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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.
Either way its -10 points for off topic content.
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
I can tell. He's a lefty who's tweaked that the FCC won't censor his political opposition.
Since the number of stations (and alternative media outlets) climbed to the point where there was no shortage to be used to justify forcing radio stations to present all positions on controversial subjects, the "fairness doctrine" regulations were removed. This let free speech came at last to radio, which enabled the talk radio industry.
Talk radio ended up presenting primarily conservative viewpoints, mainly because progressive viewpoints tend to be presented as as 1984-style duckspeak rants attempting to enforce consensus, and this verbal abuse didn't attract enough listeners for such shows to achieve financial success.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
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?
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.
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...