festivals

This September, Prometheus Radio Project and WGXC will hold Prometheus’s 12th community radio barnraising. Radio barnraisings are weekend-long radio and movement-building events. Individuals from the local community, participatory media advocates, and artists from around the country will converge in Hudson, NY to share ideas, experiences, and skills in the launching of WGXC’s full power community radio station.


“For the past ten years, we’ve been fighting to take the airwaves out of the hands of the powerful few and place them in the hands of communities. We’ve supported many groups in starting low-power and full-power FM radio stations that serve as tools for social justice organizing and a voice for community expression,” says Andalusia Knoll, Community Radio Coordinator with the Prometheus Radio Project.

The Prometheus Radio Project has helped many groups, including farmworker unions, civil rights groups, and rural arts organizations build their stations while training a new generation of radio organizers across the country. The collaboration with WGXC, which will broadcast at 3,300 watts as opposed to the 100 watts of low power stations, will be Prometheus’s first full-power barnraising. This new station will be uniquely decentralized with three main studios spread out across the listening range, allowing broader participation from residents of New York’s Greene and Columbia counties. Partnerships are already forming with schools, music venues, and town halls to create live feeds from various locations, furthering the scope of the station.

WGXC: Hands-On Radio will be much more than just a radio station, with regular exhibitions and events, ongoing media trainings, a news blog, and community meetings. “We are all aware of the urgent importance of protecting and supporting our local resources, food system, watersheds, farmland, and local arts and cultures,” explains Kaya Weidman, a member of WGXC’s Radio Council and co-founder of Germantown Community Farm. “WGXC is simply local media, a key tool for all these crucial issues.”

The WGXC Prometheus Barnraising will take place in Hudson, NY with workshops and events from September 24-26. To register for the Barnraising go to http://www.prometheusradio.org/WGXC_barnraising

Registration is now open!

* LOCAL REGISTRATION: Local registration is open for folks attending the WGXC barnraising who live in Greene, Columbia, Dutchess, Ulster, Albany, Rensselaer, or Delaware counties in New York or Berkshire County in Massachusetts.

* GENERAL REGISTRATION: If you do not live in one of the above counties, please go the general registration page.

From Matthew Lasar in Radio Survivor:

The Prometheus Radio Project will run its 12th community radio barn raising by launching a new station: WGXC in Hudson, New York on September 24-26. This is the first such event, however, that will involve setting up a full-power station—3,300 watts as opposed to the usual 100 watts of low-power FM. “This new station will be uniquely decentralized with three main studios spread out across the listening range, allowing broader participation from residents of New York’s Greene and Columbia counties,” says Prometheus. “Partnerships are already forming with schools, music venues, and town halls to create live feeds from various locations, furthering the scope of the station. WGXC: Hands-On Radio will be much more than just a radio station, with regular exhibitions and events, ongoing media trainings, a news blog, and community meetings.” The station already streams at www.wgxc.org. We tuned in and, no big surprise, got a Gamelan tune from the composer Pauline Oliveros and the Berkeley Gamelan Ensemble. If you want to help out and live in Greene, Columbia, Dutchess, Ulster, Albany, Rensselaer, or Delaware counties in New York or Berkshire counties in Massachusetts, click here to register. Otherwise click here.