Day of Mass Electronic Civil Disobedience - October 17, 2003
by Stephen Dunifer - Free Radio Berkeley
Seize the Airwaves!
Break the Corporate Media's Stranglehold on the Free Flow of Information,
News, Music, Artistic Expression, and Cultural Creativity
Day of Mass Electronic Civil Disobedience
Celebrating International Media Democracy Day
Friday, October 17, 2003
You go to the demonstrations, write letters and email to Congress; and
yet, you feel as if your voice is not being heard. What if there was a way
for your voice, and the voices of your compatriots, to actually be heard?
There is - it is called micropower broadcasting or free radio.
Micropower broadcasting began as a means to empower the residents of a
housing project in Springfield, Illinois in the late 1980's. By creating a
low power FM broadcast station, this community established its own voice
and a direct means to fight against police brutality and repression.
Unlicensed and unsanctioned by the government, Human Rights Radio, as it
is now known, continues to broadcast to this very day.
Since then, micropower broadcasting has grown into a national movement of
electronic civil disobedience. Based on the principles of Free Speech and
Direct Action, micropower broadcasting seeks to reclaim the electronic
commons of the airwaves - a public resource and trust stolen by the
corporate broadcasters, aided and abetted by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) and other appendages of the US Government.
Continuing in the rich tradition of the struggle to speak freely and be
heard, micropower broadcasting has traded the historic soapbox for the FM
broadcast transmitter. Advances in technology and design have allowed for
the creation of FM transmitters at a very low cost in comparison to
standard, commercial broadcasting equipment. An entire FM broadcast
station covering a radius of 5-12 miles can be assembled for $1000 or
less.
Yes, there are legal risks involved. Such stations are violating FCC
regulations and statutes, and are subject to possible legal actions such
as threatening letters or fines, and sometimes seizure of equipment.
Despite this, at any given time, there are hundreds of stations on the air
across the United States. Unfortunately, stations tend to go on the air in
isolation from one another, making them an easier target for the FCC.
Despite the somewhat uncoordinated efforts of the last ten years, hundreds
of micropower stations taking to the airwaves forced the FCC to respond to
a rapidly growing, ungovernable situation. William Kennard, former head of
the FCC, admitted this is in a documentary, LPFM - The Peoples' Voice,
produced by the United Church of Christ's Microradio Implementation
Project. ( http://www.veriteproductions.net/html/awards.html ;
http://www.current.org/in/in009LPFM.html ) Adding further legitimacy to
the micropower broadcasting movement, the FCC's own study on possible
interference issues, The Mitre Study
(http://prometheusradio.org/release_71303.shtml), failed to show even
marginal interference to full power broadcasters by low power FM stations.
It went further to recommend the lifting of burdensome restrictions
imposed on the LPFM broadcasting service.
For years, the National Association of Broadcasters(NAB), representing
corporate interests, has used interference as a red herring issue in their
attempts to stifle the Free Speech Rights of micropower broadcasters.
Joined by National Public Radio, the NAB, using bogus interference claims
augmented with political grease, succeeded in getting a bill, ironically
titled -The Broadcast Preservation Act of 1999, passed by Congress to
severely limit the number of LPFM stations authorized by the FCC when they
established the LPFM service in January of 1999. Whether it was the Free
Speech fights of the Wobblies, folks refusing to go to the back of the bus
or hundreds of unsanctioned low power FM taking to the airwaves, mass
movements creating ungovernable situations do work.
Therefore, we are calling for a day of electronic solidarity and direct
action, marking the beginning of a new chapter in micropower broadcasting
by raising the struggle to an entirely new level of engagement. Between
now and October, 17th, we are asking you and your community to create your
own broadcast station to further empower your vision of a just, humane,
peaceful and sustainable world.
Hundreds of new stations going on the air all at once will be a powerful
statement to the corporate media and the government that the airwaves
belong to the people who have chosen to seize them back, speaking in one
strong collective voice. With budgets and resources stretched thin, the
FCC will be hard-pressed to respond to such an expression of solidarity.
This action will encourage many more communities to set up their own
broadcast stations. Schools, arts centers, housing projects, senior
communities; all could be empowered with free radio broadcasting. Critical
mass can be achieved within a very short period of time.
To further amplify this collective voice, a mass 24 hour broadcast of the
same programming by hundreds of micropower stations would meld hundreds of
small voices into one giant shout for Free Speech Rights. Using the
existing infrastructure of the Internet and audio streaming technologies
which have been employed by the Independent Media Centers since 1999, a
common audio stream would be created for re-broadcasting. Individual
stations would work collectively to create programming for this 24 hour
broadcast. Given the number of IMC sites in the US, they could serve as
hubs for the audio streams, both incoming and outgoing. And, quite
possibly, stations outside the US would join in as well, creating a global
movement to reclaim the broadcast spectrum.
Setting up a basic FM broadcast station requires the following items.
Approximate price ranges are given.
Transmitter - $150 to $600
Power Supply - $35to $100
Antenna - $15 to $125
Antenna cable - $50 to $75
Compressor/limiter - $80 to $100
Audio mixer - $75 to $150
Microphones $25 to $50 each
Tape and CD players, go to garage sales or get donated units
Donated 300-500 Mhz computer to work as an MP3 sound file jukebox. Allows
unattended playing of program material as needed.
Transmitters are available as kits or fully assembled units. Assembled
units are mostly available from vendors in the UK. A list of vendors
follows at the end of this article. A very serviceable antenna can be
built from common B& inch copper water pipe for $15 in materials or a
commercial unit, the Comet 5/8 groundplane, costs $115-$125.
To facilitate the creation of hundreds of new stations, weekend workshops
will be scheduled at selected locations around the country between now and
October 17th. At the end of the workshop you will be able to walk away
with a fully assembled transmitter and antenna. As an introduction to
setting up an FM broadcast station, Free Radio Berkeley has a Micropower
Broadcasting Primer available as a PDF document either on their website -
www.freeradio.org - or by email request - [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Thanks to
a collaborative design effort, Free Radio Berkeley will be offering a
partially assembled 1-10 watt variable output power transmitter kit for
$150. This transmitter can cover a radius of 4-6 miles and will drive a
higher power amplifier of 75 watts which is available as kit for $115.
With your own radio station, you will be able to provide alternative
programming that is rarely heard in most communities unless they are
fortunate enough to have a Pacifica station or an independent community
station nearby. Thanks to the internet, there is a wealth of programming
available in addition to what you will be able to produce locally. A
collaborative web site - www.radio4all.net - established by the micropower
broadcasting community in 1997 has over 2000 radio programs available for
downloading in MP3 format. New programs are being uploaded daily.
Democracy Now ( www.democracynow.org ), Working Assets Radio (
www.workingforchange.com/radio/index.cfm ) and Making Contact (
www.radioproject.org ), to name a few, offer extensive archives of
programs for downloading. The Independent Media Center Radio Site -
http://radio.indymedia.org/ - not only has a large archive of programming
but lists other programming sources, web streams from free radio stations,
and a variety of other resources as well.
To paraphrase "Scoop" Nisker, if you don't like the media, go out and make
your own. It is time to move from being a passive consumer of media to
becoming a co-creator in a movement which gives voice to the voiceless. If
you can't communicate, you can't organize. If you can't organize, you
can't fight back. And, if you can't fight back, you have no chance of
winning.
Stephen Dunifer
Free Radio Berkeley
Resource list
Equipment sources
Free Radio Berkeley - www.freeradio.org
Veronica - http://www.veronica.co.uk/
Broadcast Warehouse - www.broadcastwarehouse.com
Panaxis - http://www.panaxis.com/
NRG Kits - http://www.nrgkits.com/
PCS Electronics - http://www.pcs-electronics.com/en/index.php
Zzounds, for audio gear - www.zzounds.com
General Information
Radio4all - www.radio4all.org
Free Radio Berkeley - www.freeradio.org
DIY Media - www.diymedia.net/
Hobby Broadcasting - www.hobbybroadcasting.com/
IMC Radio - http://radio.indymedia.org
Programming Sources
IMC Radio - http://radio.indymedia.org
Democracy Now - www.democracynow.org
Radio4all - www.radio4all.net
Making Contact - www.radioproject.org
KPFA programming links - www.kpfa.org/5_link.htm
KGNU program archives - www.kgnu.org/news.html
Pacifica Radio Archives - www.pacificaradioarchives.org
Pacifica Radio - www.pacifica.org
Resistance MP3's - www.geocities.com/resistancemp3
http://www.sozialistische-klassiker.org/dir/sound.html
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