Some scene reports to share:
Steamboat Springs, CO – “We went on the air about 9 PM Friday (1/30) and took things down at 11 AM Sunday (2/2). The X-mitter was a North Country MPX-96 feeding 2 modified and filtered Radio Shack HTX-10 amplifiers in series. Power out was ~30 watts into a wire 1/2 wave dipole on the balcony of a 2nd story ski-in/ski-out condo about 500 vertical feet above town and 200 feet above the base of the resort. Coverage was excellent as you could imagine. Covered downtown and the whole resort area, didn’t drive far enough to lose the signal. Oh, and the snow was OK, skiing great, and weather WARM.”
Boulder, CO – There has been some sort of split within the Boulder Free Radio organization. Most of the station’s founders are now working on an internet-only radio station presumably called “Real Public Radio.” New folks now have the transmitter; their intentions are unknown. Continue reading “Miscellaneous Piracy Afoot”
Category: FCC
"Nonsense on stilts": D.C. Appeals Court Upholds Anti-Pirate LPFM Ban
More depressing news from our so-called “justice” system: the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the “no-pirates” clause in the FCC’s LPFM rules. The clause was challenged by Greg Ruggiero, a member of the former Steal This Radio collective in New York. A three-judge panel of the the same court initially declared the blanket exclusion unconstitutional about a year ago. The FCC petitioned for a re-hearing of the case in front of the full bench, which was granted – leading to the reversal of the previous decision yesterday.
After rejecting both primary arguments articulated by Ruggiero and the FCC against and for the anti-pirate clause, the court struck out on its own path to denying the challenge to the ban. Ruggiero, in part, argued that many other individuals and entities licensed by the FCC have been found guilty of worse crimes than radio piracy. Therefore, Congress’ late-2000 passage of the “Radio Broadcasting Protection Act,” which overrode the FCC’s original rule and banned pirates completely and permanently from the new service (the FCC originally granted unlicensed broadcasters a limited window of amnesty under which to apply for an LPFM license) was unconstitutional. Continue reading “"Nonsense on stilts": D.C. Appeals Court Upholds Anti-Pirate LPFM Ban”
Supremes on FCC v. NextWave: Bankruptcy Law Trumps Public Interest
What happens to the spectrum “owned” by a telecommunications company when it goes belly-up?
According to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in the case of FCC v. NextWave Personal Communications, Inc., bankruptcy can now be used as a shield by companies who want to keep their valuable spectrum real estate safe from government repossession – even if they haven’t yet paid for it.
A synopsis of the case: in 1996, when the FCC auctioned off the spectrum destined to be developed for personal communications services (aka “PCS” – think wireless phones, pagers, PDAs, etc.), it restricted two of the six auctions to small companies. The idea was to encourage new entrants into a booming sector of the telecom industry: competition would drive down prices for wireless services, encouraging increased adoption of wireless technologies. Continue reading “Supremes on FCC v. NextWave: Bankruptcy Law Trumps Public Interest”
Update #2 – More details on Deez Nutz' Bust; Stations-in-a-Suitcase @ Flea Markets?; AM IBOC – Listen For Yourself
A couple of additional data points to add to the first reported FCC pirate radio enforcement action of the year: Kent, WA’s Deez Nutz 93.7 received not one, but two visits from the FCC on Friday, January 9.
The person who lives where the station was housed was not home at the time of the first visit, but the FCC agents on the case contacted the landlord of the property and “instructed” them to dismantle the antenna and cut the coaxial cable feed line. Continue reading “Update #2 – More details on Deez Nutz' Bust; Stations-in-a-Suitcase @ Flea Markets?; AM IBOC – Listen For Yourself”
FCC Grilled on the Hill: Going Through the Motions
Yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing concerning competition in the telecommunications industries. All five members of the FCC were present and all were quizzed by the Senators on various issues, most of which dealt with the series of regulatory reviews curently underway at the agency.
The FCC’s review of media ownership reviews wasn’t the hottest topic of the hearing, but the subject did arise. During those brief moments some choice quotes were uttered.
The best came from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who has clearly felt the sting from critics who decry his zeal for turning over regulatory functions to marketplace forces. In 1998, with the dot-com bubble in full bloom and radio consolidation in full swing, then-junior Commissioner Powell compared the idea of regulation in the public interest to modern art: “people see in it what they want to see. That may be a fine quality for art, but it is a bit of a problem when that quality exists in a legal standard.” Continue reading “FCC Grilled on the Hill: Going Through the Motions”
First Reported Bust of 2003
Because somebody has to go first: Deez Nutz 93.7 in Kent, WA (smack dab between Seattle and Tacoma) got a knock last Friday (Jan. 9). Details are sketchy but it sounds like the station tested the patience of the Seattle FCC field office about as far as it could.
This is the earliest start we’ve seen on the FCC’s unlicensed enforcement efforts, but that means nothing. The Enforcement Action Database will be duly updated. The good news from all this is, there’s at least two (maybe three) active microradio stations that remain on the air in the area.
Media Coverage of Media Deregulation: Too Little, Too Late
The Pacifica radio network’s flagship program, Democracy Now!, featured a segment this week on the FCC’s current media deregulation crusade. It featured several guests, including whiz-bang media scholar Robert McChesney, Jeff Chester from the Center for Digital Democracy, and FCC Media Bureau chief W. Kenneth Ferree (who’s already scoffed at encouraging more public input on this issue as “an exercise in foot-stomping”).
While these three did the majority of the talking, a couple of other guests got some important words in edgewise. One of them was Mara Einstein, assistant professor of Media Studies at Queens College (CUNY). Einstein wrote one of the 12 studies the FCC released late last year to justify its current effort: hers was “Program Diversity and the Program Selection Process on Broadcast Network Television.” Continue reading “Media Coverage of Media Deregulation: Too Little, Too Late”
At Least We Tried
When the Federal Communications Commission approved the rollout of digital radio (“HD Radio,” as it’s being branded to consumers) in October, it did so with one qualifier. Interference is a big problem with the digital radio standard that the U.S. broadcast industry has developed for itself, and the FCC admitted as much when it refused to authorize digital transmissions on the AM band during nighttime hours.
AM stations that have tested the in-band-on-channel (IBOC) digital radio technology on the air discovered it could cause heavy interference to stations on nearby frequencies, manifesting as a hash-type noise rendering the stations unlistenable. The FCC actually received complaints from radio listeners during the digital radio rulemaking proceedings about the tests and the interference, and they are on the record. The FM version of HD Radio is also susceptible to interference problems.
This did not stop the FCC from authorizing its use with great fanfare, save the one caveat on nighttime AM broadcasting. Continue reading “At Least We Tried”
Shenanigans Afoot with LPFM: Beware of Calvary Chapel
Even though the FCC seems to have all but washed its hands of any further rollout of the LPFM service, there are those who are still trying to steal what crumbs we’ve got to work with. The antagonist of the moment is Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls.
Calvary Chapel petitioned the FCC in June to expand the use of “satellator” stations – translator stations fed by satellite as opposed to rebroadcasting another radio station directly – in the non-reserved band of the FM dial (everything above 91.9). As the rules currently stand, only translators located on noncommercial frequencies (88.1-91.9) can be fed by satellite; commercial translators must take their feeds from a parent full-power FM station. The FCC currently has a temporary freeze on any new translator applications for frequencies located at 92.1 or above. Continue reading “Shenanigans Afoot with LPFM: Beware of Calvary Chapel”
FCC Enforcement in 2002
The Enforcement Action Database is all caught up now. In 2002 there were a total of 45 documented FCC enforcement actions against unlicensed broadcasters. All were operating on the FM band – yes, folks, microradio is alive and well in the post-LPFM world.
While the general statistics appear to show a slight increase in activity over previous years, it is due to the FCC’s increased tenacity with regard to pirate cases – not a heightened interest in finding new pirates to bust. It’s still pretty damn hard to get on the FCC’s radar, but once you’re there you could be in for a bumpy ride. Follow-up activity past the warning letter is almost guaranteed nowadays, whereas a few years ago it was pretty common for a station to get a warning notice then hear nothing else for months, if not longer. Continue reading “FCC Enforcement in 2002”