Although Free Radio Berkeley has not been an operational radio station for over a decade, founder Stephen Dunifer continues to champion the cause of unlicensed micropower radio. In this spirit FRB just announced its 2011 schedule of summer radio camps. Each camp is a four-day workshop where participants learn to build a 10- or 40-watt […]
Author Archive | Paul Riismandel
Mellon Foundation kicking in a grant to buy Duquense University’s WDUQ
Luckily this is not another story about a student-run station being sold by its college. Instead, it’s about a public station being sold to another public radio group. WDUQ is Duquesne University’s public station in Pittsburgh, PA, airing much of the typical NPR news programming along with about 100 hours of jazz a week. Duquesne […]
The mediageek’s advice for college stations, part 2: No more elitism — Recruit, recruit, recruit
The theme of part 1 of this series, posted last week, was ensuring that your college station works to be valuable to your school, and is also recognized by the campus for this value. Part 2 follows in this theme by focusing on the most important aspect of this: keeping students involved in college radio. […]
Public station rewards donors with pledge-free web stream
I am a monthly donor to my local public radio station so that I don’t even have call in during its pledge drives — they’ve already got my donation. So despite their attempts to make the morning drive pledge pitches compelling, by the second or third day I turn the station off in the morning […]
The mediageek’s advice for college stations, part 1: Be true to your school
Having followed Jennifer’s first-rate coverage of the unfortunate sales of college stations KTRU, WRVU[apologies for the error, WRVU has not been sold, but it is under threat] and KUSF I’ve been giving a lot of thought as to how college stations solidify themselves. As some readers may be aware, in addition to fourteen years of […]
The brief run of Pachindau People’s Radio in Zimbabwe
Kanyi Pamukwendengwe a Rusitu villager in Zimbabwe writes in the South Africa Mail & Guradian about the brief run of Pachindau People’s Radio, an unlicensed shortwave station that broadcast from Chimanimani in Eastern Zimbabwe. As Pamukwendengwe explains, the inspiration for the station came from the fact that the state-run stations in Harare could not be […]
Radio Free Record Store Day at Numero Group’s WTNG
This past Saturday I celebrated Record Store Day by dropping in to the Numero Group’s pop-up store in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Numero is a record label specializing on archival re-releases of forgotten treasures, especially regional records from small labels from Cleveland to Belize. They hosted a one-day record store inside Stop Smiling press’ storefront […]
Chicago’s Numero Group label to broadcast pop-up radio station on Record Store Day
Record Store Day, now in its fifth year, is an annual celebration of the independent record store. This year it goes down next Saturday, April 16. Participating stores hold special events, like in-store concerts, while selling limited-edition singles and albums. I’ve been attending since 2008 and enjoy the recognition of the threatened species of the […]
Ottawa pirate teen convicted for harassment and unlicensed broadcasting
So that kid I posted about on Monday, who was running a pirate station in Ottawa, Ontario and accused of threatening to kill another local radio personality? He was convicted Thursday of criminal harassment of both the DJ and the officer from Industry Canada who was investigating the station. He was also convicted of violating […]
Radio Caroline Pursuing a Legit License
On the heels of Radio Caroline’s 47th birthday last week, the New York Times published a story reporting on the outfit’s attempt to garner an actual license to broadcast in the UK. Caroline is pursuing 531 KHz on the mediumwave band (known as AM in the US) which was recently vacated by the BBC. While […]