Page 35 - the NOISE October 2012

thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news magazine • OCTOBER 2012 • 35
The Future of Local Radio by John Abrahamsen
Flagstaff’s Community Stream is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on the Radio Free Flagstaff website, radiofreeflag.org. We’re constantly tweaking it and tinkering with it, so if you have a media player, go to our website, click on the box that says CLICK HERE FOR RADIOFREEFLAG INTERNET RADIO and check it out. Flagstaff’s first and only community- access internet radio station is still evolving, but it’s here to stay.
Show your support for streaming community- access radio in Flagstaff and come to our fundraiser Friday, October 12 at Mia’s Lounge, 26 South San Francisco Street, and dance to the intoxicating rhythms of Summit Dub Squad. It’ll be a fun night for you, and Radio Free Flagstaff needs the help.
Unlike the typical online music provider (XM, Pandora, Spotify, etc.), Radio Free Flagstaff mixes local music and locally-produced shows into our eclectic, free-form playlist. We freshen up the playlist every day, and we encourage Flagstaff citizens to contribute their own locally- produced content to the programming.
You can have your own radio show on Radio Free Flagstaff. If you have the capability to record it yourself, just save it as an mp3 and email it to us and we’ll upload it on to the stream — that’s how easy community-access radio is in the internet age. It could be a music show or an information show — whatever you want to do. If you want to do a show but don’t have the technical resources, send us an email at radiofreeflagstaff@gmail. com and we’ll try to help you.
As a grassroots-funded project of a non-profit 501c3 organization, we are required to give you access to the airwaves and provide an alternative to local commercial radio, so RFF is all about you.
If you’re like us and you love old-school FM radio, fret not — Radio Free Flagstaff has every intention of becoming a terrestrial broadcast station. We have to — to be truly accessible to the entire community, we must be available to citizens of every income level, including the many low- income families with limited or no online access. We need to be heard over the free airwaves, over any cheap radio and with no monthly service charge.
We also need the ability to exist offline. RFF understands that a growing number of Flagstaff citizens get nearly everything in their lives — from music, news, books, television and movies to bills, mail and financial transactions — all from one computer. If they lose that one computer — if it breaks or gets wet, or if they can’t pay their monthly bill, or if they lose service for whatever reason — they’re lost. Community-access radio must be there for you when you’re computer-less, or when the internet is down. To achieve that, we’ll eventually need a terrestrial FM signal and an offline studio. The stream is just a way to give you our programming in the meanwhile.
Until then, we also have the unpleasant task of asking you for money, but we’re making it easy and fun for you to donate. All you have to do is go to Mia’s Lounge on the night of Friday, October 12, and party with Summit Dub Squad and Bloodthirtsy Heartthrobs starting at 9PM, and the good folks at Mia’s will donate a portion of the bar to RFF. The fundraiser will allow us to pay for our monthly computer bill and licensing fees, and to start saving up for our FCC application and engineer consulting fees. So, as you can see, it’s crucial that you party with us — mark the date on your calendar, and support Flagstaff’s first and only community-access internet radio station.