They are watching

I know one thing. any future revisions that seek to limit our potential range even further is going to piss off the public and we will see yet another pirate radio explosion. I hope the FCC has learned from the past with the elimination of Class D FM, then consolidation. after each event there was an explosion of pirate activity. the polititions at the FCC need to remember that the FCC was created to manage spectrum in the public interest as such a public trust. Corporate America and Politicians have seem to forgoten that fact. Personally I think they should eliminate the rules reguarding antenna and ground lengths, but leave the 100 mW limit in place. this will never hapen, so in the alternative the part 15 AM rules should be left alone. This little bit of spectrum we are allwed to use is where future broadcasters and engineers are formed. Take it away or make it unusable for anything and we may lose a lot of future engineers and on air personallities. I hope the FCC is listening to the public citizens and not corporate america.

Thank You,

Rev. Robert P. Chrysafis
Universal Life Ministries
http://www.ulc.org

Moderator Hunterdonfree
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hunterdonfree

Hopefully no one is concerned about the FCC visiting our site because it's pretty pedestrian stuff we post here, really.

gatekeeper4.fcc.gov does occassionally appear in our logs, but so does something called 420source and we've been getting crawled all over by students at Arizona State University (1500 hits in the last two days) for some reason 🙂

We also get a whole bunch of referrals from ebay auctions. You'd be amazed at all the pages ebay sellers refer to here to further illustrate, substiantiate or otherwise support their sales.

Also note that node 1139 is a thread about the Talking House transmitter and the FCC status of the ATU that's sold with the unit, not ground leads or other legalities...

Since way back in the usenet days, certain organizations have run spiders to alert to any significant on-line activity and it's possible the FCC still does that. Radio Shack did this up until just a little while ago and they were pretty agressive about it. It used to be fun to post "Radio Shack sucks!" in the usenet radio shack NG and watch the contra-bots go crazy.

The FCC is certainly welcome to vist and I think it would be wonderful (though not very likely) if a field engineer or other key staff member would drop by and post.

Other than that, the idea of someone at the FCC actually "watching" this site seems unlikely, although there might be a few lurkers - part15.us is a pretty cool place 🙂

Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!

This is a public forum and probably reflects more than any other source what is on the mind of part 15 users.

The FCC certainly is welcome, in my opinion, and it would be nice if we had some posts from them.

After all, I am certain they visit their own website where the citations and actions are updated weekly.

Free exchange of information and discourse is very important and I see no problem with the FCC participating.

Neil

I too agree that there is nothing wrong with the FCC looking over what is said here, we suggest always cooperating with the FCC fully. I don’t mind sharing what has worked for other customers as far as the ground goes, what systems have passed FCC inspection, or what the FCC has told me. As far as what radiates and where it radiates I’ll leave that up to the FCC and the installing engineer.

Keith,

This is not the first time you have mentioned "installing engineer". Could you elaborate?

Neil

April 24, 2007 - 16:29 — radio8z New
Keith, installing engineer?
Keith,

This is not the first time you have mentioned "installing engineer". Could you elaborate?

Read the manual and website. 🙂
I detect a fight being picked. 🙂

WDCX AM1610 Part 15
John
Owner-Operator-Chief Engineer-Program Manager

Ok, but only if all you guys will promise no dogpile. 🙂
As far as I know all these Part 15.219 units are supposed to be installed by somebody who knows what they are doing. Since the power is adjustable and the antenna is detachable an engineer, ok, at least a technician needs to be installing the device.
If you certify a Part 15 device the FCC will want to see the manual that you will be sending with the unit.
I will admit it here, I said engineer, but it can be a technician. I just kind of lumped them all together.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Phil & Keith. It's great to hear from those with so much experience in the transmitter marketing arena. The fine transmitters marketed by these great folks have put a lot of broadcasters on the air, and that's been great for our hobby.

Thanks again for all you do!

Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!

I am a little surprised that nobody except Rev. Robert picked up on the point of my post. This is a great part 15 forum. I didn't say anything against this forum or against part 15 enthusiasts in general. This forum has become THE place to go for technical discussions. It seems somewhat more than a coincidence to me that the FCC has started busting 100mW AM operators for "too long of a ground run" after all the endless discussions about the different ways everyone has of interpreting the antenna rule.

I'll refer to the problem one more time and then keep quiet about it. If the FCC decides to rewrite the antenna rule to make it explicit instead of vague, and strictly enforces such a new rule, we can kiss part 15 AM goodbye as a practical way to broadcast. Consider that in a fairly densely spaced housing development, a strictly compliant ground mounted 3 meter installation will not go much beyond the nearby buildings. City installation would be a futile effort.

Everything there is to know about 3 meter antennas and particularly ground runs has already been said here and repeated over and over. I'm not against innovation. If someone comes up with a more effective antenna, that would be great! Let's just not obsess over the rule interpretations. The FCC can summarily remove all doubt about interpretation if they choose to do so!

As for "gatekeeper4.fcc.gov". It could be a bot collecting everything on the web related to FCC jurisdiction, or it could be a web access point for real people in the FCC. Either way, the information is collected in one form or another. It can very well be used to influence future rules or to identify individuals for possible actions.

Keith,

Thanks for the explanation. There were two reasons I asked; not everyone has an engineer available, and some of the building "engineers" I have worked with couldn't provide much help adjusting a transmitter. I was simply curious about this and you clairified it for me.

John, I wasn't picking a fight and I hope Keith didn't think I was.

Phil, your point is acknowledged. To me, it seems that a rules revision could result from the activities of hobbyists which I think is more probable than from the discussions here. Just an opinion.

To add a bit more regarding AM, my understanding of the intent of the part 15 rules is to allow personal use of the broadcast band. In so doing, technical specifications are included which intend to limit the range of the signals. When viewed from the perspective of limiting range to what could reasonably be considered adequate for "personal use" the rules look a bit different in that they establish maximum specs. rather than minimum specs. for the equipment. Even the apartment dweller using a short antenna with no intentional ground can enjoy this personal use without operating at the maximums specified by the rules.

A person wishing to achieve maximum range needs to apply 15.219 as minimum specifications for the station and this is where incorrect interpretation can lead to problems.

Neil

"The FCC can summarily remove all doubt about interpretation if they choose to do so!"

Certainly, Phil. But doubt could also be removed in a positive fashion, such as if they added a clause saying that any additional ground wire beyond the 3 meter total would need to incorporate an appropriate rf blocking choke or that (probably also with such a choke) rooftop installations may consider the ground of the code approved ac wiring in an existing building to be "ground" for safety. Both of which have some existing precedence since they are acceptable for the Talking House transmitters.

To be honest, I don't think part15 will get rewritten because of what we post here. I think it will get rewritten because of pressure from the NAB/licensees. *How* it will get rewritten will depend on what the FCC wants to do. If the upswing in piracy on FM and etc is seen as an indication that many areas have a desire/need for local/community media that the corporations are not adequately filling, then the rewrite may be encouraging. If (as some think) they are so "in the pocket" of the NAB and controlling corporations that the corporate profit is the only way that the public's needs are assessed, then we'll be kissing any sort of practical part15 for AM bye-bye anyway.

But if that were actually so, then why would they be citing commerical stations for failure to keep proper logs of things done for the local community? I like to think that those citations, as well as allowing part15 community stations like the Wellsville station to continue operating (when the situation with the one transmitter that was over part15 power allowances was corrected) as signs that part15 AM may be something they see as potentially useful for taking care of some community needs not being adequately taken care of by large corporations with no real interest in matters local to the stations they have bought out.

If they just wanted to shut those stations down, they could just say it's not what part 15 is for, like Rich does. That would be the end of it, since unlike hams and etc, we don't have to technically be given any explanation or chance to fix things or opportunity to appeal that. Part15 operation is a privilege, not guaranteed in any way. If they didn't see some possible benefit for the public in it, we'd already be gone.

Now I could be wrong, too. It's 'second guessing' again. But if I was the FCC and the licensees were complaining to me because part15 AM was costing them listeners, I'd take a look and see who they are and what they talk about to see if they're reasonable people trying to learn, understand, invent, maybe put something interesting on the airwaves for their few listeners.. or if they're "nothing but trouble" as the NAB obviously views part15 on the broadcast bands. I'd also be looking at how such tiny stations could possibly be anything for the licensees to worry about. What can they be doing to take even a single listener from a big station?

Just some thoughts.

Daniel

My two cents in thinking about the entire situation, is that I believe that mostly the FCC is interested in the big pirates, the guy that alters a 1KW ham transmitter to AM or much much worse FM!! band or makes his own, this sort of transmitter is capable of throwing out spurs and trash on frequencies that can interfere with essential communications. I think this scenario drove some of the scary laws that are on the books on some states.
In comparison a ground question on a certified transmitter is a minor thing. I think like a lot of issues, the FCC may feel like the current law is sufficient. I spoke with this and several similar issues at length with John Reed, the Author of part 15, before the last rewrite of part 15. He said he was considering cleaning Part 15 up in several areas. But guess what, when the rewrite came out, no change, in Part 15 (b) anyway. They did add something about having to use the antenna a unit was certified with as I recall.

It shouldn’t be that hard to establish a non-radiating ground for a tech –savy individual almost anywhere. My concern is that if you get to high a DC value choke in the ground wire then the performance of the lightning protection circuit in our unit goes down. I have been on site and have found great grounds that have radiated very little, a water pipe, well casing for a water well, ect. The main thing is to cooperate with the FCC and work with them to make your legal Part 15 acceptable if they find anything thing don’t like.

Often we get a call from a customer, panicked, something like “we have a message from the FCC saying that they have found we are broadcasting, ect, and we don’t know what to do” usually from the office staff of a business or such
I call back and tell them to contact the FCC back with the certification number. I think 90% of the time that is the end of it, the FCC just wants to be sure that the broadcaster is using a certified transmitter. They most of the time don’t bother with a site visit.

Another thing folks here may not think about, the FCC is very overworked and underpaid, they want their field time to bring the most bang for the public good. Broadcast your contact information hourly, don’t make them waste a lot of time searching for you.