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.

Comments

smdh

[Anonymous Coward]

No bias in that summary at all LOL....

Re:smdh

[elrous0]

I'm not sure even the summary author knows exactly what he's complaining about here.

Is he complaining that the FCC requires a radio station submit the proper paperwork to keep its boosters operating?

Is he complaining that the FCC exists at all?

Is he complaining that right-wing talk show hosts are allowed to broadcast in the U.S., and wtf does that have to do with Puerto Rico anyway?

Dude, find a coherent thesis before you hit the submit button.

Re:smdh

[radiodavid]

ok, and so therefore?

Therefore any claim that WAPA was being punished for being a progressive voice is null and voided.

WAPA had already replaced the boosters with existing stations which it bought in the respective cities of Puerto Rico, but they were not operative due to the effects of the storm... just as the boosters would not have been operative.

The issue is simply that the storm was so destructive that only 4 or 5 stations were able to stay on the air or return to the air immediately after (WIPR, WKAQ, WAPA, WODA, WUNO) and the ability to operate and serve the Island had as its only limiting factor the logistics of getting transmitters on the air and getting staff members to a place where they could broadcast.

For example, WKAQ had its building nearly destroyed, but within a few hours, they were on the air from the transmitter site which has an emergency studio. WKAQ has, for many decades, been the leading news and talk station in Puerto Rico.

In many other cases, station owners sent their staff home before the storm. Most stations in PR do not have a news department, so placing the staff of each station in danger would have been irresponsible. In fact, many stations outside the San Juan and other big city metro areas have studios at the transmitter and that location is typically low, moist and flat and in a flood zone... so those stations had no way of staying on the air.

Reality is a bummer.

Re:Bias???

[peterofoz]

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.

Re:Bias???

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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.

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.

Bullshit.

[Gravis Zero]

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.

Re:Bullshit.

[tomhath]

Yup. It's a shame they didn't apply for a license to do just that.

Really, antifa???

[eclectro]

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.

What a load of crap.

[msauve]

The whole summary reeks of an opportunistic attempt to drum up support for someone who has been trying to abuse the system for commercial gain.

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,

...he is not presently operating the Stations within the parameters set forth for experimental authorizations, that is, solely in order to utilize "radio waves in experiments with a view to the development of science or technique." Rather, he is operating the Stations as regular full-time programming adjuncts to WAPA and WISO, including advertisements. ...such operations are not appropriate for stations with experimental authorizations. In the Petition, Blanco-Pi makes it clear that he seeks to retain the Stations, not based on any further experimentation, but rather on their value as full-time re-broadcasters of the programming carried on WAPA and WISO. ...he opposes the loss of the Stations because they extend WISO and WAPA's service to other parts of the island of Puerto Rico. 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'. However, no broadcaster can simply transform experimental stations into full-time program services, much less extend those services to other communities in order to program against its 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."

Re:What a load of crap.

[Xylantiel]

[operation of these] impermissibly circumvents our commercial AM filing window and competitive bidding processes. (from your quote) -- The story is pretty close to the level of fake news. It conflates boosters for commercial stations (which these were never supposed to be) with boosters for radio science (what these were permitted as) in order to give a false impression of the situation. There is a legal way to have boosters, but this station was intentionally avoiding that process, almost certainly in order to avoid the bidding. The headline should be "FFC blocked station's attempt to cheat on regulations." If there is any blame here it is on the station not the FCC.

Re: Procedural Issues

[BlueStrat]

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

Left

[markdavis]

>"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?

Why isn't Puerto Rico more prosperous?

[swb]

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.

Re:Why isn't Puerto Rico more prosperous?

[msauve]

"How long did it take to just allow foreign supplies to be delivered during a major natural disaster?"

I take that as an oblique reference to the Jones Act, which has no effect on foreign supplies. It applies to shipments between US ports, and its effect is economic, so doesn't prevent any shipments.

Furthermore, the current issue is not getting supplies to PR, it's getting them off the docks there and on to where they need to be due to blocked roads and a lack of truckers. Making it cheaper to put a cargo container on the dock isn't currently helping the situation at all.

Total BS.

[CrAlt]

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.