Engineer Pete Tridish is buried in wires. He’s sitting at a table at Hollow Earth Radio in the Central District, holding a soldering iron, surrounded by a tangle of cables, tiny screwdrivers, and duct tape—and eating half a taco wrapped in tin foil from the truck across the street. It looks like a mess.
“This? A mess? No. Wires are cooperative. They eventually bend to your will. But people… not so much,” he jokes.
Tridish describes himself as a radio engineer, media policy advocate, and troublemaker. His mission for the last 20 or so years has been to battle the radio powers that be (like the Federal Communications Commission and corporate-owned media) to help local communities take control of the airwaves.