Some scene reports to share:
Steamboat Springs, CO – “We went on the air about 9 PM Friday (1/30) and took things down at 11 AM Sunday (2/2). The X-mitter was a North Country MPX-96 feeding 2 modified and filtered Radio Shack HTX-10 amplifiers in series. Power out was ~30 watts into a wire 1/2 wave dipole on the balcony of a 2nd story ski-in/ski-out condo about 500 vertical feet above town and 200 feet above the base of the resort. Coverage was excellent as you could imagine. Covered downtown and the whole resort area, didn’t drive far enough to lose the signal. Oh, and the snow was OK, skiing great, and weather WARM.”
Boulder, CO – There has been some sort of split within the Boulder Free Radio organization. Most of the station’s founders are now working on an internet-only radio station presumably called “Real Public Radio.” New folks now have the transmitter; their intentions are unknown. Continue reading “Miscellaneous Piracy Afoot”
Category: Microradio
"Nonsense on stilts": D.C. Appeals Court Upholds Anti-Pirate LPFM Ban
More depressing news from our so-called “justice” system: the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the “no-pirates” clause in the FCC’s LPFM rules. The clause was challenged by Greg Ruggiero, a member of the former Steal This Radio collective in New York. A three-judge panel of the the same court initially declared the blanket exclusion unconstitutional about a year ago. The FCC petitioned for a re-hearing of the case in front of the full bench, which was granted – leading to the reversal of the previous decision yesterday.
After rejecting both primary arguments articulated by Ruggiero and the FCC against and for the anti-pirate clause, the court struck out on its own path to denying the challenge to the ban. Ruggiero, in part, argued that many other individuals and entities licensed by the FCC have been found guilty of worse crimes than radio piracy. Therefore, Congress’ late-2000 passage of the “Radio Broadcasting Protection Act,” which overrode the FCC’s original rule and banned pirates completely and permanently from the new service (the FCC originally granted unlicensed broadcasters a limited window of amnesty under which to apply for an LPFM license) was unconstitutional. Continue reading “"Nonsense on stilts": D.C. Appeals Court Upholds Anti-Pirate LPFM Ban”
Freak Radio Airs Bust Preparedness PSAs
This is thinking ahead: Freak Radio Santa Cruz, in reaction to the recent raid on Berkeley Liberation Radio, is now airing a “Raid Alert PSA” preparing listeners to react if/when the FCC moves on the station – which has been on the air pretty much non-stop for seven and a half years now.
“In the event that we are raided, if we have the time, we will put out an address on the air, asking you – the listener – to come down to that address to observe, document, and protest in the event it does happen,” intones Skidmark Bob. The PSA is faintly reminiscent of the old Emergency Broadcast System tests, but much cooler.
Berkeley Liberation Radio Back on the Air
Good news from Stephen Dunifer: “BLR is back on the air. Transmissions resumed on late Sunday afternoon.” Less than a week of downtime is pretty damn impressive!
While the FCC has conducted at least three enforcement actions within the last three weeks, the good news is at least three new microradio stations have signed on around the country during the same time. With BLR back on the air, the net gain is one for the good guys….
Update #2 – More Details on BLR Raid
Looks like yesterday’s raid of Berkeley Liberation Radio was pretty severe; the government hard at work, making the world safer for us all. Cap’n Fred sent a note about the incident:
“The FCC had an arrest warrant for the equipment. They knocked on the door and slid the warrant under. The dj in the studio at the time looked at it and decided he’d better let them in. They then proceeded to tear down our antenna and confiscate all the electronic equipment in the room. They left our scratchy old records, tapes and cd’s.” Continue reading “Update #2 – More Details on BLR Raid”
Berkeley Liberation Radio Busted
Word just crossed the email that Berkeley Liberation Radio was raided by Federal Marshals and the FCC this morning. Apparently almost everything connected to the station was taken, save for microphones and headphones. The FCC isn’t commenting….Cap’n Fred, are you out there?
BLR is the outgrowth of the old Free Radio Berkeley, founded by Stephen Dunifer. While Dunifer was enjoined from broadcasting ever again after losing a long battle in court with the feds, the rest of the station was free to move on. They did…until today. Continue reading “Berkeley Liberation Radio Busted”
Freak Radio Reporter Arrested for Taping Public Meeting
Robert Norse, a reporter with Freak Radio Santa Cruz, had no idea his mini-tape recorder would cause so much trouble.
On Monday, Norse attended the inaugural meeting of a special committee empaneled by the the Santa Cruz, CA city council. The “Downtown Issues Task Force” is charged with implementing a controversial city plan to “clean up” downtown Santa Cruz. In addition to effectively outlawing panhandling, the plan would also place severe restrictions on street theater, leafleting, and the ability to set up informational tables. Continue reading “Freak Radio Reporter Arrested for Taping Public Meeting”
Microradio Notes
The FCC has fined a Naples, FL man $10,000 for running an unlicensed station out of a church. Radio Mision Posible got multiple visits and warning letters before getting a pending-fine notice and, ultimately, the forfeiture itself. The Enforcement Action Database has logged 28 actions to-date for the year, bringing the overall running score to 239.
We’ve also updated our Mosquito Fleet Operational Analysis with additional information emailed from fellow participants. It looks like a total of 11 frequencies were occupied during the event, one more than previously estimated. Some frequencies were shared by more than one station. Continue reading “Microradio Notes”
Supreme Court Declines Grid Radio's Appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Jerry Szoka and GRID Radio, an unlicensed microradio station in Cleveland, Ohio who’s been sparring with the FCC since 1998 and went off the air after receiving a federal court injunction in 2000.
This is the second microradio case to be declined recently by the Supremes; the first was Minneapolis’ Beat Radio, whose petition for certiorari was turned away last year. Continue reading “Supreme Court Declines Grid Radio's Appeal”
FCC Begins Manufacturing Consent for Ownership Rule Changes
There has been a lot of news since the last update; the Schnazz will get you up to speed on post-NAB conference coverage and the FCC’s latest moves to let the media industry get even more incestuous with itself. The Mosquito Fleet feature has also been properly fleshed out.
Lucky for us, the FCC now has a special section on its website devoted to the media ownership rule review now underway. There’s a lot of info there, but one area to examine further is a slew of “studies” the agency commissioned to examine the current media landscape. The studies look at everything from viewpoint diversity between media formats, to advertising rates, to radio formats, and loads more.
It should come as no surprise that the studies are heavily skewed toward economic analyses of the state of the media, with a few token perspectives thrown in from journalistic, cultural, and sociological perspectives. So much for the objective assessment of reality. Continue reading “FCC Begins Manufacturing Consent for Ownership Rule Changes”