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Christopher Maxwell is setting up a soundboard in a donated RV, from which he hopes to broadcast. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Christopher Maxwell plans to build a studio in this donated RV to have more options for where to broadcast a new low-power station in Midlothian. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Christopher Maxwell is back on the air. The community activist who helped launch low-power radio in Richmond with WRIR 97.3 FM is working on five limited-range frequencies in Virginia and Maryland, including a new station in Midlothian. We caught up with the intrepid Maxwell, who is still recovering from surgery related to prostate cancer, to talk about these new neighborhood-first radio projects.
Richmond magazine: How many functioning and broadcasting low-power stations are there in the U.S.?
Christopher Maxwell: More than 750 new low-power FM (LPFM) community radio stations have been licensed since 2014, according to the Federal Communications Commission. This has nearly doubled the total number to more than 1,500 LPFM stations across the U.S. and its territories. As of the beginning of 2016, around 100 applications were still in process.
RM: What are you doing to help the five low-power stations?
Maxwell: I did the outreach in 2013 to find groups interested in applying to have community radio for their areas. Then I did the engineering and applying to the FCC website. Then I have consulted on how to choose spaces and programming.
RM: When will these new stations come online?
Maxwell: Takoma Park, Maryland, is on the air now; Kilmarnock is seeking a new space; I just went down to Portsmouth last week to review its potential studio space; and I need to check in with Floyd. Last I heard, they had a space for the studio and were working on a different place for the transmitter. In Midlothian, we have lost agreements on three spaces and are now seeking a fourth. We just had an RV donated to us, so we are working toward building a studio into the RV to give us options of more places to start the station. We need about $10,000 to get easily on air ASAP.
RM: Are these new stations going to be like WRIR — a mixture of news and music — or will they have different kinds of programming?
Maxwell: Each station has a different atmosphere to work in. I suspect the Floyd station will be more like WTJU in Charlottesville and the Portsmouth station more like WRIR. The Kilmarnock station will probably be more like what you saw on [the TV series] "Northern Exposure," as they don't have any local stations there. The Midlothian station will be a whole different animal. WRWK-LP 93.9 FM, "The Work," is going to be a station with rhythmic instrumentals ... a moving meditation, a danceable track to help you get into the flow of doing whatever you need to do to become you. Then at night, we will have live call-in talk shows, neighbor meeting neighbor. We will stress helping people find each other and build bridges across the city and county divide. Basically “The Work” is the complement of WRIR, not competition.
RM: Why is establishing low-power radio stations important?
Maxwell: Egypt has shown us that governments can and will shut down the Internet ... but they can't shut down the ether that carries the FM signal. The FM signal is more reliably available in cars and during emergencies, and it's easily available to more people simultaneously than on the Web. Furthermore, storms take out the Internet very easily.
RM: You also helped to kick-start the Richmond Hostel. How is that going?
Maxwell: Pretty well. I still plan to build a studio into the hostel and invite people from Richmond to jam with visitors from all over the world, record some of those jam sessions and put them on air on whatever stations will host the music. This way, people from Richmond make personal connections with creatives from all over the world!
RM: Talk about your recovery from cancer.
Maxwell: Evidence suggests that I still have it, albeit at a much lower quantity ... than previous to the October 2015 surgeries. I'm working on trying various protocols of minerals, vitamins and amino acids that are thought to help the immune system find and fight the cancer with my own internal systems. Right about the first of next year, I'm due for another blood test, so we shall see. Now with the election of [Donald Trump] and the very likely cancellation or fatal wounding of Obamacare, I may have to choose between trying to emigrate to a saner country with functioning health care or staying here to fight the good fight as long as I can survive with negligible health care.
For more on the planned WRWK-LP 93.9 FM in Midlothian, go to facebook.com/TheWorkFM.
