April Glaser

From Bornina Storm in South Philly Biennial:

April Glaser left home at age 16 to work with left high school and worked with a group of activists in Nashville, Tennessee to build the area's only public access, independent radio station, Radio Free Nashville. It was connected to her home. She soon left for Philly to work with Prometheus Radio Project, to build low-power community radio stations and help with the fight against media consolidation. She has a precocious way of getting herself involved with some of the most interesting, community based, independently minded projects and people. She is currently a student of philosophy and spent last summer living in Michigan on a boat working with FOUND magazine. and plans on spending this summer in the Catskills working on projects with free103point9. She will be setting up a 'pirate' radio station at the Biennial to broadcast music and interviews. Listeners can tune in for a few blocks radius, while she will have radio hats so visitors and artists can listen live. She is very informative and wants everyone to know that she welcomes questions on broadcasting, media consolidation, and the wavy spectrum. Above please check out a video Prometheus projects made of their Nashville, Tennessee project, of which April was involved.

Radio 4x4 at Noise! Festival plus Bunnybrains

This is an excerpt of the Radio 4x4 performance by Tom Roe, Giancarlo Bracchi, Michael Garafalo, and Slink Moss Friday, May 9, opening the Noise! festival that night at Ontological Theater in Manhattan. Radio 4x4 is a free103point9 project with four performers each performing into an FM transmitter, rather than a PA or amplifier. Instead, radios are spread around the space, tuned in randomly to the four "stations" with performances. This is from a YouTube video from Slink Moss.


And this is from Bunnybrains performance that same night at Noise!

Microsoft: we listen to broadcasters, not customers

From Cory Doctorow in Boing Boing:

Danny sez, "A Microsoft spokesperson told CNet today that 'Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission). As part of these regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed.' Do they really mean that they're obeying the broadcast flag that courts and Congress rejected as being executive overreach by the FCC? The ones they have no obligation to follow?" This is about the defunct "Broadcast Flag," an illegal proposal to have the FCC regulate devices (PCs, set-top boxes, etc) so that they'll only include approved technologies that the entertainment industry likes. The Second Circuit ruled that the FCC couldn't make these rules. But Microsoft's devices are following the rules anyway, refusing to allow you to record your favorite TV shows with your Windows PC if the broadcaster has marked them as "no record."

Mobile phones alter brain behavior?

From David Pescovitz in Boing Boing:

New research shows that the electromagnetic signals emanating from mobile phones can alter your brainwaves. Indeed, the latest studies suggest that mobile phone transmissions can even affect behavior. In one study, scientists from the Swinburne University of Technology monitored the brainwaves of folks with Nokia phones, er, strapped to their heads. They noticed that the cell phone transmissions boosted alpha waves. In a separate experiment, researchers from the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre observed that sleep-deprived subjects with phones on their heads showed a dampening of delta waves that are markers of sleep. For hours after the phones were turned off, the test subjects exhibited difficulty falling asleep. From Scientific American:

Although this research shows that cell phone transmissions can affect a person's brainwaves with persistent effects on behavior, (Loughborough University's James) Horne does not feel there is any need for concern that cell phones are damaging. The arousal effects the researchers measured are equivalent to about half a cup of coffee, and many other factors in a person's surroundings will affect a night's sleep as much or more than cell phone transmissions.

"The significance of the research," he explained, is that although the cell phone power is low, "electromagnetic radiation can nevertheless have an effect on mental behavior when transmitting at the proper frequency." He finds this fact especially remarkable when considering that everyone is surrounded by electromagnetic clutter radiating from all kinds of electronic devices in our modern world. Cell phones in talk mode seem to be particularly well-tuned to frequencies that affect brainwave activity. "The results show sensitivity to low-level radiation to a subtle degree. These findings open the door by a crack for more research to follow. One only wonders if with different doses, durations, or other devices, would there be greater effects?"

Hudson Summer Concert Series

Hudson's Slink Moss has put together the Hudson Summer Concert Series, and free103point9 is co-sponsoring the series of eight free shows this summer in parks in the city of Hudson, New York. Slink writes, "A range of sites and sounds starting May 31 at the Waterfront and ending September 6 at the Fountain Park at 7th Street. Experimental. Rock. Jazz. Circus. Kids Rock. Reggae. Punk. Films. Performance. Fun. Diversity!" about the series. free103point9 will attempt to air each show live on free103point9 Online Radio. Here are the dates and performers:

*May 31: Bunnybrains, Family of Love, Franklin Mint, Hexual Ceiling, Neg-Fi, Norman Douglas, Tom Roe, and Slink Moss Orchestra.

*June 14: LoVid presents "Wirefull Flags" multi-media event after the fireworks.

*June 28: Mambo KiKongo, and DJ Tom Roe.

*July 12: J+H Projections (Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder of Ridge Theater) plus live drums.

*July 26: free103point9's Campfire Sounds with The Dust Dive, Latitude/Longitude, Samara Lubelski, and MV & EE with the Golden Road.

*Aug. 9: Big Blue Big Band.

*Aug. 23: Bindlestiff Circus; The Ping Pongs, and Wolfman Jason.

*Sept. 6: The Dangling Success.

free103point9 Online Radio Top 40 for May 2008

free103point9 Online Radio Top 40 for May 2008

1. The Roy Campbell Ensemble, Akhenaten Suite (Aum Fidelity)
2. Tall Firs, Too Old To Die Young (Ecstatic Peace)
3. civyiu kkliu + ilya monosov, cartolina postale (Winds Measure Recordings)
4. The Beige Channel, Enjoy Victoria Bay! (Happy New Year Recordings)
5. Rob Brown Ensemble, Crown Trunk Root Funk (Aum Fidelity)
6. Annea Lockwood, A Sound Map of the Danube (Lovely Music, Ltd.)
7. Sic Alps, A Long Way Around To a Shortcut (Animal Disguise)
8. Robert Ashley, Concrete (Lovely Music, Ltd.)
9. Jason Willet, The Sounds of Megaphone Unlimited (mT6records.com
With Jad Fair, Eye Yamatsuka, and others.
10. Various artists, Infinite Limbs (Infinite Limbs)
Family of Love, Teeth Mountain, and others.
11. autistic daughters, uneasy flowers (Kranky)
12. critikal, graphorrea (zeromoon.com)
13. Kenneth Gaburo, Maledetto Antiphony VIII (Pogus Productions)
14. asher-ubeboet, cell memory (Winds Measure Recordings)
15. Cristian Amigo, Kingdom of Jones (innova)
16. Radio Ruido, "False Rosetta" 2x7" (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 032)
17. Simon Wickham-Smith, love & lamenation (Pogus Productions)
18. White Rainbow, Prism of Eternal Now (Kranky)
19. Verdun, Two Archipelagos LP (eyland.org)
20. Latitude/Longitude, "Solar Filters/Mother Evening" 7" (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 031)
21. Jeff Martin + Evan Shaw, Piano Music (Barnyard Records)
22. Frank Rothkamm, just 3 organs (just.3.organs.frank.rothamm.com)
23. Barnyard Drama, I'm a Nawg (Barnyard Records)
24. Lori Freedman & Scott Thompson, Plumb (Barnyard Records)
25. Tatsuya Nakatani, Primal Communication (H&H)
26. Jeff Martin + Colin Fisher, Little Man on thr Boat (Barnyard Records)
27. Cloudland Canyons, Silver Tongued Sisyphus (Kranky)
28. William Parker + Hamid Drake, First Communion/Piercing the Veil 2xCD (Aum Fidelity)
29. Temperatures, Ymir LP (Heat Retention)
30. Mt. Wilson Repeater (Eastern Fiction)
31. Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet, Inner Constellation (Nemu)
Bruce Eisenbeil + Jean Cook + Nate Wooley + Aaron Ali Shaikh + Tom Abbs + Nasheet Waits.
32. Faking Trains, Instructions (Faking Trains)
33. Scott Smallwood, Electrotherapy (Deep Listening)
34. David Watson, Fingering an Idea (XI Records)
35. Stars Like Fleas, The Ken Burns Effect (Talitres)
36. Mike Wexler, Sun Wheel (Amish)
37. David S. Ware Quartet, Renunciation (Aum Fidelity)
38. Jeff Arnal + Dietrich Eichmann, LP (Broken Research)
39. Pauline Oliveros + Miya Masaoka, Koto Accordion (Deep Listening)
40. Theo Angell, Dearly Beloved (Amish)
Scott Smallwood, Desert Winds: Six Windblown Sound Pieces and Other Works (Deep Listening)
To submit CDs, LPs, CSs, etc. for consideration of airplay on free103point9 Online Radio, mail to:
free103point9
5622 Route 23
Acra, NY 12405

The extinct mobile radio license

From Jose Fritz in Arcane Radio Trivia:

It is unimaginable now, but in the early days of broadcasting, it was possible to operate a legal broadcast from a moving vehicle. Not a relay to a stationary transmitter, but to originate programming, perhaps even while steering.In 1919 I find the earliest reference to a license to broadcast from a car. Alfred H. Grebe broadcasted from both cars and boats with the call letters WGMU. Grebe manufactured radios. the purpose of the traveling radio show was of course... to sell them. they were nice radios, usually a chassis of Bakelite and/or nice hardwood like walnut. Grebe was from Richmond Hill, NY, born in 1895. He also founded WAHG, WBOQ, and other less formal stations right out of his factory in Queens.

His mobile station used a 6-wire flat top antenna but it was hardwired to the frame and body of the car! It operated at 150 meters. He did observe the the spark plugs of the other motor vehicles caused interference even then. In advertisements he called it the grebe Auto Radiophone. Grebe said in a Radio Amateur News article:

"The auto-radio-phone is entirely practical, and the near future should bring extensive developments along these lines..."

In the late 1920s Jay W. Peters was broadcasting in Inglewood, CA as 1470 KGGM. Then in 1927 he loaded his transmitter with a collapsible antenna and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I've also seen images with a rig attached to a bus! He too was demonstrating radio equipment that he was trying to sell. Peters traveled the Southwest doing demos. In 1928, he sold the license to the New Mexico Broadcasting Company. In 1928 he moved to a terrestrial stationary radio license. He went to Reno and tried to start another station near Blanch Field Airport in an Elks lodge. He applied for a license, and got the calls KOH. it was the first commercial station in Reno.

Transmission art archive

free103point9 is mapping a genealogy of artists, works, questions, and definitions in support of the genre "transmission arts." Artists are encouraged to self-identify their work within the context of transmission art practices. The resulting resources online and at the Wave Farm Study Center will provide extensive reference materials to artists, curators, students, and academics researching contemporary and historical practices in Media Art and Experimental Sound with respects to the topic of transmission. Click here to add your transmission art work to the archive.