Boing Boing pal Jacob Appelbaum is traveling to the Katrina-damaged areas with freelance tech journo Joel Johnson. Jacob has an update for us on a previous Boing Boing post in which a tech volunteer group sought 10,000 radios for low-power FM communications. The FCC has been bending its own rules quite a bit to expedite communications reconnect projects, and granted a special temporary license to the guys launching the LPFM station. Unfortunately, it sounds like (shocker!) red tape from others now stands in the way. Jacob explains:
Apparently the 10,000 radios are being purchased as a donation tomorrow morning at 09:00am as a gift from Democracy Now.
The radio station is going to be online as soon as possible. Currently the station techs aren't sure of an ETA. The station crew hasn't even been allowed inside of the astrodome to build their station. They have not been given a space, they have not started building and this is because a harris county official "pretty far down the hierarchy" is afraid of gansta rap music. They are worried about potential danger of those 10,000 radios inciting some sort of issue.
As far as I can tell, the 10,000 radio requirement was the thing holding up the LPFM transmitter as of yesterday. As of today, it appears freedom of the dial is going to cause a problem when it comes time to give out those radios. Please bear in mind that the person resisting this is not an FCC official. This station is licensed by the FCC but it must have it's transmitter inside of the Astrodome.
This single official is holding up the the ability to have live radio being broadcast.
As a matter of respect the radio crew refuses to release her name because they don't want to cause ill will. They simply wish to have their station up and running outside of the politics inherent to an event like this.
Previously —
