On the shortwave front, a militia man in Kentucky that made history in March is back on the air under a different name.
Major Steve Anderson, a member of the Kentucky State Militia, first fired up Kentucky State Militia Radio on March first. KSMR became the first clandestine shortwave broadcaster ever to target the United States from within the country itself – stations of this type traditionally broadcast outside of the country they’re trying to propagandize.
Touting the station as an expression of the First Amendment “protected by the Second Amendment,” KSMR made several broadcasts for about three weeks, passing along militia contact information and warning the FCC to stay away. Continue reading “KSMR Reborn”
LPFM Lurches Forward
After several months of delay, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken another step forward in implementing its plan for new low power FM (LPFM) radio stations.
FCC staff have finished the official revisions to the LPFM plan mandated by Congressional action last year. More restrictive rules are now in place that put the majority of the American population out of reach of new LPFM station signals, and radio pirates of any kind are now permanently banned from participating in the new service. Continue reading “LPFM Lurches Forward”
KSMR Makes History
When Major Steve Anderson of the Kentucky State Militia fired up a shortwave transmitter and gave birth to Kentucky State Militia Radio (KSMR) this month, it’s not clear whether or not he knew he was making history.
The amateur and shortwave radio bands are heavily populated by militia and other “patriot” broadcasters who criticize the federal government for regularly overstepping its Constitutional bounds. In many cases, these broadcasters advocate isolation from anything federal in nature.
Anderson falls into this category: last year he turned in his amateur radio license to the FCC as a symbolic gesture of detachment from the reins of federal authority. Continue reading “KSMR Makes History”
2001 "Pirate Hunt" Begins
The U.S. microradio movement is all abuzz over the recent raid on Radio Free Cascadia – the 90-watt unlicensed station broadcast for three years in Eugene, Oregon, and some members of the station conducted a broadcast in Seattle during the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization.
On Thursday, March 15, FCC agents backed by 11 federal and local law enforcement officers paid an early-morning visit to RFC. Guns were drawn, a battering ram was employed, and when it was over the agents had confiscated the station’s broadcast equipment and left Eugene with one less voice on the radio dial.
The RFC collective was quick to respond: “This was an obvious attack on free speech and autonomy,” said a statement posted to the station’s web site. “We will be back on the air!” Continue reading “2001 "Pirate Hunt" Begins”
Party Pirate Attacked Again; Former Pirate to get Second Station
The FCC appears to be experiencing a moment of schizophrenia.
On the regulation and enforcement fronts, the hands of the FCC are working in very different directions.
Yesterday, a new volley was fired in the ongoing battle between the radio police and Doug Brewer, operator of Tampa, Florida’s “Party Pirate” 102.1 FM.
There’s a long history to this skirmish, which has flared up twice before since Brewer put the Party Pirate on the air more than six years ago. Continue reading “Party Pirate Attacked Again; Former Pirate to get Second Station”
LPFM: Back from the Dead?
Those still hoping for a meaningful low power radio service in the United States received a boost in morale last week when Arizona Senator John McCain introduced the “Low Power Radio Act of 2001.”
The bill, officially named S. 404, would repeal the restrictions placed on the FCC’s new LPFM service by Congress late last year. It would also require the FCC to quickly investigate complaints of interference between new LPFM and full-power stations.
McCain’s legislation also contains a provision designed to keep full-power stations from bullying the new “little guys” around: under his plan, if a complaint is found to be unwarranted, the station who brought the action could be subject to a stiff fine – and the money would be given to the LPFM station targeted by the complaint. Continue reading “LPFM: Back from the Dead?”
Guerrilla Radio News
One of the things mainstream radio in America has all but abandoned is journalism. It’s only been a half-century since the advent of television, and from then to now is the time it’s taken for radio news to all but disappear.
Radio news departments were some of the first casualties in the industry’s downward spiral into consolidation and cost-cutting sparked by the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It costs a lot of money (read: salaries) to produce local news, and offers some of the lowest return on investment (read: ad rates).
As an independent media movement took root at the end of the last century, activists rediscovered radio journalism. A portable minidisc recorder makes it possible for one person to archive a large amount of sound on a matchbook-sized medium; regular cassette tapes are cheaper still. And the MP3 file system makes coverage of events and interviews easy to produce and distribute online. Continue reading “Guerrilla Radio News”
Low Power Limbo
We are two months into 2001 and halfway through the first FCC filing windows for new low power FM (LPFM) station licenses. The progress being made is slow and uncertain.
Two of the three filing windows that have opened and closed so far happened while Big Broadcasting was engaged in its overtime lobbying of Congress to kill the LPFM service. When that effort all but succeeded in December 2000, it put all of those LPFM applications filed – more than 1,000 in all – in jeopardy, as the rules governing the service shifted under the feet of the applicants, in some cases immediately disqualifying many of them.
Since LPFM’s evisceration, a third filing window has opened and closed – and another 500-plus LPFM applications have been submitted. In all, more than 1,700 applications for LPFM station licenses have been received by the FCC. Continue reading “Low Power Limbo”
Shortwave Bonanza
Unlike their microradio cousins operating on the FM dial, shortwave pirate broadcasters aren’t in the game to serve a specific community – unless you include those who’ve turned the hobby of scanning the shortwave bands into a science.
Shortwave radio broadcasting and listening is a very different sport from low power FM. Both types of broadcasters use only dozens of watts to get a signal out but FM signals are very localized. They only travel in a line-of-sight fashion, at best covering dozens of miles.
Shortwave radio, on the other hand, takes advantage of the upper levels of the atmosphere to extend their range. Using the electrically charged particles in the ionosphere, it is possible for a shortwave signal to “skip” through this layer and be heard hundreds or thousands of miles away.
This provides a fascinating challenge to the shortwave listener, who must optimize their receiving antennas and other equipment to best pick up these whispers of pirate radio. Continue reading “Shortwave Bonanza”
Target: Translator
Translators: they are a pox on the FM radio dial.
Translators, by definition, are small low-power FM radio stations licensed with power levels of up to 250 watts. Translators are licensed by the FCC as “relay stations” only: they may not originate their own programming and must rebroadcast the signal from a full-power “parent station.”
Translators were originally designed to be used by FM radio stations located in difficult terrain, like mountainous regions of the United States, to help fill in gaps in their signal area.
Instead, several groups (most notably religious “pay to pray”-type broadcasters) have used the translator rules to build large networks of low-power radio stations across the country. Translators are easier to site and cheaper to build and operate than full-power FM radio stations. Continue reading “Target: Translator”