● ON AIR FRIDAY · LIVE FROM A BASEMENT listener-supported · no commercials
91.3MHzSIGNAL · LOCK
STATIONPULSE
SLOT3:00 AM
HOSTDJ Magneto
TX POWER40 W · BASEMENT
TUNED COUNT0
91.3 MHz · PULSE
The Long Loop
with DJ Magneto · 3:00 AM
LIVE · open mic on this frequency
TONIGHT'S BOARD
Programs rotate hourly. The lit row is what's on the air right now. Click any cell to tune in.
CALL THE STUDIO
Two lines open all night. We read every message that comes across the board. Anonymity respected — first name or station handle is plenty.
ABOUT THIS FREQUENCY
Radio Free Uprising is a five-frequency listener-supported community FM station broadcasting from a borrowed basement in this city. We rotate transmitters on a schedule we keep in our heads. We do not sell airtime. We do not run commercials. We are on the air because no one else on the band is reading the emergency room list in Spanish, calling the free clinics by name, playing Hector Lavoe at midnight, or telling the third-shift nurses that we know they are listening.
Engineering by listener volunteers. Studio: a folding card table, two Technics turntables, a Mackie board borrowed from a church, and a transmitter built last winter from a kit and a lot of patience.
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
FIELD OPERATIONS BUREAU · NEW YORK DISTRICT OFFICE
NOTICE OF APPARENT LIABILITY FOR UNAUTHORIZED OPERATION OF A RADIO STATION
File No. WB-EB-85-0331-NY · Issued under authority of 47 U.S.C. §§ 301, 503
FINDING:
Monitoring equipment operated by this Bureau has detected unauthorized broadcast transmissions on the following frequencies originating from the vicinity of West 178th Street and Audubon Avenue, New York, NY, on multiple dates between 22 February 1985 and the date of this notice:
88.1 MHz · unlicensed transmission, est. 30–60 W ERP
91.3 MHz · unlicensed transmission, est. 30–60 W ERP
94.7 MHz · unlicensed transmission, est. 30–60 W ERP
98.3 MHz · unlicensed transmission, est. 30–60 W ERP
101.9 MHz · unlicensed transmission, est. 30–60 W ERP
VIOLATIONS CITED:
47 C.F.R. § 73.3550 — operation without a construction permit
47 C.F.R. § 73.1820 — station log and identification requirements
47 C.F.R. § 73.682 — transmission system standards
PROPOSED FORFEITURE:
Pursuant to 47 U.S.C. § 503(b), the operator(s) of the above-described station(s) are hereby notified of apparent liability in the amount of TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS ($10,000), together with seizure of transmission equipment and potential criminal referral under 47 U.S.C. § 501.
You are directed to CEASE all unlicensed transmission within ten (10) days of receipt of this notice and to respond in writing to the Engineer in Charge.
/s/ [signature redacted] Engineer in Charge · Field Operations Bureau
RECEIVED · DO NOT POST
FROM THE FOUNDER — TAPED TO THE BACK OF THE NOTICE
To whoever is reading this —
If you found this it means you went looking, which is more than most. I want to tell you why we keep going even though this kind of letter sits on my kitchen table about once a quarter now.
In the fall of 1982 I started carrying a transmitter down into the basement of my cousin's auto body shop on 178th Street and broadcasting on 91.3, because nobody on commercial radio was talking to my mother. Nobody was reading the emergency room list in Spanish. Nobody was telling the women on my block where the free clinic moved to after they shut the one on Fort Washington. Nobody was playing the music anyone I love listens to. Top 40 is not for us.
The Communications Act of 1934 says the airwaves belong to the public. We are the public. The FCC will not give a community license to a Black, Brown, queer, working-class collective in this part of this city. They will give it to a man who owns three other stations across the river. So we built our own thing. The first transmitter was confiscated in November 1983. The second one we built in six weeks with parts donated by ham operators from three boroughs. The third one is on the air right now.
Last week a listener called the studio at 4 in the morning to say her brother is in the hospital and the only radio in his room reaches our frequency. She said: he smiled today when Tito played the Hector Lavoe. That is what we do here. That is the entire reason. We are not romantic about risk. We are not playing at rebellion. We are doing the work of community radio, which the public airwaves were supposed to be doing all along, for the people we love.
If they take this transmitter we will build another one.
— Marisol "Sol" Vega Radio Free Uprising · 178th & Audubon · spring 1985
