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

They couldn't stop us before

[nil5]

I've been doing this for a while, and I've known a few guys to get busted, but mostly it's unenforceable as it is. Why not make the law reflect that?

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.

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

Re:yeah, and it will increase the level of

[Anonymous Coward]

If people don't want to hear what they have to say, they should be asked to just stop listening. There a lot of people that complain about material they should have no right to complain, especially when it is voluntary. On the other hand, if lies are being told, slap them with the law. We must all be careful though. Stations like this won't be making a lot of money like most of the current ones you find, so any fines should be fair. Imagine how easy if would be to shut down one of these small stations with a nice big fine. I'm sure Clearchannel would be a supporter of heavier fines for slander and such.

Re:About time

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

My only fear is that some idiot doesn't do his homework and step over an existing radio station's frequency. Gifts like this from the FCC are few and far between - it would be nice if independent radio was allowed to flourish without some meathead screwing it up for everyone. Ah my faith in human nature...

Re:not without a fight

[ShadowBlasko]

Ummm, while the numbers may be correct, its market saturation that you need to look at.

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 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.)

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.

Re:About time

[Bi()hazard]

Considering this is slashdot, I'm sure few of you bothered to read the article, let alone go to the FCC's web site and download the pdf version of "Report to the congress on the Low Power FM Interference Testing Program". Well, I did, so here's my chance to flaunt it..er I mean inform the community of the valuable information it contains. (this'll be a long post, so most of you will just want to read the first few paragraphs and follow the link. All the trolls out there should spend the time to read it all to the end :P)

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.

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