Homegrownradionj.com is digital radio, analog-style, in Boonton, NJ

In one shop window, in downtown Boonton, you will see an unusual product.

Not hats. Not food. Not formalwear. Through this particular plate glass window on Cornelia Street, you're liable to see— at any odd hour — a deejay, with headphones and a mic.

"Occasionally I get people who bang on the window," said Jerry Balderson, one of the 30-plus hosts at homegrownradionj.com — a unique online "radio" station that is celebrating its 20th year of reinventing classic radio for the digital age.

"The other day an old friend of mine came by," he said. "I put on a long track, went to the door, and engaged."

His show, from 7 p..m. to midnight Fridays, is "The Paleface Parabola." "I like the idea of the shortest distance between two points," he said. "I like the journey, I always have. We start from one place, and go to different places while I'm on the air."

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"Carrot Time Music with 'Dizzy' Jim Demaio" (9 a.m. to noon Tuesday), "Estacion Terrapin" (in Spanish) with Oscar Ruiz (11 a.m. -1 p.m. Wednesday, rebroadcast 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday) "Railroad Earth Happy Hour with Johnny Major" (9 p.m. to midnight Thursday), and "Mozart to Motorhead with John Hammel" (9 p.m. to midnight Sunday; rebroadcast Thursday 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.) are some other, equally offbeat, programming blocks.

"Everything is live, off the cuff," said Todd Mills, Homegrown's founder and station manager. "Whatever happens, happens."

There are deejays who broadcast from the studio, and ones who broadcast from home. There are deejays who are local, and some who do their shows from as far away as Arizona, Spain, Ireland, Thailand. There are deejays whose preference is for The Beatles or N.R.B.Q., and others who favor Tchaikovsky, or talk (Record staffer Bill Westhoven has a show, "Wake Up with Weekend Willie," Sunday mornings 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.).

"We're not bound by FCC regulations, because it's not a public airwave," Mills said. " We can do whatever we want. We can curse. We don't do things that are out-of-control or obscene. But we could, if we wanted to."

On Saturday Oct. 19, the station will host its own 20th anniversary party at the Boonton Elks Lodge.

As the name suggests, homegrownradionj.com streams online. But the spirit, and the format, is that of a freewheeling, free-form college radio station — the kind that has almost disappeared in the age of algorithm-generated playlists and Spotify downloads.

Homegrownradionj.com is a throwback to an earlier, more democratic kind of radio. Most of the deejays are of a certain age — 50 or older — and grew up with such stations. Many got their professional start at them.

"We find people, and we let them play their music and let them share their vibe," said Mills, whose own show "The Monday Night Slog," co-hosted by his friend Rick Wilmarth, can be heard Monday night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

He was an on-air personality at WNTI, Centenary College Radio, from 1992 to 2004, until a change in format left him high and dry. But as a theater person, he knew a bit about communications. And as a carpenter, he knew a bit about construction. Why not create his own studio? One that would use digital technology to broadcast analog-style shows?

"Our intention was to treat it like [FM] radio," he said. "It's definitely closer to that than podcasting. If you want to hear it, you have to tune in."

In 2004, he set up shop — literally — in Blairstown. "It was a storefront on Route 94," he said. "I built some countertops, started collecting equipment, and a month later we were on the air."

In 2012, they moved to Boonton — briefly to the Darress Theatre, an old pile of a 1919 vaudeville house on Main Street that was not, then, in the best repair (plans are now underway to transform it into an arts center). "That's one of the scariest places I've ever worked in," Balderson said. "At nighttime, you have to be brave at heart."

Two months later, they had a new, storefront studio on Cornelia Street, where they've been ever since. They've become a part of the new, revitalized Boonton, which has been slowly shedding its old mill-town image and becoming a boutique and restaurant destination. Homegrownradionj.com is part of the new, easy-breezy vibe.

"Deejays take it wherever they want to go, and the management doesn't interfere," said Kate Sobolewski, who does her show "The Radio Kiosk" (11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday and noon to 1 p.m. Sunday) from her home in Easton, Pennsylvania.

"Each deejay has their own personality, their passion for the music," she said. Her own preferences tend towards world music, jazz and folk; in another department, she is part of a performing duo, Kate and Paul.

"This station is a blessing," she said.

In order to invent a whole new kind of radio station, Mills had to invent a whole new kind of business model.

It's not advertisers, or listeners, that support homegrownradionj.com (though they have fundraisers from time to time). It's the deejays themselves who pay a $50 monthly fee to do their thing at the mic. They say it's worth it.

"The word that comes to mind is miraculous," Balderson said. "We're doing this through all these years on our own money, not outside sponsorship, with this pool of talented people on staff. That we've survived so long has so much to do with Todd and his wife Lauren being incredibly resilient, and frankly not wanting to let the original vision go."

The vision? It has to do with the art of radio, as it used to be. An art in which the deejay was a conductor, a guide — leading listeners on a magical mystery tour of their own devising. "There's a lot of people here who will present you with things you've never heard before," Mills said.

Welcome, deejays say in effect, to my world. Listeners can hear new artists, be exposed to new sounds. That's not so common in this self-curated age, when people tend to download more of the stuff they already know about. What's homegrownradionj.com provides, that ordinary radio seldom does these days, is serendipity.

"You're listening to some else's preferences and concepts," he said. "If somebody shares that with me and gets me in the mood to hear more, I love that."

And now you know where to find it. Visit their web site, or the TuneIn radio app. Or else, just walk up to the window on Cornelia Street and rap on the pane.

"It's like being a deejay under glass," Mills said. "You're in your own terrarium."

Homegrownradionj.com 20th anniversary party, Saturday Oct. 19, beginning at 5:30 p.m., featuring singer songwriter. Geoff Doubleday, The Electric Farm, The Outcrops. Boonton Elks Lodge, 125 Cornelia Street. $20 admission.