"Ownership is critically important: who owns the media is who gets to speak. This is why community radio is so important, it democratizes the media ... We have to tell our own story because when we don't, we are harmed."

-Joe Torres, Free Press

After ten years of community organizing, a powerful grassroots campaign led by the Prometheus Radio Project successfully pushed the Local Community Radio Act through Congress, winning the opportunity for local groups to control a piece of the broadcast airwaves! As early as Fall 2012, community groups will be able to apply for new community radio stations.

This is our one-time golden opportunity to seize the airwaves! It's a chance to build a national communications infrastructure in the hands of the people. Organizers from the Prometheus Radio Project are coming to Arizona to share information and strategies for starting stations.

CAP stands for Common Alerting Protocol. CAP is a new internationally-accepted open standard for sending information about emergencies. In the US, CAP is going to be implemented as part of the IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert Warning System) program. FEMA will originate messages about emergencies and send them to a centralized "aggregator", which will then disseminate the messages over the internet.
Unlike the current EAS system, where messages only go out over TV and radio, CAP is not tailored for broadcasters. CAP messages may include text, photos, videos, or audio to supplement the basic information. The messages will be sent not only to TV and radio stations, but also to computers, smart phones, highway signs, and more.

The FCC will require you to have equipment that can receive and decode CAP messages. You will also need to be capable of rebroadcasting CAP messages in EAS format.
The current deadline for compliance is June 30, 2012. The original deadline was March 30th, 2011, but the FCC has extended it twice at the request of Prometheus and other broadcasters' associations.

You can find more information in the following link

http://prometheusradio.org/eas_cap_basics

“I have been an organizer for ten years, and I have never had such an easy time filling rooms on a Saturday morning as when we meet to talk about getting low power FM stations in Minneapolis-St. Paul."

This powerful statement on the excitement around community radio came from Danielle Mkali, Media Justice Organizer with the Main Street Project. Ms. Mkali was one of six panelists at “Civil Rights on the Airwaves: Building Community Radio in Communities of Color,” a video streamed event on the New America Foundation on January 9.

Across the country, communities are gearing up as the FCC prepares to accept new applications for low power FM (LPFM) community radio stations in 2012. The panelists discussed the importance of community radio in communities of color, as well as their challenges and visions for the future. Along with her Media Justice Program Director Steven Renderos, Ms. Mkali described Main Street Project's work to organize a coalition of groups in the Twin Cities to apply for community radio licenses.