coloRadiocoloRadio

coloRadio goes out from the Zentralwerk in Dresden-Pieschen on two transmitters that manage 150 watts between them — 50 from the Windberg above Freital, 100 from Gompitz — which buys it 98.4 and 99.3 MHz on weekday evenings and right through the weekend. DAB+ arrived in May 2023 and carries the programme round the clock as far out as Görlitz. The Radio-Initiative Dresden takes money from the city, the state and the EU, and writes nothing for any of them. The site is translated into five languages, Upper Sorbian included.

Everyone on air is a volunteer, and there are eight steps to becoming one: sketch the idea, read the Charta der Freien Radios, bring it to the monthly plenum, then cut a sixty-minute test broadcast, which the station reckons says more than a thousand words. The next plenum hands over a slot. After that come a studio key, field recorders to borrow and the run of the wiki.