Thanks you for posting frequent informative links, Druid Hills WDCX.
Printed in the PDF linked above is this iten #3 from the FAQ section...
. Aren’t the airwaves “public” property? Why is the government auctioning them off?
Radio frequency spectrum is a natural resource, and it is public property in the sense that, for more than a century, the government has regulated use of the airwaves, just as it regulates the uses of public lands and the ocean floor within the nation’s territorial waters.
To help fulfill our country’s need for greater wireless broadband access, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is planning to reallocate a portion of broadcast spectrum used by television stations to air programming and make it available for use by wireless carriers.
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Does that seem like a logical answer to the question? For me, it seems to switch tracks a couple of times before reaching the conclusion it had in mind, which avoids the question. I think we (the public) should be getting some of that money.
A few things I'd like to bring up: The article mentions that the auction will happen this summer and does not specify which month it takes place. Next is that Quiet period where as there is to be no mention to the public about this auction. Hey that sort of sounds like a dictator type tactic. I thought that the public should be allowed to make comments to the FCC.
Taking away TV stations in a community could be drastic and especially for P)BS. If there is no on air TV station they can't even continue to stream the same programming on the Internet or even allow the service to continue via satellite. Again this is a dis service to a small community.
And now that 87.7 and 87.9 could be all but useless (in some areas we'll have to see if there is a channel 6) what to do with the FM Band when all the Amers flee to FM.
This could even be a real sinister plan to force the re use of AM but without Stereo many listeners will flock to some other form of medium.
Can we save AM from the ultimate pollution that the FM band is about to get when commercial AM stations invade it? The only way to allow this is to force better engineering standards for Today's AM receivers. If this does not happen than terrestrial Radio is doomed.
So what about Hobby Broadcasting and the New Radio Revolution?: The New Radio Revolution does have a huge fight since our members thought it was best to conquer more than one issue on a petition. However I do feel we need to at least try and claim some portion of the AM band before its too late. We did have since June 5th of Last Year to get the petition ready for the hobby broadcasting frequencies we wanted. But now the auctions are happening and because of this we may have little we can do for FM. We could still try for the Rural Hobby Radio class and continue to use the blank frequencies on the FM band and while doing so try and fight for a slice of AM between 1630-1710 and at least 1 Watt on AM as mentioned.
Experiments are being done to see if there is a way to make a better antenna, but the rules still should be changed and then I think AM Hobby Broadcasting will have a following. Again this is coming from someone who loves FM but now that this chaos is upon us we are at a challenging situation but not beaten yet. We just need a good strategy that everyone can live with.
The service will have to be different as only rural areas may be able to support a Hobby Broadcasting station at 1 Watt or more.
Thanks to WDCX for the article and his input over at the Initiative and here on part 15 (dot) us.