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Prometheus Press Center
Prometheus De-Livered
Our Periodic Newsletter
10 June 2001
[Final Application Period for LP 100 Stations]
[Construction Permits Released]
[Groups Protest Vanishing Frequencies]
[New Prometheus FAQ]
[Comings and Goings]
[Prometheus Tours Colorado and Wyoming]
[Grassroots Radio and Alliance for Community Media
Conferences]
[Final Toughts]
[Get Prometheus De-livered in the comfort of your own electronic mail box -- register online]
Final Application Period for LP 100 Stations
On June 11th to 15th, there will be the last filing window for 100 watt radio stations.
If you are in the states of
Alabama • Arizona • Arkansas • Florida • Guam • Iowa • Kentucky • Massachusetts • Montana • Nebraska • New Jersey • New Mexico • North Carolina • North Dakota • Oregon • Pennsylvania • Tennessee • Texas • US Virgin Islands • Vermont • Washington • or West Virginia:
this is your chance to apply!
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We will be here pretty much constantly until the very end of the window, answering peoples phone calls and emails as they search for locations and fill out their applications. There are some faint rumors that some time in the future, there might be a national "make-up filing window, " for all fifty states. Do NOT wait for this ephemeral rumor if you are in one of the states above.
It's not too late to start now, but consider it now or never!
Prometheus is still getting calls from people who are hearing about low power radio for the first time. If you get stuck on some part of your application- we are here to help. Especially if you have had trouble finding a frequency in your area or don't understand a question on the application, you can call or email us anytime from 9am to 11:30pm at night, EST.
For questions relating to trouble with the FCC's website., call 202-418-2662 (for electronic forms help generally), or 202-418-2831 (Mass Media Bureau electronic forms assistance) hey are staffing these numbers pretty late as well. Remember that electronic filing of applications is mandatory, unless you request a waiver first.
Construction permits
gurgling out of the FCC
As of today, the FCC has released 58 LPFM construction permits from the first application round. For the next few months, expect construction permits to gurgle out of the FCC like antifreeze spitting out of an overheated radiator on a lovely old junker car that has gone twenty miles too far on a hot day. Unfortunately, the permit for the planned site of our LPFM Barnraisng conference in Opelousas Louisiana has not come out yet- we will send out a notice with the dates for the conference as soon as the permit is released. To see who has gotten a permit so far, go to www.christiancommunityfm.com to see their very comprehensive list of the status of LPFM stations.
As Filing Window Oregon Groups Protest Vanishing Frequencies
Portland, OR, June 6, 2001 - The application filing window for noncommercial low-power FM frequencies is fast approaching for Oregon community groups, and while some excitedly prepare their applications, others protest being left in the cold.
To protest the gutting of LPFM, local community groups such as Visions in Action, a community organizing project of Sisters of the Road, Inc., are joining forces with other microradio supporters to inform the public and Oregon legislators about their dissatisfaction over losing their chance to serve their communities through LPFM.
Visions in Action (VIA) is one of many local groups who invested a great amount of human and financial resources in preparing for the LPFM application process, and was then thwarted by the new restrictions. VIA had hoped to use the LPFM frequency to provide a forum for homeless and low-income people in the Old Town/Chinatown area of Portland to share their stories and empower one another.
To protest these lost opportunities, the microradio coalition is calling for a massive letter campaign to Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, both of whom sit on the Senate Science, Commerce and Transportation Committee, to support Senate Bill 404, which calls for the reinstatement of the original FCC order for LPFM service. Authored by Sen. John McCain, who led a bipartisan effort to stave off the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio threat last year, Senate Bill 404 would open the FM radio band back up to recapture the lost LPFM frequencies. This would assure LPFM in cities like Portland, Salem, Eugene, and Corvallis. Senate Bill 404 currently has no co-sponsors.
In addition to letters, the coalition is asking people to bring/send Sisters of the Road broken radios as a symbol of their disappointment with the derailment of community-based, democratic media. Letters and radios should be sent/brought to 133 SW 6th Ave, Portland, OR 97209, or call (503) 226-9036. mircroradioproject@earthlink.com Full news release and other info available at www.microradio.org
New
FAQ Section on Prometheus Website
The first FAQs are up now: expect many more over the coming weeks. A lot of the most useful substance of this newsletter is in these links below -
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How can I tell if my application is competing with any others?
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What is the potential liability of being the licensee of a radio station?
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Do you have to be a non-profit organization to apply for a LPFM station?
In the next few days: the FM allocation scheme explained, how the FCC decides what locations are eligible for frequencies, how to structure the relationship between a radio station and the non-profit that holds it's license, and more...
Comings and Goings
Joan Dark Leaving Prometheus
Prometheus has suffered another loss to the despicable forces of higher education. Long committed microradio organizer Joan Dark, from Free Radio Memphis, is entering Temple law school this fall. She intends to study media law and will re-enter the fray for media and democracy in a few years with her degree in hand. She will continue to help Prometheus when she can in her spare timeŠ Joan has maintained relationships with many of the applicants over the years, and will be sorely missed. Please redirect any requests for assistance to info@prometheusradio.org
And Julie Todd, TooŠ
Our first full time intern, Julie Todd from Antioch College, completed her semester with Prometheus last month her experiences having run the gamut from outreach to raising the antenna of WPEB, a ten watt community radio station in Philadelphia. If you want to learn more about radio and help the struggle for community radio, think about an internship with Prometheus this summer or fall.
Email troubles
We've been getting about 3 or 4 calls per week from people who have tried to email us but got an error message or no response. If you've been having trouble reaching us, send an email to cintanegro@hotmail.com or call at 215-727-9620.
Send us any error messages you get so we can get to the bottom of this.
Prometheus tours Colorado and Wyoming
KGNU will host the Sixth Annual Grassroots Radio Conference July 13-15 in Boulder, CO. The focus of the conferences has been on efforts to keep public radio stations independent and accountable to the community. Issues of programming, funding, training, accessibility and mission have been paramount at previous conferences.
Suggestions for workshops and panels are now being accepted. Please email marty@kgnu.org (Marty Durlin) or cath@mint.net (Cathy Melio) with your ideas.
Registration materials will be ready soon, and the cost of registering will be $75. For more info: http://www.kgnu.org/index.html
Marissa Johnson and Pete Tridish will do a workshop at the conference, plus a short tour of Colorado and Wyoming visiting LPFM applicants from the July 12-17. If you live there and you'd like us to visit your town, give a hollerŠ
Alliance for Community Media Conference
The Alliance for Community Media has been a great supporter of LPFM, and many Public Access Cable channels who are represented by ACM have applied for LPFM stations. Joan Dark and Inja Coates from Prometheus Radio Project will be at the ACM conference in Washington, DC July 11-14, 2001 for more info, see http://www.alliancecm.org/acm/home/menu.html
Final Words
The period of outreach for this round of low power radio stations is about to come to a close, and the period of constructing them is about to begin. With the opening and closing of the last filing window this coming week, the big opportunity of LPFM will end for anyone who has not applied for a license yet. There may be more opportunities coming: there are still rumors of a nationwide make-up window for those who did not hear about it in time. And the FCC is in the process of receiving bids form contractors to study whether the original rules can be re-instated. If these rules are re-instated, thousands of communities which have been denied a voice by Congress will get a second chance.
It is my heart-felt hope that those of you who receive construction permits for LPFMs will use the social power that running a community radio station for your neighborhood creates, and help make the opportunity available to the hundreds of people we have talked to who were shut out by Congress. Working with a group to run a community radio station is a wonderful experience-and it is a small step towards creating a more democratic media that just may be capable of helping our society take back its democratic institutions from the wealthy and the corporations. It may take time, but sooner or later, we are going to get every community on the air...
