It was on, it was off, it was on and now it's back off again. 
   Four days after securing a temporary order that put Air America, the liberal radio network launched last month, back on the air in Chicago after a major dustup with its local carrier, the network is going off the air once more.
   And that once more leaves New York as the only big market where Air America can be heard, putting in serious question the future of liberal radio unless it can find some new carriers in Chicago and Los Angeles quite quickly.
   Air America and Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, the company that owns the Chicago and Los Angeles stations where Air America had been transmitting until last week, were apparently unable to work out their differences after a week of heated squabbling.
   So now Air America is left searching for new stations in two of its top three markets (New York is its No. 1 market) less than a month after its March 31 launch.
   It also remains on air in six minor markets across the country, but Chicago and Los Angeles make up 37 percent of Air America’s potential audience, with a combined 17.9 million radio listeners between the two cities.
   Air America announced in a press release yesterday that it will remain on WNTD-AM in Chicago until April 30 and will remain off the air in Los Angeles. Many had expected that Air America would try to secure a similar temporary order getting it back on the air in LA as the financial disagreements between it and Multicultural were worked out.
   Although terms have apparently been agreed upon, nobody is saying much. But they obviously do not include carriage for Air America on either of those two stations.
   The only peep from Air America is a quote in the release by David Goodfriend, executive vice president and general counsel for the network. It reads, “We are pleased that we reached a negotiated settlement.” The entire release can be found in the press section Air America’s Web site at AirAmericaRadio.com.
   Gene Heinemeyer, New York general manager for Multicultural News Radio, the owner of the two stations in doubt, told the Chicago Tribune yesterday, “We've been vindicated. It was a dark day in radio for what they did.”
   Heinemeyer wouldn’t comment further, saying, “Part of our agreement is that we don’t talk about it anymore.”
   The “what they did,” according to Multicultural, was bounce a check and owe the company and owner Arthur Liu more than $1 million.
   Air America sharply denied the claims and said that in fact Multicultural had charged Air America for time it later sold to other stations, but last Wednesday Multicultural employees kicked Air America people out of their stations in Chicago and Los Angeles.
   Air America got a restraining order through a court in New York that restored the network’s signal in Chicago, and threatened to take further legal action to do the same in Los Angeles. But the settlement reached yesterday disallows it.