SWLing Post editor Thomas Witherspoon recently notified us of the passing of “radio zealot” Michael Pool, a/k/a The Professor. I was an avid follower of Pool’s travels in AM radio listening and airchecking that he recorded for WFMU’s Beware of the Blog during the 2000s, and later on his own Radio Kitchen blog until about […]
Archive | Op-Ed
Opinions, editorials and fun stuff.
10 Reasons Why CDs Are Still Awesome (Especially for Radio)
Quite a lot of shade is getting thrown at CDs in the press these days. The LA Times reports, “The compact disc era may finally be entering its hospice stage,” while Rolling Stone declares, “CDs Are Dying Three Times as Fast as Vinyl Is Growing.” Putting aside the misleading equivocation of the RS calculation – […]
Retro Vacation Postcards from Radio Station Tours
Jennifer takes beautiful photos on her radio station tours, and we thought it would be great to find new ways of sharing them. We also want to do more to engage with and say “thank you” to our supporters on Patreon. So we created our first sheet of digital postcards. The first edition has four […]
Listening Notes: KXCJ-LP in Cave Junction, Oregon
This past weekend I accompanied my wife for a short trip to Oregon’s Illinois Valley where she facilitated a Conversation Project for Oregon Humanities. Of course I tuned around the FM dial in search of something interesting and local. Quickly I stumbled upon KXJC-LP at 105.7 FM broadcasting from Cave Junction, an eclectic and artsy […]
Rough notes: thoughts on the post-“Radio is Dead” era
“If I am alive, what am I doing here? And if I’m dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?” – Thomas Dewey, 1948
Happy National Radio Day 2018!
Let’s celebrate the oldest electronic medium today. Radio provides entertainment, news, information and companionship to millions of people every day in the U.S., and billions around the world. When your power goes out or your smartphone dies, you just need a couple of batteries and a radio (or just a wind-up radio) to keep in […]
Every Community Radio Programmer Must Be a Publicist
It is long past time when a community or college radio DJ or programmer can simply show up to do their show and expect to have an audience. Everyone who has a radio show bears the responsibility to build an audience for that show, and their station. Audience building is a challenge for every radio […]
LPFM Advocate: 998 Translator Objections Create ‘a Needed Pause’
Editor’s Note: Common Frequency is one of three LPFM advocacy groups that on May 16 filed informal objections with the FCC against 998 FM translator applications. CF’s technical director Todd Urick was a guest on episode #144 of our podcast to explain some of the reasoning behind this controversial action. He follows up with this […]
Join the Radio Survivor Facebook Community
If you use Facebook, we invite you to join our new group to discuss, learn and share information, thoughts and ideas about community media. Given recent controversies about Facebook’s management of user data you might wonder why we chose Facebook, and why we don’t host the community on our own website. Please let me explain. […]
The Rise and Fall of Brooklyn Hip-Hop Pirate WBAD
We recently had Brooklyn pirate radio watcher (and listener) David Goren on episode #133 of podcast and radio show, talking about his efforts to document this vibrant scene. He also told us about an earlier pirate pioneer from the borough, WBAD, which broadcast underground hip-hop to a loyal audience from 1995 to 1998. He produced a […]