Date sent:        Wed, 14 Jan 1998 09:08:59 -0600
From:             "Dennis B. Henke" <dhenke@dewey.lib.memphis.edu>
Subject:          Free Radio Memphis Visited by FCC

Free Radio Memphis 94.7FM was visited Tuesday, January 13 at around
10:30am.  The agent identified himself and said that he wanted to meet
with the collective of people who operate FRM (Constructive Interference
Collective).  He said that he wanted to do this instead of going to
the attorney general.  Our current plan is to meet with him (at another
location) probably to be told that we have to shut down.  As of this
writing we are still broadcasting and have no intentions of shutting
down anytime soon. Updates will follow.
Liberate the Airwaves!!

Denny H. for FRM/CIC

Date sent: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 14:38:28 -0600
From: "Dennis B. Henke" <dhenke@dewey.lib.memphis.edu>
Subject: FRM meets with fcc agent

The Constructive Interference Collective/Free Radio Memphis met with an agent of the fcc at 8pm Thursday January 8. The agent wanted to make suggestions for possible alternatives and tell us more about the process they (fcc) goes through. Very interesting. The "alternatives" included starting our own station (we all thought we had done that already) but he meant a "real" station. He also suggested getting shows on an already existing station, setting up a lower watt transmitter (so that we could broadcast to anyone in our front yard (ha, ha). He said some commercial stations are so desperate that they will sometimes make management agreements which allow people to come in for chunks of air time (they save labor cost and make more money). Obviously that's not an option. He didn't seem to really understand.

What was really interesting was the process the fcc uses in dealing with a micro-radio station. According to him the fcc has a couple of options if they choose to pursue it at all. First the papers are filed with the district office. They will then decide on the following options. The first is administrative which is what they have been doing with Free Radio Berkeley. When this happens they can issue a fine, they can try to shut you down with a seizure of equipment. The second is to go the u.$. attorney and ask them to handle it. If they do this there are three possibilities. The first is that the u$ attorney will do nothing (not likely). The second is that they will prosecute a civil case which means they will take (steal) your equipment and possibly issue a fine. The third is that they will prosecute a criminal case in which they take (steal) your equipment and arrest you. In a criminal case the operators face fines up to or above $100,000 and a year in da slammer. He also suggested that we could petition the fcc for a policy change regarding microradio. In fact he indicated that such a petition was currently before the fcc and that "groups like ours" should be making comments. Anybody out there know anything about this?

So, that's the info we currently have. We have a tape of the whole conversation and are certainly willing to share it but I'm not too sure how much time we will have to make copies and distribute because we're struggling to keep our heads above water as it is. We meet this Sunday to decide if we are going to continue broadcasting. Based on discussion after our meeting last night it is very likely that we will (we are currently) continue. Liberating the Air Waves and enjoying every minute of it!!

Denny