The Grassroots Radio Conference is an annual meeting of community, college and other non-commercial radio stations for the purpose of skill-sharing, training and strengthening ties. We talk with Caitlin Reading, a LPFM station startup specialist who is helping to organize this year’s GRC, happening Oct. 6 – 9 at WCAA-LP in Albany, NY, to learn […]
If you’ve been telling yourself since forever that you want to learn the deets on building a low power FM broadcast system, here’s your chance. Free Radio Berkeley is running a four day DIY workshop on the subject, to be run out of Rodeo, California on September 1-4. “With an emphasis on direct, hands-on learning, […]
From Wellington, New Zealand comes news that a commercial radio group is planning a new station that threatens one run by an elementary school, MaranuiFM. The commercial radio group Mediaworks plans to run its popular “Polly and Grant” morning show on a 24-hour loop at 106.7 FM, the same frequency as the school station. Typically […]
Intrepid radio tourist Jennifer Waits reports back from her journey to PhillyCAM radio in the City of Brotherly Love, adding a low-power FM station, WPPM-LP, to an established public access TV operation. Following up on episode #96 we catch up on the latest smart speaker research and Jennifer shares news about two college stations sold […]
For the first time, the FCC just granted booster stations to two LPFMs in California. Like the name implies, a booster helps a station to fill in parts of its broadcast area where geographic impediments–like hills or mountains–prevent the signal from being received well where it otherwise should be heard. Unlike a translator repeater station, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
