Freies Radio für StuttgartFreies Radio für Stuttgart

When the regional authority tendered non-commercial frequencies in 1993 it found room for Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Ulm and four others, and none for Stuttgart. The initiative ran test transmissions anyway — 100 watts from a Telekom building near the lowest point of the basin, stereo only within sight of the Hauptbahnhof. It went on air properly in September 1996 from the cellar of a house on Falbenhennenstraße, and six weeks later the public broadcaster threatened a ten-thousand-mark penalty over the name, which is why there is a für in it.

The signal now leaves the chimney of the Münster incinerator at 300 watts on 99.2, which still leaves the west and south of the city thin. Around two hundred unpaid producers fill it: Chillfester has been Stuttgart's hip-hop hour since 2000, Black vibes'n tunes runs Afro through reggae, Armonii clasice covers classical in German and Romanian, and Atonale Strategien starts when the day ends.