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Who owns radio's identity layer?
Every hybrid-radio receiver resolves a station through DNS before it shows a logo, a schedule, or now-playing art. This is a live count of which US stations hold that identity, and who is quietly registering the space on their behalf.
The state of the namespace
Registered vs. open, major US markets
Registered, a group already holds it
Open, the station can still claim it
Who holds the space
The addressable space, every band
FM
GCC-constrained bearers
The AM standard
Official RadioDNS defines no analog-AM bearer, so am.zerotrustradio.org becomes the neutral custodian standard: a namespace every licensed AM station can claim, tied to no network and no ideology. Each identity is structured exactly like FM, with the PI code computed from the call sign.
FM bearer10620.c460.ce1.fm.radiodns.org
AM bearer, same shape00780.1296.1a0.am.zerotrustradio.org
A neutral namespace, for the rest of radio
Your station's identity shouldn't belong to whoever registered it first.
Every licensed US station already has one here, a coded, DNSSEC-signed identity computed from its own FCC license, tied to no network and no ideology. Dormant until you claim it. Free, forever. This is the layer the consolidators can't corner: there's a first-class identity for every AM daytimer, every LPFM, every translator, the same as any national chain.
UndertowIQ vs. the incumbent, the honest scorecard
Dimensionfm.radiodns.orgUndertowIQ
US coverage8,404 scanned · 89% still openall 29,306 licensed · seededUndertowIQ
AM · LPFM · translatorsno AM bearer defined · sparsefully defined & seededUndertowIQ
Neutrality46.6% of registered held by religious networksheld by no one · free to claimUndertowIQ
Infrastructureestablished, well-run4 nameservers coast-to-coast · DNSSEC to root · transparentUndertowIQ
Receiver adoptionthe namespace real hybrid radios query todayresolves through to it · not yet in deployed receiversIncumbent
Governancethe official RadioDNS bodyan independent custodian, not officialIncumbent
The honest verdict: technically superior on the identity layer, broader, neutral, and the only one that even defines AM. The incumbent still owns the one thing that matters short-term: the namespace receivers actually query. So we take that back the only way a little guy can, one station at a time. We don't fork the standard; we resolve through to it and hand every station the identity it was already owed.