http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/nov/02/hijacking-airwaves-again/
Like the perennial arcade favorite Whac-A-Mole, Boulder’s underground radio scene pops up for a while, gets slammed down by the government, then emerges again somewhere else. Boulder Free Radio, an illicit low-power broadcast signal that has been on the air in spurts since 2001, is back in business — on the Internet and at 93.9 FM — with obscure music, free-wheeling monologues and a new man at the helm. That is, if you can identify a helm at this decentralized, studio-less, pirate radio operation, where DJs broadcast content from wherever they choose with nothing more than a cheap microphone, mixer and Internet connection. “I’m the benevolent dictator,” said the heavily tattooed head of KBFR, who goes by the name of Arthur Dent, the protagonist in the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” science-fiction series. Decentralized operation Dent, a 28-year-old employee at a Boulder software company, said he was inspired to bring KBFR back after avidly listening to it as a cab driver during its 2001-2005 run. He saw it as a welcome and refreshing alternative to corporate-run commercial radio and a place where often-ignored ideas could be aired. He oversees about 10 DJs — some of whom he’s never met — who spin¤’70s funk tracks, doom metal tunes or emergent music from various artists’ MySpace pages. The station airs weeknights and around the clock on weekends. The volunteer DJs at KBFR figure out who is supposed to be on when via a shared Google calendar, and if no one can cover a shift, Dent will relay a signal from another Internet radio station to fill in the air time. That sometimes makes for a less-than-professional-sounding broadcast, with pockets of dead air, confused or distracted DJs and a glitched-up audio stream, Dent said on a recent afternoon while seated outside a sandwich shop in east Boulder. “Something overheats, something breaks, someone’s Internet connection isn’t working properly,” he said. But he said the audience is used to such a seat-of-the-pants approach and unregimented content. For many, in fact, it’s the prime reason to tune in. “I want it to be an experiment in free radio,” he said. “A place where people can discover new ideas and new music.” The station has been back on the air — on a mostly sporadic basis — for about a month, on 93.9 FM and on the Web, with a link to its live audio stream at www.myspace.com/boulderfreeradio. It was last a Boulder presence in January 2005, when agents from the Federal Communications Commission raided its mobile broadcast studio and shut it down. Dodging the FCC Dent said he hopes he can stay out of the FCC’s grasp — in what he describes as a “constant cat-and-mouse game” — for as long as possible. He said some fundamental things have changed since the operation was run by Monk, the man who started the pirate station seven years ago with $5,000 worth of broadcasting equipment. The station has multiple transmitters scattered throughout the county that act as backups in case one is stolen, confiscated or breaks down. And there is no central studio — mobile or otherwise — to which FCC agents can pay a visit, since the DJs broadcast from their homes over the Internet. “We’ve found creative ways to place things that are not associated with any address where you could issue a citation,” he said. A call to the FCC went unreturned last week. But Dent doesn’t fool himself into thinking he won’t eventually have to tangle with the agency. He calls it a “when, not if” situation. He said that’s where his differing approach to what goes on KBFR’s air this time around could help keep the feds at bay. Instead of the absolute freedom exercised by the station’s DJs in the early years — when profanity was used liberally and DJs played soundtracks from porn movies during their talk-ups — he wants to impart to his on-air talent that they don’t need to resort to prurience and bathroom humor to fully exercise their creative urges. “What I want to do is give people an opportunity to have free speech but not approach it as some kind of angry reaction to censored radio,” he said. He said he has respect for the FCC and recognizes that the agency is simply doing its job when it comes after pirate stations like his. Dent one day dreams that illegal low-power FM stations will be made legal so they can co-exist with commercial radio stations and give the audience a wide variety of content to choose from. Artists suffer Scott Arbough, program director at 97.3 FM KBCO, said he doesn’t have strong feelings about pirate radio and doesn’t think it has much impact on the radio-listening community in the long run. But by flying under the radar like it does, KBFR hurts the very artists it claims to love by not paying the license fees that support them, he said. “Those who are hurt most by them would be artists and performers because they are not paying for their music,” he said. “Not to mention that it’s against the law.” Arbough said he doesn’t understand why pirate radio operators don’t simply file for an FCC license and save themselves a lot of trouble. “That way they wouldn’t have to run and hide, and they could do it up right,” he said. But Dent said that doesn’t jibe with his basic philosophy in life. “No one really accomplished much by following the rules,” he said. -- Gregory S. 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