From Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

For many suburbanites, life without garage door openers is unimaginable. But neighbors of the Marine base here have been reduced to just that after a strong radio signal coming from the facility began neutralizing remote-control openers.

Residents have had to spend hundreds of dollars on new systems. "I feel there should be some kind of compensation," said Queen Carroll, who is in her early 70s and was forced to buy a new receiver and remote. "I am a struggling widow, if you will, and I praise the Lord I'm still here, but I am on a budget. When things like this come up totally unexpected, it is very upsetting."

Repair shops started getting a flurry of calls when the base began using the frequency in late December. Last fall, residents around an Air Force facility in Colorado Springs saw their garage-door remotes stop working when the 21st Space Wing began testing a frequency for use during homeland security emergencies or threats. Two years ago, testing of a similar system in Fort Detrick in Maryland resulted in similar problems.

For decades, the military has held a portion of the radio spectrum, from 138 to 450 megahertz, in reserve. That part was borrowed by remote-control manufacturers, with the understanding that the signal be weak enough to be overridden by the military.

The reserve frequencies became active after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when officials discovered that first responders could not communicate with one another because they were operating radios on different frequencies. The Defense Department is using the mothballed frequencies in a system that eventually will link military and civilian emergency responders. "Consumer wireless devices, such as garage door openers, operate on an unlicensed basis, meaning they are required to accept any interference from licensed spectrum users, including the Department of Defense," said Lt. Brian P. Donnelly, a spokesman for the Quantico base.

The guidelines and application for the 2007 ESS Artists Residency Program in Chicago are available online at http://www.exsost.org/essresidency.htm. Applications cannot be made online, they must be mailed to us with the complete proposal (please see guidelines).

Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) will offer four 30- to 40-hour residencies through the 2007 Artists Residency Program (ARP). These will be scheduled between June 1 and December 21, 2007. At least three of the residencies are for Chicago area artists, and, for the first time, one residency will be open to non-Chicago US artists. Each residency includes access to the ESS recording facilities with engineering assistance. The ESS recording facilities include: one 600-sq-ft live recording studio with 16-track ProTools system, baby grand piano, isolation booth; one soundtrack, mixing, and mastering studio with ProTools and MAX-MSP/Jitter; multi-channel playback and sync-to-image capabilities; various digital and analog processors and recorders.

The purpose of the ARP is to facilitate the production of finished works that will be presented to the public, so please propose only projects that can be completed within the allotted time frame. The ESS ARP residencies are for working artists with a demonstrable commitment to ongoing cultural practice. In addition to assisting artists with an established practice involving sound — composers, audio artists, musicians, sound designers, radio producers, etc. — one aim of the ARP is to help artists with limited experience in sound to locate and work with sonic artists. To this end, ESS will assist in locating an appropriate local artist to work with any selected “non-sonic” artist if they request it. Application deadline: April 2, 2007.

By Tom Roe

The New York Radio Guide is reporting the FCC has sent three Brooklyn "pirate" microcasters "Notices of Unlicensed Operation," the first step in the agency's slow enforcement process. "The broadcasters are James Narcisse of 625 Rugby Road in Flatbush, Joseph Maynard of 728 East New York Avenue in Crown Heights, and Vincent Alston of 308 Sterling Street in Crown Heights. The FCC`s efforts notwithstanding, the airwaves in Brooklyn continue to be saturated with the signals of dozens of pirate broadcasters," according to NYRG.

The New York Radio Message Board contains posts reporting dozens of other stations including, "88.1, 89.3, 90.1, 90.5, 90.9 and 94.5...94.3, 95.1, 95.9, 96.7, 97.5, 99.9, 100.7, 101.5, 102.3, 103.1, 103.9, 104.7, 105.5, 106.3, 107.1, and 107.9." The 94.3-FM station is supposedly called "My Radio Live," WHUT 91.9 is the long-runnning powerful hip hop station on evenings, and a Jewish pirate in Canarsie is on 104.9-FM, according to NYRMB posts. Also, Haitian pirates often use 87.9-FM.

From Pink Tentacle:

RFID keeps getting smaller. On February 13, Hitachi unveiled a tiny, new “powder” type RFID chip measuring 0.05 x 0.05 mm — the smallest yet — which they aim to begin marketing in 2 to 3 years. By relying on semiconductor miniaturization technology and using electron beams to write data on the chip substrates, Hitachi was able to create RFID chips 64 times smaller than their currently available 0.4 x 0.4 mm mu-chips. Like mu-chips, which have been used as an anti-counterfeit measure in admission tickets, the new chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit ID number. The new chips are also 9 times smaller than the prototype chips Hitachi unveiled last year, which measure 0.15 x 0.15 mm. At 5 microns thick, the RFID chips can more easily be embedded in sheets of paper, meaning they can be used in paper currency, gift certificates and identification. But since existing tags are already small enough to embed in paper, it leads one to wonder what new applications the developers have in mind.

From San Francisco Liberation Radio:

Finally after three years of waiting SFLR will have it's day in the Ninth Circuit. This is where we could actually do some change. Everyone who can should come on down to see the deftness of our fantastic legal team.

SFLR vs. FCC: Head to head, oral arguments!
February 14, 2007, 9:30 a.m. PST (-8 GMT), Booth Auditorium at UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall, located on Bancroft Way at College Ave. /
http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/DE67.html )

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument from lawyers representing long time media activist San Francisco Liberation Radio. SFLR was raided in October, 2003 when federal marshals, SFPD and FCC agents stormed into the home where the station was located, with guns drawn, and seized SFLR's broadcasting equipment in order to prevent SFLR from broadcasting.SFLR will argue (through its counsel, Mark Vermeulen, and other pro bono lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild) that the federal government violated the station's and its listeners' First Amendment rights when it obtained the warrant for the raid and the seizure of the equipment through a back-door, ex parte procedure. In civil seizure cases (as opposed to criminal cases), fair notice and a hearing before a judge typically must take place before any raid can go forward. This is especially true where First Amendment free speech rights are involved. However, here, the US Government here utilized a maritime law to conduct the raid without giving advance notice to the station, arguing that a radio station is like a ship that may sail away in the night.

The station, with a volunteer staff of nearly 60 people, was located in a house firmly rooted upon land and posed no danger of trying to escape, nor was it interfering with any other station's broadcasts. It had been broadcasting at 100 watts in San Francisco for 11 years and had been in consistent contact with the FCC regarding licensing matters. The Court will decide whether the government has the right to obtain from the District Court an ex parte order to raid a radio station, and seize the equipment even where as in our case, our lawyer had explicitly requested notice if such action was contemplated. This hearing is the next step in three years of legal proceedings in this case, and may well effect how the rights of others challenging FCC regulations are observed (or not) in the future.

Unbelievably, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada has somehow turned a pirate radio station into a legal low-power FM station, even though the Federal Communications Commission is not currently entertaining any applications for new LPFMs.

From the Pahrump Valley Times:

GOLDFIELD -- Chalk one up for the little guy in a battle against the federal bureaucracy. Rod Moses, owner of Radio Goldfield Broadcast Inc., was given special temporary authority to go back on the air with his low-power radio station in a Jan. 29 letter from the Federal Communications Commission.

Moses said it may be a couple of weeks yet before he hoists the 90-foot radio tower which will permit him to broadcast at 100 watts, enough to penetrate parts of Tonopah and maybe as far south as Lida Junction. The frequency this time, however, will be 106.3 FM instead of the former 100.3 FM. Moses credited Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., with pressuring the FCC.

FCC enforcement agents came to Moses' trailer, which also houses his radio station, June 9, 2006, and shut him down for operating without a license. They based the action on a complaint filed with the agency. Moses had been running Radio Goldfield since March 2005, broadcasting community news as well as oldies from an MP3 player. However, he was informed by the FCC that the period to apply for a low-wattage FM radio station license had expired. "In support of the request, RGB states that the station provides current road conditions, information on local law enforcement and public safety," states the letter from James Bradshaw, FCC deputy chief of the Audio Division Media Bureau.

The letter cites Section 309(f) of the Communications Act of 1934, which authorizes the commission to grant the temporary allowance in cases of "extraordinary circumstances requiring temporary authorizations in the public interest." A letter from Sen. Reid dated Sept. 1, 2006, to FCC chairman Kevin Martin states that Radio Goldfield made significant public interest contributions to the Goldfield community. "Radio Goldfield programming brought regular weather reports to this high-desert area of Nevada, where conditions can abruptly change in often times dramatic ways," Reid's letter states.

Reid added, "Radio Goldfield programming also included timely and reliable information on law enforcement, public safety and school activities that helped the residents of Goldfield stay informed and engaged in their community. Moreover the station broadcasted Sunday religious services that were listened to faithfully by those living too far from a place of worship or those simply too feeble to make a weekly journey there practicable." Moses said letters protesting the shutdown were sent to all the members of the Nevada congressional delegation, but all of them, except Reid, declined to take action after receiving a letter from the FCC stating that Moses was operating illegally. The FCC threatened a $10,000 fine.

Moses, a radio broadcaster for 40 years originally from Fresno, Calif., also circulated a petition around Goldfield that compiled 180 signatures requesting the station be kept open. But Moses said his compliance with the FCC agents helped him when it came time to restart the station. "We shut down immediately and that was the key to the whole licensing issue, is that when the FCC comes out you have 24 hours to shut down or you'll never get one (license)," Moses said. He told the agents, "It'll be off (the air) by the time you get to your car."

Reid, himself coming from another small town, Searchlight, sympathized with him, Moses said. Moses also credited Esmeralda County Commissioner R.J. Gillum and local Goldfield activist Virginia Ridgeway with helping his cause. Moses said a friend who used to run a 50,000-watt radio station in California informed him that because of his protest, other hopeful radio station operators are bringing up a resolution to ask the FCC to offer low-power FM licenses again. "What they do is, they paint it with a broad brush because of the metro areas," Moses said. "We'll probably operate under an STA until they reopen the filing period for low-power FM. There's thousands of stations and thousands of towns in the country that are like Goldfield. They have little or no stations around them. They (the FCC) finally discovered through us they messed up." Another low-power radio station operates out of Tonopah at 92.7 FM with no commercial interruptions, not even station identification, but a limited music selection.

free103point9 Online Radio
February 2007 Top 40

1. The Dust Dive Flash, Tens of Thousands (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 029)
2. Parts & Labor, Escapers One (Broklyn Beats)
3. (), "Autecicadas/ocean_db_crash_nue" 7" (Parentheismusic.com)
4. Ignaz Schick + Jorg Maria Zeger + Burkhard Beins with Keith Rowe and with Charlwmagne Palestine, Perlonex Tensions (Nexsound)
5. Eloe Omoe, marauders (Animal Disguise)
6. Mouthus, For the Great Slave Lakes (Threelobed)
7. Sixes, Cursed Beast (enterruption)
8. Jonas Braasch, Global Reflections (Deep Listening)
9. Phantom Limb & Tetuzi Akiyama, Hot Ginger (Archive)
Recorded June, 2006 at free103point9 Project Space in Brooklyn.
10. Pauline Oliveros, Lion's Eye/Lion's Tale (Deep Listening)
11. mirror/dash, "i can't be bought" (Threelobed)
12. FFFFs, I Can Hear Summer Coming (Sockets)
13. Gratkowski + Fox + Menestres + Davis, ORM (Umbrella Recordings)
14. Compiled by TJ Norris, triMIX: TribrydInstallation Soundtracks Deconstructed (Innova)
With Scanner, Beequeen, Humectant Interruption, M. Behrens, Asmus Tietchens, Nobukazu Takemura, Illusion of Safety, and others.
15. Vertonen, Stations (CIP)
16. Drop the Lime, Sky City Rising (Broklyn Beats)
17. Kotra & Zavoloka, Wag the Swing (Kvitnu.com)
18. Various artists, Less Self is More Self: A Benefit for Tarantula Hill (Ecstatic Peace)
Includes LoVid, Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core, Lee Renaldo, Talibam!, Maria Chavez, Mark Morgan, To Live and Shave in L.A., Mouthus, Nautical Almanac + Leslie Keffer, and others.
19. Viki, compilation (Animal Disguise)
20. Edmund Mooney, Happy Trails (self)
21. Caustic Castle, Caustic Castle mini-CD (804noise)
22. The Caution Curves, a little hungry (Sockets)
23. North Guinea Hills, North Guinea Hills et. al. (self)
With Patrick McCarthy, Michael Garafalo, Laura Harrison, Sean Smith, and others.
24. Meri von Kleinsmid, Ex Vivo (Mimeograph)
25. Others, What About My Baby Kitty? (set projects)
26. Anna Friz, Vacant City Radio (self)
27. Jesse Zubot, Dimensia (Drip Audio)
28. Various artists, The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon (Innova)
With Jeff Feddersen, Matthew Burtner, Janek Schaefer, Annie Gosfield, and others.
29. Tor Lundvall, Empty City (Strange Fortune)
30. Layne Garrett, The Lost Spaces Reconstructed (sockets)
31. Francois Houle, Aerials (Drip Audio)
32. carsick, carsick (Drip Audio)
33. Fond of Tigers, A Thing to Live With (Drip Audio)
34. ZZ Pot & Dr. Ninja, ZZ Pot & Dr. Ninja (retardriot.com)
35. Todd Merrell, Neptune (Dreamland Recordings)
36. Giancarlo Bracchi, Universal Soul Adaptor (self)
37. DJ Slip, She's a Time Traveller (Broklyn Beats)
38. ben owen, radio in (Winds Measure Recordings)
39. Leafy Green, songs (Lattajjaa)
40. Dave Burrell, Momentum (High Two)

The Experimental Television Center is pleased to announce Finishing Funds 2007.

Finishing Funds provides media and new media artists with grants up to $2,500 to help with the completion of diverse and innovative moving-image and sonic art projects, and works for the Web and new technologies. Eligible forms include film and video as single or multiple channel presentation, computer based moving-imagery and sound works, installations and performances, interactive works and works for new technologies, DVD, multimedia and the Web. We also support new media, and interactive performance. Work must be surprising, creative and approach the various media as art forms; all genres are eligible, including experimental, narrative and documentary art works. Individual artists can apply directly to the program and do not need a sponsoring organization. Applicants must be residents of New York State; undergraduate students are not eligible. The application requires a project description, resume and support materials, including a sample of the proposed project. Selection is made by a peer review panel. About $25,000 is awarded each year. Announcement is made in early June.

The program is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency, and by mediaThe foundation.

Postmark Deadline: March 15, 2007

Guidelines and applications are available on the web at http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/ in the ETC News Section and the Grants area or by mail or email.

Open Call for Project Proposals
Deadline: March 1, 2007, 11:59 p.m. ET

Art in General commissions challenging new work to visual artists. With a yearly open call and a simple online application process, Art in General invites artists in the New York City area to propose projects in any medium or form—from painting to sculpture to performance to video to other, perhaps undefined, type of art or interdisciplinary work. This open call is for artists with studio or post-studio practice. It has no thematic or spatial parameters. Artists can choose to present a project proposal based on long-standing or emerging interests. To read the open call guidelines and send a proposal, go to: http://commissions.artingeneral.org, and to learn about Art in General and the newly commissioned art projects, visit the gallery or go to: www.artingeneral.org.
Mark your calendar:
Getting it Online
Saturday, February 17, 12- 6pm
Art in General provides computers and slide scanners, as well as technical support for those filling out Art in General’s online application for the new commissions program.

Open Call Deadline
Thursday, March 1, 2007, 11:59 p.m. ET

The CDMC and Radio Clásica (RNE) are undertaking a collaboration to encourage the production of radio creations in order to promote this type of works. Within this line, a contest of ideas is called subject to the following
RULES
1
The works will necessarily be pieces of radiophonic creation, that is to say, whose most suitable means of production and diffusion is the radio. The works will not have been previously awarded nor emitted.
2
Words, noises, music, electronic or radiophonic editings and other similar elements may be the base of the work.
3
The project may be in Spanish only or in several languages but in this case Spanish should be the main language. The use of language or voice may also be omitted.
4
To enter the contest it will not be possible to send accomplished works, but mere projects: a written description of the work and of the elements that it will require, some excerpts as a model in cassette, CD or DAT, scores or fragments of these, acoustical materials, etc. Any form or presentation will be admitted, provided that it makes possible to the Jury to appreciate the interest of the projected idea.
5
There is no age nor citizenship limit.
6
The deliveries should be made on before April 15th, 2007 by any of the procedures allowed by the Administrative Procedure Act; such as registered mail, (postmark date will probe meeting the deadline), personal delivery, etc; and they should be addressed to:
"XIV Concurso de Obras de Creación Radiofónica"
Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporánea
c/ Santa Isabel 52, 5ª planta
28012 -Madrid (Spain).
7
There is no limit to the number of projects to be sent by each author.
8
The projects should arrive anonymously with an assumed name that will be reproduced on an enclosed closed envelope containing a photocopy of the DNI or passport and personal details of the author or authors. In the case of using texts by another author, his opportune permit must be accredited.
9
A Jury appointed by the CDMC and Radio Clásica will choose on the project considered the most suitable. The decisions of the Jury are without appeal.
10
The selected project will be the object of a commission by the CDMC, endowed with 6.000 euros gross. This Commission will be considered as the Prize of the Contest and it is independent of the production costs, which will be assumed by Radio Clásica.
11
Radio Clásica will produce the work with the means that the radio itself will determine. For that purpose, in addition to the human and technical means of the Radio, the facilities of the Laboratorio de Informática y Electrónica Musical del CDMC (LIEM-CDMC) can also be used. The radio broadcasting will take place during the last quarter of 2007, and we will try to give the work première at the Festival de Música de Alicante (end of September 2007). The project should be developed with enough time so that it may be produced and emitted on time.
12
By the simple act of participating, the competitors accept the terms of these Rules and the decision of the Jury.
13
The non-awarded projects will be available to their authors who can fetch them personally at the CDMC, previous identification of the assumed name, within the period of three months after the awarding is made public.
14
Once this period is over, the non-collected projects will be destroyed in order to preserve the anonymity of the Contest.

By Tom Roe

The "pirate" radio stations picking up Howard Stern's satellite radio show and remicrocasting it on free airwaves, are back in the news again. Both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times are reporting Stern FM transmissions in those cities.

The New York Times Jacques Steinberg reports hearing Stern near 239th Street in the Bronx on 88.1-FM on a car radio. He quotes Russell Skadl, the faculty adviser of a Long Island radio station, WXBA, that operates on very low power on 88.1 out of a high school in Suffolk County, hearing Stern on that frequency on Long Island, quite a distance from the Bronx. The Daily News reported pirates in Brooklyn and New Jersey broadcasting Stern's signal last January, just as his show switched from FM to satellite.

In Los Angeles, the Times there has one person hearing Stern on 88.1 FM where jazz station KKJZ should be, and another on 88.3-FM. They say a local TV station is blaming "Pirate Cat Radio," which has always used 87.9-FM, not those higher frequencies. More likely, it is someone with less of an agenda then the Pirate Cat folk, and more likely some Stern fan with an electronic equipment fetish.

While some pirates pick up satellite feeds now, others have broken over top television feeds. Recently someone YouTubed the infamous November 22, 1987, interruption of Chicago's WGN-TV local newscast. WGN-TV's on-site technicians neutralized the "pirate" transmission of a Max Headroom-like figure spouting dada gibberish by switching to an alternate transmitter, but two hours later the Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW's "Doctor Who" transmission got a similar Headroom visit. Below is the clip from the WGN hijacking. Below that is the CBS News national reporton the incident, also YouTubed.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnDYssFcNxc]

Jack Shafer in Slate has a list persuasive reasons the U.S. should eliminate the Federal Communications Commission here.

Suppose Congress had established in the early 19th century a Federal Publications Commission to regulate the newspaper, magazine, and newsletter businesses. The supporters of the FPC would have argued that such regulation was necessary because paper-pulp-grade timber is a scarce resource, and this scarcity made it incumbent upon the government to determine not only who could enter the publications business but where. Hence, the FPC would issue publication licenses to the "best" applicants and deny the rest. Whenever an aspiring publisher pointed out that timber wasn't scarce, that huge groves of trees in Canada and the western territories made it plentiful, and that he wanted to start a new publication based on this abundance, an FPC commissioner would talk him down. He'd explain that just because somebody had discovered additional timber didn't mean that the scarcity problem was over, it only meant that timber was relatively less scarce than before. He'd go on to say that the FPC needed to study how best to exploit this new timber before issuing new licenses. Based on the notion of scarcity, the FPC would have evolved a power to prohibit licensees from using their paper for anything but publishing the kind of print product the FPC had authorized—no using that licensed paper to print party invitations or menus or handbills or facial tissue, the FPC would mandate. And so on.

The absurd regulatory agency that I imagine here is only slightly more absurd than the Federal Communications Commission, which has exercised even greater control over the radio spectrum. Until the mid-1980s, broadcasters had to obey the "fairness doctrine," which required them to air opposing views whenever they aired a viewpoint on a controversial issue. Rather than tempt an FCC inquiry, most broadcasters simply avoided airing any controversial views. Aside from bottling up debate, what the FCC really excelled at was postponing the creation of new technologies. It stalled the emergence of such feasible technologies as FM radio, pay TV, cell phones, satellite radio, and satellite TV, just to name a few. As Declan McCullagh wrote in 2004, if the FCC had been in charge of the Web, we'd still be waiting for its standards engineers to approve of the first Web browser.

Call for Works: Deadline for submissions 15.02.2007. WRO Center for Media Art Foundation in Wroclaw/Poland, announces an international competition open to any work created using electronic media techniques, exploring innovative forms of artistic communication. The competition welcomes creators of artistic projects of diverse forms such as screenings (video art, computer animation), installations, objects, performances, multimedia concerts and network projects from all over the world. The main prize is 5000 euro and the total prize money awarded is 8000 euro.

Biennale: the new strategies and territories of digital artistic communication; Artists in the face of high culture's permeation with popular culture; global with local culture; commercial with independent culture; the role of individual artistic attitudes in the midst of global tendencies; the metamorphosis of an artistic experiment in the light of a spectacle society culture. Media arts that de-interpret the cultural context stemming from civilization as well as interferences into the code that steers behaviors within the social space. The creation and record of a changing picture of culture. The deadline date for entry submission is 15.02.2007.

Presentation of works selected to the very final along with the international jury's announcement of competition results will take place during public screening at the WRO 07 Biennale. Agenda:
16 - 20 May 2007 competition, special events, symposium;
16 May - 17 June 2007 exhibition
Places:
National Museum in Wroclaw;
WRO Art Center
The competition regulations and entry form are available in downloadable format at http://wro07.wrocenter.pl. Requests to receive the regulations and entry form by post can be made at print@wrocenter.pl. Contact: WRO Art Center, ul. Kuznicza 29a, 54-137 Wroclaw 16, P.O. Box 1385, Poland, tel.: + 48 71 344 83 69, tel./fax: + 48 71 342 26 91,
http://wrocenter.pl, info@wrocenter.pl

From Media Network weblog:

Satellite operator Eutelsat said today it was investigating the source of a mystery signal which temporarily jammed broadcasts by several television channels and AFP’s news services. Eutelsat, one of the world’s three main operators, would not say whether it believed the “unidentified interference” was deliberate or accidental. “We have noticed interference” to the signal since Tuesday afternoon, said a spokesman for the Paris-based company. Eutelsat said that the difficulties were not caused by the company, nor by Globecast, which provides the bandwidth signal. Globecast, a subsidiary of France Telecom, also refused to comment on the origin of the disturbance. Agence France-Presse and several European, Middle East and northeast African radio and television stations had their services blocked by the interference. All transferred their satellite transmissions to another frequency to resume operations. AFP said its operations were virtually back to normal late Wednesday. (Source: AFP)

Recognizing an untapped resource for technological innovation, United States Senator John Sununu (R-NH) today introduced the “White Spaces Act of 2007,” which would provide access to unassigned or unused portions of the broadcast spectrum. Sununu, who helped author a similar bill last year, believes that opening access to so-called “white spaces” can lead to the creation of new products – many of which cannot be imagined today. “Broadcast spectrum that is otherwise unused represents a new frontier for product development. By removing barriers that prohibit access to white spaces, there is enormous potential for entrepreneurs to bring products to market that are now beyond imagination,” said Sununu, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Sununu elaborated on specific provisions of the legislation: “My bill differs from others in this area, first, by imposing a shorter timeline to complete FCC rulemaking. The sooner consumers have access to this spectrum the better. Second, I retain the option that licensing may be the best way to allocate some white space spectrum. This ensures the maximum flexibility for dealing with future applications or commercial ventures. Finally, the bill would prohibit the FCC from imposing its marketing ban on white space technologies.” Sununu’s bill requires the FCC to finish its rules to permit use of unused broadcast spectrum between 54 MHz and 698 MHz within 90 days of enactment or October 1, 2007, whichever is earlier. Additionally, the legislation holds the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accountable for recent action taken on white spaces, and addresses any uncertainty or legal proceedings that may occur regarding authority over the use of white spaces.

Two Wavebubbles. Left is an earlier revision with the top removed and with external antennas. Right is v1.0 with internal antennas, fit into a pack of cigarettes. The Wave Bubble is a self-tuning, wide-bandwidth portable RF jammer. The device is lightweight and small for easy camoflauging: it is the size of a pack of cigarettes. An internal lithium-ion battery provides up to 2 hours of jamming (two bands, such as cell) or 4 hours (single band, such as cordless phone, GPS, WiFi, bluetooth, etc). The battery is rechargeable via a mini-USB connector or 4mm DC jack (a common size). Alternately, 3 AAA batteries may also be used. Output power is .1W (high bands) and .3W (low bands). Effective range is approximately 20' radius with well-tuned antennas. Less so with the internal antennas or poorly matched antennas. Self-tuning is provided via dual PLL, therefore, no spectrum analyzer is necessary to build this jammer and a single Wave Bubble can jam many different frequency bands - unlike any other design currently available! To reconfigure the RF bands, simply plug it into the USB port of your PC and type in the new frequencies when prompted. Multiple frequency ranges can be programmed in, each time the device is power cycled it will advance to the next program in memory. While the documentation here is both accurate and complete (as much as possible), the construction of such a device is still an advanced project. I would not suggest this as even an 'intermediate' skill project, considering the large amount of difficult SMT soldering (multiple TSSOP and SOT chips, 0603 RC's), obscure parts, and equiptment necessary to properly construct and debug. This design is not for sale or available as a kit and never will be due to FCC regulations. Please do not ask me to assist you in such matters. All original content for this project is distributed open source under Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution / Share-Alike.

Meet The Composer is a national organization founded in 1974 that has revolutionized the environment for composers in this country. Its mission is to increase opportunities for composers of every style of music by fostering the creation, performance, dissemination, and appreciation of their work. Commissioning Music/USA is a landmark commissioning program developed by Meet The Composer in response to a critical need on the part of the music community. Commissioning Music/USA provides national support for the commissioning and multiple performances of new works representing all styles of music. The program provides support for emerging and established composers, promotes wider knowledge and appreciation of contemporary works, and encourages organizations to work together to build the repertoire for new music. Deadline: January 26, 2007 for the following categories: small ensembles, orchestra, chorus, concert band, jazz band, and solo works.

The Tank is currently accepting proposals for:
Bent 2007 : The Fourth Annual Circuit Bending Festival
Proposal Deadline: January 26, 2007. Participant Notification: February 5, 2007
The Tank is pleased to announce the fourth annual Bent Festival. In celebration of our fourth year, we will be holding three back-to-back festivals across the USA. The schedule for the 2007 festival is as follows: Bent Los Angeles, April 12-14, Bent Minneapolis, April 19-21, Bent New York City, April 26-28.

In response to the growing interests of the community, this year we are interested in opening up the Bent Festival to performers and artists that create their own electronics as well as to those who hack, bend, modify and destroy them. We are currently seeking performers and artists to participate at each of the above locations and are specifically looking for submissions in these categories:

Performers: Bands or solo artists who incorporate home built or circuit bent instruments or ideas in their performance. Please email a short description of your act, along with a link to mp3s and photos if you have them (no attachments larger than 1mb!). Also let us know which of the above locations you would like to be considered for. if you don't know what circuit bending is, please research it a bit before you apply.

Installation Artists: We are looking for artists who can commit to spending at least 15 hours in our space over the course of the festival creating site-specific pieces of art that somehow incorporate circuit bending. Each of the three venues will be quite different, but we are looking for artwork for each of them. We will provide space and as much materials and electronic equipment and tools as we are able. Please send a one-page proposal of what you would like to do and examples of your past work. Also, please be able to commit to spending time in the space during the festival and be prepared for a shared and at times hectic work environment - no white walls here's.

Artwork: In addition to installation artists we are also interested in having artwork up on the walls that fit into the spirit of the festival from people who might not be able to join us in person or who can¹t commit to working in the space during the festival. Please submit digital images or links of your work and a brief description.

Workshop Instructors: Anyone who is able to lead a workshop or give a presentation! Topics in previous years have included general circuit bending workshops for beginners and extremely technical, hands on workshops on a particular aspect or niche of the genre. If you feel you have a subject you would like to lead a workshop on, please provide us with a one-page description of that workshop, as well as links or examples of your current and past work in the field.

Bending Recipe Book: This year we are going to be putting together a very home-grown book of circuit bending instructions for beginners. The format will be a large collection of instructions submitted by circuit benders from around the world. If you have a favorite bend that you would like to share with the world this is your chance! We will collect as many of these as we can collect and bind them into an inexpensive book that we then sell at the festival. To submit, please provide a step-by-step list of instructions (including photos if you can, and details of what toy and parts are used). We will credit you in the book and send you a free copy.

Stipends for all festival performers, artists, and workshop leaders will be provided. We have a limited number of travel grants available as well. Please get in touch for more info. Submit all proposals and questions to contact@bentfestival.org http://www.thetanknyc.org, http://www.bentfestival.org.

From Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The new Congress has barely begun, but the major record labels are already up to their old tricks. [Democratic] Sen. Dianne Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, a backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio. Satellite and digital radio stations as well as Internet webcasters would have to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions or lose the statutory license for broadcasting music. Letters from constituents like you helped beat this dangerous proposal last year -- take action now to block it again. This bill aims to hobble TiVo-like devices for satellite and digital radio. Such devices would be able to include "reasonable recording" features, but that excludes choosing and playing back selections based on song title, artist, or genre. Want to freely move recordings around your home network or copy them to the portable player of your choice? You'll be out of luck if PERFORM passes. This bill would also mess with Internet radio. Today, Live365, Shoutcast, streaming radio stations included in iTunes, and myriad other smaller webcasters rely on MP3 streaming. PERFORM would in effect force them to use DRM-laden, proprietary formats, so you can say goodbye to software tools like Streamripper that let you record programming to listen to it later.

There exists a class system within the confines of most societies where a small percentage of the ruling class dictates the dreams and realities of a larger percentage of those who happen to be economically or socially challenged. Within the same system, there exists a economically and socially sanctioned creative culture known as the artists’ class who disguise themselves as painters, graphic designers, musicians, writers and other creative individuals. When in reality they are nothing but a homogenized version of what they emulate.

The intent of this year’s 804noise exhibition is to focus more, but not be limited to, philosophically progressive and/or socially provocative works. We have far surpassed a cultural level of basic image making and find great importance in creating social programs helping to sustain a visual dialogue. As artists, we present new ideas or criticisms to the general public, helping perpetuate social evolution. With that in mind, this year's March show will be prompted with the intent to give back to our neighborhood.

We are searching for artists who seek a language that speaks to the people who experience an unfathomable amount of strife in their lives -- those who wish to provide their community with new dreams that have yet to show up on a t-shirt. We want people who strive to push the envelope and join the ranks of the socially aware avant-garde. For more information and submission form, please download this .pdf file [http://www.bizhy.com/repressedpacket.pdf ]

Entry Requirements:
1.) All works must be submitted by February 19 and upon acceptance,
delivered and present by February 26.
2.)We would like works intended to contribute socially or
philosophically to cultural evolution. (Historical propaganda artifacts also accepted)
3.) Work must use paper as its canvas, basis, etc.
4.) Artists must supply their own transportation of the work
5.) Both 2D and 3D works will be accepted. Live footage is also acceptable, however, must be sent to us in an editable format (for the possibility of a video collage).
6.) All work must be properly labeled with name, date, and medium.
7.) Work must be framed and/or mounted.