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Low Power FM Report Rejects Interference Concerns
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"
Can just imagine if the interference was a problem...
All those DJs going "Can you hear me now?" every five seconds.
.unsigged
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.
I have no tag line
I don't understand this news, but they can have my Mr.Microphone when they pry it out of my cold dead hands!
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.
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!
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
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.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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?
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
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!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
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!
Damn Socialists...
ostensibly because of interference concerns, and cut the number of stations from thousands to a few hundred
NPR lobbied extensively to kill LPFM, 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.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
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...
7/11/03 - Long-Overdue LPFM Interference Report Complete: No Third-Adjacent Channel Protections Necessary [link to this story]
.pdf format:
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
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
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...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.
RDBS 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 that lets you say "Tune to an oldies station".
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. 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.
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 by MITRE.
Seems like a decent open project. If they do relax the rules (which certainly isn't guaranteed) when will you have the site up? (G)
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://omt.net), and I would take the care and time to schedual, voice track, and even go on live when I had the time. Not only that, but I have a good taste of music (to me).
I personally hope the FCC gets off their asses and does something good for the PEOPLE once instead of Entercom and Clear Channel. Does anyone remember when 'The Airwaves Belong[ed] To The People'? I think it was back when ONE company could own ONE FM, ONE AM, and ONE TV station in a single market.
So, from this I'm sure you can tell how I fell about the new legislation Clear Channel and Entercom passed through the government allowing single corperations to own EVEN MORE stations in a single market.
I hate you FCC.
I hate you Clear Channel.
I hate you Entercom.
If the airwaves belong to the people, why can't the people own them?
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.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
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/ (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/
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.
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.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
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.
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 . Just my $.02 worth.
We, the unwilling,led by the unknowing,are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.--Author Unknown
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...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
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: 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.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I don't know what a Segway is so I'll skip it,
BetaMax had higher technical quality, but had several important flaws that lead to its downfall. The most important was that it was short. There were MANY full length movies that had to be shipped on two. I wouldn't like switching tapes in the middle of the Matrix.
Windows has very good quality. Most people here refuse to admit it, but Windows is a large complex peice of quality software. It also works beutifully for running a radio station. In an environment where zero downtime is a must Windows is trusted over Mac, Unix, Linux, BSD, ect. competators for some simple reasons.
1. There is a large company backing it up. I know most of you think it's a large evil company, but it is a large powerful company which isn't going anywhere for a while.
2. It's very stable. You set up a good instalation of 2K, put what you NEED on it, and keep what you don't off, stop end users from making un-necessary config changes and you'll see that thing running like a rock.
3. It's very easy to write software for. Because of this, there is much more software availible for it. Because of this, there is much more quality software availible for it.
Microsoft didn't get where it is today with marketing, it needed a quality product. That's why radio stations use it.
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 getting their panties all up in a bunch over clear channel playing shitty music when the reality is that before clear channel bought up all the big radio stations around the country, those stations were still just playing music and promoting concerts and tipping you off to the morning commute.
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.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
It's sad that a local station is allowed 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...
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 virtually all of interstate nature due to technology, trade and other advances since the Constitution was written. These new cases are pushing back on the requirement that something is actually commercial. For example, national regulation of crime and illegal drugs in our country has been based on their indirect effects on the economy. It's not clear exactly how commercial something will have to be, but it is clear that the Court is starting to take the words Interstate Commerce as an actual restriction again.
Two cases to look up are Lopez and Morrison if you want to understand the modern contours of the Commerce Clause. You can find both at Findlaw.
There's also an excellent article by Lawrence Lessig called Translating Federalism that discusses the impact of these cases. You'll have to go to your nearest law library to fin dit.
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.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
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!
Amazing how much interference is created by a briefcase full of hundred dollar bills
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers