JEREMY  LANSMAN, A  LIFE WELL - LIVED

Jeremy Lansman: A Life Well Lived

 

“Having Jeremy Lansman help you start your radio station is like having Jimi Hendrix open your music store”.

(Bennett Kobb at the occasion of the construction of WRYR Radio in Maryland).

​

1) Early years: experimenting at home in St Louis and getting into it in California

Experimenting at home in St Louis with electronics and a radio kit.

Pirating from his car in California.

Volunteering at KPFA in Berkeley.

First paid radio job in Hawaii.

Sources:

Klein, G. (2012) Fat Chance: We were the last gasp of the 60s and the birth of Americana music but was America ready for us? Main Frame Press, Chula Vista California CA 91911

 

Walker, J. (2001) Rebels on the air: An alternate history of Radio in America. New York University Press, NYC.

 

Tweaking the Culture - Renegade Broadcaster Jeremy Lansman (2004)

Scott Christiansen 

Anchorage Press, September 1, 2004

​

2) KRAB years

Starting KRAB with Lorenzo Milam in 1961.

Expansion to KRAB Nebula: KBOO in Portland, Oregon

 

Sources:

KRAB archive

“Charles Reinsch (Chuck) served in various positions (volunteer board op, announcer, station manager, trustee, and everything in-between) at KRAB from 1964 until the sale of KRAB in 1984.  About 2008  Chuck retired from the University of Washington, and almost immediately took on his post-retirement project, the KRAB Archive.  It can be found here: https://www.krabarchive.com/index.html

You will find the story of Charles’ first encounter with KRAB and Jeremy on page one of the Archive, just scroll down.

There are a couple of videos with appearances by Jeremy floating in the aether.  One was shot by the CBC in 1964. It is about 22 minutes long and Jeremy is in it.  Charles put it on you tube as well as in the KRAB Archive.  The Youtube link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk69tzaHg6Y  

It can also be found, with some explanation at  https://www.krabarchive.com/the-theory-and-practice-of-krab-a-film-documentary-circa-1964.html

Charles’ version of the KDNA video by Eric Von Schrader with explanation is here: https://www.krabarchive.com/krab-who-what-why-when-historical-rumblings.html#kdnastlouis1968

 

Milam, L. W. (1986). The Radio Papers: Essays on the art and practice of radio transmission. MHO & MHO Works, San Diego, Ca

​

3) KDNA years

Build the KDNA radio station in St Louis with Cammie Enslow in 1964.

KDNA-FM went on the air on February 8, 1969 on a commercial FM frequency, 102.5 mHz.

 

Other Community Radios started as a spinoff from KDNA or with advice and support from Jeremy and other KDNA staff:

Geoff Fobes and Bob Feldman started KBDY in St. Louis, Missouri

Jerry Greene founded KOTO in Telluride, Colorado.  

Bill Thomas started WEFT in Champaign, Illinois.  

Mike O'Connor started WORT in Madison, Wisconsin 

Randy McLaughlin started KFAI in Minneapolis, Minnesota

John Schwartz and Jeff Smith founded WYEP in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Dennis Gross started KCHU in Dallas, Texas

Tom Conners started WRFG in Atlanta, Georgia

Holt Maness started WDNA in Miami, Florida

Jeremy and Holt started KPOO in San Francisco, California

Pat Watkins started KOPN in Columbia, Missouri

Dennis Batson founded WEVL in Memphis, Tennessee.

Rich and Suzi McClear started KAXE in Grand Rapids, Minnesota

KDHX in St. Louis was founded by former KDNA volunteers and listeners.

 

Other KDNA spinoffs:
Tom Thomas and Terry Clifford of KDNA started the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, the trade association of community radio in 1975.  The National Federation of Community Broadcasters is still serving community radio stations around the USA fifty years later (https://nfcb.org/). Bill Thomas of KDNA started the “Possible Tape Exchange” for community stations to share programs across the county.

Sources:

Fat Chance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OL2rezqcO0

Eric von Schrader film

 

Stories:

1. Eric von Schrader in St Louis:

 

“Other stations I know of that have KDNA in their genes are KOPN in Columbia, Missouri, and WEVL in Memphis, Tennessee. KDHX in St. Louis was founded by former KDNA volunteers and listeners. After a lengthy struggle to gain the license for 88.1 FM, based on an application and strategy that Jeremy designed, the station went on the air in 1987. It became a beloved community institution for 35 years, a beacon for St. Louis music and musicians.  Sadly, KDHX is having hard times now but it may still survive. All community radio stations were born on shoestring budgets and were usually laughed at by the powerful in their communities, but Jeremy strongly believed that, once on the air, the stations would find the support they needed from listeners. He said “these stations are really hard to kill.”

 

Jeremy’s impact rippled out across the continent and later the world. In addition to his technical genius with transmitters and understanding of how to get governments to grant the licenses, his greatest impact was his radical belief that these stations could become the nervous systems of their communities that allowed people to share music, art, and ideas. Jeremy’s greatest pleasure was to see people get excited about sharing themselves on the radio, when the radio inspired them and fed their hunger for connection. He had an infectious spirit that anything was possible.

 

A Jeremy story: One evening in the early 1970s, he brought a homemade television transmitter to my house. I had portable video equipment and he wanted to see if we could transmit a television signal from one room to another. He set it up, connected it to my video recorder, and pressed play. It worked, but the sound was distorted. He said he needed a variable resistor to control the sound level. We didn’t have one. He went to the kitchen and rummaged around in the refrigerator. He found a stalk of celery, took it upstairs to the transmitter, and hooked it up to the audio circuit. He pinned a wire to one end of the stalk and pinned another at the other end of the stalk. Using the water in the celery as the resistor, he could adjust the sound level by moving one pin closer or farther from the other. And it worked perfectly! I felt like I was in the room with Alexander Graham Bell. Jeremy was thinking “outside the box” years before that term was invented.”

 

1. Holt Maness in Miami:

 

“With all the excitement of the radio blitz across America to establish proof of performance for various new public radio stations, I nearly forgot the outstanding outcome when I was given the privilege of flying the proof of performance paperwork from KPOO to the FCC in Washington DC. When I arrived in DC not only did I file the paperwork for KPOO, I wandered down to find out what was the status of the the application for WDNA in Miami.

 

I walked into the office of one of the commissioners to ask, and he said, "didn't you know?" 

 

And of course I didn't. There's a classical conflict between a low frequency, like 88.1 for which I was applying in a town that has a channel 6 TV whose audio is at 87.75 MHZ. It's classical interference for that television station and the FCC didn't even actually require Channel 6 (in Miami) to object to my application. They just set the application aside. They probably would not have responded at all, if I not gone in and inquired. 

 

And this is where Jeremy's expertise comes into play. Because once I got back home with that news, I went to channel 6 and asked if I could simply colocate my antenna on their tower. Then, for every mile the WDNA signal emanated from that tower, the signal would be correspondingly weaker than the channel 6 signal. 

 

All the channel 6 Television receivers would get the channel 6 audio at 87.75, instead of my new, low power FM at 88.1 MHz. Channel 6 management was under no obligation, and they essentially said, "no".

 

Time went by and Jeremy figured out, well, maybe he was inspired by a competing application from the Moody Bible College for a religious station up in Palm Beach. When that happened, Channel 6, realizing that they couldn't complain that the Moody Bible signal would degrade their signal in the Fort Lauderdale region where Channel 6 wasn't actually supposed to be received. 

 

So Channel 6 then came back to me and said "well, maybe we will entertain having you in our tower" because they saw me as a pawn in their game against Moody degrading their signal up in Palm Beach. So, Jeremy suggested that Moody alter their frequency a little bit so that we could then go from 88.1 to 88.9, and then boost our signal from what was originally gonna be a 10 W station in the middle of downtown Miami, with the antenna on a church steeple. 

 

Now we could go up on the Channel 6 tower at a 1000 feet and we wouldn't conflict with channel 6, because of the degrading signal as it progresses from that same tower. Also, we would not compete with Moody if they just moved their frequency a little bit. So that's what happened. 

 

The day I went in to see the lawyers at Channel 6 with a couple of FCC lawyers with me, they finally confessed that they thought of me as "the man with no shoes" because in most of our earlier negotiations, I had just shown up in flip-flops, like most people in Miami... or like Jimmy Buffet. I guess I was a bit of a parrot head. But that's another story.

 

That was the resolution... with that alteration in the engineering, WDNA was eventually granted a permit and is on the air today at 88.9 broadcasting from the Channel 6 tower in Homestead, Florida. They get quite good coverage throughout Dade County and even up into Broward County. Thank you, Jeremy. “

4) KFAT years

Starting KFAT with Laura Ellen Hopper in 1975

 

Sources:

Klein, G. (2012) Fat Chance: We were the last gasp of the 60s and the birth of Americana music but was America ready for us? Main Frame Press, Chula Vista California CA 91911

 

KSQD: Remembering Jeremy Lansman, Radio Pioneer; https://ksqd.org/remembering-jeremy-lansman-radio-pioneer/#gsc.tab=0

Posted by Rachel Goodman | Jan 3, 2025 | All Talk, Arts & Culture, Local, Monterey Bay History, Program, Rachel Anne Goodman, Talk of the Bay | 3

 

FreeForm Radio movie: Mark Herzig Jeremy Lansman clip (this cannot be uploaded on the website) but we will show it during the 5 April 2025 Jeremy Memorial. For the FreeForm Radio “The official trailer” to Mark's movie FreeForm Radio please contact Mark directly at markherzig@surewest.net.

5) KBDI and Low Power TV and Radio licensing projects

Starting KBDI-TV in Broomfield Colorado with John Schwartz in 1979 and ATD Engineering with Jeff Shero Nightbyrd.

 

John Schwartz’s story:

 

“KBDI-TV went on the air in February, 1980.  It took months to build the facilities.  I know Jeremy was living in Colorado by 1979 because he played a key engineering role.  (…) Jeremy used proceeds from KFAT to help fund the construction of KBDI.  One of the things to know about Jeremy is that he made considerable personal fortunes when each of KDNA and KFAT were sold.  He then plowed much of the KDNA proceeds into funding the start-up cost of many community radio stations, including WYEP-FM Pittsburgh, where I got my start.  Later, funds derived from KFAT went to KBDI-TV.  

 

As part of the battle to keep KBDI-TV's license, I had to leave as president of the station not long after it went on the air.  This is because the existing public TV station attacked me personally and used this attack in its effort to get our FCC authorization revoked. Jeremy succeeded me as president.  He continued to live in Colorado for a few years, and led KBDI-TV during much of this time.  I later returned to the station to run the production department (the small staff that made TV shows). ”  

 

Bennet Kobb’s story:

 

Jeremy established American Translator Development in Boulder, Colorado with Jeffrey Shero Nightbyrd. This company was later renamed ATD Engineering Inc. and then later on Low Power Technology Inc.

Benn  was one of several employees, hired after the business had been going for some time. This was around 1982-1983. The company was engaged in preparing FCC applications for Low Power TV stations, for which there was considerable demand.

Although I knew of Jeremy from Lorenzo Milam’s books, which I had studied in the 70s, I met Jeremy on the roof of my University of Colorado student dormitory where he was installing a translator for KBDI in Broomfield.

Jeremy and Jeff were still connected with Lorenzo then; he may have been a partner in ATD. The company was renamed Low Power Technology in 1983 as I recall.

Jeff was a prominent media figure, publisher and progressive activist, associated with counterculture figures like Hunter Thompson and Abbie Hoffman. He was for a time the editor of Hustler magazine published by Larry Flynt. Archive.org <http://archive.org/> has an interview with Jeff.

https://archive.org/details/RagRadio2015-07-31-ThorneDreyerJeffreySheroNightbyrd

 

Sources:

KBDI test run video  (Tom Lofstrom Facebook).

​

6) The Alaska / KYYES Years

Starting KYES with Carol Schatz in Anchorage, Alaska in 1986.

 

Carol’s Story:

“July 1986 Jeremy moved to Washington, DC where he began doing consulting for low power tv/radio licenses as we were pursuing the license for a TV station in Anchorage. Channel 5 had been assigned to Anchorage by the FCC and since I had lived in Anchorage previously, and Jeremy had been involved in starting a low power TV there, we applied for the license, and in 1987 were granted a construction permit. By then I had left my job and was researching programming options while Jeremy was looking at the technical requirements including finding a transmitter site.

 November 1987 we drove across the U.S. to Tacoma, WA where we put our truck and household goods on a barge to Anchorage. 

January, 1990  KYES  signed on-the air.  Jeremy did most of the engineering including rebuilding a used transmitter, while I worked on obtaining programming. Because we were an independent TV station (with no network affiliation) and little investment in programming, we were not taken very seriously in the beginning, and some thought the station wouldn't last. 

Jeremy continued to provide engineering consulting services for a few years, for a company called Video Jukebox that built low power TV stations around the country. The stations offered a pay-per choice music video service, which enabled viewers to request a video for which they were charged a fee through a 900 telephone number. KYES ran this service part of the day at the beginning and overnight for a few years.

In 1995 both Warner Brothers and Paramount began networks of their own, and KYES was able to affiliate with both and therefore enhance our program offerings. Later,  KYES became again largely an independent station with some programming from MYNetworkTV, the successor to UPN (the Paramount Network).  

In 2016 KYES got sold. 

 

Alaska community radio stations:

Carol’s story:

 

“Even with the technical demands of the TV station, Jeremy continued his involvement in radio, forming a non-profit with some friends to bring ‘alternative radio’ to the Kenai peninsula (about 150 miles south of Anchorage. Later he could be seen with his headphones on in front of his computer in the living room programming his internet radio station.

Jeremy also assisted Anchorage's 'Out North Theatre company to acquire an FM frequency and build a radio station serving Anchorage.

 

KWMD was one of the stations owned by  the non-profit Alaska Educational Radio System, that Jeremy, Wolfgang Kurtz (and possibly Mike Robbins or Aaron Wollender) put together to acquire some radio frequencies to provide an alternative to the religious statons serving  Seward and the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage.

 

GLACIER CITY RADIO serving Girdwood (a ski town @30 miles south of Anchorage) was put on the air by Lewis Leonard who was a long time community radio person who knew Jeremy from Lewis' time at KPFT, Houston. I'm not aware of any role that Jeremy played with Glacier City other than Lewis and Jeremy conferred frequently over technical matters.”

Sources:

Progressive Alaska: Jeremy Lansman - Part I - Friday, November 30, 2007

https://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2007/11/jeremy-lansman-part-i.html

Phil Munger

 

Progressive Alaska: May 9, 2009 -- Jeremy Lansman - Part II (Updated)

https://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeremy-lansman-part-ii.html

Phil Munger

 

Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - May 9, 2009 -- Jeremy Lansman - Part III

https://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2009/05/saturday-alaska-progressive-blog_09.html

Phil Munger

 

A Conversation with Jeremy Lansman (2006)

Dr. John Anderson (formerly of Brooklyn College).

https://www.diymedia.net/a-conversation-with-jeremy-lansman/

diymedia_tu6dox Posted on October 13, 2006 Categories Community RadioTags jeremy lansman

 

Tweaking the Culture - Renegade Broadcaster Jeremy Lansman (2004)

Scott Christiansen 

Anchorage Press, September 1, 2004

 

Push to Digital -  City’s Network Affiliated TV stations make the switch (2005)

Tim Bradner

Anchorage Daily News, September 4, 2005.

 

7. Radio Activism and the first “Franken-FM”

 

Pete Tridish:

“In 1999 Jeremy started advising activists hoping to create Low power FM radio service. He counseled a bunch of us aspiring radio engineers who, betweeen us, worked on hundreds of radio stations.  The controversy over whether our small new signals would cause interference led  Jeremy to experiment with an unused channel 6 tv license in Anchorage that he had. He used the 87.75 audio carrier to launch  KZND, the first “Franken-FM “ station.  He used the equipment lying around the shop and a “useless for video, but, fine for audio”  TV license he had lying around his office to start a  “ not legal, but also not illegal” radio station. On the video, he just had still images unrelated to the audio of the station.  There were no interference complaints or issues.  About 20 other TV stations with useless  followed his example around the country when they saw that he got away with building an FM station without an FM license.  These stations were recently grandfathered into permanent legal status.  

 

Jeremy also flew to several radio barnraisings, where we would gather hundreds of aspiring radio participants, and we ould build a new radio station over the course of the weekend.  He came to our first event in Deale, Maryland,  to WXOJ in Florence, Massachussets, and maybe one or two more.  

 

I will mention that when he heard that Jeremy was coming to our first radio barnraising to help engineer,  Benn Kobb said “ Jeremy Lansman coming to help engineer your new  radio station is like JImi Hendrix coming to sit in and play guitar with your new garage  band!!!” 

 

In Cairo, 2012, we conducted workshops in transmitter building, antenna building and audio with pro-democracy activists.  There were no grants, the work was volunteer, the equipment was cheap and our plane tickets were paid for by an anonymous friend”.

 

Jeff Cotton:

 

“In 2007, when it came time to file for my first NCE-FM (KDUP), it was Jeremy that gave me the confidence to go for it. Since then, our perpetually pennyless company (Open Sky Radio Corp. dba: Jiveradio.org) has built & licensed 13 NCE-FM's and two LPTV stations. Out of the 13 FM's, 9 are still on the air and 4 of those have been turned over to local nonprofits that are currently self-sustaining vibrant hubs of community media. All but one have remained secular. I'm sure Coach Lansman would be proud.”

 

 

8. Jeremy’s interest in keeping public life open and thriving

 

Steve Aufrecht’s blogs about Jeremy:

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

 

The Corporate State Of Alaska - And Now GCI and ACS Officially Create AWN

https://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-corporate-state-of-alaska-and-now.html

​

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Phil Tells the Jeremy Lansman Story - Part I

All I can say is thanks Phil for writing this for me. I'll just add that Jeremy is this eccentric genius whose garage is full of electronic equipment and who cobbles together antennas from parts he scavanges or if necessary buys at plumbing stores. He's got a wicked sense of humor and a highly evolved sense of right and wrong. I should have written this probably, but I'm glad Phil did. Here, from Progressive Alaska, is an excerpt. Click the title for the rest:

https://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/search?q=lansman

Monday, May 04, 2009

CC Back on the Air - At Least Today at 5 on KWMD

Progressive talk show host Camille Conte (CC) was let go last week from KUDO. Phil discusses that story in his account of the changes at KUDO.

But today, for one more show, CC will be back on the air. KWMD is a community FM radio station run mostly by Jeremy Lansman. Jeremy is a national hero to people who know about community radio. Phil's blog covers a lot of topics and here's his piece on Jeremy from November 2007. Also, if I understood it right, Cary Carrigan may also be on. He too was let go from KUDO.

 

https://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/search?q=lansman

 

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Local Anchorage TV Station Fights Citizens United With Free Airtime For Candidates

Jeremy Lansman, the owner of KYES television in Anchorage, and, from what I can tell, one of the few independent and locally owned television stations in the country, sent out emails to candidates yesterday.  He emailed those candidates running for the legislature who have emails listed with the Alaska Division of Elections.

Jeremy is a friend of mine and the information for this post comes from conversations and emails, including a Skype chat I recorded Monday evening July 16, which you can listen to below.

Essentially, as I understand this, each candidate can make video spots of 30 seconds.   Jeremy is allocating 10% of his ad time to this project. That comes to about two per hour.  If he has two candidates send him videos, that air time will be divided by the two equally.  If 30 respond, the available space will be divided evenly among all 30 of them.

 

https://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/search?q=lansman