FCC Supports Neighborhood Radio

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."

Comments

here here

[ahuimanu]

Let us not forget how powerful and important college radio can be. College radio certainly falls under this category and has been here for awhile. I was a program director at a college radio station in Hawaii in my college days (KTUH) and, in balance, I believe we offered more to the community than any other station (Public Radio excepted).

Re:here here

[ahuimanu]

I am talking about the late 1980s. I do think our culture is far more stiffled by commerce and capitalism than even then. Our was a quasi-hippie/radical/anarchist/liberal/cerebral/in tellectual/rock-n-roll experience. However, we let ALL KINDS on, so we had a conservative or two on and it was FUN!

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)

Neighborhood radio

[ak_hepcat]

This seems like it would be a no-brainer, but I'm glad they're finally waking up to hear the radio.

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!" ... tick...tick...tick..)

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Mobile station? Did that, several times.

TV production company I worked for used to take the mobile production truck on long trips. We bought a stereo FM transmitter, 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.

And for taxpayer incentives

[drachenstern]

"After significant expense by the taxpayers, the scientists have reported on the same laws of physics that have always existed," deputy director Cheryl Leanza said. "These tiny radio stations are no threat to the current broadcast system. It is now time for Congress to take action based on that analysis."

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

FCC spacing rules

[nerw]

A few critical points to consider here:

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

High School Radio pushed off the air

[Anonymous Coward]

To make room for yet another hip-hop station owned by the same company that already has two hip-hop stations in the same market -- Philadelphia

The sounds of silence? - Haverford High's WHHS, around since 1949, must vacate its spot on the FM spectrum.

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.