FCC proposal for raising LPFM power

Well the power increase for existing 100W stations is great...the eliminating of the 10 watt service isn't IMO.

RFB

I understand what you're thinking, but 10 watters were non sequitur from the outset for lack of interest,

While the goal was to provide service in high-density communities, no one wanted to jump through the same hoops as for 100 watts, since the low end of that license is 1 watt anyway .. IOW a so-called 100 watt CP station can have 1-100 watts ERP. You can control coverage and interference issues by a combination of ERP, HAAT, and directional antenna. Like retail business, the three most important things, especially for an FM station, are location, location, location.

Now, under the latest legislation, 3rd adjacent channel interference is no longer a pertinent factor in high density areas, hence there is no need for a 10 watt license at all. Build a station under the 100 watt CP and you may be able to squeeze out a few more watts over 10 without interference issues. KLOI on Lopez Island is 17 watts with a non-directional antenna, but that island has much flatter terrain than San Juan Island.

KSJU is cuirrently running 100 watts with an NDA, but it's on the roof of a building at nearly sea-level (about 90' above the airport runway elevation), not anywhere near the original location on top of a water tower on the highest hill in the city limits. At 100 watts up there it must use a directional antenna set up to avoid interference with a station across Juan De Fuca Strait on the Olympic Penninisula, as well as a second adjacent channel station across De Haro Strait in Canada.

I don't know if the 50-watt limit is in effect, though, as it is on the Mexican border. Maybe it's far enough away.

OTOH, rural communities are on the other end of the scale, sparse spread-out population. They generally don't have interference problems, so more power would be helpful because they need wider coverage. I don't know what the minimum will be if it comes about, though.

BTW, I found out something I didn't know before ... the FCC now requires both vertical and horizontal propagation for newly licensed BCB FM.

Lpfm needs full Primary status and the ability to bump translators. An lpfm serves the public interest more than a translator or satellator. we need to disallow satellators and or translators that don't fall within a stations predicted 60dbu contour. Diy and calgery chappel don't need satellite translators scattered all over the country

Here in New England, there are
noncommercial stations with
lots of translators. I think
WAMC on 90.3 in Albany (well, just
next to New England) has about
15 translators. It's a great
station, but since it streams
anyway, I wonder if there is a
need for all of those translators.

I'm about 100 miles from them,
and can hear their 90.3 primary
signal without any trouble, even
on some portable radios.

But, I think if somebody was to
try to take those translators
away from any one of those operations, the
stations would fight them tooth and nail.

By the way, speaking of streaming stations,
Ken Norris, if you are out there - before you
went into the hospital last year - I listened
to your station a lot. When you undertook
your medical leave, I sort of got out of the
habit.

Are you streaming again, Ken? Because, I really
enjoyed it, and I would sure listen now if you're
running it.

Best Wishes,
Bruce, DOGGRADIO STUDIO 2

P.S. I have tried to listen to most
or all of the streaming stations on
this board. Because of a minimal
computer (the DOGGRADIO computer, which
just died) I have not always been able
to do it.

If anybody else streams, I would be glad to
listen. I find it to be a lot of fun.
Because of eye limitations, I don't get
around on the websites like I should.

RFB, you stream - is that correct? I would
like to listen to you. And Barry - if you
are still out there - do you still stream?

"Now, under the latest legislation, 3rd adjacent channel interference is no longer a pertinent factor in high density areas, hence there is no need for a 10 watt license at all."

See, this is where I have a problem. Legislation always seems to focus on the East where it IS dense in population, and totally ignore us out here in the west where it's wide open. Where one approach would work, it will not in another.

"OTOH, rural communities are on the other end of the scale, sparse spread-out population. They generally don't have interference problems, so more power would be helpful because they need wider coverage. I don't know what the minimum will be if it comes about, though."

This is true. Far far less interference issues out here as there is no need to cram stations on the entire band where every other channel has the same program or worse, the non-commercial band has every channel with the same program.

The problem is too many stations in the dense populated areas and not enough in the sparse populated areas. And all the rule making and policy implementation always focuses on the East, where 90 percent of the problems exist to begin with, and a one size fits all aspect is applied to the whole and it does NOT work.

In the congested areas, you don't need 100Kw and 50Kw stations. Some states don't even span 30 miles across so why do you need a 100Kw or a 50Kw station??

Out here where you need to drive 250+ miles to reach one end of a state to the other, the 100Kw and 50Kw is justifiable.

So if interference is the issue, if channel jamming and crowding is the issue, then I think the FCC needs to start looking at the density factors and start re-allocating power ranges on those densely populated areas with 500 stations cramming and jamming the bands, and cut loose the tight grip out here in the open west where we NEED these higher power stations.

I still believe that a 10W service is warranted and is a way for real LPFM and LPAM to come to life. The current nonsense is just that..nonsense and is serving no useful purpose to anyone other than the special interests gobbling up channels and licenses no different from what Clear Channel did over the last 20 years. They may be non-commercial, but it is every bit commercial when you round up as many licenses and frequencies as you can. That is ASSETS which is VALUE which is $$$$ even for a non-commercial, non-profit organization. It also allows them to have a bigger write off in taxes..even though most of them don't pay any taxes to begin with.

I see no use in it or benefit from it.

RFB

I too, believe that a 10 watt LPFM service is
warranted.

And I wish so much that 87.9 and 87.7 could
be used. Even though that idea is dead in the
water.

Except for the fact that there is a PIRATE STATION
around here somewhere on 87.7! They are STRONG
and in stereo!

As I had mentioned before, Hartford, Connecticut seems
to be the pirate radio capital of the world. (Even though
I know it really isn't.) But, man - there are always pirates
here! I know of four pirates that I can hear easily right now!

Best Wishes,
Bruce, DOGGRADIO STUDIO 2

My Scosche FMT-4, or whatever it's called, is an FCC Certified Transmitter and includes 87.7 as one of its frequencies. While I understand that SOMEBODY may have goofed up, it wasn't me.

So I turn it on at 87.7 everytime I need to send a vinyl cut over for digitizing, usually less than 15-minutes. Then it gets shut off.

I sleep well at night and can face myself in the mirror for shaving.

Not sure what you mean ... I never stopped, ran playlists, did live ferry reports, calendar events, all the usual stuff, using the remote computer. The stream occasionally quits if there is a power or internet outage, but when it comes back up, things continue as always.

Remember ... 100w license is good for 1 to 100w. The 10 w license was just as hard to get, so, of course, no one bothered with it.

Now, I'd be the first to support some sort of easy to acquire 10w AM service. I could definitely get better coverage than the class A FM now gets with 100w.

As for the differences in population, FCC did indeed conduct a slew of studies concerning that very thing, so they are aware of the disparities.

The stumbling block for LPFM is what to do about all those translator applications.

Like others here, I think the priority should follow the mandate ... community and education radio first. But we all know, money talks.

OOOps.

Sorry about that.

I have had a lot going on, and for some reason -
I thought you had been off the air for a while.

Looks like my brain was wrong.

My mistake!

I'll start listening to your station again. I always
enjoyed it.

I must be getting older than I thought.

Best Wishes,
Bruce, DOGGRADIO STUDIO 2

Wednesday Funnies 9:00pm PDT ... Coyote Radio Theatre's "War of the Squirrels" in 3 parts, then Abbot & Costello short, followed by Amos 'n' Andy "The Broken Clock".

No the point was well taken, however you missed my point. And that point is the 10 watt service would allow more low budget stations to get on the air. The point of a 10 watt service, and not restricted to non-commercial, would provide a low cost means to kick the local economies in the rear and do something to help.

There is a reason why there are a ton of translator applications and licensed translators all over the place, and it isn't to help the economy or help local coverage or return radio to what its supposed to be. All those translators, as well as gobbling up of frequencies and licenses, are for mere profit only to the investors whom could care less about you or me or the state of the union. As long as they can absorb the rising costs and don't have to decide between 2 gallons of gas or a loaf of bread, your gonna see a lot more of that gobbling up and piles of translators even after this wishful thing the FCC is allegedly going to do later this year.

Don't hold your breath!

Just read that article Carl linked up a few weeks ago about the start up costs to a LPFM. Some whacked in the head living in a virtual world radio engineer wrote an article about it...making it sound like as if anyone could just whip out the wallet and fork down 150 grand plus for a highly restricted 100 watt FM. Oh and ya forgot..only to non profit organizations and not individuals. Ya that's what we need huh..more organized crap to weed out the individual and independence.

Oh ya the FCC did (studies--haha..studies) on population densities from here and there etc etc, did we see them actually DO anything about it or change anything to improve upon the problem?? NOPE! How long has it been since that study..or are they still studying?? LOL!!! What a joke.

Forget it man! Either radio returns as it was, and we demand that out of the FCC, or expect more corporate buys and one sound fits all ears radio. Looks like the latter is going to be the winner in the end.

Change we can believe in...pfft.

RFB

By the powers vested in me by Nature I am this day establishing a Transcendent Communications Commission (TCC) which shall oversee all RF communications in the Solar System (a copyrighted name of the TCC).

I hereby at this time appoint all Members of Part 15.us as "consulting engineers" and "policy czars."

The displaced FCC, a small earthly group with marginal capability, is henceforth a Museum with the sole assignment of becoming self sustaining within 90-days. Lunches may be shortened in some cases.

Our first task at the TCC is to print stationary. Font suggestions are welcome.

I'm going to post some actual REAL Part 15 info
here. But before I do that I have to say this.

I don't have a license to drive a car. However,
the following story may prove interesting.

A time/space traveller accountant on a business
trip - named XOG 322 landed in my yard last year.

He almost crashed into my recycling bins traveling at
Mach 25.

He needed washing detergent to run his time/space ship.
(I was raking leaves at the time.) I had plenty of
Tide, with Bleach, so I gave it to him. Unfortunately,
I forgot about the clothes that I had just put into
the washer. When my wife got home from work,
she was mad that there was no Tide left. We had
to make a special trip back out to the store to
get more Tide. She was not a happy camper.

Back to our story: XOG 322 was from the year
2907 and he came from
one of Jupiter's 523 moons. (A lot of moons will
be discovered in the future, especially around
Jupiter.)

But he forgot the special scoop which puts the Tide
into the ship's fuel tank. So he had to go back to
the year 2906 to get one. When he got back, he
met himself in my yard, and there were two ships.
You know, some kind of time/space paradox had
occurred.

And I was really mad, because of his time/space error -
I had twice as many leaves to rake. For some reason,
i didn't get two houses, though. i could have sold
one to pay for the other one. I don't understand
why that didn't happen.

XOG 322 and XOG 322 got into one ship and left, without
even saying thank you for the KoolAide and Cheese Puffs.
I know the potato chips were stale, but sheeesh!
They should have said SOMETHING. My feelings were
kind of hurt

One of the ships is under the rake pile in my storage shed. The fuel tank
has sort of rusted out. So now it only runs on 20 Mule Team Borax.
Just to get into Earth orbit, is takes 75 boxes of that Borax.
Quite frankly, I can't afford it. Not on my budget.

About the low Earth orbit test. I was too scared to try it,
so I got one of the neighborhood college kids to try it.
He was studying double E, and had no problem. He brought
his girl friend with him on one trip and they said it was
really a fun time.

In order to hide the ship in the shed, I took a Halloween
Horse costume (you know, the kind that needs two
people so get into it) and stretched it around the ship.
It was hard to do and took a long time.

Now my wife just thinks we have a really really big horse
living in the shed.

She brings her friends down from Massachusetts to see the
horse. They don't understand why it doesn't move around.
i just tell them all it's sleeping, and they all go off and have
a bunch of beers.

Yup, we sure do love animals.

Bruce, DRS2