free103point9 Newsroom has moved to http://free103point9.wordpress.com/

free103point9 Newsroom has moved to http://free103point9.wordpress.com/as of March 18, 2010 A blog for radio artists with transmission art news, open calls, microradio news, and discussion of issues about radio art, creative use of radio, and radio technologies. free103point9 announcements are also included here.

Monday, January 26, 2009

OPEN CALL: 50/50

To celebrate Some Assembly Required's Tenth Anniversary, mnartists.org and Some Assembly Required are teaming up to produce a compilation of fifty-second tracks, by as many as fifty artists. To have your work considered for this online compilation, please submit your original works of sound collage, featuring at least 50 percent post-consumer audio (sounds found in the media) by March 16, 2009. (Listen to Some Assembly Required every Monday at 11 a.m. on free103point9 Online Radio.) Send your submissions to one of the following addresses by 3/16/09:
Email: assembly (at) detritus.net
Mail: Some Assembly Required, 2751 Hennepin Ave. S. (#145), Minneapolis, MN 55408

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Senate nears deal to delay digital TV

From Kim Hart in The Washington Post:
Key senators have reached a compromise on a bill that would delay the nation's switch to all-digital television from next month until June 12. A vote on the legislation is expected early next week. Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, has been working with ranking member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), to draft legislation that also would give consumers more access to coupons for the converter boxes needed to continue receiving broadcasts. Television broadcasters are scheduled to turn off analog signals Feb. 17. Consumers with an analog television will need a converter box to get broadcasts. People with digital televisions or cable or satellite service will not lose programming. President Obama earlier this month urged Congress to postpone the transition due to mounting evidence that consumers are not prepared. The Nielsen Co. said Thursday that more than 6.5 million U.S. households are still not prepared for the upcoming transition and could see their television sets go dark next month.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Obama to select Genachowski to lead FCC

From Stephen Labaton in The New York Times:
President-elect Barack Obama intends to nominate Julius Genachowski , an adviser on technology issues and longtime friend, to become the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, advisers to Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Genachowski, 46, was a major fund-raiser for the Obama campaign who also played a leading role in the campaign’s highly successful online strategy. He remains very close to Mr. Obama—both men went to Columbia College and Harvard Law School and the two served together on the Harvard Law Review. They also were basketball buddies.

During the campaign, Mr. Genachowski shaped many of Mr. Obama’s telecom policies. He advocated an open Internet in the debate over so-called “net neutrality,’’ and media-ownership rules that promote a diversity of voices on the airwaves.

People involved in the transition said that Mr. Genachowski was a top candidate for both the chairmanship and a new White House position overseeing technology issues that has not been fully defined yet.

If confirmed, one of his first challenges at the commission will be what to do about the problems plaguing the conversion to digital television. The Obama transition team has asked Congress to delay the conversion, set for Feb. 17, because millions of viewers have been unable to obtain coupons to pay for converter boxes that would enable their sets to receive signals once all broadcasters lose their analog signal. (The conversion will not affect viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite television services.)

The chairmanship of the F.C.C. has played a more expansive role in regulating the economy, particularly with the rise of the Internet and wireless communications over the last 20 years. Now, as the new administration plans to make the expansion of broadband and Internet services a significant part of its stimulus package, Mr. Genachowski, with his close ties to Mr. Obama, could wind up with an even bigger role than his predecessors in shaping economic policy.

After graduating from law school, Mr. Genachowski clerked for federal appeals court judge Abner J. Mikva after Mr. Obama turned down the same job. Mr. Genachowski then clerked for Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. He was chief counsel to Reed Hundt, a chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, during the Clinton administration. He then worked for eight years as a senior executive at Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive Corporation. He also founded an investment and advisory firm for digital media companies and co-founded the country’s first commercial “green’’ bank.

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Monday, January 12, 2009

The Ganzfeld Procedure

Text by Johan Lehrer, graphics by Javier Zarracina, from Boston Globe:

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Podcast Interview with Tom Roe of free103point9

From Future of Music Coalition:
Back in October 2007, the FCC opened a brief licensing window for full-power, non-commercial stations. FMC and our friends at Radio for People thought this would be the perfect (and rare) opportunity for community arts organizations to get on the dial. We worked to identify qualifying groups, letting them know about the possibility and assisting interested parties with the application process.

Now, the approvals are starting to trickle in. New York State "transmission arts" collective free103point9 was recently awarded an FCC license to launch a 3,300-watt FM radio station on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia Counties.

Freelance journalist and radio enthusiast Mike Janssen (who worked on and has written about the full power licensing process) recently interviewed free103point9's Tom Roe about how they plan to build a community-oriented radio station from the ground up.

Listen to the podcast here (right -click or option-click to download).

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

The "War on Pirates" in 2008: paper beats rock, scissors


From DIY Media:
I've just finished updating the Enforcement Action Database. The FCC's Enforcement Bureau has reported its field actions through mid-December, and as you can see, given any activity over the balance of the month, it is on target to meet and/or (most likely) beat the record enforcement year of 2007.

What does this mean? It depends on how you look at the data. Sure, the FCC's busting more pirates than ever, but does that really mean it's making a dent in station proliferation? A couple of major conclusions from the year-in-review are striking:

1. Most FCC enforcement is concentrated around geographic "hot spots" around the country. The top two are south Florida (most notably the Miami-Dade metroplex) and New York. If you add New Jersey in with NYC, the density of enforcement actions is about tied. It's not that far of a stretch to equate that with the density of existing pirate radio stations (i.e., they're not going away).

2. Although most of the enforcement occurs in these hot spots, the fact that enforcement takes place essentially nationwide makes the phenomenon of pirate radio a national one. I think it's just much less of a priority for some field offices than others.

3. There's a compelling trend this year in the timing of enforcement actions. Multiple field offices tend to go pirate-hunting around the same time of the month (often on the exact same days). If I had to guess, the FCC's mandate from D.C. is, "spend some time hunting pirates to show that we care," and the agents in the field mark a day or two on their monthly calendars to handle any pending complaints. (For what it's worth, there's no indication that the FCC's 15 month-old online pirate station reporting form is doing much good).

4. Finally, the primary tools of FCC enforcement remain, by and large, quite administrative. Station-visits and threatening-sounding certified letters are the field agents' ammunition of choice. It's worth noting that although the amount of monetary forfeitures has risen to 2006 levels, the FCC's expected recoupment for each enforcement action it takes is paltry; going pirate-hunting is a big money-loser for the agency. Note that the number of arrests and convictions have remained stable - and less than a handful at that. It would seem that those state laws criminalizing pirate radio are doing a whole lot of nothing.

In fact, looking at the raw data from which I compile the majority of my statistics, the Enforcement Bureau's been going after more serious unlicensed broadcasters, like those who potentially jam public-safety, maritime, and land-mobile two-way radio networks. This is a phenomenon that also appears to be on the rise. The FCC's much more quicker to bring the fiscal hammer down on those sorts of people, but they're the ones doing real harm.

The bottom line? 2009 will be a year of opportunity for unlicensed broadcasters. Without some sort of massive infusion of human resources, capital, and political will, the FCC simply doesn't have the strength to shut much of anything down. It's reached its enforcement capacity, and it's being overwhelmed. In that sense, we're winning.

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Obama urges delay in digital TV transition

From MSNBC:
President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won’t be ready.

In a letter to key lawmakers Thursday, Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the digital transition needs to be delayed largely because the Commerce Department has run out of money for coupons to subsidize digital TV converter boxes for consumers. People who don’t have cable or satellite service or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the converter boxes to keep their older analog sets working.

Obama officials are also concerned that the government is not doing enough to help Americans — particularly those in rural, poor or minority communities — prepare for and navigate the transition.

“With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively mandated analog cutoff date,” Podesta wrote in a letter to top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House Commerce committees.

In a statement released Thursday, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, acknowledged that the transition to digital television is not going well, and that millions of Americans could experience serious problems on Feb. 17.

"We also know that many Americans will experience difficulties connecting their converter boxes, that there could soon be a shortage of boxes, and that the federal government is not prepared to answer the many questions confused consumers will have. I am reviewing the President-elect's letter and will work with his team and my colleagues to address the problems created by this poorly managed program," he said.

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Mission statement for Greene/Columbia community radio project

The Greene/Columbia community radio project is a community-run media project, re-envisioning radio as an innovative platform for local participation. Our inclusive programming connects diverse voices, and distributes information across the public spectrum in New York's Greene and Columbia Counties.

free103point9 will launch a 3,300-watt community radio station with a radio art bent, in 2010 on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia (and southern Albany) Counties in New York.

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Monday, January 05, 2009

Steven Spielberg talks to Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger about TV static ghosts and picking up radio stations on his teeth

From Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing:

My friend Siege blogged this YouTube find and explained it like this:
On a hotel bed, Steven Spielberg talks to Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger about TV static ghosts, picking up radio stations on his teeth, and swallowing the future.


Spielberg confesses *swallowing* a transistor after his father presented it to him, and said "son, this is the future" -- it was the young boy's first hands-on experience with technology. Or, perhaps better stated, his first technology-in-gullet experience.

My Friends Andy, Steve and Bianca Just Hanging Out (YouTube, uploaded by user michaeljamespinto, read his blog entry about the clip here. )

Update: BB commenter DHC says, "It's worth noting that his is an outtake from a TV show that Warhol developed and aired on Manhattan cable. You can get more of the story here."

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