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Author Archive | Paul Riismandel

Crossing over to the (HD Radio) Dark Side

Crossing over to the (HD Radio) Dark Side

Amazon.com Widgets Perhaps the title for this post is a little hyperbolic, however I feel like I have a confession to make: I just bought an HD Radio receiver. Yes, I’ve been quite critical here about the technical specs of In-Band-On-Channel digital broadcasting, a/k/a IBOC, a/k/a HD Radio. However, I must admit that I have […]

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Univision antes up a million bucks for payola violations

Univision antes up a million bucks for payola violations

It’s been a few years since the FCC reached consent decrees with CBS, Citadel and Clear Channel over illegal pay-for-play schemes, so you think that the major broadcasters would have learned their lesson. Apparently the warning didn’t get translated into Spanish. Yesterday the FCC released a new consent decree [PDF] with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision which […]

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Radio pirates do not go to jail in 48 states

Radio pirates do not go to jail in 48 states

Pirate radio has been a favorite topic of mine since I first built a little AM transmitter from a Radio Shack kit as a kid. In the mid-90s, just as the microradio movement started to take off with inspiration from Human Rights Radio’s Mbanna Kanatko and Free Radio Berkeley’s Stephen Dunifer, I started to follow […]

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Could this be a tool of international espionage?

Spies still using radio

Numbers stations have been part of radio lore for decades. If you’ve ever listened to much shortwave radio at some point you would have come across an unidentified station broadcasting only a person reading off numbers, like an endless lotto feed: “21 99 36….” Sometimes this is in English, and often in Spanish or other […]

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Two Knight News Challenge Grants go to radio orgs

The Knight Foundation has taken a lead in funding grants for promising new ideas for journalism, in particular those that exploit opportunities in digital media and are local in focus. The Knight News Challenge Grant is providing $2.74 million in funding to twelve projects that aim to inform specific geographic communities. The winners were announced […]

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FCC Commissioner Clyburn Suggests Channels 5 & 6 for Radio

FCC Commissioner Clyburn Suggests Channels 5 & 6 for Radio

The National Federation of Community Broadcasters just wrapped up its annual conference this past weekend in St. Paul, MN. The NFCB has been a true anchor in the community radio movement, both supporting individual stations and advocating on their behalf in DC. This year the FCC actually graced the conference, with Commissioner Mingon Clyburn giving […]

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New iPhone 4 offers background listening but not much else for radio

New iPhone 4 offers background listening but not much else for radio

Today Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his now-annual announcement for the new version of the company’s top product. While there were several surprises in store, like the addition of video conferencing and HD video recording, there wasn’t anything unexpected for radio enthusiasts. Jobs confirmed the debut of multitasking with the new version 4 of the […]

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