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FCC Silenced Puerto Rico Radio Station's Boosters In March 2017
An dochasac writes: WAPA (680 AM) is a radio station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria took out power, phone lines, cell towers and internet, WAPA was the only Puerto Rican radio station on the air for crucial public emergency communication. But WAPA's signal coverage was significantly cut in March 2017 when the FCC refused to renew the license for synchronous AM booster stations at Arecibo, Mayaguez and Aguadilla in March due to procedural issues with the petition for renewal. This decision limited the coverage, signal strength and signal quality of this station for remote and mountainous parts of Puerto Rico where the need for emergency communications is greatest. The FCC audio division chief who pulled WAPA's synchronous booster license decided to retire a few days ago. The position is open but is focused on legal training rather than technical expertise and experience with emergency communications.
FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states. With IoT, cellular, mesh, satellite, social media and cognitive radio, communications technology is changing much faster than the FCC's legal efforts to regulate it. But its arcane regulations leave Puerto Rico as one of the few islands in the Caribbean without a long distance shortwave broadcast station. With line of sight FM stations offline and WAPA's AM station neutered, post-Maria Puerto Ricans have a better chance of getting news and emergency information from Havana, Cuba than from anything under the FCC's increasingly pointless jurisdiction.
FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states. With IoT, cellular, mesh, satellite, social media and cognitive radio, communications technology is changing much faster than the FCC's legal efforts to regulate it. But its arcane regulations leave Puerto Rico as one of the few islands in the Caribbean without a long distance shortwave broadcast station. With line of sight FM stations offline and WAPA's AM station neutered, post-Maria Puerto Ricans have a better chance of getting news and emergency information from Havana, Cuba than from anything under the FCC's increasingly pointless jurisdiction.
No bias in that summary at all LOL....
FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states.
Can't tell if he's far right, and complaining about being silenced by the left, or far left, and complaining that "those pesky nazis" get to spew their hate speech.
It also demonstrates how a "free market" is capable of failing to be in the best interests of the population.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
When it comes to incompetence, the US federal government takes the cake (and keeps it until it is stale before giving out too-small pieces to people who probably don't deserve it.) But Puerto Rico is right up there with self-serving greed, corruption, and third-world trashing of anything that doesn't have armed guards around it. Perhaps they should give up their holier-than-thou "commonwealth" charade and get a real territorial governor that could start bringing them into the late 19th century overall.
Nothing but a corrupt banana republic run by a handful of thieving families.......it's no different than Guam, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands or American Samoa. Illiteracy even in government officials is rampant. I personally know one representative in Washington who is a high school dropout (he's also a Democrat). Getting a permit filled out is beyond most of them. The US allows them self-government and this is what happens. And of course, getting lawyers involved in any government department is asking for trouble.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
But WAPA's signal coverage was significantly cut in March 2017 when the FCC refused to renew the license for synchronous AM booster stations at Arecibo, Mayaguez and Aguadilla in March due to procedural issues with the petition for renewal.
Bullshit. It wasn't "procedural issues" it was a lack of compliance with the terms they were allowed to add boosters.
Blanco-Pi sought and received annual renewals for the Stations' licenses, albeit often without the
required reports of his experimental progress.5 In 2009, he sought to add a third synchronous booster to
the two he was already operating in conjunction with station WISO.6 After initially denying the
application based on an erroneous interpretation of the rules,7 the staff denied reconsideration based on
Blanco-Pi ' s failure to demonstrate any further experimental benefit of adding a third AM synchronous
booster, at Guayama, Puerto Rico, to WISO and the two existing AM synchronous boosters.8 In seeking
review, Blanco-Pi attempted, for the first time, to justify the addition of a new AM booster station on
technical and experimental grounds; the Commission disregarded these new arguments pursuant to
Section 1.115(c) of the rules.9
Who would have thought that flaunting the rules would eventually get you shut down, right?
Also, if you think all this regulation on radio frequencies is silly then you should realize that the shielding on power supplies (that would otherwise jam most of the RF spectrum) only exist because of regulation that protects the RF spectrum from mass contamination.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The petition provided accurate information. The FCC turned down the request to add booster AM transmitters, because they considered the introduction of "experimental stations" a backdoor way of extending the broadcast license of the station.
"Blanco-Pi argues that he should be allowed to have a greater coverage area for the programming broadcast over his existing full-power stations, in part because he believes his programming to be superior to his competitors'"
"establishment of a new AM booster station merely to extend the service of an existing AM station impermissibly circumvents our commercial AM filing window and competitive bidding processes."
The FCC got all high and mighty about defending their commercial licensing. Because they require a license for every transmitter, requesting a new booster station requires extending a commercial transmitter license.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states.
Perhaps you should have mentioned that you want to censor people you disagree with instead of assuming that everyone on Slashdot happens to have your same brave wave pattern.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
First, AM booster stations only work when they have power, so there's no weight behind the implication that communications are being affected. Second, other than the "7 words" and some advertising (cigarettes, booze) the government doesn't control content, especially political content, which is protected by this 1st Amendment thing. Third, the author apparently thinks AM radio is "shortwave." It isn't.
Finally, AM Synchronous Boosters are classified as experimental, and are licensed "with a view to the development of science or technique." When WAPA first started using them, licenses had 1 year renewable terms, reflecting their temporary nature.
Eng. Wifredo G. Blanco-Pi, the owner of WAPA, has been using this experimental license for commercial, rather than experimental, purposes for 6 years. Current rules limit the total term of experimental licenses to 5 years. So, the FCC didn't renew them the last time around. As the FCC's decision says,
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states." Is the FCC supposed to be censoring conservatives or something? I didn't realize the FCC worked for the DNC.
Yep, it happens every year. Oh wait.
It also demonstrates how a "free market" is capable of failing to be in the best interests of the population.
Slow down there, cowboy! Are we to understand now that a radio station being *forced*...by government regulation...to *stop* serving their market in the manner that they'd been doing and spent good coin on doing is the *free market* at work?
These words, I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
And as far as this gem from TFS:
FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states.
Fuck you very much, and you could switch the terms to left-wing, atheist, Christian, Muslim, Nazi, Communist, Socialist, Fascist, etc etc, and unless they're actually inciting violence and/or armed rebellion/overthrow, I'd still tell you to fuck right off.
Government has no business policing the content of speech outside the aforementioned incitement to violence and/or armed rebellion/overthrow caveats, particularly and especially concerning politics or religion. This idea of "hate speech" is simply Orwell's "Newspeak" re-labeled. A prison for the minds of the masses who cannot rebel when the words and the concepts they conveyed that were used to describe it, and even for the very concept of individual freedom itself, have been erased.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
>"FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states."
WTF does that have to do with the story? So every Slashdot posting now has to be turned into a left-wing political statement/commentary?
Slow down there, cowboy! Are we to understand now that a radio station being *forced*...by government regulation...to *stop* serving their market in the manner that they'd been doing and spent good coin on doing is the *free market* at work?
That is exactly how the leftists think as is evidence by the non-stop comments that have been here on slashdot for years.
It doesnt matter how involved the government is in creating the problem. What matters to them is that they can vilify something other than the government. The left have become Statists. Its why there is now the term "classical liberal." Modern liberals don't believe in liberty.
"His name was James Damore."
I know there are some legitimate beefs about its relation to the Federal Government, but it would seem to have a lot of things going for it. Direct participation in the US dollar economy, border free movement of goods and people between the US. And as Florida fills up and becomes more expensive, wouldn't Puerto Rico become an appealing substitute with the same kind of tropical appeal?
Sure, it's got more poor people than may be average for the US mainland, but shouldn't that result in more business investment due to labor cost advantages? Or contribute to its viability as a retirement/vacation/resort destination?
I suppose there are standard, pedantic arguments that its handicapped by "colony" status and that racist US politicians have treated it poorly because its residents are Spanish speaking "foreigners" and so on.
But generally speaking, I would expect Puerto Rico to be doing better given its relative advantages over someplace like Jamaica or the Dominican Republic.
What is needed is a 50kW regional channel broadcast with directional antenna (one end of the island point to the other). This should be more than sufficient to cover the island.
sudo mod me up
I think it is more a commentary on how generally useless and wrong the stories on SlashDot have become.
I guess checking the facts before posting is asking too much. Cherry pick the sound bites and present them out of context. I feel sorry for the people in PR, but they are the master of their own destiny. It was a five year experimental license that expired a year and a half ago that was canceled six months ago by the FCC because the application was flawed.
This story, with all the errors, omissions, and bias, should have never seen the light of day.
Poor excuse for the author.
Seriously.
Maybe not every year but quite often (2014, 2010, and 2008 being the last 3). Likewise with most islands in the Caribbean. Not really a surprise. What WAS a surprise was about 12 years without a major hurricane landfall in the US. But that was the exception, as anyone living long-term in Florida/Alabama/Louisiana/Texas/Mississippi would tell you...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
WAPA replaced the synchronized stations by buying other stations on different frequencies. They have 6 stations across the island.
WAPA was not "neutered". People just had to move the dial as they moved around the island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The synchronized relays where licensed for EXPERIMENTAL use.
With no power the old synchronized stations would be off the air just like the 5 other stations they maintain now.
The synchronized system was more complicated then just running the stations on different frequencies like they do now. Each relay had to be GPS disciplined and needed perfect back-haul. If one of the relays become out of sync it would actually end up jamming the other stations. Imagine one of the relay stations getting out of wack and you have no way to get to the site to fix it or shut it down.
I have to return some videotapes...
The alternative to the government regulating radio broadcasts, is them not regulating radio broadcasts. Since this is a tech site I'll assume you realize how much more difficult that would make the whole business of broadcast transmission. The summary here is total shit so I can't really determine if it was the station operators or the FCC that fucked up the licensing. To suggest that this outcome is an intrinsic effect of licensing radio broadcasters, or government regulation more broadly, shows either a lack of understanding of the issue, or a self-imposed ideological inflexibility.
12 years? Ike 9 years ago knocked out my power for weeks and I live over an hour from the coast. Widespread damage in coastal areas like Galveston. Large hotels collapsed, museums were flooded, etc. You mistake "we haven't had media hysteria about hurricanes" with "there haven't been hurricanes".
Ike was a cat 2 hurricane when it made US landfall. Yes, a hurricane, but not a major (3+) hurricane - as I stated.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The alternative to the government regulating radio broadcasts, is them not regulating radio broadcasts.
Not all regulations are equal.
In this case nobody else is licensed to use this frequency anywhere even remotely near this location. Cogitate on that idea for a bit.
The FCC is not mediating between rival licensees of this frequency. It is just standing in the way of what can easily be argued would be an easy increase in wealth for the residents of Puerto Rico. Wealth is goods and services, radio is arguably both, and expanding coverage means more goods and services.
Why do you hate Puerto Ricans?
"His name was James Damore."
FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states.
I'll listen to the local NPR affiliate and the local news and talk station with the "right wing nutjobs" depending on which one happens to hold my interests that day. On Rush Limbaugh's show I hear him giving away brand new high end iPhones to people that call in. On NPR they keep asking listeners for money and trying to keep their government funding.
How much money does Rush make on his show? I don't know. Enough to hand out a dozen iPhones every week? Maybe he gets the phones for free from Apple but then Apple is making money on this from the advertising it brings in.
It's not the FCC's job to stop the "right wing stream of consciousness" that licensed stations bring to people. If you don't like it then listen to the competition. Buy the stuff advertised on those stations, give them money on their funding drives, and so on. If you want them to keep transmitting then make sure that they can pay their bills.
Why hasn't the FCC done anything about the "right wing" slant of AM radio? Because those stations make money, pay their fees, and file the proper license applications.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Fuck you very much, and you could switch the terms to left-wing, atheist, Christian, Muslim, Nazi, Communist, Socialist, Fascist, etc etc, and unless they're actually inciting violence and/or armed rebellion/overthrow, I'd still tell you to fuck right off.
Government has no business policing the content of speech outside the aforementioned incitement to violence and/or armed rebellion/overthrow caveats, particularly and especially concerning politics or religion. This idea of "hate speech" is simply Orwell's "Newspeak" re-labeled. A prison for the minds of the masses who cannot rebel when the words and the concepts they conveyed that were used to describe it, and even for the very concept of individual freedom itself, have been erased.
You are correct that freedom of speech includes the right to say things that a vast majority find disagreeable. But what point is there crossover between hate speech and incitement of violence? It seems like a very slippery slope. Would we have had the the vehicular assault on protesters in Charlotte occur if it were not for decades of far right media agitation? Trump's speeches (and election) have have a very obvious correlation on the rise of hate crimes across the USA. Companies like FOX are very obviously in the business of selling propaganda as a product, where they are interpreting news as evidence to support their worldview. When that worldview is to be afraid and hate other people, you need to ask some hard questions about the
Where is the line? Clearly, telling people to go murder all foreigners right now is inciting violence, and unacceptable. But isn't it also going to have a negative consequences if you spend decades telling people repeatedly that all foreigners are thieves and rapists? That will result in murders and violence, but likely on a lesser scale.
The right has some solid political ideas that are worthy of discussion, but they are in bed with some really questionable people with seedy ideas. The level of political animosity that exists right now is a direct result of decades of conservative political propaganda telling Americans to hate each other.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
No, we're supposed to bandwagon against the head of the Federal COMMUNICATIONS commission for letting the holy paperwork come before maintaining an ability to effectively COMMUNICATE with the population in the event of an emergency. There's no need to predict a particular emergency, just be prepared when one comes up. As for the need for the boosters, they're SUPPOSED to know this stuff. They absolutely could know that they were necessary to reach all of the population. If they didn't know then they're incompetent. If they just didn't care they are culpably negligent.
I heard a radio preacher in Kansas calling for the extermination of inferior people (by which he meant of a race or religion he didn't fancy).
The 107 comments so far relate to an inaccurate original post. First, with the exception of Cuba's probaganda machine called Radio Havana, there is no longer any use of short-wave anywhere on the Caribbean islands. On most Caribbean island nations, AM radio has been shuttered with many FM stations operating from seemingly every island and atol in the region. Further, there are no shortwave radio receivers available. Then there is the question of why anyone would open a shortwave station in Puerto Rico, since US radio regulations prohibit serving the domestic population on shortwave. The poster seems to believe that WAPA is a unique service. Not counting translators and LPFM stations, Puerto Rico has over 120 licensed AM and FM stations. Several others, including WIPR, WKAQ and WODA were only briefly, if at all, off the air and continued to serve the Island population. WKAQ and WIPR, in conditions where there is little man-made interference, cover the entire island adequately. So does WAPA's single San Juan transmitter. Other stations, like news outlet WUNO, came back shortly after the storm had passed. There is no lack of radio signals; there is a lack of power and even batteries to operate radio receivers at the listener end. The discussion of program content on the US mainland does little to solve the horrible problems of basic necessities for food, water, power and information in Puerto Rico. Our communications policy is not to regulate content, and, in fact, Puerto Rico had a thriving radio sector with multiple Island-wide networks of news and talk stations reflecting both of the major political parties and philosophies in the Commonwealth.
Not quite. The repeaters in question had been in continuous operation for anywhere from 14 to 18 years. The FCC denied permission to continue operating these repeaters because they felt that there was no further benefit to experimenting with synchronous repeater technology, and that they were effectively just being used as commercial stations at this point, which requires a competitive bidding process.
The decision is, IMO, dubious, because they should have done this at least a decade sooner. De-licensing the repeaters after so many years of continuous repeater operation is tantamount to reducing the de-facto range of the main station, which represents the loss of a resource that the community had grown to depend on.
Really, this was a screw-up by the George W. Bush FCC, after which the Obama FCC said, "Screw it, we're not touching this mess", and subsequently, the Trump FCC said, "Let's poke a stick into this round, brown, paper-like object hanging under the eaves and see what happens."
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Regulatory agencies should be removed every 10-20 years. This would mean completely eliminating all personnel and a minimum of regulation. government does not have the agility to meet the needs of the changing technologies and regulatory agencies tend to stifle growth, cater to companies that pay them off and do not listen to the consumers . They need a time limit, I would actually suggest that everything have an expiration date, WTF is this that politicians make decision with lifelong generational effects ? This is making a decision in a vacuum
If it was important to the station owners, they wouldn't have messed up the license renewals.
But WAPA's signal coverage was significantly cut in March 2017 when the FCC refused to renew the license for synchronous AM booster stations at Arecibo, Mayaguez and Aguadilla in March due to procedural issues with the petition for renewal.
They messed up the paperwork, the gov't merely expected the station to follow the rules...
This decision limited the coverage, signal strength and signal quality of this station for remote and mountainous parts of Puerto Rico where the need for emergency communications is greatest.
This so-called "decision" was not, in fact, a decision, it was in fact the the result of failing to follow the legal process of requesting a renewal six months before the hurricane hit the island - nothing more.
Ken
So wanting the FCC to lighten up on the regulations a bit make me a typical leftist? You're going to have to send me a program because that seems a bit off to me.
The FCC should also, BTW lighten up on the competition's regulations so long as the use is non-interfering. In other words, the FCC's jog isn't to cripple everyone until they're equal, it's supposed to manage spectrum allocations so they don't step on each other. The boosters do not expand the spectrum allocation.
...like bullshit. I can pretty much guarantee that this story is full of holes.
Go home, you're drunk!
Well said.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states" - good - they're not supposed to do that, due to the pesky 1st Amendment. Free speech and all that.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
"FCC audio division's regulations have done little to stop AM and satellite radio from broadcasting right-wing streams-of-consciousness throughout the lower 48 states." Seriously? Guess you don't believe in free speech.
WAPA replaced the synchronized stations by buying other stations on different frequencies. They have 6 stations across the island. WAPA was not "neutered". People just had to move the dial as they moved around the island.
Thus allowing this single station to unnecessarily monopolize valuable public bandwidth that could have been used for competing stations, competing ideas, community radio, emergency broadcasts...
So which of the FCC's strategic goals does this fall under? 1) Promoting Economic Growth and National Leadership, 2) Protecting Public Interest Goals, 3) Making Networks Work for Everyone or 4) Promoting Operational Excellence?
This experimental license had been renewed for more than a decade. It was pulled with only a 30 day notice for public comments and many of those comments were ignored for procedural issue. It was not possible for WAPA obtain a non-experimental synchronous A.M. booster license because despite this experiment's success, the FCC provided no legal path to such a license. Blanco-Pi complied with the FCC's demand to go back to the original license despite its inferiority in spectrum efficiency and coverage.
Regarding the use of the 455-1600Khz A.M. spectrum as a vehicle for anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, pro-gun, pro-hate, white-supremacists propaganda. This does go against the FCC's goals,especially regarding universal service, public safety and national security. This administration's failures make it clearer each day how toxic this propaganda has been. The hate, conspiracy theories and accusations spewed here is another indication. But I apologize for adding that final paragraph. It deserves a separate story.