A Year!

SHIT! It's been a year since any of us have posted here! Well, with the fuckhead Republicans out of power, sort of, maybe it's time to look at doing another station. The last run in with the FCC was similar to gestapo tactics (they lied, served innocents with notices of liability, forced an unrelated to the station guy to hire a lawyer to defend himself, etc. etc. etc.). Assholes.

So, now that America SEEMS to be coming to it's senses (at least to some degree) , maybe it's time to rise up again. Make it real, take it back.

we'll see what 2007 brings.

Why should there be a KBFR?

I stole this... but it's worth it.

Why is there a KBFR (pirate/underground/unlicensed radio in Boulder, CO) ?

Why is Boulder Free Radio an underground pirate station? It's because the NAB and NPR bought a couple of senators and killed the low power radio service rules that almost came into being in 2000.

"I've had all the diversity I can stand", said Conrad Burns (R-Mont), Chair of the Senate Telecom Subcommittee speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) at the1999 annual April conference to show support for NAB and NPR's opposition to the Low Power Radio Service (LPRS).

You may be wondering, "why should I care if some freaks can't get their noise and culture out on a radio station?" Because radio is not just another business.

The Free Press must be free to carry the full spectrum of human experience, culture, news and views in order to serve as that chain of links between those who create policy and those who suffer from policy. When media becomes overly influenced by a few powerful interests, it's tainted with an overall bias. An unrepresentative media creates an unrepresentative and unresponsive government … leading to an unjust, unstable society and government.

Since radio stations use taxpayer funded government agencies to protect their use of a limited public resource, the airwaves ... an unrepresentative radio market is literally taxation without representation.

Justice of the Supreme Court William Brennan said "Freedom of speech does not exist in the abstract. On the contrary, the right to speak can flourish only if it is allowed to operate in an effective forum -- whether it be a public park … or a radio frequency. For in the absence of an effective means of communications, the right to speak would ring hollow indeed. And, in recognition of these principles, we have consistently held that the First Amendment embodies, not only the abstract right to be free from censorship, but also the right of the individual to utilize an appropriate and effective medium for the expression of his or her views."
The NAB and NPR oppose opening several dozen new slots in each city on our FM dial. Their position is that opening these slots will cause interference "like AM radio at night."
Just as when Ronald Reagan excused auto pollution by saying "trees cause pollution", they have taken a tiny grain of truth and blown it into a Mount Rushmore. Yes, at night when trees cannot photosynthesize, they emit hydrocarbon compounds that the daylight turns into smog ... at considerably lower levels than cars!

Yes, opening these new frequencies will cause interference ... for the magazine subscription's free radio teaser gift! The vast majority of radios will not have a problem. This is like saying that we must let horse buggies and "slopeds" on the Interstate. The top speed would drop to 30mph.
The FCC has long had (and not used) the power to require that receiver manufacturers build radios with enough "selectivity" to select the one weak station you want over the nearby close strong station. The FCC will have to require this if they go with current digital plans because the current American standard (called "IBOC") will "fatten" the current radio stations and their edges will get closer together!

So why the lie? Because the current radio businesses out there paid too much for the radio stations, competition would hurt their 20% profit margins, and they like that the high prices are excluding "those" people.

Gloria Tristani, ex-FCC Commissioner said in the mid ninties, "The number of broadcast owners have dwindled by 12% over the past two years -- even though the number of stations has actually increased by 3%." There are 641 more commercial stations but, for instance, minorities owned 8 fewer stations in 1997 than in 1992.

I Think I'm right, but I KNOW I'm wrong … my human frailties limit my perception that is modified by my values that are informed by my experiences. The only way I know with any certainty that I have "The Truth" is to either compare it with reality (the systematic trial-and-error of science) or to compare my experience with yours.

After all, at one time Galileo was a freak. But he was right.

What we made our DJ's sign before getting shut down

KBFR Mission and Policies


Our Mission:

Boulder Free Radio is an act of civil disobedience aimed at taking back the public resource called Radio. It is an action and a protest against the selling off of the limited public resource of radio spectrum to the highest bidder. It is an action designed to support our community with a democratic media that will give the average citizen access to the airwaves and provide exposure to new and local music, under-represented ideas, opinions, news and information on local goings on and to do so with an understanding that we are responsible to the community and it’s wishes about content and the balance between free speech and the use of profanity. We commit that we will give fair access to all citizens on all sides of a community, state, regional, national or global issue.

At our core, we believe in the community supported use of free speech and access to new music, ideas, opinions and news.

We understand that being a member of KBFR is a privilege, not a right and agree to abide by the Policies and procedures put into place to keep KBFR safe and to continue to support the community it serves.



Boulder Free Radio(BFR) is a benevolent dictatorship(BD). The BD is supported by a council of captains (5-10 BFR members chosen by the BD and other captains for their experience, wisdom, knowledge, skills and ability to help govern and grow BFR). Most decisions are discussed among the BFR DJ’s and captains, reviewed in regular captain meetings and approved. When necessary the BD will be asked for a decision, but only as a last resort. The BD has the right, responsibility and duty to overturn BFR group and Captain Council decisions if he deems it necessary for the overall betterment of the operation, but only if absolutely necessary and he believes it is necessary for the long term health and survival of the station. The BD has final say, when exercised, on all BFR business.

Policies: Policies are rules that are required and agreed to by all members of the group before joining that allow us to operate and serve the community. These are not negotiable and are required activities and observances of how we operate.
Due to the underground nature of KBFR and it’s unlicensed status with the FCC, we will always be at risk of a bust by federal agents of the FCC, usually, backed up by a federal warrant and federal marshals. These warrants rarely name individuals and generally use old maritime laws used to seize (appropriately) pirate ships where the names of the captains and crews where unknown. In practice, the agents will first visit the STL location and issue a warning to stop operating. KBFR’s policy is to immediately shut down and move the STL location. This ‘resets’ the legal process and, in theory, should make it difficult for the FCC to obtain a warrant allowing them to take the equipment. At some point, we expect them to stop warning us and simply find the STL, and obtain a warrant. At that point, we will lose equipment, but not the studio, although that is not guaranteed. In order to protect the studio and, if possible, the STL setup (including transmitter, computer and mixer worth about $5000), the following policies are required of all KBFR group members. In addition, to avoid unduly antagonizing the FCC, controls around conduct and use of profanity and use of threats are outlined here.

- No drugs, guns or anyone under 18 in the studio at any time.
- No smoking (of anything) in the studio. Alcohol is fine
- New DJ’s are vetted by the program manager and approved by the Captains Council. DJ’s are encouraged to recommend potential new DJ’s
- Once a month meetings are required. If you miss the meeting, you are suspended from studio access (and your show) for one month. If you miss a second meeting, your status as a KBFR DJ is forfeit.
o You can miss a meeting if you inform one of the captains BEFORE the meeting. The reason must be significant and usually involves you being physically out of town.

- Showing up is required. If you miss two shows in a row, your show time is made available to the program director for rescheduling of another existing or new DJ.

o Sending an email out to kbfr@kbfr.org at least 4 hours before your show telling the group your show is available negates this control.
o If your show is taken, you can petition the program director for another time slot.
o If this happens 3 times (i.e. missing 2 shows in a row and not telling anyone) your status as a KBFR DJ is forfeit

- All DJ’s are required to help support the station financially.
o Monthly dues of (usually) $30
o Help in putting on benefit shows that add to KBFR’s reserve
o If you don’t pay your dues, you don’t get the key code to the studio

- All DJ’s are encouraged to find support duties that help the station
o To keep it going, we need all DJ’s to be ACTIVE members of KBFR by spending time on things outside of their weekly shows. These include but are not limited to:
§ Keeping the studio clean and neat
§ Bringing in needed supplies
§ Recycling cans, bottles and plastics
§ Managing T-shirt/button/sticker/CD distribution and cash
§ Reviewing CD’ sent to KBFR by artists, producers and record companies
§ Assisting in recording live shows in the van
§ Assisting with computer/networking needs
§ Helping with benefit concerts (including ‘producing’ them end to end)

- Profanity (defined by ‘the 7 words you can’t use on television, in addition to the words ‘faggot’ and ‘nigger’) is allowed. However, only under the following conditions:
o Between midnight and 6am: anything goes. Say whatever you want.
o Between 9pm and midnight: Use good judgment
o Between 6pm and 9pm: contextual use of profanity is fine- as in ‘I can’t believe fucking GW killed 19 more kids in iraq today!’. Gratuitous use of profanity is strongly discouraged and will cause you to eventually lose your show. Overuse will turn off listeners and has a higher chance of being heard by kids and their parents as well as shriveled up old lady’s and born again Christens with an axe to grind. These folks WILL call the FCC. Enough complaints from them will bring about a visit and a bust.
o Between 6am and 6pm: keep profanity to a minimum- same as you hear on network TV (shit, asshole, etc. class words are OK). Businesses listening during the day used to be our largest listening base and have tuned out due to profanity. We want them back.
o Use of profanity within recorded comedy and music is allowed anytime. Keep in mind the time of day and try not to abuse this privilege. They ARE listening.

- No DJ may threaten, on air, any entity or person, for any reason.
o This includes statements like: “someone should blow up Disneyland”; “Someone needs to kill that bastard GW” (this will almost guarantee a visit by the secret service); “someone should beat the hell out of the Boulder City Council”, etc.

- New DJ’s will have a 3 month ‘review’ period. After 3 months on air the Captains Council will review if their show is original, interesting, entertaining and if it fit’s into the overall KBFR effort of adding back to the community.

- Communications- DJ must check email regularly. At least twice per week. KBFR’s underground and distributed nature requires that we use an encrypted email system to keep our communications secure. Other than our monthly meetings, email will be our primary means of communication.



I agree with the above mission statement and agree to abide by the policies:


DJ Name:_________________________


DJ Name Signature___________________________________ (DO NOT SIGN REAL NAME)


Date:____________

Podcasting our archives! Now on Clickcaster

We started last week. We are uploading all of our studio free shows from 5 years of Pirate Radio broadcasting here in Boulder.

We looked at all the online web services based Podcasting services and the big three (Clickcaster, Odeo and PodOMatic) all provided great stuff. We played with all of them for a few weeks, and we've finally settled on Clickcaster (www.clickcaster.com).

We like em cause their local to us, to start with. But, after using all three, they're also the best of the lot. Here's why we like them:

-Really (like, REALLY) easy to use

-Support huge file uploads (some of our studio free shows are 500MB)

-No limit on total space used in your account (PodOmatic, for instance, limits you to 250MB total, that won't hold even one of some of our shows)

-Everything happens on your machine. When you're recording a show, it saves it locally to your hard drive (the other guys stream it to their servers). Try doing this on a wireless connection to your home router sometime. You NEED to do it locally on your machine for it to work.

-Kick ass Java based recorder that (appears) to be at CD quality (128kpbs?). The other guys use Flash which sucks for recording and is (obviously) lower quality.

-Great simple interface. One of our DJ's said it's like the difference between Yahoo and Google (which would you rather use?)

-Super responsive team. When we had problems uploading the REALLY big files, they responded in 3 days with an updated server that would support multi gigabyte (they claim) uploads.

Overall, these Clickcaster dudes rock. And they get Pirate Radio big time.

Check em out. They're gonna change the world.

Here's a link to our show on Clickcaster: http://www.clickcaster.com/clickcast/rss/237

Monk

A little here, a little there

We did some random broadcasting the other day.

Worked up a nice little mobile setup that you can plug in and put together in about 10 minutes in a garage. Nice little case, a laptop with WiFi, a tripod and an antenna. Just throw it up in someone's living room, set the tripod up on the deck and plug it in.

Worked great. A signal check had us covering pretty all of town very nicely (helps to be up high on a hill, if you can swing it).

I think this is how to do it. Totally mobile setup. Fixed for a single session in someone's house, a few hours, an evening maybe. Then, down for, however long, then, back up again when everyone's in the mood.

It's good, I like it.

M

Podcasting and Pirate Radio

It occurred to me today that there's a powerful intersect between this podcasting thing and pirate radio.

In particular, it would insanely easy for one guy to create a great pirate radio station, with awesome content, by just using podcasts. I mean, that's what a podcast IS right? A pirate radio recording for the internet.

It's a sort of citizen journalism and it's uncensored and unedited by a regular person putting his or her thoughts into audio form and putting it out there for anyone to hear.

Sounds one hell of a lot like pirate radio to me.

Now, take a 160GB hard disk and FILL it with podcasts that you've downloaded from the net. Music podcasts, current affairs, politics, what have you. Put that disk on a computer, hook up the computer to a transmitter and antenna and you've got some GREAT radio.

When you feel like doing a show, head over to the transmitter site and do one. When you don't feel like it, let all that great citizen jouranlist generated content just run.

I would bet it would be the best radio station in your town, bar none.

Hmmmmmm

Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio

Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio Pirate Radio

LIVES!

We're going up. We're not gonna do any of that fancy remote transmitter shit. We're going to set up, put the antenna on the roof, and lock the door. When they come, they'll have to have a warrant to get in.

Soon!