica music, and it has not stopped since. In addition to its open format that allows the DJs to play whatever they like, the station also features live, in-house performances, public-service announcements and interviews.

It didn’t take long for the accolades to come rolling in, among them from New Hampshire Magazine, which in its July 2015 issue named NCCA as a “best of” in the “This and That” category, writing that “.community radio returns media to a treasured and time-honored tradition of connecting listeners person-to-person.”

In January, the New Hampshire Union Leader named Alberts, 34, to its 2017 “40 Under Forty” list of young movers and shakers.

‘A different personality’

Alberts wears his celebrity lightly, as evidenced during a recent interview at the NCCR offices that included several of the station’s on-air personalities as well as a member of its board of directors.

“Community radio has a different personality than what is streamlined on commercial radio,” said Kay Allen, who is host of “Musique du jour,” an ever-changing assortment of music that strikes her fancy.

“I live for music that’s outside the box,” said Allen, who laughed when it was pointed out that “Outside the Box” happens to be the name of Penny Keeler’s NCCR show.

Jerry Archibald, the host of “Tail Waggin’ Tunes,” was one of the first people to join NCCR, encouraged to do so by his own experiences with community radio in his native Salt Lake City, Utah.

Like Allen, Archibald plays “everything,” while Bob Luxton’s “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution,” offers up music by classic, pioneering acts including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix and The Who.

Angie Low, a self-described advocate of live music and a member of the NCCR board of directors, said it was “really important to have an access for local bands.”

The greater Littleton area, which extends west into Vermont, has a robust live-music scene that includes bands such as Not Your Mother, the Crunch Western Boys and Mad Cat Habitat and that is augmented by the appearance of regional groups, like The Van Burens, who are from Quincy, Mass.

Keeler said she tries to stay “in the deep tracks” of classic rock, playing songs that you might not be familiar with by bands whose names you know instantly.

In addition to its 14 DJs, NCCR features daily broadcasts of Democracy Now and is a member of the Pacifica Network.

Aiming forward

NCCR is a labor of love for Alberts and his all-volunteer hosts and board. He thanked Affordable Housing Education and Development of Littleton for providing rent-free studio space at Mount Eustis Commons and also thanked Ray and Sarah Cloutier, owners of the Tannery Marketplace along the Ammonoosuc River in downtown Littleton, for giving the then nascent station its first home.

“They helped us tremendously,” said Alberts of the Cloutiers, adding “they saw the vision (for NCCR) before anyone else. They’re the godparents of the radio station.”

Going forward, Alberts said, he’d like to see NCCR expand in-house with space to produce and record programs, adding that the station is currently working with the Small Business Development Center at Plymouth State University. As it develops a plan for its future, NCCR is also looking to add more disc jockeys as well as underwriters.

“Life moves so fast, so when you listen you’re a little more mindful” to the music and lyrics and life around you, she said.

Allen said NCCR is “a refuge.”

“It’s a message and it’s a way of to express in an articulate way” through music, she continued, what a DJ might not be able to express as articulately in his or her own words.

Archibald, however, was able to sum up what NCCR is about in five words.

“It’s our way of sharing,” he said.