Lorenzo Wilson Milam, born on August 2, 1933, in

Jacksonville Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

, Florida; died on July 19, 2020, in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico, was an American writer and activist who was instrumental in starting many of the first listener-supported

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial broadcasting, commercial and public broadcasting. Community broadcasting, Community stations serve geographic communities and communities o ...

stations in the United States, beginning with

KRAB Krab or KRAB may refer to: * Krab (surname) * Crab stick, or krab, processed seafood * Russian submarine ''Krab'' * AHS Krab, a Polish 155 mm self-propelled howitzer * KRAB, a radio station in Greenacres, California, U.S. * KRAB, a former r ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

in 1962.

Early life

In 1952, at age 19, he was diagnosed with polio. His sister died of the disease on December 29, 1952, but Milam's case was milder and he was able to walk with crutches after one year. This and the aftermath are described in his autobiographical book "The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues."

Community radio

Milam is credited with helping start 14 stations from the early 1960s through late 1970s. He got his start in radio volunteering in 1958–1959 at Lew Hill's

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is a public, listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed o ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. He used a $15,000 inheritance to buy a small FM transmitter in 1959 and spent the next 3 years seeking a broadcasting license "anywhere in the US" from the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC), which assigned him a frequency in Seattle, 107.7FM. With the help of volunteer engineer Jeremy Lansman he was able to get his antique

Collins Radio Rockwell Collins, Inc. was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio ...

transmitter on the air in 1962, creating the station KRAB. Milam and Lansman later assisted in the creation of community radio stations around the country, starting in 1968 with KBOO (1968-1971) in Portland; KTAO (1968-1974); KDNA (St. Louis) 1969-72;

KPOO KPOO (89.5 FM) is a community radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States. The station is owned by Poor People's Radio. It broadcasts from a building in the Fillmore district. Poor People's Radio was conceived of and nam ...

(1972-) San Francisco;, KCHU, 1975-77; KFAT (1975-1983) Gilroy, California;

WORT Wort () is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whisky. Wort contains the sugars, the most important being maltose and maltotriose, that will be Ethanol fermentation, fermented by the brewing yeast to prod ...

(Madison, Wisconsin); WRFG 89.3 FM (Atlanta, Georgia); KOPN 89.5 FM (Columbia, Missouri); KZUM 89.3 FM (Lincoln, Nebraska). The ''KRAB Nebula'', was a tape exchange, using quarter-inch audio tape sent to stations, sharing programs. According to David Armstrong in ''A Trumpet to Arms: Alternative Media in America'', "Milam's passion for community radio--and 1.1 million from the sale of a second station, KDNA-St.Louis, to commercial broadcasters in 1973--led him to become a veritable Johnny Appleseed of community radio."

Sex and Broadcasting

Milam authored the 1971 book ''Sex and Broadcasting, A Handbook on Starting a Radio Station for the Community''.

The "godless" petition

In December 1974, Milam and Jeremy Lansman, both radio broadcast consultants in California, sent a petition,

RM-2493 RM-2493 was the title of a rule-making proposal made to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1974. It has since been the subject of an ongoing urban legend (sometimes being called Petition 2493). Origin In 1974, Jeremy Lansman and Lorenz ...

to the

asking for a freeze on new licenses for educational television and radio channels, and an investigation into religious broadcasters. Although the agency did not consider the petition (on First Amendment grounds), the FCC received over a million letters, about 3,000 per day for many months, protesting the petition, the largest number of letters that the FCC has ever received on an issue.

The Fessenden Review

Milam published 13 issues of the print publication

The Fessenden Review ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The' ...

between 1985 and 1989. Content was eclectic to an extreme degree, and as likely to confound readers as to amuse them. Issues were released at successively longer intervals as finances dwindled, and later issues were irregularly numbered. Milam hoped that anyone chancing upon a copy at a newsstand would assume it was the current issue and buy it, and that confused dealers would be less likely to identify culls.

Ralph (journal)

Milam, as Publisher/Editor, produced 294 online issues, 1994-2019, of the online publication RALPH: The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities.

Books and publications

(''this list is incomplete'') *Milam, Lorenzo W. The Myrkin Papers. Bellevue, Wash: Duck Press, 1969. *Milam, Lorenzo W
Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Radio and Television (Which Your Friendly Local Broadcaster Would NEVER Tell You...)

The Realist ''The Realist'' was a magazine of "social-political-religious criticism and satire", intended as a hybrid of a grown-ups version of ''Mad'' and Lyle Stuart's anti-censorship monthly ''The Independent.'' Edited and published by Paul Krassner, ...

. 1971.

Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American writer and satirist. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in t ...

, Editor *Milam, Lorenzo W. Sex and Broadcasting **Milam, Lorenzo W. Sex and Broadcasting. 1971, Saratoga, CA: Dildo Press 36 pages **Milam, Lorenzo W. Sex and Broadcasting. 1972 73 pages **Milam, Lorenzo W
Sex and Broadcasting: A Handbook on Starting a Radio Station for the Community
Los Gatos, Calif.: Dildo Press, 1975. **Milam, Lorenzo W. The Original Sex and Broadcasting: A Handbook on Starting a Radio Station for the Community. San Diego, CA: Mho & Mho Works, 1988. **Milam, Lorenzo W. Sex and Broadcasting. 2017 *Milam, Lorenzo W. The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues. San Diego, CA: Mho & Mho Works, 1984.
The Fessenden Review
(as Publisher/Editor: 13 issues) Circa 1988-1994 * *The Lourdes of Arizona (as Carlos A. Amantea), 1989 **The Lourdes of Psychotherapy : The 1985 Evolution of Pscyhotherapy Conference Revealed, 2005 Limited Edition *The Blob That Ate Oaxaca and Other Travel Tales (as Carlos Amantea) 1992 *Milam, Lorenzo W. Cripzen: A Manual for Survival. San Diego, CA: Mho & Mho Works, 1993. *RALPH: The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities (as Publisher/Editor; 294 online issues), 1994-2019 *Gallant, Jonathan A, and Lorenzo W. Milam. Gringolándia: A Guide for Puzzled Mexicans. San Diego, CA: Mho & Mho Works, 1997. *A Cricket in the Telephone (At Sunset): Poems from the Fessenden Review (as Lolita Lark, editor), 1998 *Lorenzo Wilson Milam: Life Among The Walkies. San Diego, CA: Mho & Mho Works, 2018.

Notes

Links

KRAB Archive (Audio, program guides, photos, and history)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Milam, Lorenzo American broadcasters 1933 births 2020 deaths Polio survivors