Military signal blocks garage remotes

From Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

For many suburbanites, life without garage door openers is unimaginable. But neighbors of the Marine base here have been reduced to just that after a strong radio signal coming from the facility began neutralizing remote-control openers.

Residents have had to spend hundreds of dollars on new systems. "I feel there should be some kind of compensation," said Queen Carroll, who is in her early 70s and was forced to buy a new receiver and remote. "I am a struggling widow, if you will, and I praise the Lord I'm still here, but I am on a budget. When things like this come up totally unexpected, it is very upsetting."

Repair shops started getting a flurry of calls when the base began using the frequency in late December. Last fall, residents around an Air Force facility in Colorado Springs saw their garage-door remotes stop working when the 21st Space Wing began testing a frequency for use during homeland security emergencies or threats. Two years ago, testing of a similar system in Fort Detrick in Maryland resulted in similar problems.

For decades, the military has held a portion of the radio spectrum, from 138 to 450 megahertz, in reserve. That part was borrowed by remote-control manufacturers, with the understanding that the signal be weak enough to be overridden by the military.

The reserve frequencies became active after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when officials discovered that first responders could not communicate with one another because they were operating radios on different frequencies. The Defense Department is using the mothballed frequencies in a system that eventually will link military and civilian emergency responders. "Consumer wireless devices, such as garage door openers, operate on an unlicensed basis, meaning they are required to accept any interference from licensed spectrum users, including the Department of Defense," said Lt. Brian P. Donnelly, a spokesman for the Quantico base.

OPEN CALL: ESS Artists Residency Program

The guidelines and application for the 2007 ESS Artists Residency Program in Chicago are available online at http://www.exsost.org/essresidency.htm. Applications cannot be made online, they must be mailed to us with the complete proposal (please see guidelines).

Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) will offer four 30- to 40-hour residencies through the 2007 Artists Residency Program (ARP). These will be scheduled between June 1 and December 21, 2007. At least three of the residencies are for Chicago area artists, and, for the first time, one residency will be open to non-Chicago US artists. Each residency includes access to the ESS recording facilities with engineering assistance. The ESS recording facilities include: one 600-sq-ft live recording studio with 16-track ProTools system, baby grand piano, isolation booth; one soundtrack, mixing, and mastering studio with ProTools and MAX-MSP/Jitter; multi-channel playback and sync-to-image capabilities; various digital and analog processors and recorders.

The purpose of the ARP is to facilitate the production of finished works that will be presented to the public, so please propose only projects that can be completed within the allotted time frame. The ESS ARP residencies are for working artists with a demonstrable commitment to ongoing cultural practice. In addition to assisting artists with an established practice involving sound — composers, audio artists, musicians, sound designers, radio producers, etc. — one aim of the ARP is to help artists with limited experience in sound to locate and work with sonic artists. To this end, ESS will assist in locating an appropriate local artist to work with any selected “non-sonic” artist if they request it. Application deadline: April 2, 2007.

FCC action against Brooklyn microcasters and current frequencies in use

By Tom Roe

The New York Radio Guide is reporting the FCC has sent three Brooklyn "pirate" microcasters "Notices of Unlicensed Operation," the first step in the agency's slow enforcement process. "The broadcasters are James Narcisse of 625 Rugby Road in Flatbush, Joseph Maynard of 728 East New York Avenue in Crown Heights, and Vincent Alston of 308 Sterling Street in Crown Heights. The FCC`s efforts notwithstanding, the airwaves in Brooklyn continue to be saturated with the signals of dozens of pirate broadcasters," according to NYRG.

The New York Radio Message Board contains posts reporting dozens of other stations including, "88.1, 89.3, 90.1, 90.5, 90.9 and 94.5...94.3, 95.1, 95.9, 96.7, 97.5, 99.9, 100.7, 101.5, 102.3, 103.1, 103.9, 104.7, 105.5, 106.3, 107.1, and 107.9." The 94.3-FM station is supposedly called "My Radio Live," WHUT 91.9 is the long-runnning powerful hip hop station on evenings, and a Jewish pirate in Canarsie is on 104.9-FM, according to NYRMB posts. Also, Haitian pirates often use 87.9-FM.

Hitachi develops RFID powder

From Pink Tentacle:

RFID keeps getting smaller. On February 13, Hitachi unveiled a tiny, new “powder” type RFID chip measuring 0.05 x 0.05 mm — the smallest yet — which they aim to begin marketing in 2 to 3 years. By relying on semiconductor miniaturization technology and using electron beams to write data on the chip substrates, Hitachi was able to create RFID chips 64 times smaller than their currently available 0.4 x 0.4 mm mu-chips. Like mu-chips, which have been used as an anti-counterfeit measure in admission tickets, the new chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit ID number. The new chips are also 9 times smaller than the prototype chips Hitachi unveiled last year, which measure 0.15 x 0.15 mm. At 5 microns thick, the RFID chips can more easily be embedded in sheets of paper, meaning they can be used in paper currency, gift certificates and identification. But since existing tags are already small enough to embed in paper, it leads one to wonder what new applications the developers have in mind.

San Francisco Liberation Radio in Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

From San Francisco Liberation Radio:

Finally after three years of waiting SFLR will have it's day in the Ninth Circuit. This is where we could actually do some change. Everyone who can should come on down to see the deftness of our fantastic legal team.

SFLR vs. FCC: Head to head, oral arguments!
February 14, 2007, 9:30 a.m. PST (-8 GMT), Booth Auditorium at UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall, located on Bancroft Way at College Ave. /
http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/DE67.html )

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument from lawyers representing long time media activist San Francisco Liberation Radio. SFLR was raided in October, 2003 when federal marshals, SFPD and FCC agents stormed into the home where the station was located, with guns drawn, and seized SFLR's broadcasting equipment in order to prevent SFLR from broadcasting.SFLR will argue (through its counsel, Mark Vermeulen, and other pro bono lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild) that the federal government violated the station's and its listeners' First Amendment rights when it obtained the warrant for the raid and the seizure of the equipment through a back-door, ex parte procedure. In civil seizure cases (as opposed to criminal cases), fair notice and a hearing before a judge typically must take place before any raid can go forward. This is especially true where First Amendment free speech rights are involved. However, here, the US Government here utilized a maritime law to conduct the raid without giving advance notice to the station, arguing that a radio station is like a ship that may sail away in the night.

The station, with a volunteer staff of nearly 60 people, was located in a house firmly rooted upon land and posed no danger of trying to escape, nor was it interfering with any other station's broadcasts. It had been broadcasting at 100 watts in San Francisco for 11 years and had been in consistent contact with the FCC regarding licensing matters. The Court will decide whether the government has the right to obtain from the District Court an ex parte order to raid a radio station, and seize the equipment even where as in our case, our lawyer had explicitly requested notice if such action was contemplated. This hearing is the next step in three years of legal proceedings in this case, and may well effect how the rights of others challenging FCC regulations are observed (or not) in the future.

Reid helps resurrect closed Goldfield radio station

Unbelievably, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada has somehow turned a pirate radio station into a legal low-power FM station, even though the Federal Communications Commission is not currently entertaining any applications for new LPFMs.

From the Pahrump Valley Times:

GOLDFIELD -- Chalk one up for the little guy in a battle against the federal bureaucracy. Rod Moses, owner of Radio Goldfield Broadcast Inc., was given special temporary authority to go back on the air with his low-power radio station in a Jan. 29 letter from the Federal Communications Commission.

Moses said it may be a couple of weeks yet before he hoists the 90-foot radio tower which will permit him to broadcast at 100 watts, enough to penetrate parts of Tonopah and maybe as far south as Lida Junction. The frequency this time, however, will be 106.3 FM instead of the former 100.3 FM. Moses credited Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., with pressuring the FCC.

FCC enforcement agents came to Moses' trailer, which also houses his radio station, June 9, 2006, and shut him down for operating without a license. They based the action on a complaint filed with the agency. Moses had been running Radio Goldfield since March 2005, broadcasting community news as well as oldies from an MP3 player. However, he was informed by the FCC that the period to apply for a low-wattage FM radio station license had expired. "In support of the request, RGB states that the station provides current road conditions, information on local law enforcement and public safety," states the letter from James Bradshaw, FCC deputy chief of the Audio Division Media Bureau.

The letter cites Section 309(f) of the Communications Act of 1934, which authorizes the commission to grant the temporary allowance in cases of "extraordinary circumstances requiring temporary authorizations in the public interest." A letter from Sen. Reid dated Sept. 1, 2006, to FCC chairman Kevin Martin states that Radio Goldfield made significant public interest contributions to the Goldfield community. "Radio Goldfield programming brought regular weather reports to this high-desert area of Nevada, where conditions can abruptly change in often times dramatic ways," Reid's letter states.

Reid added, "Radio Goldfield programming also included timely and reliable information on law enforcement, public safety and school activities that helped the residents of Goldfield stay informed and engaged in their community. Moreover the station broadcasted Sunday religious services that were listened to faithfully by those living too far from a place of worship or those simply too feeble to make a weekly journey there practicable." Moses said letters protesting the shutdown were sent to all the members of the Nevada congressional delegation, but all of them, except Reid, declined to take action after receiving a letter from the FCC stating that Moses was operating illegally. The FCC threatened a $10,000 fine.

Moses, a radio broadcaster for 40 years originally from Fresno, Calif., also circulated a petition around Goldfield that compiled 180 signatures requesting the station be kept open. But Moses said his compliance with the FCC agents helped him when it came time to restart the station. "We shut down immediately and that was the key to the whole licensing issue, is that when the FCC comes out you have 24 hours to shut down or you'll never get one (license)," Moses said. He told the agents, "It'll be off (the air) by the time you get to your car."

Reid, himself coming from another small town, Searchlight, sympathized with him, Moses said. Moses also credited Esmeralda County Commissioner R.J. Gillum and local Goldfield activist Virginia Ridgeway with helping his cause. Moses said a friend who used to run a 50,000-watt radio station in California informed him that because of his protest, other hopeful radio station operators are bringing up a resolution to ask the FCC to offer low-power FM licenses again. "What they do is, they paint it with a broad brush because of the metro areas," Moses said. "We'll probably operate under an STA until they reopen the filing period for low-power FM. There's thousands of stations and thousands of towns in the country that are like Goldfield. They have little or no stations around them. They (the FCC) finally discovered through us they messed up." Another low-power radio station operates out of Tonopah at 92.7 FM with no commercial interruptions, not even station identification, but a limited music selection.

free103point9 Online Radio February 2007 Top 40

free103point9 Online Radio
February 2007 Top 40

1. The Dust Dive Flash, Tens of Thousands (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 029)
2. Parts & Labor, Escapers One (Broklyn Beats)
3. (), "Autecicadas/ocean_db_crash_nue" 7" (Parentheismusic.com)
4. Ignaz Schick + Jorg Maria Zeger + Burkhard Beins with Keith Rowe and with Charlwmagne Palestine, Perlonex Tensions (Nexsound)
5. Eloe Omoe, marauders (Animal Disguise)
6. Mouthus, For the Great Slave Lakes (Threelobed)
7. Sixes, Cursed Beast (enterruption)
8. Jonas Braasch, Global Reflections (Deep Listening)
9. Phantom Limb & Tetuzi Akiyama, Hot Ginger (Archive)
Recorded June, 2006 at free103point9 Project Space in Brooklyn.
10. Pauline Oliveros, Lion's Eye/Lion's Tale (Deep Listening)
11. mirror/dash, "i can't be bought" (Threelobed)
12. FFFFs, I Can Hear Summer Coming (Sockets)
13. Gratkowski + Fox + Menestres + Davis, ORM (Umbrella Recordings)
14. Compiled by TJ Norris, triMIX: TribrydInstallation Soundtracks Deconstructed (Innova)
With Scanner, Beequeen, Humectant Interruption, M. Behrens, Asmus Tietchens, Nobukazu Takemura, Illusion of Safety, and others.
15. Vertonen, Stations (CIP)
16. Drop the Lime, Sky City Rising (Broklyn Beats)
17. Kotra & Zavoloka, Wag the Swing (Kvitnu.com)
18. Various artists, Less Self is More Self: A Benefit for Tarantula Hill (Ecstatic Peace)
Includes LoVid, Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core, Lee Renaldo, Talibam!, Maria Chavez, Mark Morgan, To Live and Shave in L.A., Mouthus, Nautical Almanac + Leslie Keffer, and others.
19. Viki, compilation (Animal Disguise)
20. Edmund Mooney, Happy Trails (self)
21. Caustic Castle, Caustic Castle mini-CD (804noise)
22. The Caution Curves, a little hungry (Sockets)
23. North Guinea Hills, North Guinea Hills et. al. (self)
With Patrick McCarthy, Michael Garafalo, Laura Harrison, Sean Smith, and others.
24. Meri von Kleinsmid, Ex Vivo (Mimeograph)
25. Others, What About My Baby Kitty? (set projects)
26. Anna Friz, Vacant City Radio (self)
27. Jesse Zubot, Dimensia (Drip Audio)
28. Various artists, The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon (Innova)
With Jeff Feddersen, Matthew Burtner, Janek Schaefer, Annie Gosfield, and others.
29. Tor Lundvall, Empty City (Strange Fortune)
30. Layne Garrett, The Lost Spaces Reconstructed (sockets)
31. Francois Houle, Aerials (Drip Audio)
32. carsick, carsick (Drip Audio)
33. Fond of Tigers, A Thing to Live With (Drip Audio)
34. ZZ Pot & Dr. Ninja, ZZ Pot & Dr. Ninja (retardriot.com)
35. Todd Merrell, Neptune (Dreamland Recordings)
36. Giancarlo Bracchi, Universal Soul Adaptor (self)
37. DJ Slip, She's a Time Traveller (Broklyn Beats)
38. ben owen, radio in (Winds Measure Recordings)
39. Leafy Green, songs (Lattajjaa)
40. Dave Burrell, Momentum (High Two)

Finishing Funds from ETC. Deadline: March 15, 2007

The Experimental Television Center is pleased to announce Finishing Funds 2007.

Finishing Funds provides media and new media artists with grants up to $2,500 to help with the completion of diverse and innovative moving-image and sonic art projects, and works for the Web and new technologies. Eligible forms include film and video as single or multiple channel presentation, computer based moving-imagery and sound works, installations and performances, interactive works and works for new technologies, DVD, multimedia and the Web. We also support new media, and interactive performance. Work must be surprising, creative and approach the various media as art forms; all genres are eligible, including experimental, narrative and documentary art works. Individual artists can apply directly to the program and do not need a sponsoring organization. Applicants must be residents of New York State; undergraduate students are not eligible. The application requires a project description, resume and support materials, including a sample of the proposed project. Selection is made by a peer review panel. About $25,000 is awarded each year. Announcement is made in early June.

The program is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency, and by mediaThe foundation.

Postmark Deadline: March 15, 2007

Guidelines and applications are available on the web at http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/ in the ETC News Section and the Grants area or by mail or email.

OPEN CALL: Art In General Project Proposals

Open Call for Project Proposals
Deadline: March 1, 2007, 11:59 p.m. ET

Art in General commissions challenging new work to visual artists. With a yearly open call and a simple online application process, Art in General invites artists in the New York City area to propose projects in any medium or form—from painting to sculpture to performance to video to other, perhaps undefined, type of art or interdisciplinary work. This open call is for artists with studio or post-studio practice. It has no thematic or spatial parameters. Artists can choose to present a project proposal based on long-standing or emerging interests. To read the open call guidelines and send a proposal, go to: http://commissions.artingeneral.org, and to learn about Art in General and the newly commissioned art projects, visit the gallery or go to: www.artingeneral.org.
Mark your calendar:
Getting it Online
Saturday, February 17, 12- 6pm
Art in General provides computers and slide scanners, as well as technical support for those filling out Art in General’s online application for the new commissions program.

Open Call Deadline
Thursday, March 1, 2007, 11:59 p.m. ET