Put Your Hands on the Radio

Presenters

  • Maggie Avener

    Organizer, Prometheus Radio Project

    Maggie Avener is the technical and training organizer at the Prometheus Radio Project. Her job involves providing support for existing and potential community radio stations, teaching introductory workshops on radio, and working to demystify technology for anyone who wants to learn about it.

    Maggie got her start in radio with WERU, a community radio station in Maine. She has also worked on radio projects with Boston's Asian Community Development Corporation and the Seattle Girls School. Maggie holds an extra class amateur radio license and is an SBE certified broadcast engineer.

    Sessions

    Put Your Hands on the Radio, Sandbox: DIY Audio Gear
  • Paul Billings

    WUVS-LP

    Paul Billings is the founder and general manager of WUVS-LP, 103.7 The Beat, the first LPFM radio station in the state of Michigan. He is also an on-air personality at the station. Mr. Billings is the creator of The Underground Video Show & Smoove Grooves; founder of Bestblacknews.com; and president of The West Michigan Community Help Network.

    He serves as a trustee and board member of West Michigan Therapy. He is also on the boards of Trinity Housing, Inc.; the Muskegon County Community Corrections Board; and the Muskegon County Airport Advisory Committee.

    Sessions

    Put Your Hands on the Radio
  • Gavin Dahl

    Community Broadcast Coordinator, Common Frequency

    Radioactive Gavin Dahl joined Common Frequency in 2010 for a year of capacity-building AmeriCorps VISTA service, supported by The Transmission Project. An Evergreen College grad with a passion for press freedom, he has 10 years’ experience on-air at AM/FM and Internet radio stations. His public interest advocacy has led him to provide testimony in state legislative committee and to journey to D.C. to lobby Congress and speak truth to power at the FCC. His writing has been published by Raw Story, Boise Weekly, Austin American-Statesman and Radio Survivor, and it has appeared on Common Dreams, Alternet and Pat Buchanan's Twitter feed.

    Sessions

    Put Your Hands on the Radio
  • Vanessa Maria Graber

    Director of Community Radio Programs, Prometheus Radio Project

    Vanessa is a English/Spanish bilingual communications specialist, currently serving as Director of Community Radio Programs for the Prometheus Radio Project. She has more than 12 years’ experience working in media, doing everything from producing and reporting to managing and teaching for seven commercial and non-commercial radio stations.

    Vanessa served as a Roy H. Park Doctoral Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. As a Park Fellow, Vanessa conducted research on international communications development and served as an instructor of  radio news production.  Additionally, Vanessa has studied journalism and communications in Costa Rica, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croatia. Most recently, Vanessa served as development and communications director at a Hispanic nonprofit organization in Camden, N.J., where she worked on an array of political and social issues that affect Latinos. Her interests include political communication, audio documentary production, and low power FM radio.

    Sessions

    Put Your Hands on the Radio

Video

Audio

Download
When
Saturday, April 9, 11:00am - 12:30pm
Where
Beacon Hill 1
map (pdf)
Track
Media Makers, Culture and the Arts

What does it take to start a community radio station? This how-to workshop will teach participants to lay the groundwork needed to get a license and get on the air. Participants will learn about the process of submitting an FCC application, organizing a group for station governance, choosing a tower and transmitter site, and raising money for equipment and general operations. We will give a short history of the low power FM (LPFM) movement and identify effective strategies to apply today.

With a valuable opportunity to apply for LPFM licenses on the horizon, this workshop will get you started on the road to building your own community radio station. Currently, there are over 800 LPFMs across the country, providing some of the best examples of community media's potential. These stations are run by farmworker groups, civil rights organizations, schools, neighborhood associations and environmental groups. The equipment is relatively simple and inexpensive to operate, putting the public airwaves within public reach. But there's a lot of bureaucracy to learn, so this workshop will provide tools to navigate the application process and organize constituents and allies within your community.