Underserved serve themselves with low-power FM

Paul Bame , a volunteer broadcast engineer with the Prometheus Radio Project , discusses Prometheus activities including how underserved communities serve themselves with low-power FM. He is interviewed by Spencer Graves. The Prometheus Radio Project was founded in 1998 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , by supporters of the unlicensed "Radio Mutiny" station after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shut down their station. Their mission statement says, " The Prometheus Radio Project builds participatory radio as a tool for social justice organizing and a voice for community expression. To that end, we demystify media policy and technology, advocate for a more just media system, and help grassroots organizations build communications infrastructure to strengthen their communities and movements." In 2003 they initiated Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC , a series of lawsuits that made it harder for the FCC to relax media outlet ownership regulations. The Prometheus Radio Project has been a leader in helping communities create new low-power FM stations. This includes helping them through the application process, obtaining the equipment and getting the station on the air. They call the final step a " radio barnraising ", where humans from diverse locations come together to build a studio, raise an antenna mast, and achieve first broadcast in three days. The name comes from the rural " Barn raising " tradition. The Wikipedia article on "Prometheus Radio Project" lists eleven "community radio barnraisings" in the US from Spokane, Washington , to Immokalee, Florida , and from Oroville, California , to Portsmouth, New Hampshire . They have also helped groups in Guatemala , Nepal , Colombia , Jordan , Kenya , and Tanzania get on the air. More details and a moderated discussion of issues raised in this interview are supported in the Wikiversity article on “ Underserved serve themselves with low-power FM ” with a video. Copyright 2026 Paul Bame and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.

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Underserved serve themselves with low-power FM is an episode from Radio Active Magazine by KKFI 90.1 FM / Radio Active Magazine.

This episode is 28:53 long.

This episode was published on Feb 9, 2026.

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