Not all radio stations play by rules

by Matt Batcheldor
The Olympian (in Olympia Wash.)
June 10

OLYMPIA - Not all radio stations are created legal.

Free Radio Olympia, most recently broadcast at 98.5 FM, is an unlicensed or "pirate" radio station that plays and says what it wants without regard to the Federal Communications Commission.

The station, which has broadcast intermittently on various frequencies for the past six years, has been off the air for about three weeks because of fears of an FCC raid, spokesman and disc jockey Drew Hendricks said.

Don't look for the station to seek a license anytime soon.

"The job of the FCC is to make sure that the only people who get on the airwaves make a lot of money," Hendricks said. "In our economy, that means corporation.

"Free Radio Olympia is against the idea of free speech only being available for people who have money. We believe the First Amendment applies to radio and not just newspapers and books."

Hendricks vowed the station will be back when it finds a host for its transmitter. It continues to be streamed online.

FCC Spokesman David Fiske declined to comment about Free Radio Olympia, saying the agency doesn't speak about enforcement or individual cases.

An FCC database shows no enforcement actions against the station.

The FCC requires stations to be licensed so they don't interfere with each other or other communications devices, such as air traffic control, and to keep language it deems as obscene off the air.

Its rationale is because the airwaves are limited and public, the content on them must be regulated. Without licensing, the airwaves would be a free-for-all, with all kinds of devices interfering with each other, Fiske said.

"The licensing system is to actually further speech," he said. "It's to ensure that the speech actually takes place."

Stations that don't play by the rules can be shut down and their equipment confiscated, Hendricks said.

Free Radio offers a selection of programming that the government wouldn't permit, he said.

The station has had phone interviews with people accused of being domestic terrorists, from the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. Other interviews have included immigration attorneys, federal prisoners, anarchists and Young Republicans at The Evergreen State College.

Aside from talk, Free Radio plays local music and features DJs who use obscenities.

The details of why Free Radio went off the air two weeks ago are hazy for a reason, Hendricks said. They don't want the FCC to bust them.

Hendricks, who has been a DJ on the station, said he does not know where the station's transmitter has been, who runs it and what kind of equipment it is.

Free Radio operates as a collectively-owned station, Hendricks said, but the people who are involved with its broadcasting don't want to be known.

He said the radio station recently "started getting an increase in FCC harassment." The FCC tacked a note to the door of the broadcast site, so the station moved to another location.

But the station has yet to find someone willing to host the station who will risk an FCC raid, Hendricks said.

Moving around is nothing new for the station. According to its Web site, a group of activists, DJs and technicians started the station in spring of 2001 on 91.3 FM. The FCC reportedly threatened the station in June 2002, and it temporarily went off the air.

In October 2004, the station moved to 101.9 FM at the request of KBCS-FM in Bellevue, which also was broadcasting at 91.3 FM.

It moved again in March 2005 to 98.5 FM in response to KSWW (102.1 FM) in Grays Harbor.

Hendricks said Free Radio respects other stations and tries to find dial positions that won't interfere with other stations.

He said the station will return to the airwaves soon.

"Things will cool down over the next month or two and somebody will volunteer."