NEWS 
NEWS
2/25/10
Governor O'Malley Honors Tom Wisner
Governor Martin O’Malley and the Board of Public Works (BPW) today honored three Marylanders who devoted their lives to conservation and stewardship. At the request of the Governor, the Board acted to approve naming of Department of Natural Resources (DNR) properties in honor of folk-singer and educator Tom Wisner, Park Ranger Julie Scheiker, and long-timer DNR employee Gary Yoder.
The Education center at King’s Landing Park in Calvert County will be named the Tom Wisner Hall at King’s Landing Park. Known as Bard of the Bay, Wisner has been raising awareness among children and adults for the past 40 years about the spirit, beauty, and human connection to the Chesapeake Bay through folk music. In 2002, the World Folk Music Association gave him the John Denver Award.
“Tom was Maryland’s first official environmental educator, who has connected generations of school children to the Bay through music, art, and poetry, and whose footsteps thousands of us continue to follow. Tom is a true hero of the Bay,” said Chesapeake Bay Foundation Vice President for Education Don Baugh.
Tom Wisner hosts Chesapeake Country on WRYR.
1/14/10
A Celebration of Tom Wisner
A concert and CD release celebrating Tom Wisner’s life work: FOLLOW ON THE WATER: A Celebration of the Bay’s Life in Story and Song will be held at the Calvert Marine Museum on Friday, January 29, and again at the Annapolis Maritime Museum on Saturday, January 30.
Well known local musicians Mac Walter, John Cronin, Teresa Whitaker and Frank Schwartz join Tom Wisner on stage to introduce Wisner’s final double-CD album: Follow on the Water. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., concerts begin at 7:30. Admission is $20/advance; $25 at the door. Tickets for the concert at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons can be purchased at: www.calvertmarinemuseum.com or in person at the Museum. Tickets for the concert at the Annapolis Maritime Museum can be purchased at www.amaritime.org. Seating is limited at both venues and advance purchase is recommended.
1/4/10
NEW DATE - WRYR/Local Lowdown Fundraiser Concert
12/20/09
WRYR Holiday Fundraiser Concert Cancelled
12/15/09
WRYR / Local Lowdown Holiday Fundraiser Concert
8/24/09
WRYR Helps Get High School Station On the Air
WRYR's Chief Engineer, Mike Roche, helped Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, MD get their radio station on the air, an event had been in the planning for three years. WRYR will be sending speakers to their Media Classes to share with the students stories of community media. Special Thanks to Mike Roche and Mike Shay and all the WRYR folks that made this possible.
Here's a note from Jeff Deitchman, the English teacher at Sherwood High School who led the project:
"That was pretty darn exciting today. I've
been dreaming of this for three years, and to hear one of
my kids through my car radio
was an unmitigated joy. Since you guys do this all the time, I guess it's
routine, but it's anything but
that for me; and my kids will, I am positive, levitate when I crank it up for
them. You've both helped make
an awful lot of kids happy; and like the balloon seller in
Georgetown used to say,
"When the children are happy, everybody's happy."
If we can inspire other schools to do this, I'm all for it. I've helped a
school in Baltimore get off the
ground, and I've let as many
people as possible know that I'm willing to do the same for them.
I have a
heck of a time trying to get my
regular English classes to edit a paper they write for me; my radio kids
run back to their seats six,
seven, eight times to polish a 30-second spot after I show them where it
needs work. Radio is the
best teaching tool I've come across, hands-down."
5/23/09
Championship Game of the Baltimore-Washington Diamond Classic Women’s Baseball Tournament Live on WRYR
The Eastern Women's Baseball Conference (EWBC) is dedicated to providing opportunities for girls and women to play organized baseball and preparing amateur female baseball players for national and international competition. The EWBC uses Major League Baseball rules and includes teams from the metropolitan areas of Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC.
4/4/09
Tom Wisner Featured in The Washington Post
3/16/09
NAB Sues FCC On Low Power Radio Displacement
Prometheus intervenes on behalf of FCC Today, the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is hearing oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The lawsuit alleges that the FCC defied the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act when it granted waivers to keep low power radio (LPFM) on the air. Were the FCC not to intervene, these low power stations would be forced off the air by full power stations wanting to change their broadcasting location. Prometheus Radio Project, represented by Media Access Project attorney Parul Desai, is an intervenor in the case on behalf of the FCC and the threatened LPFM stations.
Full power broadcasters currently have the right to demand that any low power stations that are in the way of their expansion or relocation plans must turn off their stations. While the rule allowing this has been on the books since 2000, displacements happened quite rarely until a rule streamlining full power station relocation was issued in 2006. Soon after the streamlining order, hundreds of LPFM stations faced a loss in signal coverage, and 40 stations were slotted to be wiped off the dial entirely. Some of these low power stations were alerted of their demise when they had only been on the air for months.
The FCC took action in December of 2007 to give threatened LPFMs more options to stay on the air. One of the methods approved was to allow LPFMs to use a more accurate form of engineering criteria for predicting interference than they are ordinarily allowed to use in order to search for a new slot on the dial. These engineering methods, which are only used for LPFMs in dire straits, are the same methods that are used as a matter of routine to give out full power and repeater stations. "The FCC acted within their authority to grant waivers for LPFM stations, and they only took measures that were allowable under the RBPA. In fact, there are many more steps that the FCC really should take in order to treat LPFMs more fairly." said Pete Tridish, a broadcast engineer with the Prometheus Radio Project.
"The NAB has filed suit in a spiteful effort to make sure that LPFMs lose their channels," said Sakura Saunders, a board member of the Prometheus Radio Project. One of the 40 stations that could lose their signal as a result of this lawsuit is KDRT-LP in Davis, CA, a station that Sakura herself helped start in her old college town.
"KDRT negotiated with the full power stations and other stations in the area – a new process made possible by the FCC waiver policy – to ensure that everyone was happy with the outcome; KDRT found a new frequency on which to broadcast and the full power station got to move their transmitter. Now, the NAB is threatening the very existence of KDRT, despite the fact that no harm was done to any broadcaster in granting KDRT the waiver." Much of the lawsuit revolves around questions of whether the FCC violated the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act (RBPA) of 2000, a bill that put restrictions on the licensing of the LPFM service because of interference claims put forth by the NAB. This bill included a stipulation that the issue of interference would be studied further, resulting in the multi-million dollar congressional study contracted out to the MITRE corporation. The results of thisstudy were given to Congress in 2004, and found that interference concerns raised by incumbent broadcasters were largely baseless and recommended explicitly that restrictions on LPFM be lifted.
Since that time, bills have been introduced by three consecutive Congresses to repeal the RBPA. A current bill, the Local Community Radio Act, was recently introduced in the House by Congressmen Mike Doyle and Lee Terry, and an identical companion bill is in the Senate with Senators Maria Cantwell and John McCain as lead co-sponsors. This bill has widespread bi-partisan support and is widely believed to be ripe for passage in the coming months. "The NAB's arguments against low power radio lack any legal merit in the first place, and will be even more irrelevant once the Local Community Radio Act is passed. At this point, we can only surmise that the NAB is just trying to create further confusion and hassle for LPFMs," said Pete Tridish.
For more information, contact Sakura Saunders at 415- 287-3737 or Pete Tridish at 215-605-9297
2/15/09
Radio from Downtown Returns Live on WRYR on Feb. 21st
The dynamic, thought-provoking, hopefully entertaining and certainly long-running radio program, Radio from Downtown, will be returning to the historic Avalon Theater in Easton, MD on February 21st at 8 pm. This latest in a series of attempts to enter the world of big-time show business will be “performed,” if that is the right word, before a live audience and broadcast live on WRYR. The show will feature music by the Uptown Vocal Jazz Quartet; a Chesapeake Bay update (or whatever else he wants to talk about) by author Tom Horton; the Downtown Players (with NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg) in an original radio play about the dire global financial situation and how it affects a small business on Maryland’s Eastern Shore; the nine-piece house jazz band, the No-No Nonette; some other stuff; and some “jokes.”
2/3/09
Quirky South County Radio Goes Live at Roller Derby
WRYR-LP 97.5 FM radio is owned and operated by WRYR Community Radio, Inc.
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