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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!
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."
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!
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...
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.
Seattle area has that - 104.3, 104.5, 104.7, 104.9 . Just noticed that last night.
.5 MHz signal bleed, combined with the fact that you'd be quite a disatance from any of the three other stations.
.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.
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
That's how the
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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