FCC Supports Neighborhood Radio 246
RevMike writes "According to this story from the Associated Press, the FCC is recommending to Congress that restrictions on low-power FM stations be relaxed. The FCC found that low-power FM stations can be operated in the gaps of spectrum between major stations without substantially interfering with those major stations. If Congress adopts the FCC's recommendations, it will loosen the stranglehold that companies like ClearChannel have on the airwaves."
individuality? screw that! (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:individuality? screw that! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that too "might lead to increased free speech, creative ideas, and non-biased information." More original locally created content, that's we need. We don't need more Britney Spears and more O'Reilly on the air.
Re:individuality? screw that! (Score:5, Informative)
That's not true. Radio and TV stations have to pay royalties to play music. There are several licensing groups but the biggest are ASCAP [ascap.com] and BMI [bmi.com].
Anywhere that there is a public performance of copyright music you must pay royalties to the licensing bodies for the songs that you use. This includes background music in stores, music in bars and clubs, elevators, etc.
Re:individuality? screw that! (Score:2, Interesting)
Ever go to a record store and buy a CD with a hole punched in the UPC code? Or, find one with "For promotional purposed yadda-yadda" embossed in gold on the cover?
Those were promos for airplay, being sold illegally. Stations get their music for free--they don't buy it; that would make no sense.
Re:individuality? screw that! (Score:3, Informative)
The radio stations get media for free. You have to maintain a list of what you play and submit it to either ASCAP or BMI.
Never worked at a radio station, eh?
But you are right, you can't resell those CDs legally. (Not thats a major deterrent)
Re:individuality? screw that! (Score:3)
About time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About time (Score:3, Insightful)
If an idiot wants to start his own without a license, then it will be the same as always -- it will be considered a pirate radio station and the operator/owner will face a stiff fine and possible jail terms.
Re:About time (Score:3, Insightful)
My own feeling is that low-power radio will probably be popular: maybe getting us back to the days when individual stations chose their own playlists. Go back to the sixties and seventies, before the RIAA/ClearChannel
Re:About time (Score:5, Informative)
If you want some information on exactly how the repeal of the restrictions would affect radio, try this page, linked to REC Networks, one of the public commentators on the FCC report. [recnet.com]
The document's foundation is the Mitre report-an analysis including field tests and experimental programs conducted by the Mitre Corporation at the behest of the FCC starting in 2001. The Mitre report made several recommendations regarding LPFM (low power FM) stations and third-adjacent channel FM stations. Reduction or elimination of minimum distance separation requirements was possible without increasing interference, use of a more stringent emissions mask would limit interference because most LPFM transmitters have poor emission suppression, interference from LPFM to digital receivers is unlikely to occur beyond 130 meters from the transmitter, and the report found that the above results are so reliable listener tests and economic analysis scheduled for the second phase of the LPFM field tests were unnecessary.
Public comments on the Mitre report included 18 supporters for elimination or modification of the existing minimum didstance separation requirements, and 3 in support of the status quo.
The FCC document is essentially the FCC's opinion on the Mitre report, with the recommendations it has chosen to pass along to Congress. Page 4 of the pdf begins a list of the FCC's recommendations.
They go farther than the slashdot summary suggests, and state that existing third-adjacent minimum distance separation requirements between LPFM and full-service stations should be eliminated entirely. This is based on the Mitre report's finding that even in the worst case scenario no real interference would exist beyond 1.1 kilometers from the LPFM transmitter site. The FCC asks congress to modify the relevant statute to eliminate the restrictions in question.
The FCC also asks Congress to "re-evaluate the necessity of completing Phase II testing." Phase II was the economic analysis the Mitre report chose to skip over, and the FCC agrees that the conclusion they'd reach through Phase II are so obvious there's no point in doing the work. In other words, the FCC's recommendation to eliminate the restrictions is all pro and no con, and any fool can plainly see it. Except, of course, a fool whose only goal is to squash small radio stations before they start accumulating listeners.
That's all there is in the recommendations section, and the entire report to Congress contains only six pages. Six! That's nearly unheard of in the world of governmental bureaucracy, and it sends a clear signal that this FCC report is essentially a memo saying "Yo, Congress, this law is dumb so kill it." End of story, no politicking, no favors or special interests or obfuscation, simply the FCC doing it's job the way it's supposed to. Not something you see every day!
So what's going to happen? Congress will see this, start a hearing, and there's two possibilities: One, big radio doesn't do anything, and the restrictions are eliminated in a one sided vote with little fanfare or contention. Or, Clear Channel decides to abuse the little guy, and starts lobbying in favor of the restrictions. We'll see loads of bs and political favors, and all the crap people complain about in Congress. It will be interesting to watch the results as a barometer of just how gridlocked Congress has become due to special interests.
By the way, the last pag
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
here here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:here here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:here here (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry to hear that people who go to college now have non-representative college radio. Ours was run by for and of the students. Oh yeah, did I mention we were only 100 watts? What was interesting (and the subject of debate with the FCC over the years) was that we were allowed FAR MORE POWERFUL booster repeater stations to get our signal to elsewhere on the island and, on a good day, to other islands)
Re:here here (Score:3, Funny)
It was a GNU rock-n-roll station then?
Re:here here (Score:5, Informative)
A: The NPR outlet owned by the school, and therefore expresses the views of the administration or nearly no views at all.
B: The freeform station that is a legally distinct entity from the school, which gets its funding either on its own or from the student government.
The reason there's such a thick line between these two kinds of things is liability. If the school has any ownership in the radio station, they must tightly control it because they're on the hook for any FCC fines or slander lawsuits. Because most colleges have endowments, they're the ultimate deep pockets.
If it's a distinct entity, then the school has no control over it, and if they get into trouble, then they can go bankrupt without any risk to the school.
Re:here here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:here here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:here here (Score:2)
But NPR money falls over to the right.
Re:here here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:here here (Score:2)
Re:here here (Score:3, Insightful)
Another Alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
not without a fight (Score:5, Insightful)
ClearChannel is ranked among the top 5 radio conglomerates in the world.
Allowing neighbourhood radio station, will detoriate the quality on frequencies that ClearChannel has control over. This will be big problem in areas like Mojave Desert etc.
Re:not without a fight (Score:5, Funny)
Naw, ClearChannel did that all on their own.
ClearChannel (Score:3, Informative)
Just this week, the anti-monopoly watchdog in the Netherlands seized some company records of Mojo, who organise about 90% of all large gigs in this country. I was surprised to learn that ClearChannel now apparently owns a goodly chunk of Mojo, although a spokesman vehemently denied that 'America' had their fingers in the day-to-day operation of Mojo.
Re:ClearChannel (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason why right-wing talkers outnumber left-wing talkers is simply because the right-wingers tend to get better ratings. (That doesn't need to mean people agree with the right-wingers... a talk show host who says stupid things argues with all of the tons of callers telling him he's wrong can still be a ratings hit.)
Clear Channel is unabashed in what they do. They're not here to inform. They're not here to entertain. They're here to get people to listen to ads, get people to look at their outdoor billboards, and get people to buy tickets to their concerts. The company exists to make money, and that's the bottom line.
Re:not without a fight (Score:2)
CC WILL fight it. They will use such quack claims that you repeated despite the fact that they hold no water.
If there were a "frequency fight", 5W radio stations are simply overpowered by 50,000W transmitters.
It is in the best interests of the small guys to have frequencies that don't conflict with existing users, and I think the FCC would set those frequencies for said reasons.
Re:not without a fight (Score:5, Insightful)
That is correct. The only thing that has happened so far is a recommendation to Congress. So think it through. If this recommendation even begins to move forward at all, what will be the result? First there will be lobbying of the members of Congress. On one side, there will be a well-funded campaign of professional lobbyists with inside connections, paid for by an industry that has an enormous stake in maintaining the status quo. On the other side will be . . . essentially nothing. There is no substantial advocacy group, no substantial funding, no substantial organization on the other side. Are you going to pull out your checkbook to support this recommendation? Are you going to contact your congressional representatives? Of course not. This is not going to happen, ever.
Re:not without a fight (Score:2)
Re:not without a fight (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Clear Channel alone controls 60% of Rock radio.
b) Clear Channel owns stations in 247 of the 250 major radio markets.
Check out this [salon.com] article for more information on Clear Channel's operations.
And thats not to mention the number of venues Clear Channel now controls.
(This message brought to you by a former employee of Clear Channel Chief Randy Michaels, from when he was just a station manager.)
So the economics are clear (Score:2, Interesting)
Big corporations don't want you to transimit over their signal as they'll loose audience and hence, revenue. But that hasn't stopped most people before.
The interesting thing will be when the RIAA starts suing people for broadcasting their music.
Re:So the economics are clear (Score:4, Informative)
- you pay ASCAP / BMI for broadcast rights, RIAA if you want to sell copies
- non profit broadcast radio stations are not exempt from paying ASCAP / BMI, though the rate is lower
- non profit internet radio pays RIAA a reduced rate from commercial stations
Neighborhood radio (Score:5, Interesting)
I played around with broadcast back in my college days, and had some fun, especially knowing that the odds of somebody actually listening in were fairly remote ("free pizza to the next caller!"
And with the size of my CD collection (as well as free MP3's from various places) I think it would be fun to set up a random genre station. Or, as my friends and I have talked about, a mobile station, for when we're taking long road trips.
Re:Neighborhood radio (Score:5, Interesting)
TV production company I worked for used to take the mobile production truck on long trips. We bought a stereo FM transmitter [ramseyelectronics.com], used an existing mixer, had headsets, and played our personal MP3 collections. We'd put somebody's cell number on a poster on the side of the truck with the frequency we were broadcasting on, and took requests. We chattered like (bad) DJ's, sang along, and talked to those around us listening. We even put a wireless mike in the chase car, so we could all play along.
Our range was typically about 1/2 mile, so we rarely had more than 3 or 4 cars listening. I tell ya, though, it was a real hoot getting that first request!
Posted anonymously to protect the guilty.
Re:Neighborhood radio (Score:2)
On most CDs you own, you can find this message:
Unauthorized copying, public performance, broadcasting, or rental of this recording is prohibited.
Emphasis mine, of course.
While the FCC's recommendation to Congress regarding low-power FM is a really good thing, we won't be able to make a playlist of our favourite records and light up the neighbourhood, since most records' legal errata prohibit this.
Re:Neighborhood radio (Score:5, Informative)
And another funny little quirk. If you truely have no listners, then the statutory license is free because it'd produce a multiplication by zero in the formula.
Re:Neighborhood radio (Score:2)
Can't broadcast unlicensed music (Score:2)
That's still a ASCAP issue, as rebroadcast with out a license is still illegal.. And if you can afford that, you can afford a 'real' broadcaster's license + equipment.
But you can make your own music, or have 24/7 talk radio...
Awesome! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Awesome! (Score:3, Informative)
I have another thread here where I sing the merits of a Hawaii station - KTUH - which is college radio. On the island of Kauai, they have KKCR, Kauai Community Radio, http://www.kkcr.org/ [kkcr.org] which I had the pleasure of direct exposure to (they have an online feed as well). THIS STATION is what "community radio" is all about.
If normal people in the United States d
And for taxpayer incentives (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone else notice this portion? makes you wonder who actually expected the laws of physics to bend to the whims of lawmakers and lobbyists?
okay, now flag me as a troll
thanks
Re:And for taxpayer incentives (Score:2)
Clear Channel for one. NPR doesn't like community radio either. They pushed for the restrictions, also
The real quote that matters: (Score:2)
Here's the only thing that matters. These tiny stations are no threat to the current system, either physically or economically.
Clear Channel doesn't give a damn, you can't touch them. You and your vast army of geeks can't touch them, and they know it.
I'm all for some area "flavor" on the FM band, but don't think for a second that it's going to touch the bottom line for CC.
Coolness! (Score:4, Insightful)
Untill we get this Intellectual Property "saga" sorted out, we can pretty much count on any cool uses for tech like this being brought in through the "front door" getting the political axe.
Re:Coolness! (Score:2)
Re:Coolness! (Score:3, Informative)
There are no IP issues with operating a bona fide radio station. More accurately, the issues have long been worked out. Broadcast royalties for virtually all music other than your local garage bands are covered by ASCAP [ascap.com]. A commercial station that primarily plays music and has gross revenue under $50,000 per year ne
Sure they do.... (Score:5, Interesting)
FCC sues to shut down rfb [reformer.com]
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102%257E88
Re:Sure they do.... (Score:2)
Re:Sure they do.... (Score:2)
Breaking the law, however stupid the law is, still brings penalties.
I would love to hear (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool (Score:5, Funny)
Radio becoming obsolete? (Score:4, Interesting)
While advancing leaps and bounds in personal mp3 players, are we skipping the next generation of broadcasted music?
Re:Radio becoming obsolete? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Radio becoming obsolete? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. ubiquity: every car comes from he factory with an radio, you can get a radio for $3 that runs on a single battery
2. simplicity. There's no special antennas, just turn on and tune in.
3. price. AM and FM radio are free (via commercials) and do not require any monthly subscription
4. mobility. You can't take streaming internet radio with you easily
5. locality. radio is community based, if something happens in the area you can get alerts, news, weather. That's not easy to do with satellite or internet streams which are "one size fits all".
When you can get a satellite radio reciever for less than $10 that fits in your pocket with no external antenna and runs for hours if not days on a standard 9v battery, then it will give tower based radio a run for the money.
I find it ironic that many people complain about the homoginization of radio due to companies like Clear Channel, but think that satellite is a better option. If anything, satellite is an even worse case if you want diversification in broadcasting.
Sound Quality (Score:5, Informative)
They couldn't stop us before (Score:5, Insightful)
If you chose to operate an FM transmitter outside these parameters, you would be considered a "pirate" in the eyes of the FCC, and you can be discovered, even though these rules are enforced unevenly. Sometimes a 1 watt station goes unnoticed by local licensed broadcasters, so a complaint is never filed and the FCC never finds out about it. Anecdotally, we have also heard of cases where FCC agents have turned a blind eye to 1 to 3 watt stations, if it seemed like they were not bothering any licensed broadcasters. At this level, despite operating at up to 75 times the legal limit, the actual power is so minuscule that the agent decided not to pursue the case. (This is akin to a cop pulling you over for speeding, but deciding to not give you the ticket because they think you're cute. You may be able to get away with it, but let no one fool you into thinking that it is actually legal.)
Some members of Prometheus Radio Radio Project were involved in pirate broadcasting. We did this because we believed that the broadcast regulations of this country are fundamentally unfair. We ran great community radio stations in defiance of the wealth-based structure of our broadcast system. The FCC eventually confiscated our stations, but announced that they had gotten the message of our -civil disobedience and that they were going to create a legalized low power fm radio service. We decided to stop pirating and work with the FCC to build a permanent new community radio service for this country. There is still a movement of unlicensed pirate stations that continues to operate in defiance of the broadcast regulations, which truthfully have only gotten slightly better as a result of LPFM. Morally we are sympathetic to these operations, but from a practical standpoint we do not devote our work to assisting them. We focus our efforts on the stations that are going to be able to become permanent fixtures in their communities, that are able to serve diverse communities because no one needs to worry about having their door busted down for operating without a license.
Re:They couldn't stop us before (Score:2, Informative)
I understand that you're talking about 1 watt or ther
Lucky you... (Score:2, Informative)
It will never happen (Score:3, Insightful)
The people who own congress in this area, NPR and NAB, will not let this happen.
They will haul out their so-called "engineers" that will prove that a 10 watt station interferes with the 100,000 watt station up on the hill. They will drag out their old engineering papers that contradict everything that the FCC has documented. As if the FCC engineers never went to grade school. And a congress person will then have an excuse to throw a wrench in the works. This will happen at the last moment, by attaching a rider to the omnibus funding bill, just like before.
Just remember, you're pledge money is going to buy off a senator somewhere.
FCC spacing rules (Score:5, Interesting)
1. What the FCC is proposing - allowing low-power FM stations to locate just three channels away from full-power signals, instead of four channels as is now required - is status quo in most of the world. In Toronto, for instance, a high-power CBC transmitter on 94.1 at the CN Tower coexists just fine with a newer signal on 93.5 just a few blocks away at First Canadian Place. In other parts of the world, spacing is even tighter and yet it still works. London has signals stacked up at 105.2, 105.6, 106.0 and 106.4 with no problems.
2. What the FCC is proposing is already status quo in the U.S., albeit with a catch. Translator stations - signals of up to 250 watts that are only allowed to relay other stations and cannot originate their own programming - are governed by a different set of rules that allow them, in some cases, to nestle up as close as second-adjacent to (0.4 MHz away from) full-power signals. And the FCC recently had a filing window in which it received several thousand applications for such translators, the vast majority of them from a small handful of religious broadcasting networks that will feed them by satellite from Idaho and California. How does this benefit local listeners? You tell me...
3. Very little of what the FCC does is about engineering. Everything the FCC does is about politics, even the engineering parts. It has always been thus.
Scott Fybush - NorthEast Radio Watch [fybush.com]
Re:FCC spacing rules (Score:4, Informative)
So as much as it's cool to bash a mega-company on this site, it's not really Clear Channel who is trying to kill off LPFM, it's the religious broadcasters who are booking up all of the free slots on the dial so that LPFM can't get them.
Clear Channel really doesn't have to lift a finger. These religious groups are doing everything it takes to kill off LPFM all by themselves.
Re:FCC spacing rules (Score:2)
People seem to misunderstand what's going on here -- first, basically, if you're *not* a religious outlet, you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an LPFM license, ever. Second, these stations, being non-commercial do not compete with commercial stations. Arbitron will not take ratings on them. Thi
Re:FCC spacing rules (Score:2)
Re:FCC spacing rules (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, if you drive your vehicle by a large community antenna site, you're likely to hear all sorts of hash on your receiver. But that's a rx desense problem, not one of adjacent channel interference.
Adjacent channel interference of an FM signal at 100% modulation (where all the energy is in the sidebands and not the carrier) is a result of the discriminator of an FM receiver. The sidebands of the adjacent station are spilling over into the passband of the receiver trying to tune another channel. The preferred method of keeping this under control is indeed distance; but it's a distance of 80-120 miles, not just a few blocks! That's why you'll see nearby markets having their channels "interleaved" (like Detroit and Toledo).
You're correct in that the FCC tightly controls the channel spacing between communities because adjacent channel interference is very hard to correct without directional antennas (which induce multipath) or power restrictions, or both.
The instance of where having WXXX's transmitter location many city blocks away from WYYY's is in intermodulation product mitigation. But even then the perferred method is inserting notch filters to keep the mixing products out of the PA cavity of the transmitter.
Ironically, the installations I've seen and worked on that have the least amount of intermod problems are the ones dumping as many as 4 stations into a single antenna. The hybrid-combiner systems all use bandpass filtering that pretty much kill anything but the desired signal going in the desired direction. But again, these are intermod problems, not adjacent channel interference problems.
Ummmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ummmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
companies are prohibited from obtianing a LPFM license. While that makes perfect sense the clause that prohibits a private individual is just plain wrong. As well as the private individual using his LPFM for commercial purposes.
Re:Ummmm... (Score:2)
Here in San Diego... (Score:2, Interesting)
Since we're near the border, the frequencies available are cut in half (half for the US, half for Mexico, mas o menos). This isn't a problem for CC, etc, though; they just go buy a (much more high powered) station in Mexico and send their signals all the way to LA. Meanwhile,
p.s. wasn't there a LPFM proposal like 4 years ago!? (didn't congress strike it down/ignore it?)
Good News (Score:4, Insightful)
"Local radio listeners should not be subjected to the inevitable interference that would result from shoehorning more stations onto an already overcrowded radio dial," spokesman Dennis Wharton said.
As if what they're broadcasting is preferable to static. I love the idea that this will give more people a voice. Of course when you start giving out freedoms you have to give them to the weirdos too but that's a small price to pay.
Interference should be... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interference should be... (Score:2, Informative)
Depends on the market (Score:2)
We are packed wall to wall..
Found this out trying to use one of those little 'mp3 to fm' transmitters.. we don't have any dead air..
But its a nice idea, letting the people express themselves and exercise their constitutional right of free speech.. and with the UHF 'public' tv channels going away soon, its only fair we have some outlet..
Something interesting in LPFM regulation (Score:4, Interesting)
Now why on earth is it for non-commercial operation. Why can't I as a private citizen set up a radio station and sell advertising? Well I guess I know the reason for that (corporate interests). Now limiting HP broadcasting or media companys ability to do this makes perfect sense.
Good to hear that could be happening in the States (Score:2)
Unfortunately I can't imagine anything like that happening in the UK, the RA / DTI love their strangle-hold a little too much here.
ClearChannel... Stranglehold? (Score:3, Informative)
ClearChannel has a stranglehold? If you live in the US is there a single, non public channel that isn't controlled by ClearChannel?
A list of ClearChannel stations [clearchannel.com].
Stranglehold? Nah!
Re:ClearChannel... Stranglehold? (Score:5, Funny)
The reporter asked if he planned to use all the chairs, or just one.
NPR is part of it too (Score:2)
Let's de-dupe the airwaves (Score:4, Insightful)
If spectrum is so limited, why is it filled so redundantly with the same junk? When there's a true shortage of something, it's human nature to use it more carefully.
Re:Let's de-dupe the airwaves (Score:5, Informative)
Do yourself a favor and find a copy of "FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio" by Richard Neer. It'll answer the question. I'll try to summarize...
Once, due to both inertia and quirks in regulation, radio stations were cheap. Since they were cheap, a radio station owner could get a nice return by targeting a niche market. Management didn't care if they were number 1, in the middle of the pack, or at the bottom in terms of ratings. Everyone could still make a decent return on their investment.
Then, regulations were changed. Radio stations became expensive. The old owners all sold out and made huge profits. The new owners now needed to justify the huge prices they paid. No one could afford to run a station aimed at a niche market. Everyone needed to compete for the maximum ratings.
The radio station that was, for instance, fiftenth in the ratings looked at what the number one radio station was doing and thought "If we did the same thing, maybe we could be number one." Everyone started changing formats like wild. Diversity disappeared. Radio became a wasteland.
Today a commercial radio station can't afford to play anything that isn't main stream. Ownership put serious money on the line to buy the station, now they need to see profits to go with that investment. That money only comes from having a big audience.
Haw Haw Haw! (Score:2)
In-band on channel my ass.
jam band station! (Score:2)
I've been waiting for something like this - Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic, etc will be playing 24x7 in my area
Re:damn hippie (Score:2)
Damn right
Talk Hard! (Score:2)
I love that movie. Always made me want to get my own little FM broadcast station.
We can only hope (Score:2)
Unless things have significanly changed, the previous rules were not for a "Music" based radio station. Think solely talk radio. So, before you could not pay your ASCAP, BMI and any other fees to fire up a low cost low power neighborhood radio station.
It was justa more powerful version of the existing rules for amateur fm.
Anyone can grab a v
The MITRE report (Score:2)
The FCC has had this report for quite some time. Especially in an election year don't look for your friendly neighborhood congress-critter to upset the NAB.
High School Radio pushed off the air (Score:5, Interesting)
The sounds of silence? - Haverford High's WHHS, around since 1949, must vacate its spot on the FM spectrum. [philly.com]
Editorial | Haverford High Radio -- In the wild, big eats little - or tramples it without noticing. In the world of broadcast radio, the existence of community and student-run school radio stations can be just as brutish and short. [philly.com]
NPR is nearly as bad as the NAB on this subject (Score:4, Informative)
The National Association of Broadcasters, however, went nuts over this idea. They lobbied congress hard, and circulated what they thought radio would sound like with all the added stations. The cds they pushed on uninformed congressmen wildly exagrated any problem and the idea was quickly killed.
One of the things that really angered me about this (and still does) is the fact that NPR fell in step with the NAB. The reasoning for this I can only assume is the fact that listeners of low-power fm would probably come from NPR's listener base and not from some crappy top-40 station. Realizing the possible loss of revenue (fewer pledge drive contributions) NPR acted in this reactionary manner. (I should note that I still support my local NPR stations, but not as happily as previously.)
Hopefully, congress will listen to the FCC on this instead of lobbyists for the NAB. The electro-magnetic spectrum is a public resource. If the public is not getting anything useful from the currently liscensed stations and are being blocked by these same stations when the public attempts to coexist with them, I say we take some of the spectrum back -- and now.
its now up to Congress and you (Score:4, Interesting)
For this to pass pressure will have to be put on Congress. Its only a recommendation from the FCC, Congress will have to pass legislation to recind their original overriding of the FCC. The Senate will probably be ok, McCain is chairman of the Commerce Committee that has purview.
The house is more of a problem. Billy Tauzin from Louisana, chairman of the Commerce Committee, is one of the most corrupt industry shills you'll ever come across, the MPAA wanted him as their replacement for Valenti. Also, if you live in Michigan, the ranking Democrat on that Committee, John Dingell, was against LPFM last time, he needs to hear from you.
Please let your Congress critters know how you feel about this. Its one of the most blatant examples of big corporations stomping the little guy. Media consolidation and the state of radio has been in the news, so there's a small window of opportunity to put thousands of neighborhood radio stations on the air if you contact Congress.
Nobody's mentioned radio4all.org (Score:3, Informative)
too late for a 50+ year old HS station? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:too late for a 50+ year old HS station? (Score:3, Interesting)
Radio One's not the guilty party here. They didn't apply for the "new" 107.9 station in Pennsauken NJ; they just bought it from the guy who figured out how to squeeze it onto the dial. (The station isn't really new at all - it's being moved from Bridgeton NJ, where it's been operating on 107.7, and earlier on 98.9, since 1948.)
The rules are the rules. As a class D (10-watt) station, WHHS is considered a secondary service to higher-po
Giving a shout out... (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point the only hope for good radio in Los Angeles is KXLU 88.9 out of Loyola Marymount University. KROQ sucks and has sucked for most of its lifespan, and Indie which holds the space Mars FM and Groove Radio used to take up is a Clear Channel station.
Maybe with low-power radio licenses *finally* making it out there, we might hear a little diversity. Maybe Valley College's station KVCM might even get some people listening to it. It's been on Adelphia Cable for years now but you can't listen to cable radio in your car or on your Walkman.
I wonder how much it costs to set up one of these low-power radio stations? I mean, KBLT wasn't exactly run by rich people...
Re:Giving a shout out... (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on how much equipment you have in the first place, and how much manpower you are willing to put in...
You could probably get a fairly powerful FM broadcaster and antenna for $500. The in-studio stuff is what will cost you.
Multiple microphones... A pair (at least) of easily programmable CD jukeboxes, or perhaps a few computers instead (rip songs, make playlists)... A good sound board so you can mix all these channels of s
Re:yeah, and it will increase the level of (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pirate Radio? (Score:2, Funny)
Of course you can always take the route some fellows I know did. They connected their broadcast to the town railroad tracks, and four a fifteen minute period broadcast a "We are invading your world, surrender or die" kind of bit. They managed to get out of their fast enough that they weren't caught, but as far as I know, everyone in a ten mile radius picked it up on every station.
Re:Seems a bit backwards to me. (Score:3, Insightful)
The original reason for the creation of the FCC was the recognition that the airwaves are a limited resource. No regulations on who can use what frequences at what power would have made it a "free speech" situation analogous to attempting to be heard in a noisy room