free103point9 Radio Labs provide participants with the technical skills and historical/theoretical grounding pertinent to transmission media in hopes of fostering creative expression within and with the transmission spectrum. Workshops are broken down into three main sections: the history of broadcasting; how transmitters work: and transmission arts as a creative medium. A core-curriculum textbook, Wave Guide, is available in hardcopy and on the free103point9 website as downloadable PDFs.

As the early use of radio as mass medium evolves into an era of millions of micro signals, radio communication is paradoxically becoming more archaic and more ubiquitous in our daily lives. While satellite radio companies argue for the retirement of FM and AM broadcasts, the newly diversified use of the radio spectrum is becoming more and more integral to today's wireless obsessed consumer culture. free103point9's Radio Labs teach students about the history of radio communications, about access and restrictions on the medium, and pass on important information about how radio works. Students are provided with the skills and context to make use of transmission mediums for creative and social expression whether it be local activism, sound sculpture, installation, or performance-based work.

free103point9's "Radio Lab"  first manifested in 1999 as a free103point9 education program with youth from East Harlem's Kids Discover Radio, an after school science program in a housing project, and at El Puente, a Williamsburg-based neighborhood center in Brooklyn. free103point9 Radio Lab seminars have since been presented at educational and cultural institutions across New York and throughout the United States. Click here for a Comet antenna worksheet to tune an FM antenna.

free103point9 is currently planning several Radio Lab workshops for 2009. Four workshops will be held at the Ontological Theater in Manhattan. Others will be held in Greene and Columbia counties in upstate New York, where free103point9 is starting a community FM radio station and will be holding workshops to create citizen journalists and reporters. These workshops will be held at the Catskill Community Center, the Cairo Public Library, Germantown Community Farm, and other locations.

To volunteer to help with free103point9's "Radio Lab," e-mail Tom Roe.

See list of future Radio Labs at top right.

Radio Lab

UPCOMING RADIO LABS

ONLINE REFERENCE MATERIALS

PAST RADIO LABS

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004