New Directions Radio

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The author of this column, who has been writing for MOTHER since 1973, is the inventor of slow-scan television … a method of amateur radio transmission that allows ham operators to both hear and see each other during shortwave broadcasts.

Some of the most active, down-home electronics folks anywhere can be found at The Farm … the successful intentional community of 1,300 people which was founded, back in 1971, by Stephen Gaskin and friends. In fact, radio and electronics have played important roles in the development of the Summertown, Tennessee settlement right from the beginning.

At first, though, such activity was limited to the use of ham and CB radio for keeping in touch with The Farm Band when it was on the road . . . contacting friends in sister communities elsewhere in North America . . . and providing communication within The Farm itself. At some point, however, the community’s licensed hams, who came to be known as “the radio crew”, began to broaden their range of activities.

CENTRAL AMERICAN CONCERNS
When the 1976 earthquake hit Guatemala, a number of persons from The Farm went down to help that nation’s people rebuild their lives. (This was the beginning of PLENTY . . . The Farm’s relief organization that’s currently active in Lesotho and Haiti.) Hams from the radio crew went, too, and during the next few years enabled community members in Guatemala to stay in touch with those back home. Furthermore, the hams started seeing ways in which the natives of the area could make good use of radio technology, so The Farm folks helped the locals start their own broadcasting station, and set up a health and safety radio network to connect a number of villages in the Lake Atitlán area with a clinic on the lakeshore.

  • Published on May 1, 1982
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