Congress Considering More Low Power FM Stations

Skapare writes "According to this ReclaimTheMedia article, the Local Community Radio Act of 2007 (PDF) would remove the artificial restrictions imposed on LPFM by a 2000 law passed at the urging of corporate radio giants and NPR, claiming that small community stations would interfere with the signals of larger stations. If passed, this bill will pave the way for educational groups, nonprofits, unions, schools and local governments to launch new local radio stations across the country."

Radio?

With other more cost-effective media like the internet, why would non-profits CARE about radio?

Re:Radio?

Because it is public property, not the property of mega corporations. They should have a right to use the airwaves for their small businesses or nonprofits without being part of the media cartels.

Re:Radio?

Because it is public property, not the property of mega corporations. They should have a right to use the airwaves for their small businesses or nonprofits without being part of the media cartels.

Then it must be regulated! Can't let the public get out of hand. Better that they spend their money on items to express their personality than to express their discontent in a society that abuses them.

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Not only that, radio is fun and speaks to a lot of people the same way books do. Why bother with books when you can stare at your computer like a zombie?

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Because not everyone has the internet. Because listening to internet radio in your car is not an option for most people. Because radio is still a vital art form.

This law is essential to undo the injustice of the 2000 law.

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The thing about internet radio/podcasting is that you have to be looking for something specific, or know in a general sense what it is you're wanting.

Sometimes, you just want to turn on a station. Maybe you'll get talk. Maybe you'll get some new music,

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You might be right, but all I need is one more local Christian 'holier than thou, we're all going to hell in a handbasket' radio station blotting out my daily dose of NPR on the way to work in the morning. Nothing more annoying than a niche station from AN

Re:Radio?

With other more cost-effective media like the internet, why would non-profits CARE about radio?

Ramsey Electronics will sell you a 50 watt LPFM Radio Station In A Box [ramseyelectronics.com] for $4000.

The price of a single high-end laptop. The non-profit may want to reach the audience that doesn't have dial-up service, much less WiFi or broadband cable: the poor, the elderly, the disabled, etc.

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4000!!!!??? I am sure if you go to that pirate radio site in Berkly you could get schematics for the same radio and parts for less than 400. I agree about the reaching people without computers.

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4000!!!!??? I am sure if you go to that pirate radio site in Berkly you could get schematics for the same radio and parts for less than 400

The Ramsey unit is quite literally a commercial grade - FCC certified - station in a box.

50 Watt Output. CD-Record

Re:Radio?

Or, go here http://www.pcs-electronics.com/pc-transmitters-c-6 4.html#Pci%20max [pcs-electronics.com] and put your own box together for less.

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In addition to what others have said. Perhaps these smaller organizations want to limit the range of their transmissions geographically. Putting something on the internet means its hard for people in your area to find it easily while tuning your radio to X

Hey, guess what?

Not everyone has a multihundred dollar smart pda wifi equipped cellphone thingamajig and hangs out within 50 feet of starbucks so they can get netstreams while they are out and about. A shirt pocket FM radio complete with ~quality~ 5 cent earbud costs one dollar at the buckstore. And it works, and only takes one double AA and lasts for weeks.

That's why FM radio is still a good option. And the transmitter for low power is pretty cheap, and no need to pay for expensive bandwith or whatnot, and as many people as there are locally who can tune it all get the same stream of talk or whatever, infinitely scalable, 100 to a million, as long as you are in range, you get the same thing everyone else can get.

Enough reasons?

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Radios are cheaper than computers, last I checked.
Also, Soundscan collects extra fees for any internet radio station that plays music, and is about to retroactively raise the rates, so internet radio stations with music aren't cheaper than true radio stat

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compare the bandwidth cost of an internet site to a radio transmitter reaching the same number of people (say 50,000) for serveral hours per day.

RADIO WINS

Fallback

Consider this. In times of natural disaster/terrorist attack/power outage the FM radio is FAR AND AWAY the best mechanism for information dissemination. The only functioning long-range systems will be generator powered amateur radio. So, a network of FC

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***With other more cost-effective media like the internet, why would non-profits CARE about radio?***

A few reasons:

• Some of us still hope against hope that drivers are not browsing the Internet in their cars ... at least not while driving.
• You must hav

one example

Our town recently became the beneficiary of a LPFM station and it carries interviews, rock, country, jazz, hiphop, news, talk... has over a dozen jocks. I can listen to it in the car and streamed online. It's, in a word, GREAT. I listen to a local AM station for about 1/10 the time I used to. No other FM around here appeals to me. I'm not associated with the station in any way.

yet.

Without reading the article I can conclusively state I'm behind every effort to expand private and low-power penetration of the airwaves.

Like the last translator invasion?

Another 5000 religious satellite-based repeater stations and just about zero actual local stations. Just like the last time.

No reason why that has to be.

Seems like the solution to that is obvious -- don't allow repeaters.

I think it could be a boon for colleges and small organizations that might be interested in having a radio station, but that can't afford one currently because it's so expensive to get spe

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Not true, I listen to pirate radio around here that used to operate legally. I know of many other stations, and am in solidarity with their right to express themselves. The law was killed by corporate radio before not wanting additional options. I expect t

Great...

Now my iPod FM trasmitter will suck even more.

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Now my iPod FM trasmitter will suck even more.

Eh, it's not like it worked well anyway. Might as well listen to small radio stations instead of being isolated within your own personal preferences.

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Might as well go down to the local gay cocaine strip bar instead of being isolated within your own personal preferences.

Good illustration of your point, however the value of a large mass communicating over public airwaves is more important in my mind than

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Can't they co-exist?
I use an FM transmitter for a CD player in my car because I'm too cheap to buy a new stereo. Anyone who happens to be within its range, which is maybe 20 feet, is perfectly welcome to have a listen.

I would like to see a little bit reser

Love mine

I'm smart enough to live in a town cool enough to have our own local radio station [communityradio.coop], and I agree with the other posters. It's great. It's run by local people, often playing local music. The only other radio worth listening to is NPR.

Fuck Clear Channel.

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I agree, excellent points. Fuck Clear Channel

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Can I second that?

Oh, what the hell, Fsck Clear Channel !

Actually, I have a friend at Clear Channel, though he may not be after this. ;-)

Here in Houston we have KPFT [kpft.org] Pacific Radio and KUHF [kuhf.org] NPR.

Radio Libre!

I was involved in the pirate radio scene in San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Down in Santa Cruz they had this micro-power radio station set up in the local anarchist house, which was also the main Food not Bombs house. The FCC found out about it and came to try to bust them, but somehow they got word and skedaddled. No lie, they loaded up the station in a Food not Bombs bike cart and pedaled that sucker from hill to hill for a week, always one step ahead of the FCC snoops. Then the anarchist house started to sink into a sinkhole and got condemned, so the anarchists all had bigger things to worry about.

They had a stand off with the authorities for a month before the cops finally got a court order and raided the house. Funny story, they had this weird guy who lived in the attic and saved all his pee in jars, so they booby trapped the place with jars of pee. Those were not happy cops that day, I'll tell you what. But the spirit of the place was broken, and Santa Cruz lost its pirate radio.

In San Francisco, the station I knew had an actual studio in the Labor Temple [noehill.com] right next to my IWW union office, and no one bothered them much. Heh, if you lived within five blocks of Mission and 16th, you might even have heard them. Woot! 30 whole watts of AWESOME POWER! Ah, good times, good times.

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I was involved in the pirate radio scene in San Francisco and Santa Cruz.

That's awesome. Glad to hear it.

Down in Santa Cruz they had this micro-power radio station set up in the local anarchist house, which was also the main Food not Bombs house.

It seems a

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Oh man, I've sung those songs. While striking, even! That was the Borders Books campaign, if you remember that one. It was pretty big, and I helped set up the world's first cyber-picket. Pretty much any search for Border's Books in '95 would have returned

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Oh man, I've sung those songs. While striking, even! That was the Borders Books campaign, if you remember that one. It was pretty big, and I helped set up the world's first cyber-picket. Pretty much any search for Border's Books in '95 would have returned

Re:Radio Libre!

An anarchist house? well, good luck to them. We tried to set up an anarchist house a few years ago; but it never worked - nobody would follow the rules.

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An anarchist house? well, good luck to them. We tried to set up an anarchist house a few years ago; but it never worked - nobody would follow the rules.

There are several I know of, and they work quite well. They let homeless people sleep there, have a libr

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There are some problems, like theft from drifters, but the value outweighs the issues in my mind.

Um, by definition if you eschew the concept of property, then there cannot be "theft."

Reminds me of a student anarchist I met at one campus or another

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Um, by definition if you eschew the concept of property, then there cannot be "theft."

An anarchist does not want a government to exist, a communist does not want property to exist (as a concept). So in anarchism there can very well be theft there would sim

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That should have read "there would simply not be a large group that defines what it is or tries to stop it."

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Who says anarchists don't believe in property? In fact, that is the issue that sets apart the different anarchist groups. Most anarchists, as opposed to communists, believe in personal property rights, such as the right to own houses and clothes. Anarcho-c

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Anarcho-capitalists such as libertarians are staunch defenders of all property rights.

Awww, come on. Don't enable them to steal our word! At least label us lefty-anarchists as Classical Libertarianism! :)

It's not a lost cause, it's only in America that the

LPFM does interfere

LPFM stations do interfere with signals of larger stations. A local high school station near my house - WPHS - is supposed to broadcast on 89.1FM.

However WPHS interferes with "large" FM 88.7 CIMX broadcasts in an ~ 2 mile radius from the location of WPHS.

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I find it more fun to take my FM transmitter and tune it to the country station here in town. then I plug in my iPod. Ooooo yeah.

Re:LPFM does interfere

It may not be the fault of WPHS. Most reports of interference are actually the result of people using crappy FM radios with poor selectivity and front-ends that are susceptible to overload. Malfunctioning transmitters are relatively rare.

fox news reports

It annoys me that every time this issue is brought up, it has to have the fox news slant. The low power FM crisis is not only due to the lefts desire to have a single station that does not continuous play top 40 music, or contiuously droll on about how the alleged sins of certain people caused 9/11, or have five minute commercial blocks on how one can improve one sexual prowess with a natural supplement.

Before trying to create the truth by repeating a lie, get the facts. In my market, on the fm dial, we have 3 general college radio stations. We have one left radio station, and two other college stations that are leftish. We have 3 christian radio stations. The other 20+ stations are commercial, I believe mostly owned by two or three enitites. At times over the past couple years, one could find 2 pairs of stations playing the same content. I do not think these stats are atypical.

The overcrowding of the FM dial is real. There are times when, at least on an analog tuner, it is difficult to distinguish a single station. NPR is not, with it's single station, or at most two, in each market, crowding the dial. What is crowding the dial is the relaxation of the ownership rules. While the summery touched on this with putting corporate radio first, the summary also implied that the problem will be solved by simplying allowing the airwaves to become more crowded.

This will not solve the problem. And while Fox news is not going to state the obvious solution, I will. Limit ownership of bandwidth to one station per entity. If the FCC wants to a vibrant radio dial, review the rules [fcc.gov] set 10 years ago. There is not reason why a single entity should ever own more that a couple stations in any market. Period. If that means the commercials stations drop precipitately, so be it. There are evidently operators out there biting at the bit, angry that they cannot get a place to play. Ownership rules will open up that space.

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Excellent points!

Freedom is not why this bill is being pushed

Democrats aren't pushing this bill so that people are being free. Democrats are pushing this bill because they hope the explosion of extra channels will dilute the audience for right wing radio stations. Given the right wing media's scathing rebuttal of elected Republicans on what is actually a damned good immigration bill, I would be surprised if Republicans in the Congress did not support this.

Still, pay close attention to how this bill is being written and who can actually get these stations and who can't. Democrats are going to push to make sure that their people get the stations, and Republicans need to be on their toes to make sure their people get theres. If you see things like city governments, universities, and public schools getting more stations (all traditionally liberal points), then the Democrats are playing games. If you see things like churches, local chambers of commerce, adult groups like the FreeMasons, or even gun clubs getting them, then you can bet that Republicans win.

If they compromise and everyone can get a station, then it is a good bill.

One problem.

Aren't all analog transmissions going to end in a couple years?

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No. Any switch to 100% digital is many years away, if ever. Digital radio broadcasting is still in an early stage of development and deployment.

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You are likely thinking of television broadcasting. The FCC has slated February 17, 2009, though considering that the deadline had been pushed back several times previously, it would not surprise me if this gets pushed out again.

In band on channel (IBOC

Well, that's what they always say

claiming that small community stations would interfere with the signals of larger stations.

Who complains when it is the other way around? I remember when the campus station came on the air at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN and I could pick it up from a few miles away if I clicked "mono". Easy to remember because seven days later our MONSTER ROCKIN' HITS! 800-lb gorilla of a station activated their gazillion watt antenna on top of a 50 story building and the overloading in my receiver splattered harmonics across the band. No more Macalester for me so I'm inclined to suspect the big players just don't want to be bothered with being good neighbors on the airwaves.

I hope this doesn't derail the OTHER 'radio' bill.

I hope this doesn't derail the bill in progress to halt the exorbitant fees they're foisting on Internet 'radio'.