First it was Florida…now the New Jersey Broadcasters’ Association is pushing a bill through the state legislature that would make unlicensed broadcasting in the state a fourth-degree felony. Whereas conviction in Florida could cost you $5k and/or five years behind bars, New Jersey’s proposed law hits pirates for $10,000 and up to 18 months in jail. Continue reading “New Jersey Moves to Criminalize Pirate Radio”
Author: diymedia_tu6dox
LPFM Roundup
There’s been a change of leadership within the Amherst Alliance. Don Schellhardt has left the post of president after several years of hard but not futile work, for which he deserves a boatload of thanks. The new Amherst honcho is Stacie Trescott.
REC Networks is again on the ball with “a special message for listeners of K-Love and Air-1” about Educational Media Foundation’s misguided anti-LPFM public comment crusade.
Finally, Mediageek’s got some prognostications on the shape and form of the FCC under the second coming of Bush II. It’s agreeably cynical.
Radio Re/Volt: Quickie Summary
Paul @ Mediageek has the complete rundown, with pics and the appropriate links to everywhere relevant to our adventure in Minneapolis. As conferences go, it was on the fun side: way too many people you want to get to know, way too little time. Tetsuo was certainly awe-inspiring, but so was Kyle Drake, Free Radio Twin Cities, free103point9, the audience reception to Making Waves, and the hardy contingent of midwest pirates who converged on the scene to represent. I got to drink with none of them. But still, a good time. If we manage to get hold of the recordings made of the conference sessions they will get online somehow, at the very least through Radio MCAD, the gracious host of it all.
Freak Radio Returns; Translations Top 300
Less than a month off the air. Not bad after getting cleaned out in a show of force by the FCC.
Technically, Free Radio Santa Cruz is still just webcasting. It seems that an unaffiliated group called SCRAM (Santa Cruz Radio Access Movement) is relaying the stream, tech specs unknown, but good news nonetheless. Continue reading “Freak Radio Returns; Translations Top 300”
Microradio Documentary Near Completion
Looks like 2004 will be a fruitful year, if you’re a fan of the micro-niche that is documentaries about microradio. I’ve heard from the producers of the tentatively-titled “Pirate Radio USA,” a feature-length doc made by microbroadcasters about the movement. No release date yet, just that something’s almost done.
There’s also new developments in Colorado: “Denver Free Radio” spent a grand total of five hours on the air before its latest airchain host got a visit from the FCC. “A white Chevy Tahoe,” with New Mexico plates, “with hidden antennas built into the roof” containing a squad of three rolled up. Denied an inspection, they phoned the property three times before tacking a note to the door. Mouse’s move…
Making Waves Review Online
It’s four pages of glowing text action seeded with something like 10 clips from the film. Its producer, Michael Lahey, is generous like that: he’s even opened up some crash space for the Mediageek and I on our visit to Minneapolis this weekend for the RAD conference. Seriously, though, it’s the best documentary yet on the subject and it’s good to see it’ll be screened at the conference. If you’re into microradio you get a good full hour of quality storytelling from Tucson that’ll make you (somewhat) proud. Contact Michael directly if you’d like a DVD.
Translator Networks Mobilize Listeners
While rooting around in the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System today to examine recent submissions to a proceeding in the agency’s Localism Task Force effort, I made a typo. Instead of searching for filings under the FCC docket number 04-433 (the magic number to file/find comments filed on broadcast localism), I mistyped and got the results for FCC# 04-223, which deals with a pending change to the FCC’s regulation of junk faxes.
Many listeners to the Educational Media Foundation‘s two christian music radio networks, K-LOVE and AIR1, are butterfingers like me. In 04-223 there are ~30 new filings from this week alone. They’re all from K-LOVE/AIR-1 listeners moved to support the networks – networks who are apparently afraid of an expansion of true local LPFM and can’t get enough of translators.
They’re all only a paragraph or two and full of interesting talking points: Continue reading “Translator Networks Mobilize Listeners”
Making Waves
Note: Images are clickable and will open a context-related clip from the documentary (Quicktime required).
Making Waves (2004) is the second feature-length documentary from Jump Cut Films, the outlet of Michael Lahey. Central to the film are profiles of three microradio stations sharing the airwaves of Tucson, Arizona. Lahey manages to weave these separate stories into an overall narrative about the modern microradio movement, using the Reverend Rick Strawcutter as a tie-in to the national scene. Continue reading “Making Waves”
FCC Approves BPL Deployment
It sounds like a great idea in theory: turn the electrical grid into a network for broadband data delivery. No new wires to run or jacks to install; the power plug becomes your express-ramp to the InfoMation SupaHiway.
There’s just one problem: because most of the power grid doesn’t use insulated wires, the data sent through Broadband over Power Line (BPL) systems (as an RF signal that rides the wire) radiates into the surroundings – to the detriment of any user of HF radio frequencies within a half-mile to a mile of the power line cum data pipe. Continue reading “FCC Approves BPL Deployment”
Free Radio Berkeley Unveils Micro-TV Kits
Stephen Dunifer recently sent out an e-mail titled “The Revolution Will Be Televised,” which said, in part:
Free Radio Berkeley’s engineering staff has managed to design and develop low power VHF and UHF transmitters by the creative use of off-the-shelf technology. So far, design engineering efforts have yielded TV transmitters capable of reaching a distance of 4-5 miles. Estimated cost for a VHF transmitter and antenna system with an effective radiated power of 75 watts is about $500, $700 to $800 for a system with an effective radiated power of 400 watts. For a UHF system, add about $300 to the above amounts. Coverage pattern is 220 degrees, not fully omni-directional. Further work is continuing on the development of antenna systems…. Continue reading “Free Radio Berkeley Unveils Micro-TV Kits”