Author Archives: pete tridish

International Media Action begins construction on Zumix Radio Station in East Boston

Zumix is a music school for kids, founded in 1993 with a summer neighborhood concert series as a community response to youth violence. They started offering music lessons after school, and since then they have moved into a beautiful old firehouse building, with a great stage, recording studios, a small business that creates youth employment by training and connecting youth to work as live sound engineers for events.  And of course, they have an internet station which will soon be on FM. They include shows from “Wicked Fresh Locals” to  “The Mosh Pit”  to “Budder Gods Gaming” to “National …

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FlecksoMaster Brings New Flexibility to Communications Towers

Dr.  Julio Dialosinnocentes,  of the Chilean National University, has announced a breakthrough in tower technology that will likely shake up the vertical real estate market. Replacing our traditional reliance on steel, his team has developed a prototype of a new tower using inflatable rubberized struts which use air compression to achieve altitude. A complex network of sensors  and micro-pumps pulls in ambient air, using temperature differentials in local air currents to run heat engines which fill the tubular struts to attain their upright position. The low cost of these modern sensors and nano-engines will allow these new structures to …

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Next stop, Troy New York!

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On May 3rd, I did a workshop with the people who are starting a new station in Troy, New York. The Sanctuary for Independent Media is a renovated church that has lectures, bands, art shows, audio and video production and all sorts of activities for the community.  A radio station will be a fantastic addition to the space. Spearheaded by longtime community media activists Steve Pierce and Branda Miller, the station aims to innovate and focus a lot of resources on a drivetime magazine show for the Capitol region.  I’ll be helping to put up an antenna in Troy …

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Dine College soon to launch new Radio Station, 92.1FM KXWR

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by Tamar Maya Sharabi About 220 miles northwest from Albuquerque New Mexico, lies an area known as Tsaile, Arizona. It is more well known as Navajo Nation, which stretches across Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is the largest land area “retained by a U.S. tribe.” On June 19th 2015 they will launch a new community radio station, housed at Dine College, the first tribal college in the U.S. established in 1968. You can read more about its history here. “Rooted in Diné language and culture, our mission is to advance quality post-secondary student learning and development to ensure …

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IMA Visits Indian Community Radio Movement

From pete tridish In February, I visited India for a month to work with community radio stations. After many years of advocacy, community radio was first permitted in India in 2007. Among the stations that I visited was the very first community radio station in India, Sangham Radio, owned and operated by an organization of 6000 Dalit women laborers. I also visited stations in Madya Pradesh, Gurgagon, and other places. I spent several days with the UNESCO Chair for Community Media in Hyderabad, speaking with classes and graduate students. I also worked with NOMAD, a transmitter and antenna manufacturer …

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Danish Innovation In Antenna Placement Kickstarts Community Radio

Hundreds of new low power operators to benefit from cost savings from new Danish technology April 1, 2015 Copenhagen:  Ownership of a radio station has traditionally been limited to those who could afford to construct immense steel towers, but Loof Lirpa, an engineer from Radio Gnisten in Copenhagen, has devised a new low-cost method of sending the music channel to the city.  His new company, SpejlVikle, markets a device that can transform radio waves so they can travel through the earth in the same manner that they once traveled above ground.

San Joaquin Delta College Returns To The Airwaves

On January 1st, San Joaquin Delta College rebooted onto the FM airwaves after a 20 year lapse.  The station had been on the air when Radio TV department head Will Story was a student, but the administration had axed it in the mid- 90s.  When he came back to lead the department, Professor Story vowed to get the radio station back on the air, and took his sabbatical to wade through all the paperwork of applying for a LPFM and procuring funding. He recruited former student Governor Don Maszewski to lead the effort and be the new radio station …

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Tlingit Tribe in Yakutat Alaska

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In early November, I went to work on a new station for the Tlingit Tribe in Yakutat, Alaska. The station is being spearheaded by Gloria Benson, who works on social services for the tribe. The new studio is in a building that was once the school for the town, but is now the courthouse and planning department.  Yakutat peaks at about 780 residents.  There are no roads that go from yakutat to anywhere- the only way in is by airplane, or there is a ferry during the summer. It is about 30 miles from a gigantic glacier. A major …

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Dine Policy Institute

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Construction has gotten to the halfway mark with the Diné Policy Institute.  This school, in Tsaile, Arizona, was the first indigenous owned and operated college in the United States.  I worked with the team there to build a metal framework to attach to their existing railing at the top of the dome on their beautiful 1970s era main college building.