Somehow, somewhere I stumbled across the image at right which, if you click it, takes you to more detailed version. If that one’s not big enough, try this one.
The map is the stellar work of Hamcall.net, which boasts the largest and best-kept database of amateur radio operators by callsign available online (and would never condone unlicensed operation, of course).
The next step of coolness would be animating this map over time. I wonder if they have similar maps of previous years.
Month: October 2005
Guerrilla Radio, Deep and Wide
Pirate radio embraces the guerrilla motif: attack, disappear, reform, repeat. Several years ago it flared, made headlines, and a bit of history, but then subsided. Now things are at a healthy simmer again, and this time on more than one dial.
On the enforcement front, although the FCC still cares about pirates, activity on all three major bands (AM, FM, and shortwave) is evident. A recent story in the Boston Globe profiled several AM pirates operating there. The FCC took up the issue of LPFM in part because of pressure from committed microbroadcasters; could there be similar motivations at play in its new LPAM rulemaking? Shortwave pirates, who haven’t seen enforcement action in six years, are downright cocky. Continue reading “Guerrilla Radio, Deep and Wide”
Low Power AM Petition for Rulemaking Accepted at FCC
RM-11287 is a multi-party petition that calls for the opening of the AM band to small broadcasters. Two of the five parties involved also filed the original petition for rulemaking that led to LPFM’s conception.
This has been a long time coming: citizen interest in LPAM has percolated since the 1990s, and there’s been open discussion of the idea since at least 2002. In 2003 a respected broadcast engineer submitted a proposal to the FCC which called for the creation of 30 and 100-watt “neighborhood radio” AM stations with 1-5 mile broadcast ranges. The FCC never formally acknowledged receipt of this document. In 2004 efforts were made to revive the proposal, to no avail. Building on these previous efforts with copious field experimentation led to the petition the FCC finally accepted.
RM-11287 attempts to differentiate LPAM from LPFM in several respects. The most significant is its commercial nature: LPAM seeks to “fill the current gap between small stations and megacorporations…where mid-sized businesses used to be” in the broadcast industry. Petitioners contend that while LPFM addresses a “community coverage gap” opened by the consolidation of radio since 1996, “[t]here remains, in radio and in other mass media industries, a separate, but similarly dangerous, ‘small business gap'” which “harms the nation by hindering economic growth and also by limiting the free flow of information and ideas.” It is proposed that one entity may own up to 12 LPAM stations nationally, although no more than one in any given market.
Multiple options are presented for the technical requirements of an LPAM service, with power levels ranging from 1 to 250 watts. All are geared toward keeping administration of the service simple. It is believed that under such conditions LPAM stations may provide opportunities for access to the airwaves that LPFM simply cannot: for example, according to cited analysis from REC Networks, metropolitan Detroit is currently off-limits to LPFM, but as many as four possible LPAM frequencies exist in the city.
Some components of the petition, like asking the FCC to make licensing decisions between competing applicants based on their proposed broadcast content, will simply not fly. And given that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the FCC to auction off all commercial broadcast licenses, implementation of the proposal as written would require the blessing of Congress. But the fact that the FCC is at least open to a rudimentary level of discussion about LPAM is encouraging. Comments on RM-11287 are due in mid-November (on or around November 20).
Low Power AM Petition for Rulemaking Accepted at FCC
RM-11287 is a multi-party petition that calls for the opening of the AM band to small broadcasters. Two of the five parties involved also filed the original petition for rulemaking that led to LPFM’s conception.
This has been a long time coming: citizen interest in LPAM has percolated since the 1990s, and there’s been open discussion of the idea since at least 2002. In 2003 a respected broadcast engineer submitted a proposal to the FCC which called for the creation of 30 and 100-watt “neighborhood radio” AM stations with 1-5 mile broadcast ranges. The FCC never formally acknowledged receipt of this document. In 2004 efforts were made to revive the proposal, to no avail. Building on these previous efforts with copious field experimentation led to the petition the FCC finally accepted. Continue reading “Low Power AM Petition for Rulemaking Accepted at FCC”
Salem's Open-Source Broadcast Software
While updating the Schnazz last I stumbled across an interesting arm of Salem Communications Corporation, America’s largest religious broadcast conglomerate (humble, tolerant, and generous). Salem Radio Labs, the company’s in-house radio software development arm, walks the talk. It’s built solutions for automation, live-assist, audio archiving and call screening from scratch, all under the open-source GNU General Public License.
Says the Labs FAQ, “we’re broadcasters, not a software company, and we believe that the fastest, most efficient way to produce quality software tools for broadcasting is by means of the Open Source development model.” The programs are optimized for the SuSE Linux distribution but other flavors are available.
Former Pirates Represent via Satellite, Streaming
With risk comes reward? According to the Radio and Internet Newsletter, a former Twin Cities pirate takes the top spot ratings-wise for stations on the Shoutcast network. The two streams of Jeff Bachmeier’s “Club977,” whose name is an homage to the frequency he used to occupy, attract an online audience comparable in size to what the market-leading radio station in Madison, WI might draw.
He’s not the first to cross over: Alan Freed, formerly of Beat Radio fame, now programs three XM satellite radio dance channels and shows no signs of slowing down. Continue reading “Former Pirates Represent via Satellite, Streaming”
Radio Algiers Update
The station’s now regularly broadcasting from Common Ground on 88.7 FM. It has one main (75-watt) and one backup (40-watt) transmitter and is also reliably streaming online (direct links: mp3 / m3u). I had best luck listening by copying and pasting the stream links directly into player software.
The city’s power grid still has its flaky moments but otherwise it seems things are relatively stable now. I’ve heard interviews with people arrested in crazy-cop curfew sweeps, Slave Revolt Radio, and some excellent music. A recently-installed phone line will go a long way toward opening up the information flow. Continue reading “Radio Algiers Update”
Truthful Translations: 400 and Counting
There’s more in the hopper, too. The collection‘s closing in on a gigabyte and a half; I haven’t bothered recently to add up the cumulative listening/viewing time. Many thanks to all the artists who help make sense of political speech and are willing to share the sanity.
Culture jamming in the brave new world is alive and well, thanks for asking. So as long as sentiments like those expressed recently by Milton Rand Kalman of the Billboard Liberation Front continue to exist there should be little worry.
“It’s really fun to be like a paramilitary art squad,” he said. “Have you ever broken the law? I mean, not just like jaywalking…really broken the law, like, stepped way over? It’s awesome.” Amen.
Barnraising in My Backyard
Just in case posts are light for the next month or so, you have been duly warned.
No longer content to engage & enthrall scores of volunteers with a plain old radio barnraising, Prometheus and the UC IMC take the mammoth task of building a radio station over the course of a singe weekend in stride. We’re not stopping at the FM AIRWAVES; we’re setting our sights on freeing the whole SPECTRUM for use by democratic communications as we look to the future of radio! … While some of us construct the studio & raise the antenna to get WRFU on the air, others will set up access points to expand and protect [an] open source community wireless network!
Registration for all of this fun closes on November 6. We can use all the help we can get.
Rayon Payne Free, On Hunt for Open Mic
I recently got an e-mail from Rayon Payne (aka NSX), who made U.S. pirate radio history in 2003 by becoming the first person to serve time behind bars on a federal criminal conviction for unlicensed broadcasting. He just got out of jail in July. We ended up talking for nearly two hours:
Hi-bitrate version (64kbps MP3, 51.2 MB)
Low-bitrate version (16kbps MP3, 12.8 MB)
Some salient bits: Continue reading “Rayon Payne Free, On Hunt for Open Mic”