Microbroadcasting Summer Camp

ScottGant writes "Wired has this story about Steven Dunifer and his four-day Radio Summer Camps sponsored by Free Radio Berkeley that offers how-tos for building transmitters and antennas, along with advice on handling any FCC agents that might come knocking. Imagine this: A thousand little stations send radio programming across cities and towns from senior centers, dorm rooms and attics. The understaffed FCC would be powerless to shut them down. Audiences would have substantive content choices. No one would tune into Top-40 radio. And the media moguls would slink back into their caves. The FCC and Big Radio are obviously paying attention to the microbroadcasters -- it was pressure from independent broadcasters that forced the FCC to grant a limited number of low-power, or LPFM, radio licenses to community organizations, a decision that the NAB resisted. Are these Pirates or Patriots?"

Comments

I find this hard to believe

[caffeineboy]

"The Underground" was a radio station broadcast from the top of one of the dorms at OSU. They tried without success to get a license to broadcast, including a low power license, for years... Finally, they just started broadcasting at a couple of watts from the dorm with no license.

To put it in perspective, I lived about 300M away from their broadcast site and I couldn't get any reception.

Anyway, the FCC came in and turned their power down to the legal limit. You can't get their station from 4 floors below their antenna anymore.

"there are too many, they can't get us all" is not a valid way to go about changing things, especially when the penalties are harsh like the penalties for FCC violations.

Plus, who wants the local idiot to set up a station and swamp out a station you actually like? I'm not saying that I like anything that is being broadcast, and I wish like hell I could get the underground on my radio, but it just isn't going to happen until we start reforming media ownership laws...

Sources... Kits... or not

[Rick.C]

Try this if you want to build a free-standing FM transmitter from a kit, or this if you want to drop a PCI card into your PC and be on the air instantly.

Re:Pirates or Patriots? How about idiots?

[akb]

The FCC proposed doing just what you have said is impossible, that is, licensing thousands of low power FM stations. However, the broadcast industry purchased a vote in Congress to override the FCC's technical findings. They cut the number of stations from thousands to a few hundred by requiring overly strict and told the FCC to study it a second time. The FCC study came back recently with the same results as the first one, thousands of stations can be licensed w/o causing interference.

Watch for a new bill from John McCain to allow thousands of low power FM stations to be licensed. Maybe if you become more informed about the issue you will ask your Congress critters to support this legislation since your interference concerns have been allayed. If you want more info take a look at the Free Press LPFM page

Interference

[kitzilla]

I work for a major broadcast corporation, but hope this will be taken on its own merits and as my personal opinion.

I like the idea of "hobbyist" broadcasting. The more voices, the merrier. Power to the people. There's no downside -- in theory.

The idea, though, of turning anyone with a soldering iron and microphone loose on our already crowded broadcast bands sounds like a disaster, though. Homebrew transmitters will be filthy, interefering with services inside and outside the broadcast spectrum.

The FCC has the legitimate purpose of regulating public airwaves for just this reason. Radio anarchy will reduce the usefulness of *all* broadcasting and many other services. Wanna surf wi-fi? Better hope your neighbor ain't running a dirty transmitter in your apartment complex.

I wish the Commission would consider laying aside a MHz or so for hobbyist broadcasters. But they should require type-accepted transmitters and dictate minimum technical standards of operation. None of this would be expensive or an undue burden upon those who would like to air out the First Amendment.

There's also the question of broadcast obscenity and indecency. If such broadcasts are illegal for licensed stations, the same should apply to hobbyists.

Re:MicroBroadcasters

[dasmegabyte]

Well, one of the rules of microbroadcasting is that you're not supposed to use a channel occupied by, or within .3 MHz of, an existing station.

And it's more than just gentleman's advice...if you try to piggyback your local 50,000W clearchannel station with your 10W community station, you will never be heard, not even in your own house. Your radio will ignore your broadcast as static.

When I do "pirate" broadcasts, I generally use a piece of the spectrum in between our local NPR station and a "dance party" college radio station. Both are low powered, relatively, so I get a good signal. I can broadcast almost all the way down the street! It was a lot more useful in college...where a good, low-powered-but-legal signal could reach the 9000 students or whatever in the dorms.

Some background on Steve Dunifer and FRB

[Parker51]

Many of us in radio are quite familiar with Mr. Dunifer's history. Here are some of the more notorious examples:

• Back in the early 90's, Free Radio Berkeley advertised radio transmitter kits for sale and was unable to ship them on time, leaving many paying customers hanging for months without any feedback. In response to the inevitable complaints, rather than apologize or politely explain unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Dunifer tells them to kiss my ass.
  
  
• Around the same timeframe, FRB announces that they have been "invited" to Lollapalooza to set up booths and give demonstrations of pirate radio. I put the word invited in quotes because FRB got turned away at the gate at Lollapalooza at many tour locations. Blame it on poor planning by FRB, communications/coordination problems with Lollapalooza sponsors, or the whole thing inevitably degrading into a say-you're-with-FRB-and-you-get-into-Lollapalooza- for-free scam.
  
  
• In 1998, after three years of tilting at windmills filing appeals in federal courts, Stephen Dunifer's own pirate radio station is shut down. The judge granted the U.S. Attorney's motion for summary judgement, and issued a permanent injunction.
  
  

What's ironic, and maudlin about the whole affair, is if Mr. Dunifer had not blatantly violated FCC rules, he would have been eligible to submit an application for a Lower Power FM (LPFM) license, which the FCC has begun granting again. Even if Mr. Dunifer is himself ineligible, he could have used this opportunity to encourage and support others in applying for such licenses. However, you won't see Mr. Dunifer or FRB doing this. They would rather play with their own toys by their own rules, and society be damned.