Lower Power FM bill opens the airwaves

[benburch]

http://www.theregister.com/2005/02/09/lower_power_fm_radio

Lower Power FM bill opens the airwaves
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Wednesday 9th February 2005 09:42 GMT

Senator John McCain has introduced a bill that would enable over a thousand new low power FM stations to be created in the US. The stations operate at 10 and 100 watts, typically giving a coverage of two or three miles.

Major broadcasters including NPR have lobbied for years against an expansion of micro radio, and in 2000 succeeded in tagging a rider onto the Radio Preservation Act which cut the number of stations planned by 80 per cent. The lobby also procrastinated by insisting on a two-year, $2m study which eventually confirmed that the low power FM stations pose no significant interference to the big boys.

Last year Senators McCain (R., Ariz) and Patrick Leahy (D,Vt) introduced S.2505, which aimed to put the movement back on track; the bill passed a voice vote in a Senate Commerce committee but never made it to the Senate floor. Now McCain and Leahy, joined by Maria Cantwell (D.,Wa.) have introduced the Local Community Radio Act of 2005.

<More at link>

[Tace]

1. Excellent -- Although I've Read That Most Low Power Stations Are

church stations. Low power stations are great for local communities, and offer an opportunity for broadcasting of more progressive programming.

[BiggJawn]

7. That's true. They grab everything in the low end of the band...

The lower end of the FM band is reserved for non-commercial "Educational" stations, like schools.
But churches grab up the available licenses on grounds that preaching the "gospel" is "educational"...

There is a strong "Community Radio" group in Indianapolis, but I could see them getting into a very heated and expensive legal fight for licenses with local religous broadcasting gnats Marty Hensley and "Sister Sue" Jenkins...

[Swamp Rat]

2. Great!

Now, how do I start my own, neighborhood radio station? :)

[Tace]

3. Here's A Link To A Non-Profit Law Firm With Lots Of Info

http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/lpfm/

If you google low power radio, you'll find lots of stuff. Cheers

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. this may be the way to go

for progressives who wish to take back the media. We've had pirate radio stations around here - they started with the anti-war protests in 2003-and having the ability to start a low power FM station would mean they could have regular programming and not be sporatic in being on and off the air.

[Kolesar]

5. Get 100s of these and just feed Air America from the internet into it 24/7

eom

[applegrove]

6. All part of a Neocons plan to replace government programs with

All part of a Neocons plan to replace government programs with religious and local customary law policing and guidance. That way policing will not cost the Uber rich ONE RED CENT!

I think I'll go into the fence business (they do that in the wealthy suburbs of Africa too)

[B3Nut]

8. I Hate the neocon philosophies...

but I'm all for granting low-power FM licenses. The airwaves belong to the people. The organizations that oppose community radio and low-power FM are the big corporations large broadcasters. I can't see the neocons being for this because it will lessen their information hegemony. Low power FM = free speech for the people on their airwaves. I'd start a station.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[applegrove]

9. Explain it to me like I am really dumb. How is it you are going to

Explain it to me like I am really dumb. How is it you are going to inform me better than my CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)?.

[applegrove]

10. Deregulation always results in a few big corporations (fewer than

Deregulation always results in a few big corporations (fewer than before) and many tiny ones. The mid sized corporation gets erased.

So how is this going to be good? There will be much less competition at the top (organizations that can afford foreign correspondents). And tons of mom & pop organizations that do not get erased by the giants because they are not in the same 'ballpark'.

We know how much the big corporations love that deregulation. Because the biggest turn into huge monsters and have no one to compete with.

Look at deregulation in telecommunications, the airline industry, retail, etc. etc.

Always the same. They say there will be more competition - but Wal-Mart is the type of competition they actually mean. Mid sized companies get run into the ground.

I sure will miss all those mid sized newspapers and specialty channels.

You are dreaming in Technicolor buddy - or you are a freeper.

[htuttle]

11. Wal Mart is not going to run a Low Power FM station

Opening up the possibility of Low Power FM stations increases the number of alternative stations we'll see. A 10 watt station doesn't have enough range for a big corporation to bother operating it (can't sell the ads for much if you only broadcast 2 miles).

You should learn more about the Low Power FM movement before you go around calling people freepers because they support it.

I don't know anything about the specifics of this bill, but previous attempts to reopen the low power spectrum have been well supported by many in the alternative media.

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/5/radio-kelliher.asp
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1999/07/lowpower.html

on edit:
This is not 'deregulation'. It is changing the regulations to allow smaller, lower cost radio stations. You'll still need a license from the way I read it.

[applegrove]

12. Industry deregulation results in one or two monster corporations and many

Industry deregulation results in one or two monster corporations and many tiny ones.

You know how Bush always says that 'small business' will be creating all the jobs? He is talking about jobs to replace all the ones failing mid-sized companies loose.

Just thought I'd point that out.

And in the retail industry, Wal-Mart & Costco are the result. As regional and national grocery and retail chains fail. That was just an example of what happens to an industry when it is deregulated. So it really isn't fair to say that opening up industries allows for competition at the top because it doesn't in the end. That is a fallacy. Deregulation of an industry always creates 3 or less absolute behemoths.

[htuttle]

13. This is not that sort of deregulation

The current FCC laws prohibt anyone who can't afford to spend millions from broadcasting. THAT benefits big corporations more than allowing small groups and neighborhoods to open their own radio stations.

The Wal Mart analogy is not appropriate or accurate. There are no laws prohibiting the opening of a small retail store. If there were, it would undoubtedly benefit Wal Mart.

Imagine if you could only open a website if you were as large as Google. That is the current situation with radio broadcasting. Opening up Low Power FM is analogous to allowing small websites to operate -- does that foster a monopoly of information distribution, or break it?

[applegrove]

14. You don't see the synergie with the neocon plan to reduce all

You don't see the synergy with the neocon plan to reduce all personal politics to the local level? Customary law, religion, local radio, everything small. City states. Small, small, small, small.

Just so long as nothing big is as big as the largest corporations. Like the federal government - oh no that is gone - gone is SS, income taxes, Medicare, Medicaid, and you have to buy your medical insurance through a broker and get into the stock market.

All government must be small. All regulations are small and local. Corporations are huge. Federal government is bankrupt and broken. Because the big huge conglomerates will be a mixture of several businesses like Fox is now. What stories do you think they will be reporting?

Does it not worry you that the mid sized media outlets are not something we want to loose? Which we will when advertising dollars go the way of more local sites.

Don't you get tired of all the structural change? Should we not have a plurality of types of media. Let the internet be local, it does that quite naturally. But building radio towers all over the place is ugly, and likely dangerous.

I just get tired of all the change. If it is such a good idea - leave it for the democrats in 4 years. But no - it all has to be done now so that there will be nothing left of the Federal Government.

[AP]

17. Is that why MSM has been fighting this? Deconcentrating cultural power

is not a conservative impulse.

Clear channel is a conservative impulse. Concentrated cultural power means that it's easier to tell people what to buy and what to think and how to vote.

Diversity of opinion from deconcentrated power means more ideas will compete and the best ones will rise to the top.

[applegrove]

18. Hmmmmmmm. We shall see!

[AP]

20. Clinton pushed this law to help progressives break the grip of MSM

when the final version passed after he left office, the Republicans rewrote the regulations so that churches would get an advantage at the application stage.

So, it's a chess game. Conservatives fought the bill, but when it passed, they found a way to make it work for them. Now we're in the stage of fighting back (and McCain is helping momentarily).

[foo_bar]

23. is the internet a neocon plan?

It's decentralized and barely regulated, yet here we are. Does FOX make a nickel when we read LBN?

[applegrove]

26. No - but all this technology makes outsourcing easier.

No - but all this technology makes outsourcing easier. Which is good for poor in India and perhaps other places. But really tough on the local worker. So good and bad in everything. But sometimes you just want to say "ENOUGH!". I have not followed this issue or the politics of it.

I guess I am just cautious. They call government the "nanny" government - when really they just want to get rid of powerfull government so it will not regulate corporations. I am always wary of free speech and the media 'getting smaller'. Since that would be a goal of the cocktail drinking set.

I'll hold my nose and trust you until I have time to study this myslef!

[Ian David]

15. I wonder if MoveOn would help bankroll this

[Senior citizen]

16. Pirate radio rocks!

I rarely listen to anything else any more.

If the pendulum swung back and the media became totally left-wing, I think I'd still stick with pirate radio. I'm so spoiled now that I expect to hear music I've never heard before, news from all over, and 24 hours a day of truth. Plus local activist announcements.

There are pirate radio gurus who teach workshops for free, and lots of stuff on the internet about starting a pirate station. The downside of pirate radio is that the FCC can come in and take all your equipment, plus you can be fined and maybe jailed. The upside is that you can say anything you want to say. There are at least four songs that basically say fuck the FCC and I find myself humming them whenever I'm away from the radio. The chorus from one catchy tune goes, "Fuck the FCC, fuck the FBI, fuck the CIA, living in the motherfuckin' USA." Pirate radio rocks my anti-fascist soul.

[sendero]

19. Another reason....

... to say Fuck NPR.

[jmowreader]

21. This is pretty exciting for a number of reasons...

very few having to do with politics.

I went over to eBay and looked for 2-meter ham-radio transceivers. These work between 144 and 148MHz, which is too high for FM broadcast service...stay with me, I'll get to the point eventually.

The thing about ham radios is that the people who buy 'em like to do things like "DXpeditions" (going somewhere and trying to talk to as many people as far away from them as possible for a certain period of time, like days) and emergency communications (hams have done emergency communications service ever since there was an amateur radio service), so these radios are designed to run continuously.

The two problems ham radios have in the FM broadcast service is (1) they're designed to transmit on the wrong band and (2) they're designed to transmit voice. Both are correctible by a radio mechanic. You would also need a final amplifier if you're required to run 100 watts--most old radios are 25-watt rigs.

Here's the thing: buy three or four old radios off eBay for $100 each--preferably all the same model, and preferably from the 1970s or early 1980s before they started computerizing the things--throw a couple hundred bucks at a radio mechanic to have them modified for FM broadcast service, and you have a $500-$600 transmitting rack. Add a small mixer, a couple of microphones, an antenna system, a radio to monitor what you've got going out over the air, some good CD players and a tape deck or computer with MP3 capability for spot announcements, and you're looking at an under-$2500 radio station.

There are a LOT of hobbies that cost more than $2500.

And all of a sudden you can play the kind of music you want to hear on the radio. You can call George Bush a worthless buffoon if you want and assure your advertisers that the people who will listen to an all-Frank Zappa station think Bush is a worthless buffoon too. (And most of your advertisers will think Bush is a fucking idiot too.) You can be The Voice of Sandlot Baseball in River City, calling kids' ballgames just like you were Harry Carey callin' the Cubs--and the parents will give you money for doing it! You can do things that make no sense whatsoever for a commercial station because this whole rig will draw as much power as leaving four lights on all night--low power requirements and (probably) low royalty payments for the music you play (my bet is that if this gets off the ground, someone will set up a website where you can log on, submit your playlist, and PayPal the two cents per song plus a buck for processing, and the server will sort out who gets what) mean you don't need to have much advertising to support the system. I think low-power radio will get a lot of its ad revenue from used-CD stores, antique clothing stores, coffeehouses, and tattoo shops--the kind of places people who like to listen to obscure 1970s punk tunes will frequent.

Or you can take the easy way out and just stream Air America off the web. Either way...but a lot of locally-focused liberal music & talk stations, plus Air America on a large station, would be better than just thousands of Air America stations. All politics is local.

[Wilms]

28. Is Air America cool with being re-broadcast ?!?!

That would be very, very, cool.

But would the FCC allow it??? Commercial radio.

But if it's ok, grabbing it with Satellite Radio to put it out in your community would be another way to pull it off.

Something tells me the Left better get out there and snap-up some of the available bands. :scared:

[Senior citizen]

22. Pirate online!

106.9 FM San Diego is streaming online at

radioactiveradio.org

The station is a lot like Texas weather. If you don't like what's on at the moment, stay tuned for five minutes and they'll have something you like.

Kudos to DJ Lotus, Queer J. Brad, and the rest of the anarchist crew at radioactive radio for top quality enlightening entertainment.

[foo_bar]

25. here's a plug for (non-pirate) class D radio

http://www.wbrs.org/audio.html

[1gobluedem]

24. I hate 'em

I work for an NPR affiliate in Michigan and our signal has been blocked by low power FM in three different places already. Our listener are upset and it has the potential to affect donations.

[Senior citizen]

27. That's strange. It doesn't happen here.

Most pirate stations are set up so that they meet all FCC requirements (even though they're not licensed). Ours do not interfere with any other stations.