AIR AMERICA: RADIO FREE AMERICA

[genius]

This is a great review of the station. Someone should forward it to the Al Franken - if they have his email address.

AIR AMERICA: GENUINE RADIO FREE AMERICA
by Natasha H. (age 12)


"Farther to the left than the House Un-American Activities Committee."

Long ago in a world that existed before this writer was born, people living in a place which was known as "Behind the Iron Curtain" did not have a lot of choices for information. Those running their governments, people our country called "bad guys," were in charge of what information was disseminated through radio stations, TV stations and newspapers. In an effort to help those "Behind the Iron Curtain" (hereinafter called Behind) find out about what those not "Behind the Iron Curtain" (hereinafter called Not) felt the Behind people were missing, the Not people started broadcasting something called "Radio Free Europe." Radio Free Europe reportedly went right over this Iron Curtain and, in hearing it, the Behind people supposedly became more aware of what they were missing and thereby more free.

In the years since Radio Free Europe started broadcasting, the Behind people got more freedom and rights as the Not people became less free and lost rights so corporations in the Not countries could make more money. In a place that had coined the term "The Land of the Free," that title became more of a slogan and less related to reality as mega-corporations took over the newspapers, TV stations and radio stations and limited the news received by people in this "Land of the Free" to information which only tricked them into making the corporate executives more rich and more powerful.

...

Suddenly at noon on March 31, 2004, to the nightmare of the information-controllers, the voice of truth broke through the "Corporate Curtain of Lies." Air America was here.

No-fly lists suppressing travel rights of people not kissing the feet of the guy who lost an election and stole the government in "The Land of the Free" did not deter the brave hosts of Air America. The risk of being detained as enemy (of falsehood) combatants without charges or rights also did not prevent these daring people from pursuing the truth. Superman, Spiderman and Batman have nothing on these people when it comes to courage. Inviting right-wing liars to sue him, Al Franken opened Air America with "The O'Franken Factor" drug-free radio. The "O'Franken Factor" is nothing like the truth-free fantasies presented by a right-winger with a similar title. During the first three days on "The O'Franken Factor", Al Franken's and Katherine Lanpher's long list of prestigious guests included Bob Kerrey, Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton and Richard Clarke.

...

http://debateusa.com/featured/hull_richter.htm

[genius]

1. Franken had John Kerry on today

I understand the station has the right-wingers pretty scared.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. It does! Afterall, Reich-Wingers do NOT believe in......

America and the freedoms that it offers.

[RobertDevereaux]

3. Can't wait...

for this station to be available in northern Colorado!

[shihtzu5]

4. Got Broadband?

Or DSL? Steams nicely and you can use a baby monitor to hear all over the house (even in the yard).

[Nicholas_J]

5. I am listening over dial up....

But I have enough memory in my computer so that I do not get any pauses in the programs.

But I am seriously thinking about going out and picking up an XM radio.
Does anyone herehave experience with using them from home?

Listening to them in a store that has an optimal antenna set up might not be indicative of how well they sound from home. I do have a south facing window, but do not know if the antenna must be placed on the exterior of the window, or can be placed on the glass on the inside of the window , and so avoid having to run a wire under or over the window sills.

I have been waiting for Eton/Grundig to release its new E1/XM radio which is a table top unit which has AM/FM Shortwave and Digital Radio/XM bands available. It was shown at the recent Consumer Electionics Show in Las Vegas, and the price was supposed to be released by March, but then they put it off until mid year.

I think the set up for XM units is obscene, having to buy the receiver, which is useless without either a home connection to connect it to a home stereo through the RCA jacks. or buy the boombox unit. Both options cost as either as much as or almost as much as the receiver itself. The Grundig unit is inclusive, has everything you need to listen to all of the bands and Grundig radios are nototious for having exceptionally good sound. Their 50th Anniverary model which is a wooden radio with four speakers sounds almost as good as the Bose Wave Radio and has inpout jacks for CD players. The Grundig Satellit 700 had reception that matched that of a high end stereo receiver and had RCA line out jacks to hook up to a stereo amplifier.
I wasnt very impressed with the XM radio boombox unit but am less impressed with the home attachement for the XM receiver wich costs 50-60 dollars and consists of a plastic cradle so the unit and wires to to attacke the unit to a stereos RCA input jacks. But I like the fact that you can get Air America and the BBC 24 hours a day and the BBC sounds a lot better than it does on shortwave even at the best of times, since the BBC stopped its North American Broadcasts, wehich means at best on shortwave you can only pick up the BBC for 6 hours a day.

Anyway, any suggestions about XM?

[1971]

6. AAR on XM and Sirius SatRad

You can also get AAR via Sirius Satellite Radio (begining April 19th I think - SIRI pr news Apr5).

I'm itching to get a Sirius sat radio -- they already have a "Sirius Left - Left Wing Talk" program station, then add AAR this mo., and they have similar news shows as XM but also NPR and C-SPAN.

Here's a link where somebody has listed a comparison between the different SatRad units (most comparing Sirius radios, but a couple are XM)

http://pnp-features.brocato.net/

EDIT:
found that link from here:

Post subject: Feature Comparison (SIRIUS PNP Tuners)

http://siriusbackstage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3116&sid=3c4d9df7eb9416737a22461f49c9f04a

[Nicholas_J]

7. I dont think Sirius

Gets the BBC though, which I find has better news than Air America, plus has a lot of other interesting broadcasts.

[1971]

9. Sirius gets BBC + tons more...

http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/CachedPage&c=Page&cid=1065475754139

Sirius Satellite Radio

NEWS

Stream Listing

CNBC
Bloomberg Radio
CNN Headline News
FOX News Channel
NPR Now
NPR Talk
PRI Public Radio International
Weather Channel Radio National
Weather Channel Radio East
Weather Channel Radio Central
Weather Channel Radio West
C-SPAN Radio
BBC World Service News
World Radio Network

[Nicholas_J]

12. They just came out with a relatively cheap unit for XM

For as little as 49.95 you get a unit to plug into your computer through the USB port and put the antenna inside a south facing window (in fact in some cases all you need is to put it up near a south facing wall inside your house or apartment), load softwares that acts as the tuner for the unit, and receive the satellite signal thhrough the computer's audio system without using the Internet connection. Only trouble is that you have have the computer turned on to listen to the radio, but if you are already listening over the Internet, that should be no problem. XM also has a lot more local repeaters than Sirius so you may not even need to point the antenna south if you are near a repeater. That fixse my concerns about the expense of the thing, as fifty dollars is really cheap for a computer based receiver. THe cheapest sortwave units for computer run a hundred bucks. AM going to have to look into this.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

8. mp3 archives of Franken & Majority Report

http://69.6.218.87/home.htm

Now I won't end up staying up waaaaay too late listening to Janeane (!).

[genius]

10. The sound just went out again as they were about to replay Kerry

I wonder if the Bush creatures are messing with the Internet.

[oasis]

11. Over here too. I thought it was my equipment.