[Imc] Come Help Build a Radio Station on the Chesapeake Bay!

Mon Jan 21 23:42:32 UTC 2002

Is anybody interested in going to this conference? I am.... Contact me if 
you would want to carpool, or organize a delgation from the Urbana IMC.

Pauline>
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>Low Power FM Radio Barn Raising Conference
>
>A radio "barn raising" conference and master class for new LPFM radio
>stations and applicants will be held Presidents' Day Weekend from
>Friday, February 15th to Monday the 18th, 2002. The event will be in
>Churchton, Maryland, just 45 minutes east of Washington DC. In the
>spirit of neighbors pulling together to put up a new building, we'll
>gather low power radio applicants, journalists, radio engineers,
>students, lawyers musicians  and all sorts of folks to raise the
>antenna, build the studio ... and flip on the station switch at the
>end of the weekend! The conference is being sponsored by the
>Prometheus Radio Project and hosted by South Arundel Citizens for
>Responsible Development (SACReD).
>
>SACReD is a grassroots, community action organization dedicated to
>preserving sustainable, environmentally responsible communities along
>the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. In the last few years, the group
>saved nearly 500 acres of wetlands on the Bay from development,
>convincing the state and county to purchase the land for a natural
>wetlands park.  SACReD holds the closest low power radio license to
>be issued near DC.
>
>Jeremy Lansman, the legendary engineer who helped start many of the
>best community radio stations in the country in the sixties and
>seventies,  will come from his TV station in Alaska to help out.
>Producers and engineers from some of the country's best communnity
>radio stations will be there too.
>
>It will be a time where new programmers will meet, new stations can
>compare notes on fundraising and equipment, and broadcast
>professionals can share their skills with the new low power radio
>station licensees. We will also plan the course for media activism
>for the next year, and plot our continued fight to put the media into
>the hands of the people and communities.
>
>
>
>Workshops Will Include:
>What everyone should know about a radio station even if you never touch a
>dial
>Audio
>Legal issues
>Intro to radio engineering
>Advanced radio engineering clinic
>Local news and public affairs programming
>Towers
>Internet radio
>Advanced audio and processing
>Basic electronics repair
>Media democracy issues
>Internet radio
>Fundraising
>IBOC and digital radio
>Studio transmitter link options
>Station governance
>Using a minidisc recorder
>Congress and low power radio
>
>And of course, the Radio Barn Raising, with tips on selecting
>equipment, purchasing, and building a low power radio station from
>microphone to antenna!
>
>Workshops  will be organized with a technical  and a non-technical
>track. at the same time, crews will form to do various parts of the
>job of putting the station on the air. Another group will conduct
>interviews throughout the weekend with radio applicants and produce a
>piece at the end of the weekend suitable for national broadcast.
>
>Entertainment will include Radio Volta's Hooligan Players, who will
>perform live  their radio plays about the heros and heroines of early
>radio:
>Nathan B. Stubblefield, Radio Pioneer,  &
>The Matrimony of Science: The Doomed Love of Nora Stanton Blatch and
>Lee DeForest
>
>To register, go to:
>http://prometheus.tao.ca/barn.shtml or write to prp at tao.ca if you
>have trouble with the form.
>
>Also, our next conference has been scheduled in Oroville, California
>with Bird Street Media on April 12th to 14th,  north of Sacramento,
>CA. Bird Street Media Project is a community based organization
>committed to locally produced media in a city that very has very few
>outlets of it's own. Activists in Oroville hope that the radio
>station will help organize the community in their struggles with a
>nearby mining company.
>
>Conference cost will be $20-$80/day sliding scale: meals and simple
>lodging included.
>
>For more info, call Prometheus at 215-727-9620.
>
>
>***********************************************************
>Reprinted from The Baltimore Sun, 11/26/01
>
>Arundel group to launch low-power radio station
>WRYR to offer forum for local interests, issues, planners say
>
>By Jackie Powder
>Baltimore Sun Staff
>Originally published November 26, 2001
>
>While fighting to preserve their tranquil towns on the Chesapeake
>Bay, members of the South Arundel Coalition for Responsible
>Development have drawn criticism and kudos for using the media to
>advance their cause. Now the feisty environmental group has plans to
>control its own medium.
>
>Early next year, the group, known as SACReD, hopes to launch a radio
>station - the first in the state to go on the air as part of a
>federal push to revive low-power community radio.
>
>Project organizer and SACReD leader Michael Shay says the station
>will be much more than a megaphone for SACReD, which has prevailed in
>two key battles to stop development in southern Anne Arundel County.
>He envisions the airwaves crackling with the voices of the region,
>from watermen and politicians to gardeners, bluegrass musicians and
>birdwatchers.
>
>"We're made of many different parts, and radio will provide us with
>an opportunity to appreciate those parts and share them, said Shay, a
>building contractor.
>
>With a projected broadcast range of about 15 miles, Shay said WRYR -
>97.5 on the FM dial - should reach the South County area and coastal
>communities across the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County.
>
>The station would be the first in Maryland to go on the air under new
>rules approved last year by the Federal Communications Commission.
>The stations must be noncommercial and no more powerful than 100
>watts.
>
>For decades, such stations were illegal, and the FCC shut down many
>of the operations. Supporters of low-power radio hope that the change
>will bring diversity to what they see as the homogeneous,
>format-driven programming of large commercial stations.
>
>"The point is to explore our culture and to bring news and opinions
>and other things that aren't particularly successful at selling
>sneakers and toothpaste, but are nonetheless important to express,"
>said Pete Tridish, who used that pseudonym while broadcasting for
>low-power stations. He is a founder of the Philadelphia-based
>Prometheus Radio Project, an organization that helps groups establish
>low-power or "micro" radio stations.
>
>Shay became intrigued with the idea of community radio three years
>ago, when he attended a workshop in Baltimore held by the Prometheus
>Radio Project. SACReD prepared its low-power license application with
>help from Prometheus, and in April received an FCC construction
>permit to build a station. The final license is to be granted once
>the station goes on the air.
>
>SACReD is one of three Maryland applicants to win FCC approval for a
>low-power station. The others are St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in
>Garrett County and Edinboro Early School in Ocean City.
>
>Nationwide, the FCC has granted about 130 low-power construction
>permits, and is still processing the nearly 3,000 applications it has
>received. Of those, the agency estimates that half will be granted
>licenses.
>
>Most of the new microstations will be in rural areas, said Michael
>Bracy, executive director of the Low Power Radio Coalition, an
>advocacy group based in Washington. He said that the powerful
>broadcasters lobby resisted the FCC's changes, saying small stations
>would cause signal interference with established stations in urban
>areas. Congress has ordered a study of the issue.
>
>Community radio - which had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s before
>the FCC imposed restrictions - gained momentum during the past decade
>as pirate radio stations took to the airwaves to protest the trend
>toward corporate ownership of media outlets.
>
>"You had stations in housing projects, stations in really rural
>villages, left-wing politics, right-wing politics, Spanish-language
>Christian stations," said Jesse Walker, author of Rebels on the Air:
>An Alternative History of Radio in America.
>
>Since SACReD received its station construction permit, Shay has been
>at work soliciting donations from local businesses to buy studio
>equipment - at a cost of about $22,000 - and rounding up local radio
>talent.
>
>Businessman Tom Maginau donated studio space for the station at his
>small office building in Deale, and other area merchants have pledged
>financial help.
>
>Supporters believe that many in South County will tune in for a mix
>of local news, music and talk.
>
>"One of the main reasons that people live in South County is because
>they're a little bit individualistic and really want to retreat into
>a community that does have some unique characteristics and is not
>part of the urban areas where they work," Maginau said.
>
>SACReD came to prominence three years ago when the group triumphed in
>its bid to prevent development on a 477-acre parcel known as Franklin
>Point. Over the past three years the group has focused most of its
>energies on blocking construction of a shopping center in Deale that
>would have been anchored by a Safeway grocery store.
>
>The group waged a savvy media campaign that included appearances on
>local radio shows, a constant presence at county meetings and letter
>writing. SACReD made headlines at a protest event last fall when it
>unveiled a 12-foot-tall "Queen of Sprawl" puppet in the likeness of
>County Executive Janet S. Owens.
>
>The tactics drew criticism, but Safeway has backed off, and SACReD
>appears to have scored another victory.
>
>Shay and others involved with the station say that WRYR will offer an
>eclectic mix of programming, and organizers have tapped the talents
>of residents to be the hosts of a broad variety of shows.
>
>Tim Finch, owner of Good Deale Bluegrass, is set to go on the air
>with a show of the same name. Composting and native plantings will be
>topics on a gardening show by retired University of Maryland
>agriculture professor Frank Gouin. Yoga teacher and professional
>bassist Jeff Crespi - who had a college radio show 30 years ago -
>will return to the airwaves with his own jazz show.
>
>Jackie Savitz plans to do a show closer to SACReD's environmental
>mission, touching on responsible growth and policies affecting the
>Chesapeake Bay. Savitz said she'd like to add some folksy touches,
>such as informing her listeners when the northern lights are visible
>in Deale's night sky.
>
>"That's the thing you might not get from a big corporate radio
>station," said Savitz, who runs an environmental organization in
>Washington.
>
>Next month, SACReD plans to build its broadcast antenna at a site on
>Tilghman Island. Radio engineers from Prometheus recommended the
>location, saying it will allow for better radio reception than the
>Deale/Shady Side area.
>
>Shay is organizing a radio "barn-raising" for early next year to get
>the station on the air. The event will bring together volunteers from
>Prometheus and from other organizations interested in starting
>low-power stations. Over that weekend, the participants will
>literally put the station together and flip the switch at WRYR.
>
>"This is a grassroots organization," said Deale resident Joe Gibson,
>the station's volunteer program director. "That's where all good
>things start, with the heart of the people."
>
>--
>
>   _      _
>pe'tre dish (n): a squat, cylindrical, transparent article of
>laboratory glassware, useful in observing resistant strains of
>culture in aetherial media.
>
>petri at critpath.org
>www.prometheus.tao.ca
>Prometheus Radio Project
>215-727-9620
>
>
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