One of the least examined aspects of Peoples Temple’s history was its relationship with the Federal Commiunications Commission (FCC). The relationship was also an important one: Jonestown’s only medium of direct and immediate communication with the outside world was through its HAM amateur radio; the Concerned Relatives oppositional group knew of the Temple’s use of its HAM radio – and of its misuses as well, such as conducting Temple business on its bandwidths – and alerted the FCC of the violations; and HAM operators around the US started reporting their own experiences with communications from Jonestown. With all these considerations in mind, history student and HAM operator Josef Dieckman launched a website to document all aspects of Jonestown radio. The site was active for several years in the first decade of the 2000s before going offline. This website has restored as much of the site as has been possible to do, and has archived it below.
Some of the links within these articles are no longer operational and have been disabled.
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| Although there were many people who operated the radios in Georgetown and Jonestown, there were only four official amateur radio license holders in Peoples Temple (Mike Carter had an amatuer radio license, but did not use it for Temple communicatiosn).Two, Elton Adams and Ben Bowers, were true hobbiests, while the other two holders were licensed for the benefit of the Temple. The following information appears as it did in a call book from Winter of 1978/79. Thanks to Stephan Melachrinos for looking these up. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Temple Amateur Radio Calls | ||||||||||||||||||||
| WB6MID (later /8R3) Albert A Touchette Conditional 3747 Rd -B- Redwood Valley CA 95470 WB6MNH (later /8R1) Paula J Adams Conditional 1664 Page St San Francisco CA 94117 |
WA6DTJ Benjamin F Bowers Advanced Box 4571 San Francisco CA 94101 WD6DVI Elton T Adams General 998 Divisidero Box 15023 San Francisco CA 94115 |
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