Our latest podcast is all about the first, and—to the best of our knowledge—only low-power FM station broadcasting digitally with HD Radio. The episode has stimulated quite a bit of conversation on social media and raised some questions about the relationship between LPFM and HD Radio. Here I’ll try to answer the most common questions […]
If you’ve heard of HD Radio it was probably in a spot on a major commercial station, not a high school station. KVCB-LP is the exception to that rule, a high school radio station that is likely the first and only low-power FM station to start broadcasting in digital HD Radio. Ralph Martin is the […]
In a serendipitous coincidence, new low power FM (LPFM) community radio station WPPM-LP had its launch party while I was in Philadelphia for the College Broadcasters Inc. convention last October. Not one to miss a historic radio event, I sneaked away from the conference in order to attend the festivities on October 20, 2016. Excitement […]
In the service of my course on conspiracies and conspiracy theories at UC Santa Cruz, I’ve been listening to Mae Brussell’s many radio programs on YouTube. “At some point you have to get information or documentation about what’s happening,” Brussell told her radio audience in July of 1972, “you can’t just sit in the drawing room […]
Community radio lost an important man last month. Nick Leggett was an engineer, writer, amateur radio operator and inventor with many patents to his name. He also was one of the original proponents of low-power FM, who petitioned the FCC to create the service in the late 1990s as part of the Amherst Alliance, alongside […]
Laura Schnitker is an archivist and curator at the University of Maryland who has been active in preserving the legacy of college station WMUC, along with co-chairing the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force (with Radio Survivor Jennifer Waits). Laura recently gave a talk about her radio preservation and archiving work at the “College […]
The long-running independent community radio news program Free Speech Radio News announced this week that its last edition will be broadcast on April 28. In a press release, the collective cites a decline in distribution and inability to find a “firm financial footing,” as causes for the closure. Born from the labor of freelance reporters […]
There’s a lot of radio going on at University of Virginia and the newest station is WXTJ-LP, a student-run low power FM (LPFM) college radio station. Although its studio is in the same facility as WTJU (see my tour #129 here), WXTJ-LP has its own identity and air sound. Frustrated by the lack of student […]
In January FCC moved to allow AM stations to acquire and geographically locate FM translator repeater stations a little further away from their main AM transmitter than previously permitted—within either 25 miles of their station, or within their daytime broadcast area, whichever is larger. Before this ruling those translators were limited to being located within […]
WRIR is a community radio station born from the first wave of low-power FM in the early 2000s. Yet the station has roots in the rich history of independent media in Richmond, VA. Intrepid radio tourist Jennifer Waits shares her tour of the station, uncovering obscure cable radio history along with some unexpected facts about […]
