Prometheus Radio's ongoing mission is to maintain ownership of the airwaves in the hands of the citizens, "Freeing the airwaves from corporate control." The corporations that monopolize the public airwaves are among the best funded in the world. Prometheus depends upon contributions from citizens like you to continue the struggle.

Broadcasters are trustees of the public airwaves obligated to serve the "public interest, convenience, and necessity." This relationship has been broken since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Radio has changed. Corporations have seized greater control of stations. Communities have been deprived of their voices. News, information, community issues and cultural forms of music have all disappeared.

The Prometheus Radio Project, created in 1998 by former pirate radio operators, signaled the re-emergence of community radio and the democratization of the airwaves. By 2000, Prometheus and other grass roots organizations had convinced the FCC of the error of its ways. Community radio, LPFM was born. Shortly thereafter, the broadcast lobby convinced Congress to limit the number of community radio stations that could be built. In response, Prometheus adapted and updated the tradition of barnraising to ensure that those stations that did receive licenses got on the air. To date we have successfully launched seven community radio stations and expanded the concept of barnraising to ensure that community groups have access to wireless Internet.

Your support is essential if Prometheus is to continue the struggle to restore ownership of the airwaves to citizens. On a daily basis, we go head-to-head against the best funded and most influential of all lobbies, the broadcast lobby. Your contributions and the creativity of the Prometheus staff have allowed us some surprising victories in this David and Goliath battle. In 2003, Prometheus succeeded in getting the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a stay of FCC ownership rules that would have allowed major corporations to monopolize even more of the public airwaves. Also in 2003, the MITRE study showed no potential interference from LPFM (community radio) stations located on third adjacent channels. Prometheus re-launched its push to have the FCC restore those channels eliminated by the broadcast lobby's efforts.

Your contribution can help tip the balance. The corporations that monopolize the public airwaves are well funded. Prometheus depends upon concerned citizens like you to continue the struggle. Make your contribution now. You can fill in the form and send it to us, or make your contribution online.

Chuck Tarver
Co-Chair, Prometheus Radio Project Board of Directors

Items Needed

We need more people to join us in our work! If you have skills in radio engineering, law, audio, fundraising, web work and computers, and most of all, community organizing, we need your help!!! And if you do not have any of these skills yet, what better way to learn them? Hundreds of people have asked for our help - far more than we can really assist if our organization does not grow. Join us!

Items we need
If you have a spare one of these items, please remember that we are tax deductible and you can write off the value of your donations. Some of these things the PRP can use, some we will redistribute to a worthy LPFM.

• - Spare copies of the NAB engineers handbook, or similar works on Radio Engineering, Audio Production and so on.
• - Spectrum Analyzer suitable for broadcast band and harmonics analysis, and other electronic test gear.
• - Radio equipment suitable for LPFMs, (Transmitters, SWR meters, coax, antennas, compressors, frequency counters).
• - Copies of Radio World and other broadcasting trade magazines.
• - Software for frequency searching (Mac if possible, PC could work too).
• - Money, printing, postage resources.
• - Spare computers or copy machines are always nice - right now we are doing most of our work on MACs, but we will probably need a PC soon to work with a spectrum analyzer and frequency searching software.