response 75 of 107:

Dec 29 18:44 UTC 1997

You're lucky you don't live in the United Kingdom.  They require radio and
television _owners_ to be licensed (to support the BBC).

response 77 of 107:

Dec 29 23:26 UTC 1997

(Correct me if I'm delusional, but I remember hearing that Commie High was
operating a micropower station briefly.  Is this just Tom Dodd's overactive
imagination, or did this really happen?)

response 79 of 107:

Dec 30 19:58 UTC 1997

re #77: (very briefly. rusty memory says it was during the Stone School 
        years. I could pribly dig out an old _Communicator_ for more 
        information.)

response 81 of 107:

Dec 31 02:54 UTC 1997

I'm actually finding the drift a lot more interesting - and educational - than
the original ranting :)
(carson, I'm pretty sure it wasn't when they were at Stone School.  Tom said
the water stains on his ceiling were from Commie students who damaged the roof
putting up the antenna)

response 83 of 107:

Jan 4 19:59 UTC 1998

I was one of the poeple involved in the CHS radio station.  We started it at
Stone School.  We took apart one of those Fisher Price "Mr. Microphone"
things, and soldered in inputs a mixing board, which we had a tape deck and
a microphone plugged into, and that was our transmitter.  The range was most
of the school building, plus a little bit of the school's back yard.  Since
the Mr. Microphone transmitter is sold in toy stores, I'm assuming it's
probably low enough power that it's legal, or at least that the FCC doesn't
care.  Since our signal wasn't making it off school property, and we were
using a frequency that wasn't being used by anything else in the area, I can't
imagine anybody having complained about it.  A station that could reach an
audience bigger than a school building would probably be a very different
story.  There was an attempt after we moved back into the downtown building
to get the radio station restarted, with somewhat bigger goals.  I think
somebody did look at putting an antenna on the roof, and also started going
through the paperwork to apply for an FCC license for a low powered high
school station, much like the Plymouth-Canton high schools have.  It never
got very far before everybody pretty much lost interest.

As for FCC licensing, I'm glad to hear they enforce it.  Without it there
would be a huge mess, since people broadcasting on top of eachother would make
radio unworkable.  The reason radio works is because radio stations have
distinct frequencies, and somebody needs to keep track of allocating them.
Like it or not, the radio spectrum is quite limited.  Even if it wasn't, there
would need to be somebody in charge of deciding who got what frequencies to
keep people from stepping on eachother.  I don't think you'll find any
resource like that that doesn't use some system like that, whether it's radio
(FCC), TV (FCC), Internet IP addresses (IANA), phone numbers (Bellcore, last
I checked, but I think they're transferring the authority to somebody else),
or just about anything else like that you can think of.  If the people
involved in using the limited space don't recognize the same assigning
authority, it just won't work.

response 85 of 107:

Feb 27 21:10 UTC 1998

The USA Today for Friday 2/27 has a good article, generally favorable, about 
pirate/low power broadcasting.  The Berkeley case is being built on 
the argument that a system which requires that every broadcaster 
have a multi-million-dollar license is an effective abridgement of 
free speech.
 
I also just linked in a big item on Digital Radio, now item #115
in the music conference.

response 87 of 107:

Apr 9 19:50 UTC 1999

Since the last response, I must announce that the former WQRS (105.1 FM --
please correct me if I am wrong) has again changed its format, this time to
classic soul music.  I was listening to the Four Tops singing "Baby I Need
Your Loving," and between that song and "Good Times" by Chic, there was a
station ID which read "Detroit's Classic Soul - 105.1 FM," or something like
that.

response 89 of 107:

Apr 12 20:22 UTC 1999

Well, no, it's not "yet another classic rock station", it's a soul station.
There is a difference.  With all the other local so-called-R&B-stations
playing the watered-down music that everyone seems to love these days, the
Detroit area needed a good one of these.  

response 91 of 107:

Apr 16 04:20 UTC 1999

Channel 4 news announces tonight that a Detroit AM station will 
be playing classical music from 7 pm to 5 am.  
The station is WYUR at 1310 on the dial, and I do not know how 
well they are received in Ann Arbor.
 
(Also, I don't know if anyone has mentioned the classical 
music on Saturday nights at WJR-AM, 760.)

response 93 of 107:

Apr 17 19:05 UTC 1999

On our "average" bedroom radio, we cannot get a usable signal on 
1310 AM.

response 95 of 107:

May 12 13:32 UTC 1999

And for a while, it was a kids radio station, aimed at the 7-14 year old
group. Lousy reception here in A2, better the farther east you went.

response 97 of 107:

Jul 16 12:06 UTC 2000

I didn't much care for the usual "Music Through the Night" programming anyway.

response 99 of 107:

Jul 22 02:07 UTC 2000

It was fairly mainstream classical, nothing too atonal or noisy, but 
not entirely Classics Lite either.  I found it a rather enjoyable
program to drift off to sleep to.  It's a nationally syndicated package,
so I'd be surprised if a station in the Bay Area didn't carry it.