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Citizens Radio ReviewCommunity radio and low-power FM, explained

On the air

Community radio studio console at night with a mixer full of lit channel faders, an amber VU meter glow and headphones resting on the desk

An independent magazine of community radio

The people’s band, from 92.1 to 107.9

Citizens Radio Review follows low-power FM and the stations around it: how a 100-watt signal is licensed, what the FCC rules mean in plain language, where community radio came from, and how it carries on online through podcasts and emergency alerts.

2026 edition · Stations · Rules · History · Podcasts · Emergency

On the air

  1. 01

    Stations Near You

    Finding the local, licensed and often tiny stations hiding between the commercial signals.

  2. 02

    Start a Station

    From a founding group to a construction permit: the paperwork and the buildout, step by step.

  3. 03

    LPFM Rules Made Simple

    The rulebook of low-power FM, translated from regulatory English into plain sentences.

  4. 04

    Radio History

    Armstrong’s band, the pirates, the listener-sponsored experiment and the law that finally licensed the small signals.

  5. 05

    Podcast Corner

    The online afterlife of community programming, from RSS enclosures to hyperlocal feeds.

  6. 06

    Emergency Broadcasting

    EAS, weather wires and the night the schedule stops mattering.

01-06The six desks of the magazine

Six doors into the same dial, from the neighborhood signal to the alert chain.

  1. Round receiver dial lit in a dim room with the red tuning needle resting near the top of the FM band and a lamp behind it

    01

    Stations Near You

    Finding the local, licensed and often tiny stations hiding between the commercial signals.

  2. Volunteers wiring a small broadcast studio with a mixer on a folding table, coiled microphone cables and a hand written channel plan taped to the wall

    02

    Start a Station

    From a founding group to a construction permit: the paperwork and the buildout, step by step.

  3. Open federal rulebook beside a hand drawn diagram of two radio towers and a ruler marking the distance between their channels on a desk

    03

    LPFM Rules Made Simple

    The rulebook of low-power FM, translated from regulatory English into plain sentences.

  4. Vintage valve radio chassis open on a workbench with glowing tubes, cloth covered wiring and a leather punch tool resting beside the chassis

    04

    Radio History

    Armstrong’s band, the pirates, the listener-sponsored experiment and the law that finally licensed the small signals.

  5. Two volunteers recording a talk show around a kitchen table microphone with coffee mugs, a laptop showing sound waves and a window with daylight behind them

    05

    Podcast Corner

    The online afterlife of community programming, from RSS enclosures to hyperlocal feeds.

  6. Battery radio and a weather radio receiver side by side on a shelf with a flashlight, spare batteries and a hand written phone tree taped to the wall

    06

    Emergency Broadcasting

    EAS, weather wires and the night the schedule stops mattering.

LOGThe program log

Every guide the magazine publishes, dated, from the six desks.

  1. Small town viewed from a water tower at golden hour with rooftops and playing fields spread below the antenna of a community radio station

    · LPFM Rules Made Simple

    What 100 watts buys on the FM dial

    One hundred watts is a light bulb with a license, and the size of its footprint is not an accident but the central promise of the low-power service.

  2. Wall calendar with a short week circled in amber marker beside a stack of prepared application binders and a computer screen showing a form in an office at night

    · Start a Station

    FCC application windows, explained

    The strangest feature of the LPFM world is its calendar: you cannot apply when you are ready, only when the FCC opens a window, and the winners are almost always the groups that prepared during the closed years.

  3. Scored application worksheet with tally marks beside a framed community charter and a small scale model of a radio mast on a meeting room table

    · LPFM Rules Made Simple

    The FCC point system made simple

    The point system is the FCC’s answer to a simple question: when several communities’ groups chase one frequency, which of them is most the community’s own?

  4. Folded frequency map, application notes and a compass on a community hall table surrounded by folding chairs and stacked volunteer name tags

    · Start a Station

    Start an LPFM station: the full roadmap

    Between a kitchen table full of interested people and a licensed 100-watt signal lies one application, one point race and one buildout, and every step of that road can be prepared before the filing window opens.

  5. Engineering sketch of concentric protection circles around two broadcast towers with a compass, protractor and penciled frequency notes on drafting paper

    · LPFM Rules Made Simple

    Protections, offsets and shared dial space

    The FM band is a geometry problem: every new signal must prove it will not hurt its neighbors, and the FCC’s spacing rules decide where a 100-watt station may legally stand.

  6. Compact volunteer studio with a secondhand mixing desk, two dynamic microphones on simple booms, a laptop and a handwritten equipment price list pinned to the wall

    · Start a Station

    Building a studio on a community budget

    The transmitter is one purchase among many, and rarely the trickiest: a workable low-power station is built from patient shopping, donated rooms and a budget that respects the license clock.

  7. Volunteer editing a recorded interview on a laptop with headphones around her neck beside a broadcast mixer and a folder of episode notes in a small studio

    · Podcast Corner

    Turning a station into a podcast workshop

    A station that treats every broadcast as a recording gains a second audience that never touches the dial, and the studio it already owns is most of the way there.

  8. Kitchen radio receiving a slightly noisy local broadcast beside a mug and an open window onto a small town main street in early evening light

    · Stations Near You

    What a 100-watt station sounds like

    A low-power signal has a texture of its own: strong at the center of town, noisy at the county line, and programmed with a freedom no ratings-driven operator would dare.

  9. Newspaper technology column open on a wooden table beside early white earbuds tangled around a small music player from the mid two thousands

    · Podcast Corner

    How the podcast got its name

    The medium was older than its name, the name was a joke that stuck, and both facts tell you everything about how community audio actually spreads.

  10. Handbuilt transmitter board with homemade coil and soldered wiring on a workbench beside a licensed station certificate in a frame and a pair of pliers

    · Radio History

    From pirate transmitters to LPFM licenses

    The low-power FM service was not a government idea. It was the government’s answer to a decade of illegal transmitters that kept turning themselves back on.

  11. Nineteen fifties volunteer reception desk with a donation jar of coins, stacked listener letters, a wall poster of a radio mast and a green glass desk lamp

    · Radio History

    Pacifica and listener-sponsored radio

    Before LPFM, before public radio, a small group of pacifists in Berkeley invented the business model community broadcasting still runs on: the listeners pay, so the listeners decide.

  12. Vintage 1930s radio laboratory workbench with brass instruments, coiled wire, an oscilloscope style tube and a schematic sheet lit by a green shaded lamp

    · Radio History

    Armstrong and the invention of FM

    Every 100-watt station on the dial owes its existence to one stubborn engineer who proved that static was not inevitable, and who paid for the proof with everything he had.

  13. Volunteer broadcasting by lantern light during a storm blackout with a battery radio, a laptop on reduced brightness and a laminated checklist clipped to the console

    · Emergency Broadcasting

    A community station’s storm playbook

    When the warning sounds, the smallest station in town may be the only media outlet still running on generator power and volunteer nerve, and the difference is a playbook written on a calm day.

  14. Student operator in a college studio leaning toward a microphone with a music log open, campus posters on the wall and dusk light through the window blinds

    · Stations Near You

    Campus radio and the reserved band

    The bottom of the FM band was set aside for education before most of the rest of the dial was filled, and the college stations that grew there shaped what American community radio sounds like.

  15. Weather radio receiver with its warning light glowing amber on a shelf above a broadcast console, a city under storm clouds visible through the window

    · Emergency Broadcasting

    The Emergency Alert System for beginners

    The attention signals on your radio during a tornado warning are the third generation of a system built against nuclear war, and community stations sit closer to its front line than any network.

  16. Hand on the tuning wheel of a wooden cabinet radio at dusk, warm dial lamp glowing over the FM scale with county fields visible outside the window

    · Stations Near You

    How to find a community station on the dial

    Every county in America has more radio on it than the commercial logos suggest, and finding a low-power community station is mostly a matter of knowing where on the dial and in which database to look.

  1. Long community work table covered with a frequency map, application papers, a microphone and a small transmitter board under warm lamp light

    Start an LPFM station: the full roadmap

    The resource the magazine was built around: finding an open channel, surviving the point race, building out inside the permit clock and going live on 100 honest watts.

    Desk 02 · Start a Station

Citizens Radio Review is written from the listening side of the dial: we follow the stations, the rules and the people, we keep the numbers real, and every guide links back to the desk that explains it. Start with the magazine’s method on the about page, take the whole story from the roadmap in Start an LPFM station, or compare the fastest route to the signal in the filing window guide.