The following is the first installment in a series of articles dedicated to the exploration of the state and growth of Community Radio in the late ‘90s. Articles in this series will cover topics ranging from the growing corporate influence in nonprofit and community radio to the relationship between community radio and the Internet. This first article focuses on a growing movement of people across the country taking the airwaves back from corporate interests for the sake of their communities.

Radio with a Conscience: Community Radio in the Late ‘90s

By Paul Riismandel

Part I: Micropower Radio

When I was about 12 years old, I built an AM radio transmitter in my bedroom using a Radio Shack "101 Electronic Experiments" kit. With the kit came a small crystal microphone, which I used for every element of my "broadcasts." When I was finished talking and wanted to play a song I just put the mike in front of the speaker on my record player and put on a record – hardly professional radio. Yet, it was a transmitter, which reached almost down the block – almost. There was born my infatuation with radio.

Just a couple of years later, when I was freshman in high school, I built a small FM radio transmitter out of the remains of a slightly beat-up portable radio I’d had for years. My setup was a little more sophisticated this time; I had the stereo connected directly to the transmitter so I didn’t have to put the mike up to the speaker. The FM transmitter didn’t reach much further than the AM one, and I had great plans to amplify it and cover the whole neighborhood. But other interests like girls and jobs got in the way, and the jury-rigged transmitter went back in the closet.

Flash forward about 10 year. In the summer of 1995, I was surfing the Internet when I came across a newsgroup enticingly called alt.radio.pirate. The words "pirate radio" conjured images of scruffy guys in a rickety boat in international waters off of New York City or Los Angeles using an even more rickety transmitter to broadcast illicit messages no licensed broadcaster would dare air. In fact, such an image is not too far off from the start of pirate radio; the "pirate" part indeed comes from these broadcasters’ sea-faring beginnings in the United States and Europe, broadcasting from home-made transmitters in international waters (as it turns out, in the U.S. the waters were never international enough to prevent the broadcasters’ apprehension by authorities). However, I found the participants on alt.radio.pirate to be anything but sea-faring radio carousers.

In many ways the participants of alt.radio.pirate and those who operate their own "pirate" stations have much more in common with the high school freshman broadcasting from his bedroom than pirates at sea. They come from all walks of life: teachers, students, activists, preachers. Some have their own low-wattage transmitters – so-called "micro-transmitters"; others have an interest in going on-air themselves. Still others, like myself, are just plain interested. The tie that unites these folks is their belief that the radio waves belong not just to the U.S. government, corporations or individuals rich enough to afford licenses and stations, but to each and every citizen. They believe that the rules for getting a radio broadcasting license and getting a station on the air are unrealistic and slanted in favor of the rich and powerful, and that the rules keep getting more and more slanted. The Federal Communications Act of 1996 increased the number of radio stations in any market that may be owned by a single corporation or individual as the number of available frequencies in most medium to large sized cities has rapidly approached zero. The solution to this predicament, the radio pirates believe, is civil-disobedience – to go on air themselves, without a license from the FCC, the federal agency charged with regulating broadcast communications.

Those unlicensed broadcasters prefer to call themselves "microbroadcasters" rather than "pirate" broadcasters. There are a number of reasons behind this distinction. First, unlike the connotation of the term "pirate," many microbroadcasters do not operate underground or clandestinely; instead, they often invite neighbors on-air and invite live phone calls from listeners. Secondly, the term pirate implies that they are stealing something, which they are not; their very raison d’Ítre is that the airwaves are owned by no single entity and cannot be stolen. Finally, they are microbroadcasters because they use power levels that are just a fraction of licensed broadcasters. For example, a licensed station like WEFT broadcasts with a power of 10,000 watts, whereas most microbroadcasters emit less than 100 watts. In fact, since 1978 the FCC has refused to license new stations operating at less than 100 watts for reasons which are less than clear or logical.

Aside from their belief in the freedom of the airwaves, the motivations of unlicensed broadcasters for going on the air are incredibly diverse. Even with this diversity, they all seem to be motivated by the basic belief that the established broadcasters in their communities no longer serve the needs of their communities. Rather, they believe, the licensed broadcasters’ only apparent motivation is fattening their owners’ pocketbooks.

The programming that unlicensed broadcasters provide is as different and unique as the communities they serve. Micropower stations have gone on the air in large cities and small towns. A few of these stations include Berkeley, Calif.; Hamilton, Ohio; Allston, Mass.; Richmond, Va.; New York City; Portland, Ore.; and Decatur, Ill.

"Decatur?", you might ask ... "You’re kidding!" No, I’m not. Just a scant 30-some miles to west of Champaign-Urbana is a microbroadcaster named Napoleon Williams who has been broadcasting the voice of Black Liberation Radio to the African-American community of that Central Illinois city for more than five years. Unfortunately, as a result of Williams’ outspokenness about the inequities of life in Decatur, he has not escaped persecution by local authorities, who have attempted to pin on him many petty and absurd charges because they are, by law, unable to prosecute him for operating an unlicensed transmitter (interestingly, Williams has never been touched by the FCC, the federal agency which does has the power to pursue unlicensed broadcasters). Napoleon Williams’ story is a complex and compelling one and rather than squeeze it into one paragraph, I will devote the next edition of this column to his story.

Unlike that high school freshman sitting in his bedroom, most mircobroadcasters are not using torn apart radios and other junk gear to go on the radio. Rather, most of them are buying transmitter kits through the mail from a variety of sources. Some are even buying fully assembled transmitters and antennas to go on the air right out of the box, often for less than $500. Even more interesting is the fact that all of these transmitters are 100 percent legal to buy and sell. So legal that you can even call up a 1-800 number and put one on your credit card. The only thing that isn’t 100 legal is turning them on.

However, the legal status of running your own micropower station may even change in the not-so-distant future. One enterprising micropower station in Berkeley, Calif. – Free Radio Berkeley – has taken the FCC to court in pursuit of the right to broadcast. The brainchild of activist Stephen Dunifer, Free Radio Berkeley went on the air in 1995 to provide a community forum that he felt was no longer available in Berkeley. A few months later he was visited by the FCC and federal marshals, who confiscated his station. Dunifer was ready for them; he and a team of like-minded activists and lawyers immediately filed suit to challenge the FCC’s action. In response, the FCC filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Free Radio Berekely so that they would be barred from broadcasting until the trial was completed. In a stunning upset, the Ninth Circuit Court of California ruled in favor of Free Radio Berkeley, stating that the FCC had failed to show any imminent danger from the continued broadcasts of FRB. Since then, Dunifer and company have been broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are awaiting trial.

As unlicensed microbroadcasters go on the air from coast to coast, at this point there are a couple of cities noticeably absent from the list of cities mentioned above: Champaign and Urbana. One can come up with a lot of theories for why no one in our community has seen fit to go on the air without a license, and I’d like to submit mine.

In the last year, I’ve interviewed a number of microbroadcasters and asked them why they’ve gone on-air. Without exception they all cite the fact that there is no way in their communities that the average person who is not a "radio professional" can get on the radio. In some cities, like Decatur, there are no real public or community stations. Some microbroadcasters, like Steven Dunifer, state unequivocally that the community radio stations in their areas (in his case Pacifica’s KPFA) no longer really put the community on the air. In all cases, these microbroadcasters have seen no other way to get the community back on the radio.

This is not true in Champaign-Urbana. Here in the twin-cities we still have true community radio, where the average person can take a four-hour class on a Saturday, attend two in-studio training sessions, do a little volunteer time and get his or her own radio show for one to three hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Perhaps Champaign-Urbana doesn’t yet have a microbroadcaster because we don’t yet need one. When I first talked to Napoleon Williams he told me, "maybe if Decatur had a WEFT I wouldn’t even need to go on the air in the first place."

I only submit this theory so that those of us who listen to WEFT, or even those who might not, can take a step back and realize that we’re lucky to have a true community radio station that was able to get licensed by the FCC (after a five-year struggle, I might add), and thus is able to operate without worrying that tomorrow the FCC might confiscate our station or that a court decision could bring it all to a close. I certainly don’t mean to put down the unlicensed microbroadcasters – I empathize with them and their struggles 100 percent as they try to serve their communities, just like WEFT does, in the only way left for them.

©1997, 1999 Paul Riismandel, all rights reserved.

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