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Media

Low Power FM Report Rejects Interference Concerns 177

Posted by simoniker from the not-so-meddling-as-we-thought dept.
akb writes "Back in 2000, Slashdot covered the Low Power Radio setback by Congress, detailing a law which gutted an FCC initiative that would have created thousands of Low Power FM radio stations (LPFMs). Congress overruled the FCC, ostensibly because of interference concerns, and cut the number of stations from thousands to a few hundred, with hardly any in urban areas. A concession was made to allow a study of the interference caused by LPFMs, and that report has been released. The verdict: 'Based on the measurements and analysis reported herein, existing third-adjacent channel distance restrictions should be waived to allow LPFM operation at locations that meet all other FCC requirements, [with the exception of several minor technical requirements]'. There's more coverage at DIYmedia.net"
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Low Power FM Report Rejects Interference Concerns More

Low Power FM Report Rejects Interference Concerns

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  • Hrm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by I Like Swords!!! ( 668399 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:02PM (#6437850)
    Can just imagine if the interference was a problem...

    All those DJs going "Can you hear me now?" every five seconds.

    • Signal Bleed? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by metalligoth ( 672285 )
      The FCC screwed up FM from day one. Signal bleed on FM is .5 MHz, and the stations are all .2 MHz apart. I seriously doubt a bunch of low powered stations will make FM any worse than it already is.

      • Re:Signal Bleed? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zutroy ( 542820 )
        Where do they have stations that are .2 MHz apart? I think that's just the minimum interval between stations.

        • Re:Signal Bleed? (Score:3, Informative)

          by realdpk ( 116490 )
          Seattle area has that - 104.3, 104.5, 104.7, 104.9 . Just noticed that last night.

          • Re:Signal Bleed? (Score:5, Informative)

            by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:36PM (#6438129)
            Seattle area has that - 104.3, 104.5, 104.7, 104.9 . Just noticed that last night.

            What you're actually hearing as far as I can tell is:

            104.3 KAFE Bellingham
            104.5 KMIH Mercer Island
            104.7 KEEH Spokane
            104.9 KFNK Eatonvile

            And the distance between those four cities is kinda the point. You as a listener can hear all four stations pretty well in your car in Seattle, but none of the four actually have their transmitters there. If you were standing next to any of the four stations towers, you'd likely hear just that station and the other three would be wiped out by the .5 MHz signal bleed, combined with the fact that you'd be quite a disatance from any of the three other stations.

            That's how the .5 MHz bleed and the .2 MHz seperation co-exists. The FCC never puts stations that close to each other right next to each other, there's always a noticiable distance between the stations. There plenty of spots where stations .2 MHz overlap, and most radios are good enough to follow the carrier of the station they're tuned to in that situation because there will be a dramatic difference in signal strengths between the two.
            • Ah. Well, it was at night, so they had the increased power, and they don't really tell you where they're coming from ('cause they're busy doing 15 hours of ads a day or whatever).

              However, none of the stations come through clear day or night, so I'm not so sure the bleed is not an issue. (Other stations come through crystal)
              • Wait until IBOC (in-band, on-channel, aka Hi-Def Radio) digital radio becomes more popular. Then you will see more interference to weak adjacent channel stations.
                • Considering that IBOC has significantly more stringent restrictions on spectral quality, I don't think this will be the case.

                  I spent last summer working on power amplifiers designed for IBOC applications. The specs we had to meet were a LOT more stringent and our amps were spectrally more pure than your average FM broadcast transmitter these days.
        • Here in Yuba/Sutter Counties (Marysville, Yuba City... North of Sacramento, CA) I can receive (barely) three stations on consecutive channels. They're not all meant to be heard here, but there you have it.
        • Each channel on the FM broadcast band is seperated by 200kHz from the next higher and next lower frequency. Within any given market you will not have two stations on adjacent channels (they can't because as the previous posted pointed out, the channels overlap a bit). The problem comes in when you are in an area that can receive stations from more than one market equally well.

          For example, a station on 97.7MHz 50 miles south of you may come in as well as a station on 97.5MHz 50 miles north of you. In thi

      • Re:Signal Bleed? (Score:5, Informative)

        by wowbagger ( 69688 ) * on Monday July 14, 2003 @08:01PM (#6439040) Homepage Journal
        Where are you getting that 500 kHz "bleed" value from?

        I've looked at more FM radio spectra than I care to count, and they've all been well bounded to 200 kHz - in fact, show me an FM broadcast station that has more than -60 dBc more than 200 kHz away and I'll show you an FCC engineer writing a Notice of Violation.

        Now, crappy old FM radio receivers may have had poor IF responses that wouldn't block an ajacent channel 500 kHz away, but that is poor design on the receiver, not a flaw of the format or of the transmitter. A modern system with a synthesized LO and crystal filters has no problem filtering signals at that spacing.

  • Decent radio? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HomerNet ( 146137 ) <sov,columbia&gmail,com> on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:03PM (#6437863)
    Does this mean we'll be getting good radio stations now?

    Seriously, this is a good thing, especially if someone can find a way to harness this for some sort of digital traffic.
    • You mean have an FM-receiver card in your PC and using it to receive coded FM frequencies, which can be converted to digital? Sounds intriguing... Surely this has been though about before (and probably denounced as unfeasible,) although I (obviously) know nothing about radio waves.
      • Nah, it's possible. It's done on ham radio all the time. In fact, you could probably run a local BBS this way.

        Or you could encode the data in TV signals, teletext [mb21.co.uk] style.

      • RDBS (Score:3, Informative)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        RDBS [rds.org.uk] is the name of the technology, and it's been around for a long time. Back in the 80s, some people had pocket devices that gave them stock market quote streams. Don't know what other applications there are, but lots of FM radio stations generate a little extra income by providing RDBS services on their sideband. And you can buy RDBS radios that provide program information and such, though they've never been popular. Here's an expensive toy [cartoys.com] that lets you say "Tune to an oldies station".
        • *Smack*

          Well duh. I forgot about all that. The last car I rented had a nifty radio that would display the station call letters and text messages (from supported stations.)

    • No, or at least not using traditional approaches. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:24PM (#6438034) Homepage
      Does this mean we'll be getting good radio stations now?

      No, it doesn't. Have you ever heard a pirate radio station? Generally it's someone with their MP3s on random play who cuts in for the occassional rant about how cool this is or how the FCC sucks or whatever. I can't imagine why the average low-power station would see an increase in quality just by going legit, except that it might drive away some of the more untalented people who aer just doing it because it's illegal.

      No, *I* wonder if you might not be able to think different here.

      Picture this: Rather than just a transmitter, you also set up a web feed of your programming. Other people who find your show can set up their own low power transmitters and rebroadcast it, and maybe add their own shows and content to the "network" (so I'd be on for a few hours, then the owner of another transmitter would be on for a while, making it possible to have live content for larger portions of the day -- this'd be trivial to set up).

      This would hopefully lead to a situation where democratic radio stations would emerge. If enough people like your content, the area in which it could be heard would grow as more transmitters are added. This could snowball to the point where, at least in urban areas, you'd have something like a real coverage area. If your show quality drops off, well, transmitter owners can go elsewhere.

      Would it work? You got me -- there might be technical or regulatory issues, and certainly there's no accounting for the taste of the masses, but it's still a more interesting concept than just having many pirate-wannabes broadcasting...


      • I just looked into this the other day. One of the requirements for broadcasting is that you can't use the same band as somebody else within X distance. This prevents you from getting coverage through lots and lots of low power emitters.

        If you can find info to the contrary I'd love to hear it. Portland Oregon has a serious case of unbelievably shitty music radio. It's either Clear Channel, Fundie Christians, or New Country. The only exceptions are a few sparse programs on the community radio that are b
        • I just looked into this the other day. One of the requirements for broadcasting is that you can't use the same band as somebody else within X distance. This prevents you from getting coverage through lots and lots of low power emitters.

          That would impact people driving around, but would still make my idea workable in terms of people who listen to the radio at home.

          • That would impact people driving around, but would still make my idea workable in terms of people who listen to the radio at home.

            Which is almost no one, check the Nielson ratings, the only time a significant number of people listen to radio is when they are essentially a captive audience, during the drivetime.
      • Very interesting thought. As I understand the LPFM rules they cannot be commercial in nature, but that would not necessarily be a problem.

        Unfortunately I expect the NAB (who ramrodded the initial house resolution) will still argue that possible degradation within a 1300m radius of the LPFM antenna site is unacceptable. The initial HR was run through using receiver performance figures from about 1950-1960 (IIRC). Although the NAB will find it has a tough time arguing the technical quality of the work done
      • You would still get those low quality radio hippies, but I belive the quality in general would improve. Why? Because the people who are going to do the crappiest job are the kind of people that WOULD set up a pirate radio station, whereas people like me who would do a decent job wouldn't dare might the FCC triangulate us.

        I'm currently writing a Windows-based radio station automation system (no jokes about the blue sound of death, almost all radio stations are run off Windows) modelled after OpLog (http:/
      • Generally

        Yes, let's tar *all* LPFM and pirate radio stations with one big brush that sez "Y0U SUCK!!"

        You are most welcome to stick the Clear Drivel[tm] nipple back in yer mouth, ya twit.

      • Public Access Pirate Radio (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dan Crash ( 22904 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:11PM (#6439398) Journal
        I can tell you what worked for us.

        In the year 2000, we hooked our 150 watt transmitter up to the Internet and hung a banner over a Mpls/St. Paul I-94 overpass with our website spray painted on it.

        Visitors to the website could upload any MP3 off their hard drive to the station and it would be automatically queued up for broadcast. We also set up a voicemail line for those who didn't have computers -- any voicemail left there would be automaticaly queued up for broadcast as well.

        It was great radio for the 2 weeks straight that it lasted. The best I've ever heard. We got several hundred uploads and voicemails on the air. When we ran the same station promos too much people began making their own and uploading them. It was wild.

        When the FCC agents found our transmitter, we had to go on hiatus. We've worked on improving the software we use, and we may do it again someday. I think a model like this -- with some substantial tweaking -- could make microradio stations the most fascinating audio in town.
      • No, it doesn't. Have you ever heard a pirate radio station? Generally it's someone with their MP3s on random play who cuts in for the occassional rant about how cool this is or how the FCC sucks or whatever.

        there is a BIG difference between a real pirate radio station and the wannabees like you just talked about.

        It's like a true cracker and a script kiddie... you just described a script kiddie... every once in a while you get a real pirate radio station... and recently they have increased not because o

    • Re:Decent radio? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rick.C ( 626083 )
      Does this mean we'll be getting good radio stations now?

      Yes. If you mean stations that play the music you like, then yes, you will.

      You will trot your geeky li'l butt over to here [pcs-electronics.com] (if you're a digital geek) or to here [northcountryradio.com] (if you're a radio geek) and get yourself a transmitter. (You have to build and tweak the North Country Radio kit, but I think it has slightly better specs. I like my MPX96 just fine, and by buddy likes his PCS card, too.)

      Then you can play the MP3s you like and everyone else be damned!

      BT

    • Re:Decent radio? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gmhowell ( 26755 )
      No, there won't. The restrictions on getting an LPFM license (even now) are nearly insurmountable. In addition, there are no provisions to decrease your fees to RIAA, and you are not allowed (basically) to earn money on the station. So, unless you are in a garage band, you've got no music.

      The signal is also 'Low Power'. I can't remember offhand, but I think the range is something like ~1/2 mile or so. Really, this thing isn't going to change much.

  • I don't understand this news. (Score:5, Funny)

    by radiumhahn ( 631215 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:04PM (#6437870)
    I don't understand this news, but they can have my Mr.Microphone when they pry it out of my cold dead hands!

    • Re:I don't understand this news. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wb8wsf ( 106309 ) <steve@wb8wsf.org> on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:11PM (#6437922)
      This is very good news indeed.

      This is really a battle over control of the airwaves. America has given the broadcast spectrum to large money interests, and it shows. FM radio is so completely devoid of useful things to listen to (with the one exception of NPR, thankfully) that I've started listening to streamed broadcasts from the BBC, where quality, imagination and diversity still exist.

      With low power stations, you might see an increase in the divirsity of broadcasting again. Maybe. It would certainly allow for new and different stations, some silly, some serious and some seriously weird. That would be a wonderful thing to see.

      There were never any inferference issues here. Well, there were, but the interference was from the corporations which didn't want this to happen at all. A little 5W FM statation is not going to have much coverage, but it will make for some interesting pockets of color in an otherwise mostly vapid FM landscape.

      --STeve Andre' (wb8wswf)

      • Re:I don't understand this news. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DMDx86 ( 17373 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:17PM (#6437968) Journal
        FM radio is so completely devoid of useful things to listen to (with the one exception of NPR, thankfully)

        FYI, NPR is one of the big lobbyists going against LPFM.
      • Just goes to show that it's hard to get or keep a monopoly without getting the government involved.

        Maybe now some pressure will develop for Congress to allow the Republican majority on the FCC commission to scrap some of these stupid restrictions on new stations.

        Now if we could get the Supremes to stop "re-inventing" the Constitution and just limit Congress to it's enumerated powers, unbalanced laws and regulations like this might actually go away someday. Until then, it'll continue to be a case of "money
      • Has anyone here tried satellite radio? What's the quality of their feeds like?

  • Lower Power? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NetCurl ( 54699 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:07PM (#6437899)
    I would assume that lower power FM radio stations would have lower overhead costs (power being one of them). This could allow for a subculture of small radio stations similar to public-access cult-followed TV shows.

    Media reform, here we come!
    • For some of that subculture checkout radio4all.net [radio4all.net]. Its a site for swapping shows in mp3 format.
    • Yes, but I have never really seen ANY cult access-channel shows. They are almost all educational (lectures, preparing for the SATs), or just text bulletin boards. I am in the metro DC area, and before that I lived in Springfield, MO. (ok, in Sp, MO there were some high school student-produced broadcasts, but I haven't even seen those here)
      • A college town...

        A few friends of mine were involved in producing their own "talk show" format public-access show, which included reviews of music videos.

        Well, the hosts almost always thought that the music videos played sucked. And they would proceed to MST3K it the entire way. The show was hilarious, even before you got to their own custom content like, "A day in the life of Dave and Mike".

        And they had the most amusing "press coverage" of Cornell's student elections when that time of year came around

  • Free Radio (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:09PM (#6437906) Homepage Journal
    I have to provide a link to my local Free Radio Station [got.net]. I never listen (they don't play anything to my taste) but I support them on general principle.

    Interference was always a straw man. Media monopolies like Clear Channel (yikes! how unintentionally appropriate!) just want to maximize the spectrum available for their musical monoculture.

    What I really miss is all those low-power campus and community stations. Yeah, they mostly played crap, but it was local crap. And it was a good way for budding young radio DJs and journalists to break into the field. I've always found it strange that NPR is on the "stop interference!" bandwagon, since all their best people come from the low-power community.

    • Re:Free Radio (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bill_beeman ( 237459 )
      Interference is only a straw man if you don't happen to live where the LPFM blows you out. Read the report. Interference _is_ seen in a radius of hundred of meters around LPFM transmitters.

      The report is being widely interpreted to open the door, but many who read it that way are missing the strong conditions...including not licensing LPFM stations to locate where there are concentrations of receivers, and specifying that a very strong emission mask must be used.

      These are likely show-stoppers for most of

      • By the way, anyone missing all those low-power campus and community stations...this has not been standing in the way. If they were there once they worked under the existing rules. Economics has probably led to the demise of most.

        Its economics all right, but not the way you mean. There's no grandfather clause for 10-watt radio stations. The ones that are still around are the ones that could afford to upgrade. And in the process, had to become "public" stations with a much bigger reliance on network program

  • The purpose of the FCC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary AT yahoo DOT com> on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:10PM (#6437910) Journal
    The purpose of the FCC is to raise the barier of entry to the communications marketplace. It used to be about protecting a public good, the airwaves, but I think we can safely say, that is not it's real purpose today.

    Think what it would mean to someone like ClearChannel if anyone with a few hundred dollars could legally set up a low power radio station? In the San Francisco Bay area, people do it illegally, and they are really some of the only radio worth listening to here. No one would listen to corporate rock if there were little local alternatives.

  • Newsflash! (Score:5, Funny)

    by bugnuts ( 94678 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:11PM (#6437919) Journal
    RIAA filed 250 million lawsuits against every person in the USA, each of which has allegedly "received stolen music". Notable quotes are "Air should not be allowed to be used freely, as using the air is costing our artists millions of dollars. We are lobbying for a medium tax for everyone that uses air."
  • to fill up all the gaps in the FM band, what will happen to pirate radio stations?
  • Why was the study a concession in the first place? It should have been a prerequisite to any any policy/decision! If corporate radio like ClearChannel didn't have the FCC by the balls there would lots of wonderful independent low-powered radio stations for the public to enjoy.
    • The FCC did study it. They went through a years long regulatory process, consulted the engineers and everything. The broadcast industry bought a bill to overrule the FCC on a technical decision, which is highly unusual.

      The original bill didn't include a study at all, but as pressure grew and it became apparent what the broadcast industry and got some press the study bit was put in.

      Its not clear whether this will result in lots new stations being licensed, as there's plenty of bureaucratic process to abu
  • Well, I'd spin it for you, but you know, ain't no one going to hear it. Our broadcast range is only 23 feet which makes us the most powerful jazz station in the entire US of A.

    /Shameless Simpsons quote...

  • Pirate Radio? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:14PM (#6437940) Homepage Journal
    I think we all know what this report is all about:

    Justification for pirate radio! I highly suggest that anyone and everyone buy a transmitter, and don't just absorb the radio: be the radio!

    Also, read Radio as a Means of Communication, A Talk on the Function of Radio, by Berthold Brecht. He seems to get it.

    The technical aspect of radio modulation has improved over the year. There's no reason why we can't trash FM/AM and adopt a digital technology that uses the same spectrum-that way, we wouldn't even have to trash your antennas.

    Your radio sets would probably be gone though. Oh well, I threw away my old style roller skates when I got some Rollerblades (R). Let's join hands and fart into the future!

  • I have a FM transmitter already (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) * <teamhasnoi@@@yahoo...com> on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:14PM (#6437946) Journal
    Its one of those real-estate "Drive-By Info" things. You can put a cassette in it (presumably looped) and listen to whatever.

    I'm guessing with a little hardware hacking, an additional input can be added and I can either tie it in to a net stream (Soma!) or run mp3s through it, and listen throughout the house and yard. Would make any walkman into a local-only mp3 'player'. I am reasonably sure that no licence is necessary.

    I just have to get an antenna. Damn these laws of physics!

    • Yep, you can transmit on the broadcast frequencies without a license so long as your transmitter stays under the approprate power limit. Just a warning: There's a reason why they call it flea power.

      Of course, you'd likely get much cleaner results from a set of 900MHz headphones that you can buy at nearly any electronics store for $100... but if it's the fun of the hack you want you can go right ahead.

  • NPR... (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Anonymous Coward
    was one of the main opponents of low power FM.

    Damn Socialists...

  • It was NPR's fault. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:19PM (#6437981)
    ostensibly because of interference concerns, and cut the number of stations from thousands to a few hundred

    NPR lobbied [lipmagazine.org] extensively to kill LPFM [partytown.com], primarily because they didn't want the competition with people listening to real community radio.

    So congress decided that they were "engineers" and said that there would be "inteference", and gutted LPFM.

    I don't pledge to NPR, and I am thinking of an "anti-pledge" campaign when they shill for money.

    Radio as we know it today is dead, primarily used for corporate interests, not the public's.

    • Re:It was NPR's fault. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Quickening ( 15069 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @06:08PM (#6438343) Homepage
      no joke. I couldn't agree with you more. Over the past 20 years NPR has simply turned into another government PR office.
    • So congress decided that they were "engineers" and said that there would be "inteference", and gutted LPFM.

      Face it. You will not get a solution to a technical problem like spam from these jokers on Capitol Hill. And for those of you who think spam is a social problem, you will not get a solution to a social problem from these people either.

      Wow. Why did I ever believe Congress was a place that American business, be it commercial [loc.gov], social [pbs.org], or cultural [loc.gov], got done? Did Congress always stand opposed to the ind


      • Did Congress always stand opposed to the individual as it does today?

        You know the joke - "If PRO is the opposite of CON, what's the opposite of progress?"

        IIRC, one of the central issues of debate when The Constitution was drafted was whether the federal limitations specified eventually in The Bill Of Rights should be included explicitly somewhere as part of the document. Many of the states' representatives expected that what they were doing was so obvious that there wasn't any need to clog the thing

  • Protected != Reality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:19PM (#6437983)
    Here's the reason why the big time FM owners are claiming that LPFM interferes but the studies don't back them up. The "protected countour" of an FM signal is not always the same as its actual coverage range. That is to say, some FM radio stations are heard loud and clear in places that the FCC's prediction model doesn't expect them to be, and conversely absent in others. The problem here is simple, a coverage map based on a topographical map will always be inaccurate because no map perfectly maps everything, and pesky things like skyscrapers sometimes have to be taken into account. Broadcasters have better technology, so they do a better job of guessing where their signal will actually go when they request approval for a tower site.

    So, FM stations will be able to produce listner complaints that say "I used to live in Wxxx's coverage range, but now some pesky LPFM from 4 towns over is jamming their signal out." The truth is, that listener was never in Wxxx's protected countor, the area where Wxxx has a right to complain to any interference with their signal, because the FCC's prediction system didn't expect Wxxx's signal to be there. So, when the LPFM interjects actual interference into the territory, the maps don't show any problemsome overlap.

    In some ways, this is a case of government not keeping up with reality. On the other hand, it's also a case of the FM station owners enjoying signal reach that the law never entitled them to. AM skip works the same way... distant stations can be heard at night when the weather is good, but even the former "clear channel" (lower case, meaning no other station on the same frequency, not the megacompany) stations now face stations on the opposite coast using their frequency and can't complain about being interfered with in those distant cities, just if something is going to bother them in their home territory.

    Just because the government lets something be the way it is for years without messing with it doesn't let a business assume it's going to be that way forever. LPFM is a great idea on the chalkboard, but a lot more work than most applicants realize. But, for those who can get it together, let them have the technology...

  • Diymedia slashdotted, so heres the TOTA (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:21PM (#6438004)
    7/11/03 - Long-Overdue LPFM Interference Report Complete: No Third-Adjacent Channel Protections Necessary [link to this story]

    When Congress gutted the low power FM service enacted by the FCC in 2000, it reduced the number of available LPFM frequencies around the country by more than two-thirds by implementing "third-adjacent channel spacing protections." This forced LPFM stations to find a clear frequency with at least three channels separating it from existing local stations, which in urban areas is all but impossible. This single fact alone cut the number of potential LPFM stations from thousands to a few hundred at best, with most of those located in rural or suburban areas.

    The passage of the "Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act," however, did contain one caveat: the FCC was mandated to conduct an interference study to make sure the third-adjacent channel protections were necessary. The study was to be completed by February 21, 2001. It was actually finished in March, 2003, by the MITRE Corporation, who subcontracted the field testing of temporary LPFM stations in seven communities around the country.

    The Amherst Alliance, upon discovering the report was finished but the FCC was sitting on it, filed a Freedom of Information Act request in May to make it public. The FCC blew it off, and correspondence escalated to a point where members of Congress might have gotten involved and/or a lawsuit to force the disclosure might have been filed.

    This week, mysteriously, the 700+ page report was published in the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System. No fanfare whatsoever, not even a note to those of us behind the FOIA effort to let us know it was available. The reason may be due to the following conclusions:

    "Based on the measurements and analysis reported herein, existing third-adjacent channel distance restrictions should be waived to allow LPFM operation at locations that meet all other FCC requirements [after four small revisions]...

    The FCC should not undertake the additional expense of a formal listener test program or a Phase II economic analysis of the potential radio interference impact to LPFM on incumbent FPFM [full-power FM] stations...Perceptible interference caused during the tests by temporary LPFM stations operating on third-adjacent channels occurred too seldom, especially outside the immediate vicinity of the sites where the stations were operating, to warrant the additional expense that those follow-on activities would entail."

    And the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio, who played Congress like a fiddle by claiming that LPFM stations would wreak havoc with their signals, may want to chew on this tidbit especially thoughtfully:

    "In terms of the impact of an LPFM station due to interference on the audience of an FPFM station, in the worst case measured, the fraction of the protected coverage area of an existing station that could be subjected to harmful interference is 0.13%. In most other cases, this fraction is orders of magnitude smaller."

    Download the four main documents from the LPFM interference report here, in .pdf format:

    Section 1 (MITRE Final Report, 4.4 MB)
    Section 2 (Comsearch Field Test Plan, 2.4 MB)
    Section 3 (Comsearch Test Procedures Plan, 664K)
    Section 4 (Comsearch Field Measurement Data, 5.1 MB)

    A cursory glance through the field data collected for the report brings up some additional interesting tidbits.

    Comsearch (the subcontractor who conducted the field tests) placed public notices in the each test location's major newspaper and had announcements of the LPFM interference test played on the full-power FM station in the area closest to the frequency on which the test would take place. In each instance, no public complaints of LPFM interference were received, although interference complaints were received at some test locations that involved sources other than the test LPFM transmitter.

    Most interesting quote from the field data sec
  • Here [lpfm.com]. Be gentle, it's hosted on a Intellivision running IntyOS.

  • FCC Jurisdiction (Score:4, Interesting)

    by metalligoth ( 672285 ) <metalligoth.gmail@com> on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:37PM (#6438138)
    The FCC is given power from the Federal Government of the USA, which argues that it is regulating "Interstate Commerce", as per the Constitution. What most people don't realize is that in order for a radio station to fall under FCC jurisdiction, from a legal standpoint, the station needs to broadcast outside of a state's borders. (The only exception being if a state has made a law that the FCC has power in that state.) Otherwise, it is Intrastate Commerce, not Interstate Commerce. If you're in Michigan and your signal doesn't reach Canada, Wisconsin, Ohio, or Indiana, your station cannot be under the FCC's evil thumb! I know of at least one pirate station that has used this argument and has won in court. So, even if low powered stations can be regulated by the FCC, it doesn't matter as long as your station's power is low enough not to leave the state.

    • Re:FCC Jurisdiction (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Are you sure about this? Most electronic devices need to be compliant to FCC regulations as far as concerns of interference goes even if they wouldn't technicaly interfere with interstate broadcasts. And I would be extremely doubtful if I was to erect an antenna near an airfield, and begin "interfering" with radio broadcasts and what not, that the FCC or somebody wouldn't come knocking on my door.

      Your facts may be correct, but I sincerly doubt it. I am guessing that you heard this story second hand? or c

    • Hunh? You are SO wrong! (Score:4, Informative)

      by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @08:40PM (#6439244) Homepage Journal
      IANAL, but my wife IS, and is currently studying for her BAR exam. Why is that of interest? The Constitutional law part.

      It seems that literally ANY point can be argued as a breach of the commerce clause.
      As proof I give you Katzenbach v. McClung. (ollie's BBQ)

      A tiny, tiny local BBQ joint didn't want to serve blacks (only allowed take-out). Title II of the Civil Rights act claim is made against BBQ joint.

      from THis website [syr.edu]: Katzenbach v. McClung,44 (Ollie BBQ), held that since 70% of meat served at a restaurant located only 11 blocks from a major interstate highway is subject to interstate commerce, noting a "rational basis" for finding discrimination in restaurants had a direct and adverse effect on free-flow of interstate commerce."

      Your paper plates could come from out of state. POWER and Electricity can come from out of state. Telephone service, etc.

      Every BAR prep course recommends you trot out the commerce clause to question the constitutionality of anything- because its so damn broad.

      P.S.- when I showed her your post, she giggled.
      • I assume your wife knows about this, so you should ask her. You probably shouldn't call her a lawyer until she passes the test though....

        The Court in recent years has clamped down on the Commerce Clause a bit. They've thrown out a few criminal laws that based their jurisdiction on nebulous commercial effects like those you mention. The Court has shown a new interest in these cases in protecting traditional state powers by requiring more direct connections commerce.

        The idea is that modern commerce is vi

        • You probably shouldn't call her a lawyer until she passes the test though....
          Actually, I can't call her an ATTORNEY until she passes- but A Juris Doctor is a lawyer.

          As for the recent tightening of the Commerce Clause: well, remember that I am getting my info second hand, and she is studying BAR-law, which is a different beast than real law (BAR law being a snapshop in time and not necessarily GOOD law anymore).

          Thanks for the updated cases (Lopez & Morrison)!
        • BTW- I spoke to my wife- she knew Morrison off the top of her head! (so much for surprising her with my legal knowledge)

          However to bring it to this convo-
          Morrison was about Sexual Assault, Lopez was about a gun in a school. This is about RADIO WAVES- due to broadcast being a prime channel for advertisements and commerce, there is a stronger argument for having an actual nexus of commerce (as opposed to Sexual Assault and a Gun in schools, which really have no relation to commerce at all).

          So yes- Commerce
    • Interstate Commerce. If you're in Michigan and your signal doesn't reach Canada

      Canada's a state now? I wish someone would have let us vote on it.

  • LPFM? We need more local and internet stations. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by banal avenger ( 585337 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @05:47PM (#6438187)
    I am significantly less concerned about the future of Low Power FM than I am about the fact that Clear Channel owns some 70% of the market. I haven't heard decent music on the radio in years, and (coincidentally) I hear the same music in Arizona as I did in Minnesota. Not only do I hear the same music, but I hear the same station names with the same cheesy slogans but with different numbers.

    Low Power FM isn't really all that useful because one is almost never in range to hear it. Minneapolis had a LPFM station for a while called The Beat [beatworld.com]. I lived 5 miles from the station and couldn't hear it. They were unliscensed and subsequently got shut down by the FCC in a well documented media event. The Beat now does a nice internet radio stream. And I think that internet radio has much more potential than LPFM ever will.

    The summary is Low Power FM just isn't all that. Internet radio can be all it could have been and more, and allows the user greater control and allows more distrubuters into the fold. This effort would be much better spent protecting internet radio and fighting back against companies such as Clear Channel.
    • Thats one thing i like about being so close to Canada. We get a couple of decent (ok like one) stations from over the river in the Detroit area that may play mostly top 40 crap, but do still include a fair bit of less well known artists. They even used to have a "home boys" show on sundays that was a couple hours of local acts only (though I dont know if they still do this or not)

      Are they perfect? no, but they are a helluvalot better than any of the comercial stations I have found virtually anywhere else
    • And the problem with Internet Radio is bandwidth. I know zilch about LPFM, but am assuming that once you get a license and a transmitter, then you have pretty much bought what you need (asside from power).

      Get popular and you may get some requests, but it does not affect you.

      Internet radio will give you a larger audience, but the bandwidth will kill you as you get more popular.

      They need something like public access radio, like NYC's public access cable...gotta love that. One hour it's porn, one hour it'
    • Ok you had a PIRATE radio station not a LPFM station.

      I guarentee that my 100 watt LPFM station that was going to be up (I still got the stuff) would be heard. It's called doing it right instead of 1/2 assed. I have 1.5 inch heliax for the antenna feed, a true broadcast antenna on order and all the real equipment... and from early tests with a simple antenna at the tower top... I had a 10 mile range EASY. this was in a semi-urban area.

      dont judge it on something a bunch of bumbling hacks did in their b
  • Who's watching [imdb.com] Pump Up the Volume [geocities.com] tonight?!! WOOOO! Go Christian Slater!! Go generic top-lifing love-interest chick, GO!

  • Nothing will change (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Teahouse ( 267087 )
    From the FCC regulations:

    http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/index.html

    "LPFM stations are available to noncommercial educational entities and public safety and transportation organizations"

    Pretty much Churches ("God God God!") and Schools ("Snow day today, please floss your cats") can broadcast as LPFM, but no one else is going to get a permit because GOD FORBID some independent vinyl freak may become more listened to than the drabble from MEGACRAPCORP BROADCASTING and their 50k watt transmitter.
    • Churches and schools do make up a large number of the lpfm licensees but there's no restriction on noncommercial entities from applying. I went to a workshop that an environmental group outside of DC had when they were setting up their station, WRYR, 97.5FM [wryr.com].
    • Where do you think many of the "independant vinyl freaks" show up? College radio! Most college radio stations that I've encountered get at least some funding from the school, and also pay reduced ASCAP/BMI/SESAC fees as non-commercial broadcasters. If you can get the administration to support you (or at least not actively oppose you), it's easier to start a radio station there than "on the outside".

      When WJHU (which has now changed call letters to something inane) was sold out from under the students and
  • Hopefully this means that radio will be more democratized.
    • That's probably why Congress "gutted" the original proposal. Although we're "guaranteed" free speech by the US Constitution, the government doesn't have to guarantee us a venue in which to practice it.

      To quote my favorite songwriter (see sig):

      Democracy don't rule the world

      You better get that out of your head
      This world is ruled by violence
      But that's better left unsaid.

      And while we're quite low on democracy in these days of court-appointed presidents, we're still pretty adept at violence :-(

  • Where to buy FM broadcast equipment. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @06:14PM (#6438380)
    Trust me, you don't want to use hacked Mr. Microphones or real estate promotional transmitters to get on the air. If you're interested in broadcasting, affordably, with an FM transmitter, and you are halfway handy with a soldering iron, check out the kits this British outfit sells (they ship internationally):

    http://www.broadcastwarehouse.com/ [broadcastwarehouse.com] (click Kits, Modules & Parts)

    Pretty easy to put together and they work very well. Or you could buy one of their pre-assembled jobbies.

    Another company specializing in FM kits is Veronica:

    http://www.veronica.co.uk/ [veronica.co.uk]

    I built one of their 1 watt PLL kits, and also purchased a 25 watt amp. Great stuff, cheap, well designed. Buy a Cushcraft vertical antenna and you're on the air in style.

  • OH Goody Were Going To Have More Talk Radio! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ratfynk ( 456467 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @07:08PM (#6438746) Journal
    Music Smoosic just give me more Opra wantabees on small regional FM stations.
    Just imagine you will be adle to drive from Portland Ore. all the way to Portland Maine and not have to listen to music. Wonderfull.

  • Interference and junk radios (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @07:24PM (#6438852)
    Buried in the conclusions is the annoying cause of the third-adjacent-channel interference. The best receiver used for testing had less than 60dB rejection of the unwanted station; typical portable radios had less than 30dB. In simple language, that ranges from mediocre performance to "sucks rocks". If you lived 250m from one of Clear Channel's 50KW transmitters, that would block an independent 1KW station 25km away from you--with the least-bad receiver they used. If it's the worst, the indy would have to be less than 2km away to be heard.

    The problem isn't the LPFM station, it isn't the FPFM station, it's the poor selectivity of FM receivers. 50-60dB is entirely practicable for low cost portables, and at least 80dB should be the norm for higher priced home audio equipment. But the honest truth is that manufacturers aren't going to give you any better performance unless customers ask for it (ie, complain). They can use every channel in sub-$100 "cable ready" TV sets, so they can certainly build affordable "high signal density" FM radios--if there's a market for them.

  • TV channels 2 interferes with 3... 3 interferes with 4... 5 interferes with 6... 7 interferes with 8, 8 with 9, 9 with 10, 10 with 11, 11 with 12, and 12 with 13... and the FCC doesn't consider it a big hairy deal. They just allocate them in a sort of checkerboard fashion, pragmatically.

    Why can't we have the same kind of pragmatism in the FM band? Let the micropower stations flourish, and IF there is a genuine local interference issue THEN assign them to a different frequency.
  • Up here in Anchorage Alaska, we have a LPFM station running right along with the larger radio stations. In fact, one of there bumpers states "KZND, Low power and lovin it!" They play some decent music, but they have been under review by the FCC (not due to the fact that they are low power, but because 87.7 is supposed to the audio band for television channel 6). The music is decent, so I often find myself surfing over to The End [kznd.com]. Just my $.02 worth.

  • Not technical interference (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jelle ( 14827 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @08:21PM (#6439127) Homepage
    Congress wasn't talking about interference in the technical sense that channels would interfere in the spectrum of the existing channels, but about interference in the audience. It's business interference that the low power FM channels are being accused of by the oligopolists...

  • the big deal about LPFM is not what music gets played on the air. free speech doesn't mean some dj picking out the music s/he likes--it means somebody going on the air and actually having something to say. it's about letting communities getting together and deciding who gets airtime before an election instead of corporations selling it off to the highest bidder. it's about underground news media having somewhat equal footing with the mainstream.

    music is nice. but it can be incredibly trivial. people are g

  • Bah. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cinematique ( 167333 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:16PM (#6439425)
    It's sad that a local station [wcltam.com] is allowed [fcc.gov] to spew 50,000 watts of Country music into the air, overflowing into adjacent frequencies, but if someone broadcasts a stable 1,000-watt signal, they're (still) doing something against the law.

    Me, bitter? Nah...

  • I wonder why no one is talking about low power AM (Score:4, Interesting)

    by multiplexo ( 27356 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:22PM (#6439710) Journal
    in the 1630 to 1710kHz range. The FCC opened this up in the late 1980s and it remains largely unused. Sure, people are going to whine and say that AM broadcast quality isn't as good as FM, but I'd rather listen to an interesting station on AM, with the occasional crackle of static, than perfectly clear corporate clear channel crap on FM. It seems to me that the FCC could take this space and rededicate it to community low power AM stations.

  • In many big cities FM's are 2 channels apart... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:27PM (#6439744)
    In many big cities the (NY, LA and Chi for 3), there's a full power (50 or 100 Kw) station every four channels (800 Khz) starting at 92.3 and ending at 107.5. In the '60's, the FCC realized that this channel allotment scheme meant that there were no frequencies (FM channels; the FM band is channelized, where 87.9 is channel 200 and 107.9 is 300) for local stations in suburbs. The FCC's answer was to allow class A (local) FM stations IN BETWEEN the bigger stations. This means that in these cities, there's stations ALREADY located 400 khz (2 channels) apart. Look at LA for example: The class B (50 Kw) stations are on 92.3, 93.1, 93.9, 94.7, etc. But in between there are suburban (3 and 6 Kw) FM stations on 92.7, 93.5, 94.3...all the way up to 107.1! If these 50 and 3/6 Kw stations can co-exist (and they have - for decades!) two channels apart I can't understand why a 100 watt LPFM can't either. Oh WAIT... we're talking Clear Channel, The NAB, and Congress here aren't we? The laws of physics don't APPLY to them! Never mind!

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