Feature: Mosquito Fleet Stings NAB
Operational Analysis

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Clicking on any image takes you to its parent photo in the Mosquito Fleet Photo Gallery
Also listen to the action at Sounds of Seattle

Day 1 - 9/10/02

Microradio activists began arriving at the Seattle Independent Media Center in force today to map out plans for the days ahead. In a back room (which would later double as engineering laboratory for the technical/engineering crew), about 20 people gathered in a rough circle of chairs. They came from all over the country - California, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin, just to name a few.

Planning a mass occupation of the FM radio dial in a major metropolitan area like Seattle is not an easy feat. The first priority is to find vacant channels on the dial where an unlicensed microradio station can operate safely, at minimal risk of interference to other stations. A group of local coordinators spent some 10 months researching possible frequencies for micrbroadcasting.

According to the FCC's own rules, there should be no space on the dial for any low power FM stations in the Seattle area. The Mosquito Fleet's very existence should serve to debunk that, and the local coordinators first turned to a copy of the FCC's original LPFM proposal for guidance on where to start looking for open frequencies.

All prospective frequencies were situated at least two channels away from any local licensed FM station. The use of these "second adjacent" frequencies was something the FCC originally proposed doing for LPFM in 1999, but rejected in its final rulemaking of January, 2000, in no small part due to pressure from the NAB.

The Fleet's frequency coordinators identified 13 potential frequencies in the Seattle area to broadcast on. Because the area is coastal (and therefore very hilly), the topography made for some unique considerations and challenges. Stations running very low power levels (5 watts or less) could conceivably share frequencies with little problem, provided they were sited far enough away from each other.

Of the 13 initial prospects, nine were identified as being the "most clear," meaning they didn't have pesky hash from fringe stations cluttering up the channel. These, plus one of the "secondary" channels, became the platforms that various station collectives focused on:

87.9 - Two broadcasters in south Seattle on opposite sides of Beacon Hill, one with 17 watts and the other 4 watts
89.1 - Broadcasting to the Pike/Pine corridor above the reservior
93.7 - Temporary broadcasts from a downtown hotel room
94.5 - Two broadcasters in separate parts of town, one also operating from a hotel room
96.9 - A 4-watt mobile unit that broadcast from a downtown nightclub
99.5 - 40 watts serving north Capitol Hill, Wallingford and the U-District
101.1 - 100 watts, receivable primarly in west/central Seattle
102.1 - 40 watts from central Capitol Hill, serving downtown Seattle and the NAB convention site
104.1 - 75 watts of circularly polarized signal serving all of north Seattle
107.3 - Experimental broadcaster in north Seattle

After selecting frequencies, station groups were urged to take copies of a zine specially published for the convergence by SAMBA (the "Second Adjacent Microbroadcasting Association"). Half educational pamphlet and half operational manual, the zine laid out what it was the Fleet was trying to do and included several pages of information on the rights of unlicensed broadcasters with confronted with a visit from the FCC (which seemed unlikely but couldn't be ruled out).

Included in the zine was a boilerplate letter to the FCC - the legal shield the Fleet would use if any station got visited. It invoked a clause in the FCC's own rules which allowed "special temporary authorization" or broadcast stations in a time of national emergency.

In effect, the clause says the FCC may grant emergency licenses to anyone who files an "informal application" to the agency during the emergency. If any station got a knock on the door, it simply handed over an "application to construct a micro-FM station" pursuant to the 47CFR73.3542 - which would initiate the bureaucratic FCC enforcement process and guarantee no further hassle until long after the stations were dismantled and removed from their temporary homes.

Most of the Fleet's participants brought some sort of working gear with them; by the end of the night stations were one the air at 101.1 (100 watts, broadcasting from the city with a studio-to-transmitter link to a rig somewhere in the woods) and 94.5 (A 35-watt rig run from a hotel room - see photos). Not all collectives arrived completely ready to rock: some had to wait for gear to be shipped from back home while others would need to build critical components on-site.

Additionally, the different station collectives subscribed to differing levels of security culture: some only went by pseudonyms and kept the locations of their stations a secret, even to the rest of the Fleet's participants. Others regularly invited people over to their studios for a tour and time on the air.

The real process of station construction en masse would begin tomorrow, but having two signals already on the air certainly buoyed everyone's spirits.

Next Page --> Day 2 --> Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5