More studies from me tonight as I've bookmarked the total list of field NOUO's. I can see more clearly why even asking for 1,000 uV/M @ 3 meters may get shot down the first second the petition is created. Maryland didn't even publish the field strength but lots of activity in NY around the Brooklyn and Bronx areas. All well below 1,000 uV/M at 3 meters. This message seems to ring in my head loud and clear that soon the only place to play Radio will be AM. I don't even think we can get 87.9 temporarily out of the gray areas. Field strengths in the 600's will get you busted I'm sure even 300-400 would as well. I'm sure it was not a Whole House FM Transmitter at the secret power level. At this rate more like a Belkin with a wire soldered to the PC board as an antenna or C. Crane with a lead wire clipped to the antenna without turning up the put. Some of the 700 and above may have been a certified transmitter like the Whole House FM Transmitter modified or at secret power. Question too is what about the Ramsey transmitters we know are just a little higher than 250 uV/m? I could not understand why folks were dead set against the PRO FM movement or initiative and now that I had a chance to calm down, Study, Look, Listen and meditate on what the information should be saying to me is that trying to get more field strength for every user in all cities of the USA will NEVER work. I'm sure only if we had 87.9 Mhz it may have been possible or petition the FCC to allow 1,000 uV/M on a city by city basis. How would anyone do this? I'm just thinking of soon giving up FM I'm sorry but it might not be a good idea and it really seems like it could be a waste no matter how bad we really want this and believe me I WANT THIS. But studies show me little chance with all the translators and more AM stations wanting to be on FM. I'm going to continue to see what the Talking House AM transmitter will do. So far my FM signals are not gaining me any extra listeners in my local area as no one locally contacted me by the Rockline and NO Elizabeth City NC IP's are showing up in the stats of Icecast V2. It tells me that the range I am getting on FM isn't enough to get people to hear me to try my Internet station which was my intent in the first place. And I'm not jacking up my FM power. If anything I'll lower the FM power to the -48dbm setting on the SainSonic AX-05B and use the 87.9 Mhz only as a link to the AM transmitter or better yet try and use my own Wifi trick to link it to a smartphone that is not active and plug it into the AM Transmitter and put the AM transmitter on the second floor as Station8 suggested. I'll still try with the petition if you guys want but as Tim says Music and just because we want to be heard won't work and now that I published the WiFi trick the FCC may simply tell us to try Wifi Radio or AM or Internet Radio instead. Again it hurts me to have to admit defeat here. I'm not one to give up easily. But if I thought I'd win i'd keep pushing ra ra ra but really I'd go down as an insane maniac who wants Power over the airwaves. I don't condone this jamming of other stations and wars either. If we increase the strength for FM without the forcing the manufacturers to have the scan before transmitting done we'll really mess up FM worse than it is already for many of the US citizens living in metro areas. That too is something I can't live with either. I had to fight myself as I write this. Its against every bone in my body to admit this fact but guys its true. Its not the fault of NAB, SBE, whatever whatever its a fact of science 101. More people means more stations, more inter mod, more possible RF interference. We'd have a better chance at forcing the manufacturers of receivers to start filtering the Radio's better and be more sensitive for AM and FM. This will help some. Even that stands a chance of getting shot down but its less insane that the making High Power part 15 FM for everyone. Secondary service well we learned about LP-10. Heck even LPFM is in jeopardy. Lets try and work with AM and come up with ways to improve it. Album Rockers will just have to deal with the laws that be and science. They want Stereo buy an AM stereo receiver. They could start donating to my station not just one company that has been giving $100-200 a pop for the equipment I use to run my station. That one company has done a lot just wish others would help and not complain when my Internet acts up and some skipping happens. I know Progressive Rock is picky but if they don't pay the bills I say they should not complain about Mono till I can figure out AM Stereo. Like I said if you want to push on we'll see where it goes but I'm getting Emails from people who don't want to lose what they have and really don't want to have me push so hard. So with that from what I've learned it just won't get us more power on FM. Now if I got it wrong tell me and we'll try a strategy. But how do you deal with these facts?
Guys I can really feel your frustration all the way here to Norwich, Connecticut so intensly it's literly shaking my house.....BOOM!!!!!
I really wish I knew what to say, I really wish I could fix the problem for the better of all.
One second we see hope, the next we see doom.
First off the USA made a terrible mistake from the very beginning when they created the radio bands.
They thought 200 channels for FM was enough in those days because AM broadcasting was popular and FM broadcast was new.
They never planned for the future. AM is a very large piece of spectrum, where FM is much smaller. Now we have a very big problem in this country. The FM broadcast band is very overly grossly congested and the increase of ERP allowed has caused many stations to cover well out of their intended market areas.
Here in Norwich Connecticut, I can get stations from Boston MA, Providence R.I. and New York as well as Connecticut stations. When stations from Boston control the spectrum as far away as Norwich and have channel protection from adjacent channels, it makes matters worse.
WHY THE HELL THE NAB IS NOT LOBBYING THE FCC FOR MORE SPECTRUM FOR FM BROADCAST BAND IS BEYOUND ME!!!! But they are not!
They continue to fill that spectrum with more translators and more translators it isn't funny anymore!!!
My being on this soap box isn't fixing it either. Bitching isn't going to make it go away. If the NAB isn't fighting, then my bitching isn't going to fix it either.
If I was really allowed a license to operate an FM radio station, the one thing I'd be bitching for from the NAB is more spectrum, so the current FM mess could be cleared up a bit. Stations would have more room to breath and not be on top of each other like they are now.
But if the television re-packing is the FCC's answer to things, we're in very terrible terrible trouble folks! The FCC wants to push all the television stations onto a smaller number of channels. If you ever recieved any stations on your television from another television market, you won't, once all your stations are on the same channels as your out of market stations. Your locals will block all the out of market stations once they are all on the same channels. But now I'm covering a different animal here, back to FM.
It is no secret that the FCC can't even do what is right for the licensed stations who pay them big money anually, do you really think they can do right by part 15? Not in this lifetime.
The FCC has to re-think what a nightmare they are making of our public broadcast spectrum all in favor over wireless services. In the meantime, they are abandoning all the spectrum below 55 MHZ.
The old cordless phone and baby monitor channels are all empty in 46MHz and 49 MHz, they all moved up to the UHF band frequencies. Why not open a whole new broadcast band down there and call it FM 1 radio service, an extension to 88.1 MHz to 107.9MHz? Force radio manufacturers to add that band to new radios and other RF devices such as cell phones?
Hey they did that with digital television didn't they? They required every American to get a new television or a convertor to continue viewing television broadcasts, they can do the same with radio broadcasting as well. Space the channels out more, unlike the current FM broadcast band where the channels are at 88.1 88.3 88.5 ect. This way, co-channel and second adjacent issues are resolved.
Okay...I'm done ranting...Your opinions good or bad are welcomed.
Bruce.
At 5 AM this morning before dawn light I very much enjoyed the past two postings from TheLegacy and MrBruce.
I see that critical thought has moved the thinking along an evolutionary path and new conclusions are being reached about what is possible against the forces that be.
But the brew in the kettle of the mind has more time to simmer before our next ALPB meeting on September 5, and nothing is ever final until the ALPB decides the outcome.
As a pessimist I actually have an optimistic view about the chances for improving 15.239, benefitting from the failure of others.
Opinion drives me to see the near future as one where the market cannot sustain the level of expense to continuously operate so many licensed FM services large and small.
I notice that even small LPFM and other public stations feel so compelled to "be on the dial" that they are unable to shut down overnight to save a penny, even though most of the population is sleeping during those hours.
Commercial stations are hemorrhaging advertisers bleeding away toward newer media online.
The blight that is already thinning the AM dial will make its way to FM as we stand by and watch.
Going after pirates and preventing part 15ers is a frantic attempt to scapegoat somebody, anybody, to patch the leaks, buts it's not the real problem and amounts to spinning the wheels.
Our prayers are being answered even for those of us who don't pray.
Many of the pirates in Florida are running hundreds of watts from Part 73 certified transmitters. It is not a question of turning down the power a bit.
Why can't the FM band be extended to 76-108 MHZ like most everywhere else?
Eliminate the problem mentioned in the last couple of posts.
Mark
Go to the FCC web site. Dig around. Everybody keeps asking the same thing over and over and over and over and over......
Glad nobody seen my typo I made above, FM band has 100 channels not 200 as I had stated above, perhaps you all knew what I meant? I caught that mistake when it was too late to edit it.
But then THERE IS HD Radio right?
Anyways on with the show........
Bruce.
Nothing has really changed.
I caution everyone not to get caught up in the highs and lows of any new initiative. The quest to increase Part 15 FM field strength always had a low probability of success. But then, anything worthwhile, particularly when it's going against the status quo, is like that.
As for these NOUO's, the FCC is merely enforcing the rules as they currently exist. Nothing more. They likely received a complaint from a local radio station (perhaps from some publicity, or even word of mouth) which had no idea who or what they were.
I speak from experience, in running a 1000uv/m at 3 meter station here in Canada, that transmitters with field strength 500-700 uv/m at 3 meters really have a puny signal. The idea that such signals could interfere significantly with a licensed station on adjancent channels is almost laughable.
In my studio, with a radio right beside my transmitting antenna, yes, the signal bleeds over into nearby frequencies (a channel or two on each side). With my car radio, however, when the car is sitting in the garage about 10 feet away, there is absolutely no interference on even the next channel (and it's not a great radio). Even inside my house, when I'm on other levels, crappier radios don't exhibit any interference.
Maybe, just maybe, you might have a bit of interference on the next channel a house or two down on really bad radios, but that's about it.
Now, if you were transmitting over a radio station on the same channel, it might be a different story. I don't know why you'd do that, as your range would be significantly reduced (even over a weak signal that suddenly popped up when I was on Bowen Island, I noticed a huge dropoff). The interference would depend on the strength of the other signal - if it was very weak, it's not even serving the area in which you're broadcasting but you would cover it over for a bit. If it was strong and local, it would have a better chance of covering your signal than you theirs, even within your own house.
Don't forget the inverse field strength rule - 1000uv/m at 3 meters = 250uv/m at 12 meters (ignoring other factors). That means at 12 meters, 40 feet or so, a Canadian legal FM signal has the same field strength as a U.S. one, and we all know how weak that would be.
I've always felt that the best chance of succeeding for the initiative was to go for Canadian level field strength. There hasn't been a meltdown in Canada's urban areas with this increased level, even though the FM station density is comparable to that of many areas in the U.S. (the U.S. just has a lot more areas in which this occurs, hence the greatly increased number overall of FM stations).
In many ways, Carl's idea of Part 15 FM (even at this revised level) being a personal broadcasting endeavour is accurate - you would need a very specialized application, along with the ideal environment for it to be otherwise; if you don't have that, then you're basically broadcasting to yourself and maybe a few houses down (with ordinary radios). My Bowen Island experience was one such specialized application - my target audience was a ferry lineup (so the potential listeners had the best radios), and my transmitter was elevated over 10 meters AND located at the top of a hill overlooking the lineup (so the transmitting antenna had direct line of sight to the receiving antennas). AND, the potential listeners had plenty of time on their hands while waiting for the ferry. It's rare that you will get such an ideal set of circumstances. If I had to attempt to broadcast to the little village of Snug Cove (which served as the 'downtown' of the island), who would listen on regular radios, I would probably have (and still would) chosen AM.
Being that the ALPB is about improving things not to make a mess of things just to satisfy part 15 FM Bruce you have a good point too. Why not expand the band using the lower frequencies that are not used anymore. Part of that expanded broadcast band initiative could leave some room for low part part 15 Radio. As I mentioned in one of the meetings on Teamspeak Long ago before cordless phones expanded the channels I had a Cobra cordless phone broadcasting on 46 Mhz for the base and 49 Mhz for the handset. The Base could be picked up on a hand held police scanner about 900-1000 Ft and when there was an outside antenna connected to the police scanner I could hear the signal of my mobile unit almost under a mile. I did quite good down there. A neighbor had a baby monitor and I could hear that ¼ mile away on my hand held scanner I had at the time. Hey there is your ¼ mile Radio station waiting to happen. Instead of 1,3,5,7,9 it could be 100,500,700 to leave room for less bleed from nearby signals. The problem with Wide Band FM is that it takes so much real estate just to get the high fidelity sound required from Audiophiles. So you have an issue that the FCC has to try and digest. Just what we are supposed to do with what little governmental resources we have. Yesterday was an eye opening turning point for me. I guess The Legacy was a good name for me. I still have to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming. But again I think too that lobbying for more field strength when licensed thousand dollar a month stations are having issues already with interference is just going to add fuel to the out of control fire. We have AM stations wanting FM so lets try and make AM better. Does it say we cannot as part 15ers modulate an FM carrier on the broadcast band of 530-1700 Khz? Maybe get the FCC to change part of the AM band and allow FM modulation. Or something different. Right now it just isn't working.
O Googled Snug Cove and looked at the pictures including the Ferry Station. Very nice looking place. Why did you move?
Why are people giving up on a higher field strength when the FCC was *doing their job* with the current rules? I see people saying "oh well, it's under 1000uv so I guess we're done". Um, the speed limit here is 65 on most major highways. It was 55 for decades. So, if cops are giving out tickets for 65 before the change, people should give up trying to change the speed limit?
People, the FCC was doing their job. 250uv is the current rule. Don't give up because you think they should have just turned away.
I don't feel that I am giving up, it's just that the current FM broadcast band in my area is already so damned congested that even big corperations can't find a spot on the dial.
Listen I understand some of you who post here live out in farm country, but for those of us who live in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island, the facts are there is nothing left to the current FM broadcast band. Try radio locater, it is a bit out of date for my area because two new LPFM's just went on the air within the last 12 months and those channels are still showing empty fopr my area, but the spikes indicate there are no open channels left here.
Okay AM broadcasting is my only choice left, but trying to mathamatically come up with a decent AM broadcast antenna is also a confusing nightmare for me.
The FCC needs to expand the FM broadcast Radio service, I understand television will need 55MHz to 88.1MHz again, but opening a NEW band below 54MHz should be looked at as an option.
This time, do not put stations 100 KHz apart, try this 46.100, 46.400, 46.700MHZ
I still can not locate a spell check for IE 11 with Windows 10 installed so you're going to see a lot of typos in my posts until I find a way to get that working again.
Bruce.
You said: The FCC needs to expand the FM broadcast Radio service, I understand television will need 55MHz to 88.1MHz again, but opening a NEW band below 54MHz should be looked at as an option.
I said: Uhhhhh....6 meter Amateur Radio Band 50 to 54 mHz.
@post 14
There are several separate things that happen when the FCC finds a violation. A NOUO is a notice of unlicensed operation. When a NOUO is issued the person has a period of time to respond. From there, it could go to a NAL, notice of apparent liability.
So just because the FCC issues a NOUO, if the person corporates with the FCC inspector, turns off the transmitter, responds with a letter saying something such as “I thought I was legal because my transmitter was certified, I will never operate above part 15 levels again and I will never interfere with other people’s reception of a licensed station again.” Then the FCC probably has not reason to issue anything and all that happens is the NOUO goes on record.
On the other hand, if the FCC shows up, the transmitter owner does not let the FCC inspect the transmitter, and keeps transmitting even after being told to stop, the FCC can get nasty.
@post 20, 21,
Cell companies want the UHF TV spectrum. Some TV stations want to stay on the air. That makes channels 2-6 valuable even if they are problematic for ATSC digital TV. For example, lighting up a VHF-low transmitter is a cheap way to get must carry on a cable distribution system or Dish/Directv.
@post 27
If the FCC is going to piss off Amateur Radio by seizing MHz, they would probably go after space in the 70cm, 33cm or 23cm bands (or higher bands), because those frequencies would be useful to cell phone companies. Quite frankly, radio companies do not have enough money for the FCC to care to make more audio only station frequencies.
It just seems like two things: One I wanted to have this far more than I thought anyone else did. And more importantly what Bruce said. We can get angry at this person or that person for being against the initiative but let me tell you my little Rant yesterday is only a small Rant you'll get into when opposing sides argue it out. I've been a part of some very heated arguments about File Sharing and why Ad Supported p2p (Which pays the artists through ads sort of like Spotify) was not enough. Yes I was a part of p2p consortium, Boycott RIAA and others who wanted to petition organizations for allowing file sharing to be legal (while supporting the artists like Ads embedded in the songs you Download for FREE and yet pay the artists and promoting them). I was a focal part of sending Emails and letters under a different name that I went by. I know too well what it takes to be an activist and I wanted to see what would happen if I went into my true activist mode here and I didn't like the results. To be a true activist organization we all would have to be on the same page. Its not about tearing apart Radio as we know it for the hobbyist. But as an activist oriented person I can tell you it takes Brains (study), Guts which means fighting head on non stop (I fought for 12 years) and hard with facts good bad and ugly. It involves the history of how Radio broadcasting was first done and what it was intended for. Huge notes and be ready to travel to locations outside your home. Your members must be prepaired to write speeches, protest petitions, get public awareness that your organization is for the better of them and show them you'll stop at nothing to find a reasonable solution. I've been there and done that. So I feel we're not anywhere even close to forming an activist group. Just ask Jeffery Gill who wants to get more power for AM. Ask him what he had to go through. And the fact that there is more data against the initiative for FM than for it. If we had the 87.9 Mhz open as an option I'd tackle that as the forefront for hobby FM. If you want to read some bloody activist stuff I was a part of read TorrentFreak, Zeropaid, p2p consortium, and a few others. I'm even trying to save Internet Radio as we speak. I'm not as active in the activist field for these things now, but I'm out there watching and trying to come up with better solutions. Where ever there is technology there are people who want control of the technology or bid for the largest slice of it. Information is power, voice is power and YES I think artists should be paid before we go any further. Some of my activist solutions was to get Radio stations to concentrate on unsigned artists as a solution. Like I said it takes guts and willingness to get pure T determination and there will be those who will be waiting to tear your proposals down. It pretty much requires a person who can spend all day 9-5 as an activist. Can you do that? Will it interfere with your daily life to be an activist? Are you head strong in winning? If not an activist member is not for you. And there is a fine line in being an activist. You could even get banned from other forums for activist activity (I don't condone violence, Stealing) but one activist site I was a part of was DDOS attacked. Believe me I went hungry for days while our power was shut off last Winter in fact. I'm not just a brat wining about how I want more power on FM, but I feel some people may have thought that of me. Then I'm hearing how part 15 Radio should pay for this and that. And again it goes against what I fought for during the 12 years of my activist activities. I'm sure organizations will find a way to collect $$ from your hobby if they can are you willing to explain how Radio is a promotional tool for Music sales? Explain why as Carl made quite clear that Reverse Payola is just as bad as payola was and how that could hurt Radio rather than help Radio? Are you willing to talk to politicians? These are questions you need to ask yourselves if you truly want more power for FM. If any of the answers come up NO than an activist for the FM initiative may not be right for you. And you really can't go against science. Now I also have to evaluate rather some of these transmitters really do cause harm and as an activist we'd have to put a stop to FM Transmitters causing issues which could be very harmful. BIG JOB for only the few that aren't faint of heart. I'm not putting anyone here down, but though an activist may sound fun its not always fun either. You'll certainly have enemies as well who totally disagree whith what you represent as they see you as a threat. Humans have the built in instinct to Fight of Flight. Even animals have this. And yes there was someone in the organization which I was part of who knew law and how to write petitions. I was part of the think tank process and some protests.