FREE RADIO LIVES! LIBERATION RADIO-- READY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
by Ritmo Dog
A micropower radio station can fit inside a shoe box and costs less than
$1,000. A 20-watt transmitter can broadcast over a radius of four to eight
miles. Since the broadcast area is small, there's room for dozens of stations
on the band. Scan the FM dial for an empty frequency; then tune your transmitter
to it and take it over. Add a small mixer or set a microphone near your
speakers, and you are on the air!
The same microelectronic technology that is driving the Internet is democratizing
radio. Anyone can make a cassette tape to have their message broadcast in
their community. A roving DJ armed with a cellular phone can interview anyone.
Their voices can be heard instantly! They can say whatever they want-it's
free!
The federal government says that it's also illegal.
Since 1976, the Federal Communications Commission has held that any AM or
FM transmitter under 100 watts is illegal. (A small, licensed station costs
almost $100,000 to start-and broadcasts only what corporate America wants
you to hear.)
Free Radio Berkeley. Free Radio Berkeley is now challenging the constitutionality
of this. Microtechnology can guarantee your signal is as clean and stable
as possible. This deprives the FCC of many of its arguments against pirate
radio.
Now hundreds of pirate stations are springing up like mushrooms. Rush Limbaugh
has one voice; through micro-radio, we can raise thousands. This is how
to drown out the capitalist-inspired hate radio.
Micro-power radio stations give a voice to the voiceless and pump up the
volume for the victims. Let everyone tell their story! Break the blackout
that keeps the real issues off the air!
Now is the time to give every community a voice. Every gang should have
a station; let every housing project broadcast; let every immigrant group
tell its story! Every homeless camp, community action group, and prisoner's
family should be on the air!
Where else can you hear the voices of street poets, rappers, homeless people,
punkers, activists, and many more? Stations that recognize the calling to
become real community radio stations should put everyone on the air. Let's
publicize every incident of police brutality, judicial tyranny, and landlord
abuse. Make sure everyone who has the same problem hooks up with each other.
Let's provide a forum for every form of music and culture that can rally
our peoples. Let's advocate unity, no more privilege, a New America based
on cooperation that truly has "liberty and justice for all."
Every day, the war on the poor is justified by a corrupt national media.
We can counter these lies with the rich, vibrant, incredible, natural expressions
of communities.
So get a few people together and get started. If you build it, they will
come! Many community radio stations are uniting around a few principles:
·Form a core of people who will guarantee the station. Agree to a mission
statement, and publicize it. Everyone owns the station. Everyone is accountable
for what goes out. Individuals are responsible to weekly meetings.
·No hate messages allowed!
·Set time aside for community interviews, "Rappers' Showcases,"
"Community Voices," and programs on which anyone can sing, talk,
or argue for their cause.
Prime listening times are 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Make these
the community hours.
Find out how you can get started today! Contact a pirate station near you
or call Free Radio Berkeley at (510) 464-3041, or send e-mail to Free Radio
Berkeley at frbspd@crl.com
--Reprinted from People's Tribune, June 1996
RADIO FREE ALLSTON
Proclaiming "Community Radio Has Come to Allston-Brighton," Radio
Free Allston (106.1 FM) invited the public to come down to Herrel's Renaissance
Cafe, located at the corner of Harvard and Brighton Avenues in Allston,
Massachusetts, on March 1, 1997 and watch an unlicensed (or "pirate")
radio station in operation. Over the course of the day, dozens of people
from all over the Boston area dropped by the ice cream parlor to either
witness or participate in this new, 25-watt station's marathon broadcast,
which lasted from noon to around 9 p.m.
That's right: I said ice cream parlor. Herrell's is owned and managed by
one Marc Cooper, who is-in addition to being a member of the Allston Board
of Trade--a firm supporter of Radio Free Allston. It was, in fact, Cooper
who contacted the radio station (not the reverse) and offered the parlor's
premises, which are licensed to host live entertainment, to the station
for its official debut on the Boston radio dial. The arrangement was quite
comfortable: with the antennae up on the roof, there was plenty of room
at the front of the parlor, near the door, for the microphones, the turntables,
the cassette players and recorders, the CD players, the mixers, the radio
board, the transmitter, and, oh yes, the people to use and operate these
devices.
Radio Free Allston's insignia depicts a man, a woman and a child (who has
climbed up on another child's back) in the act of holding up a set of concentric
circles from which radiate lightning bolts and sound waves. At the ice cream
parlor, underneath a banner upon which this insignia had been painted by
hand, small teams--each one made up of a producer, a few trainees, and the
sound sources (the on-the-air speakers, the musicians and the DJs)--took
half-hour-long turns at what Provizer has called an "act of civil disobedience"
against the laws prohibiting the unlicensed operation of radio stations
that use under 100 watts of power. The programming included lots of live
and recorded music (highlights included the Eclectic Ethnic Show, Seth Albaum's
Space Music, Grrrl Groups, and live jazz vocals by the Toastmasters), several
literary arts programs (including Live Poets, Tibetan Culture, Arts on the
Air, and Real Allston: The Serial), and a couple of talks with such local
political groups as the Green Party, the East Timor Action Network (http://www.emf.net:80/~cheetham/geacrk-1.html),
and the Youth Voice Collaborative. You want diversity? There was also a
slot devoted to Local Sports!
Radio Free Allston (RFA for short) is the brainchild of Stephen Provizer,
who describes himself as a "long-time worker in the belly of the beast--newspapers,
magazines, public and regular TV and radio--[who has] become almost completely
alienated from the MEDIA." Rather than simply complain about radio's
"concentration in fewer and fewer hands, and the increasing difficulty
in finding or airing alternative points of view," Provizer decided
to take action. He purchased the equipment necessary to operate a 25-watt
FM radio station-- something that can be done for under a thousand dollars
--and put out the call (via e-mail, p-mail, hand-outs and flyposters) that
he wanted collaborators in a community radio station that would feature
"programming in different languages [and] political, arts and business
coverage that is either ignored or self-censored by the media."
On 9 January 1997, more than 60 people from all parts of Boston showed up
at the Jackson Mann School in Allston. According to Provizer, who emphasized
in his flyers and posters that one doesn't need radio experience to get
involved with RFA or any community station (for that matter), "every
person got a chance to speak, sharing a vision of the kind of programming
he or she would like to see at the station." The assembly broke into
nine subgroups--teenagers, news, public affairs, local interviews, radio
theatre, comedy, anti-censorship, mental health services, and music--so
that it would be easier to organize specific programs and regular features.
Reconvened, the assembly made sure that each group had at least one person
in it who possessed radio experience and/or technical expertise in a related
field.
Not including a fundraiser that was held in Somerville, Mass., on 26 January
1997 (commonly referred to as "Super [Bowl] Sunday"), RFA's next
logical step was to put all the equipment aboard a car and attempt a live
broadcast from a non-studio location. "The radio equipment I am acquiring,"
Provizer had said, early in January, "will be extremely portable and
can be used with very little notice to cover special events/demonstrations,
benefit concerts, local hearings. . . ." On 22 February 1997, despite
problems with Provizer's home-made antenna (which was born aloft upon a
decorated Chrysler), RFA broadcasted live coverage of both the Copley Square
rally and the occupation of an abandoned set of apartments above a pizza
place on Massachusetts Avenue organized by Homes Not Jails (Boston).
To contact Radio Free Allston, e-mail Radfrall@gis.net or call (617) 562
0828. The station maintains a website at http://www.tiac.net/users/error/radiofreeallston
index.html
RADIO FREE MAINE
A native of Central Illinois is in the fore-front of efforts to help spread
progressive social and political ideas by making them more accessible to
the public. Roger Leisner, who was born in Decatur, IL, operates Radio Free
Maine. One of his primary activities is producing and distributing tapes
of speeches by a variety of liberal and left-wing activists, writers, and
intellectuals.
Many of Leisner's audio and video tapes feature Noam Chomsky, nationally
known for his speeches and writings which expose the many shortcomings of
U.S. society. Some titles of Chomsky's talks include "Bringing the
Third World Home: the Domestic Policies of the GOP Right," "Resisting
Corporate America's War on Working People," and "Media Censorship
and Our Right to Know."
Other tapes feature such people as authors Cornell West and Frances Fox
Piven and Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States.
Other speakers include Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, Ralph Nader, Angela Davis,
and Chicago 7 defendant David Dellinger.
Leisner also distributes the tapes to radio stations that might consider
playing them. These include Radio Free Berkeley, affiliates with Radio Pacifica,
Radio Havana, and a number of low-wattage so-called "pirate" stations.
A list of available audio and video tapes can be obtained from Roger Leisner
by writing to Radio Free Maine, P.O. Box 2705, Augusta, ME 04338 or calling
(207) 622-6629.
BLACK LIBERATION RADIO RAIDED AGAIN!
Freedom of speech is under attack in Decatur, Illinois. On Saturday morning,
May 10, the police attacked the home of Napoleon Williams and Mildred Jones,
arresting the two founders of Black Liberation Radio. The raid began at
about 8:00 a.m. There were numerous uniformed Decatur police officers involved.
They cut the lights to the house during the raid and completely destroyed
the front door in the process of entering. Streets near the house were blocked
off by the police. Police officers equipped with shields and gas masks conducted
a SWAT team-style operation.
Black Liberation Radio was on the air when the raid began. Cutting the power
to the house helped the police guarantee that the station would not be able
to broadcast. This is the latest of many acts of official harassment. For
six years, Black Liberation Radio, a small, unlicensed FM station, has courageously
exposed police brutality and official misconduct. It played a particularly
important role in helping build ties between the African American poor of
central Illinois and the largely white work force at the local Caterpillar
Tractor plant during the bitter strike at that company during the early
1990s.
Napoleon Williams and Mildred Jones have paid a high price for their work
with Black Liberation Radio. An Illinois state agency took custody of the
couples' oldest daughter, Unique Dream in 1992, and of the younger daughter,
Atrue Dream, in 1994. The couple is still fighting to regain custody of
those two children.
Donations and messages of support can be sent to: Black Liberation Radio,
629 E. Center Street, Decatur, Illinois 62526. The phone number for Black
Liberation Radio is (217) 423-9997. People can also express their concern
by calling the Macon County Jail at 217-424-1341. For more information,
contact: Minister Tele E'Mani Abdullah Chicago, IL (312) 263-7917.
BLACK LIBERATION RADIO BENEFIT
Several free speech advocates will host the West Coast Micro-power Radio
Conference #3, which will happen June 20 and 21 at the Oil, Chemical, and
Atomic Workers Local 1-675, 1200 East 220th Street, Carson, CA.
This event is a benefit for the Napoleon Williams Defense Fund and the National
Lawyers Guild Center for Democratic Communications. In the past four years,
communities all over America have defied the FCC and the corporate media
monopoly by creating micro-power radio stations. Here is the schedule for
events:
Friday, June 20 8:00 PM: Speaker's Panel featuring Stephen Dunifer (Free
Radio Berkeley), Annie Voice (San Francisco Liberation Radio), Lee Ballinger
(Rock and Rap Confidential), Billy Jam (Hip Hop Slam), Black Rose (Black
Liberation Radio) , and others followed by a videotape about the micro-power
radio movement and some live music. A donation of $5 to $15 is requested.
Saturday, June 21: Micro-power Workshops and Strategy Session, 10:00 AM.
Registration and General Introductions, 11:00 AM. Workshops Round #1, 12:30
PM. Lunch Served by Food Not Bombs, 1:30 PM. Workshops Round #2, 3:00 PM.
Workshops Round #3, 4:30 PM. Final Strategy Session
Some of the workshop topics include transmitter assembly, vocal work and
story telling, mobile broadcasting, learning from our mistakes, getting
free stuff from record companies, operating audio equipment, interviewing
techniques, legal questions, facilitation of group meetings, using the internet,
making tapes for broadcast, and more! Registration Fee for this event is
$10 to $30 (sliding scale). No one will be turned away for lack of funds,
so come and be a part of this event!
For more information, contact Paul Griffin at (510) 848-1455 or Lee Ballinger
at (310) 398-4477.
--Paul_W._Griffin@bmug.org
KANSAS CITY LIBERATION RADIO
Greetings, Sistas & Brothas. Since our story will never be told unless
we tell it, we (S.T.A.C.) will bring Black Liberation Radio to Kansas City
by June 1997.
We traveled to Decatur, Illinois, to see how Napoleon & Mildred had
theirs set up and to get the information about where to order the equipment.
Sistas & brothas, it's really simple. We are going to put on audio tape,
step by step, how we set Kansas City Liberation Radio up. Anyone wishing
this information has only to ask and we will mail it to you and assist in
starting your BLR. We have been quoted a price of $584.90, including shipping
& handling, for a 40-watt transmitter power supply to run the antenna.
We are soliciting donations (monetary) & equipment. Anyone wishing to
make a monetary donation should make check or money order out to: S.T.A.C../shiriki
unganisha, P.O. Box 320441, Kansas City, MO 64132, and call (816) 333-9814,
fax (816) 523-0540.
We will always need 90-minute tapes. We also need a VCR , nothing fancy.
We already have mikes; mixing board; CD player, tape deck, turntable, etc.,
not saying that we don't want more.
We'd best start ordering this equipment now, before we won't be able to
get it. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Any comments and questions,
please feel free to ask.
For more information, feel free to call Sista Shiriki at (816) 333-9814,
or write me at P.O. Box 320441, Kansas City, MO 64132, or shiriki@gvi.net.
UNITED WE WILL WIN UHURU
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