Now that the FCC has identified Marshall Jones as operating a radio station without a license, he is telling his story to Erie’s mainstream media.
Last night on WJET/WFXP, John Treanor reported a package on Jones where they showed that he continues to operate the station with a computer, some microphones and a transmitter connected to a small mast at the top of a building in Erie’s Little Italy neighborhood. Despite the possiblity of major penalties, Treanor reports that Jones is determined to continue with 90.1 The Movement:
But Jones, a former Super Soul Saturday DJ, tells us he can’t stop – if he’s not on air, a whole genre would disappear in the city.
“The question always remained, why don’t we have this 24 hours a day, what do we have to do to do it and basically I went ahead and said let’s see what happens, you know what I mean,” says Jones…
…Jones is staying on air as long as he can before getting fined – his dream is to make the movement legal.
“I have to I have to go forward and see what it is that has to be done to make this happen,” Jones says.
This morning (Thursday), David Bruce continues his reporting on the pirate radio stations in the Times-News, complete with pictures of Jones’s operation. Bruce describes the chain of events leading to the sign-on:
A club disc jockey and former announcer at Gannon University’s WERG-FM, Jones said that he started broadcasting in October because there wasn’t enough urban music being played in Erie.“Blacks, whites, Hispanics all had a major concern about the type of music played in Erie 24/7,” Jones said. “It was my mission to get this station up and running.”Jones said that he started broadcasting at the low-frequency limits, then increased power.“The response from people was so strong that I just turned it up,” Jones said. “Then someone ratted me out to the FCC.”One problem was that Jones’ signal was intruding on the signals of other, licensed, radio stations, said A.J. Miceli, who oversees WERG as Gannon University’s chairman of theater, communications and fine arts.

February 18th, 2010
joel
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Deep Background for February 21-27, 2010
Ask any blogger that gets even marginal readership; you are bound to get called some names or just deal with some weird stuff. Come to think of it, weirdness is attracted to all media like metal shavings to that bald guy’s head in that old 5 & 10 game we used to have when we were kids.
One pirate radio listserv dude called P&T “FCC-loving” and “bootlicking.” That’s too funny! FCC obeying, yes. Loving? Not even a slight attraction.
Like most bloggers, I use a program to block comment spam (I’ve received over 12,000 spam comments since the beginning). Sometimes the creativity used to try to get past the spam filter is quite cute. Favorite of the week: “Gday thanks regarding your page. I truly adore your web page. Its really informative.” I know I might be adorable, but adoring the P&T…really?
Leave your adorable comments in the space below (no spam please) or through e-mail or tweet @pressandtower.
By the way, if you think you been following me for several months now, make sure you still are following @pressandtower for media tweets. I run two Twitter feeds now, changing my old account to @JoelNatalie for all around professional and personal tweets, and creating a new @pressandtower just for the media stuff. Sorry about any confusion.
Embrace the chaos!