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Congress Considering More Low Power FM Stations
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Jun 21, 2007 06:36 PM
from the low-power-to-the-people dept.
from the low-power-to-the-people dept.
Skapare writes "According to this ReclaimTheMedia article, the Local Community Radio Act of 2007 (PDF) would remove the artificial restrictions imposed on LPFM by a 2000 law passed at the urging of corporate radio giants and NPR, claiming that small community stations would interfere with the signals of larger stations. If passed, this bill will pave the way for educational groups, nonprofits, unions, schools and local governments to launch new local radio stations across the country."
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Radio? (Score:2)
Re:Radio? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Radio? (Score:4, Funny)
Then it must be regulated! Can't let the public get out of hand. Better that they spend their money on items to express their personality than to express their discontent in a society that abuses them.
Parent
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This law is essential to undo the injustice of the 2000 law.
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Sometimes, you just want to turn on a station. Maybe you'll get talk. Maybe you'll get some new music, a local band putting out something. Maybe you'll even get a radio drama (I just finished producing one this semester).
But the idea is that, with radio, you and possibly a number of others near you are listening to the same thing. And that sense of commun
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Re:Radio? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ramsey Electronics will sell you a 50 watt LPFM Radio Station In A Box [ramseyelectronics.com] for $4000.
The price of a single high-end laptop. The non-profit may want to reach the audience that doesn't have dial-up service, much less WiFi or broadband cable: the poor, the elderly, the disabled, etc.
Parent
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The Ramsey unit is quite literally a commercial grade - FCC certified - station in a box.
50 Watt Output. CD-Recorder. Tascom CD-Dual Cassette Deck. Audio mixers. Studio microphone. Antenna. 100 Watt Stereo Amp for local PA. The whole nine yards. Shock-mounted. Dump it in the back of a truck. Set up anywhere.
The Tascom deck alone lists at $950.
Re:Radio? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Hey, guess what? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why FM radio is still a good option. And the transmitter for low power is pretty cheap, and no need to pay for expensive bandwith or whatnot, and as many people as there are locally who can tune it all get the same stream of talk or whatever, infinitely scalable, 100 to a million, as long as you are in range, you get the same thing everyone else can get.
Enough reasons?
Parent
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Also, Soundscan collects extra fees for any internet radio station that plays music, and is about to retroactively raise the rates, so internet radio stations with music aren't cheaper than true radio stations in the long run.
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RADIO WINS
Fallback (Score:3, Insightful)
I would also suggest that the radio is FAR more effective than the internet for reaching a geographically concentrated t
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A few reasons:
one example (Score:3, Informative)
yet.
Without reading the article I can conclusively state I'm behind every effort to expand private and low-power penetration of the airwaves.
Like the last translator invasion? (Score:4, Insightful)
No reason why that has to be. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it could be a boon for colleges and small organizations that might be interested in having a radio station, but that can't afford one currently because it's so expensive to get spectrum.
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Great... (Score:5, Funny)
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Eh, it's not like it worked well anyway. Might as well listen to small radio stations instead of being isolated within your own personal preferences.
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Good illustration of your point, however the value of a large mass communicating over public airwaves is more important in my mind than a person's use of those same public airwaves for their own individual use. This is certainly open to interpretation and discussion.
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I use an FM transmitter for a CD player in my car because I'm too cheap to buy a new stereo. Anyone who happens to be within its range, which is maybe 20 feet, is perfectly welcome to have a listen.
I would like to see a little bit reserved for such non-licensed radios. I've gone through the presets on my transmitter, and the only interference-free setting in this town is 87.7MHz. When I travel, that changes. I know the only real way to get spectrum is to shell out, but it would be nice t
Love mine (Score:4, Interesting)
Fuck Clear Channel.
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Oh, what the hell, Fsck Clear Channel !
Actually, I have a friend at Clear Channel, though he may not be after this.
Here in Houston we have KPFT [kpft.org] Pacific Radio and KUHF [kuhf.org] NPR.
Radio Libre! (Score:5, Funny)
They had a stand off with the authorities for a month before the cops finally got a court order and raided the house. Funny story, they had this weird guy who lived in the attic and saved all his pee in jars, so they booby trapped the place with jars of pee. Those were not happy cops that day, I'll tell you what. But the spirit of the place was broken, and Santa Cruz lost its pirate radio.
In San Francisco, the station I knew had an actual studio in the Labor Temple [noehill.com] right next to my IWW union office, and no one bothered them much. Heh, if you lived within five blocks of Mission and 16th, you might even have heard them. Woot! 30 whole watts of AWESOME POWER! Ah, good times, good times.
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That's awesome. Glad to hear it.
Down in Santa Cruz they had this micro-power radio station set up in the local anarchist house, which was also the main Food not Bombs house.
It seems anarchist houses are where many of the current pirate stations are run out of. All the more reason to donate money to them.
The FCC found out about it and came to try to bust them, but somehow they got word and skedaddled. No lie, they loaded up the station
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That's great to hear! We need to do a better job of coordinating and communicating because I'm sure many of us would love
Re:Radio Libre! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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There are several I know of, and they work quite well. They let homeless people sleep there, have a library, racks of free clothes for people who need them. Give people a place out of the elements.
There are some problems, like theft from drifters, but the value outweighs the issues in my mind.
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Um, by definition if you eschew the concept of property, then there cannot be "theft."
Reminds me of a student anarchist I met at one campus or another who explained earnestly that they hoped to dismantle the government and replace it with a better one.
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An anarchist does not want a government to exist, a communist does not want property to exist (as a concept). So in anarchism there can very well be theft there would simply be large group that defines what it is or tries to stop it. So in anarchism someone can very well claim that X is theirs but it simply falls on them to defend their own claim.
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Awww, come on. Don't enable them to steal our word! At least label us lefty-anarchists as Classical Libertarianism!
It's not a lost cause, it's only in America that they've managed to steal it. We can take it back!
LPFM does interfere (Score:2, Informative)
However WPHS interferes with "large" FM 88.7 CIMX broadcasts in an ~ 2 mile radius from the location of WPHS. When tuned to 88.7 FM CIMX , the static and interference from WPHS makes it impossible to listen to CIMX in the area. The inference is not isolated to 88.7 FM but extends to adjacent channels 88.5 - 89.9 FM and can be clearly heard in this entire spectr
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Re:LPFM does interfere (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
fox news reports (Score:5, Insightful)
Before trying to create the truth by repeating a lie, get the facts. In my market, on the fm dial, we have 3 general college radio stations. We have one left radio station, and two other college stations that are leftish. We have 3 christian radio stations. The other 20+ stations are commercial, I believe mostly owned by two or three enitites. At times over the past couple years, one could find 2 pairs of stations playing the same content. I do not think these stats are atypical.
The overcrowding of the FM dial is real. There are times when, at least on an analog tuner, it is difficult to distinguish a single station. NPR is not, with it's single station, or at most two, in each market, crowding the dial. What is crowding the dial is the relaxation of the ownership rules. While the summery touched on this with putting corporate radio first, the summary also implied that the problem will be solved by simplying allowing the airwaves to become more crowded.
This will not solve the problem. And while Fox news is not going to state the obvious solution, I will. Limit ownership of bandwidth to one station per entity. If the FCC wants to a vibrant radio dial, review the rules [fcc.gov] set 10 years ago. There is not reason why a single entity should ever own more that a couple stations in any market. Period. If that means the commercials stations drop precipitately, so be it. There are evidently operators out there biting at the bit, angry that they cannot get a place to play. Ownership rules will open up that space.
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Freedom is not why this bill is being pushed (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, pay close attention to how this bill is being written and who can actually get these stations and who can't. Democrats are going to push to make sure that their people get the stations, and Republicans need to be on their toes to make sure their people get theres. If you see things like city governments, universities, and public schools getting more stations (all traditionally liberal points), then the Democrats are playing games. If you see things like churches, local chambers of commerce, adult groups like the FreeMasons, or even gun clubs getting them, then you can bet that Republicans win.
If they compromise and everyone can get a station, then it is a good bill.
One problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
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You are likely thinking of television broadcasting. The FCC has slated February 17, 2009, though considering that the deadline had been pushed back several times previously, it would not surprise me if this gets pushed out again.
In band on channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcasting is already emerging in the larger markets. Basically, you can get a digital receiver and listen to your favorite radio station play all its programming, commercials and all, in CD quality audio. The only cost is the receiver.
Well, that's what they always say (Score:4, Insightful)
Who complains when it is the other way around? I remember when the campus station came on the air at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN and I could pick it up from a few miles away if I clicked "mono". Easy to remember because seven days later our MONSTER ROCKIN' HITS! 800-lb gorilla of a station activated their gazillion watt antenna on top of a 50 story building and the overloading in my receiver splattered harmonics across the band. No more Macalester for me so I'm inclined to suspect the big players just don't want to be bothered with being good neighbors on the airwaves.
I hope this doesn't derail the OTHER 'radio' bill. (Score:3, Insightful)