For now, one of the newest entries into the Twin Cities radio scene is a couple of people sitting behind a folding table covered with a mess of cords, two computer monitors and a microphone.

Inside the nondescript University Avenue building in St. Paul, in a space shared with a Hmong art studio, a friendly bulldog and some pails to catch the drips from a leaky roof, a growing group of ambitious amateur broadcasters is trying to build something that sounds like the diverse neighborhood that surrounds its makeshift studio.

Frogtown Community Radio, already launched online and soon hitting local airwaves, is one of four low-power, community stations set to formally debut in Minneapolis and St. Paul over the next few months. The radio bonanza is the result of the Local Community Radio Act, a change in federal law that went into effect in 2011 and opened up more space for the kind of stations that run on small budgets, rely on volunteer staffs and offer programming that ranges from cooking shows to English-language instruction.

Some of the stations have already put up their antennas, but most are still trying to build up a full schedule of programs, teach basic broadcasting skills to radio newcomers and figure out how to find enough money to keep the power on and maybe even pay a few staff members. While the people behind all of the stations represent different types of communities, they have a shared goal: putting something on the airwaves that you can’t hear anywhere else.

The stations’ signals typically have a reach of only a few miles, but organizers say the impact will be broader.

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