To my neighbors, I must look like a call girl or a crack dealer. It just isn't normal to have visitors stopping by at precise two-hour intervals and to have music throbbing for 14 hours each day. My friends think I'm crazy for opening my house to a bunch of strangers and allowing them to play whatever records they want at a sometimes outrageous volume, especially when they bring in a few people and at least as many six-packs.

I've loved music for the greater part of my life- shoot me, but I love Van Halen- and I had worked at a couple of stations after college before I decided I wanted one of my own. I was working as a legal secretary when I met with a radio/First Amendment attorney to inquire about purchasing an FM frequency. The lawyer leaned back in his leather chair and, peering at me from behind wire-rimmed glasses, asked about my finances. It didn't take him long to realize I had none. He then quietly informed me that stations in San Fransisco cost approximately $20 million. I had heard that this attorney worked with microradio operators, defending their constitutional right to broadcast. So I asked him about a hippie anarchist named Stephen Dunifer.

Dunifer is the only microradio operator I know of who actually wanted to get caught. Politically motivated, he has been challenging the FCC's regulatory authority in federal District Court for almost three years now- and winning. I managed to contact him in Berkeley, Calif. He sold me a transmitter kit, and one of his assistants, Chris, helped me assemble it. All told, it would take Chris and me four months of soldering wires, sawing copper pipe and hauling coaxial cable to get the station together. I even ended up having to build an 11-legged table to put the equipment on. Don't laugh- it's just about the only thing in the studio that hasn't broken in two-plus years.