BERKELEY — The nerve center of a nationwide and rapidly growing renegade radio broadcasting movement lies here, in the cluttered and dimly lit home of a frail, soft-spoken radio technician.
Stephen Dunifer, founder of Free Radio Berkeley, is regarded by many micro-broadcasters as the primary technical and inspirational force behind a movement that is defying the federal government's regulation of the airwaves.
But Federal Communications Commission officials say that Dunifer is a pirate, leading a movement that poses a threat to public safety.
For three years, the FCC has been trying to silence Dunifer in a legal battle that micro-broadcasters are watching closely. The agency also has cracked down on other micro-broadcasters, raiding the homes and stations of some, pressing criminal and civil charges against others.
At stake, says FCC Chairman William Kennard, is the smooth functioning of a decades-old broadcast system that permits the orderly functioning of commercial stations, air traffic control and emergency services.
"We can't have a situation where people are creating confusion and cacophony over the airwaves, we just can't have it," Kennard says.
A federal judge in Oakland, however, refused the agency's request for an injunction against Dunifer's station in November, and ruled that the court has jurisdiction to decide the constitutional issues he raised. A trial is expected later this year.
Dunifer says that he cannot wait for a trial on the free speech issues he and other broadcasters say are inherent in their battle with the FCC.
"People have come to the conclusion that they don't have a voice," says Dunifer, 46, whose radical roots date to the antiwar movement of the 1960s. "They know that corporations have a stranglehold on the free flow of information.
"There is an incredible contextual framework for this movement. I put it in the historical context of various struggles for liberation and self-determination."
Micro-broadcasters generally use 1 watt to 95 watts of power to air their FM signals. The FCC will not license any station below 100 watts, and it can cost more than $100,000 for a broadcast license for a 100-watt station. Broadcasting without an FCC license is a violation of federal law. Still, the FCC estimates that there are 300 to 1,000 unlicensed stations broadcasting everything from Christian sermons to rock 'n' roll in towns and cities nationwide.
Kennard concedes that micro-broadcasters have a point when they complain that it is hard for community broadcasters to get on the air.
"Someone like Stephen Dunifer is doing an unlawful thing," he said. "But I am sympathetic for the need to have more expression on the airwaves. That is a compelling point that some of these pirates make. We just want them to work in a lawful way to change the system."
The FCC, Kennard says, is considering changing its rules to allow the licensing of 1-watt broadcasting stations. But micro-broadcasters say that they should be allowed to have stations more powerful than a single watt. Besides, they complain, the FCC's process to revise its rules could drag on for years. They want to broadcast now.
Many micro-broadcasters also seem to relish their outlaw posture. Dunifer never applied for an FCC license, arguing that it would be futile because his 45-watt station falls below the FCC's 100-watt minimum. He and many other micro-broadcasters remain on the air even after they are hit with fines or warnings.
Dunifer's Free Radio Berkeley appeared on the FM band in this most radical of American towns in April 1993. He started broadcasting from his home, then put his equipment in a backpack and headed for the Berkeley Hills when FCC enforcement officers moved in on the signal. Every night, his small band of volunteers broadcast from a different spot, trying to elude the FCC. Eventually, he was tracked down and slapped with a $20,000 fine that remains unpaid.
Today, Dunifer and 95 volunteers broadcast a mix of far-left commentary, interviews and alternative music 24 hours a day on 104.1 FM. Their station--protected, for the moment, by his court fight--is located in a Berkeley radio studio.
Dunifer also operates a radio transmitter factory--in his home. He has built and sold hundreds of low-cost broadcasting kits and trained dozens of other micro-broadcasters.
Dunifer says micro-broadcasters pose no public safety threat because they broadcast below the range that air traffic control towers use to talk to airplanes. And he says equipment used by most micro-broadcasters is good enough to avoid interference with big stations.
Kennard says the stations interfere with the signals of licensed broadcasters, confuse listeners and sometimes pose a threat to air traffic control and other emergency broadcast services. The FCC recently closed a pirate station in Puerto Rico, the agency says, because the station's signal nearly forced an airport to stop operating.
