NAB Seeks to Outlaw Low-Power FM, Fakes Evidence

This is not totally on-topic for YRO, but interesting enough that we'll run it anyway. 1010011010 writes "Read the "Not Easy Listening" passage in the "Notebook" section of the latest New Republic; it talks about the National Association of Broadcasters' efforts to kill the FCC low-power radio initiative:" (more)

"So, as part of its efforts to kill the FCC's low-power radio initiative, the NAB recently flooded Capitol Hill offices with copies of a compact disc that purportedly demonstrated the type of interference that would occur on listeners' radios if the low-power stations were to go on the air.

[...]

"To generate the annoying cross talk, the NAB simply took two previously recorded radio programs and mixed them together in a sound studio; the result was, according to the NAB, a "simulation" of what would happen if a low-power radio station were placed close to another station on the FM dial."

"... kind of like MSFT's faked video 'evidence' during its anti-trust trial. Except that, instead of a smart cookie like Jackson, the audience is the bunch of suckers the voters of this fine country sent to D.C. The NAB has a section on "Low-Power FM" at their website, including "examples of real-world interference" ... faked? I don't know. But the 'examples' they sent to Congress were. They have provided an 8MB mp3 file -- that notoriously high-fidelity format -- as 'proof'. It's packaged into a self-extracting .exe zip archive, for some stupid reason. Maybe someone could run a little fidelity test on it; find out the sampling rate, frequency cutoffs, etc. If there's music clips in it, perhaps compare them to the original source from CD? Call your congressmen and sentators! Let them know this is a sham! Tell them we'll force Christian Slater to star in "Pump Up the Volume 2" unless they back off and stop pushing the "Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act," a.k.a. the "Government Protection for NAB Weenies Act of 1999" -- that states right at the top: A BILL To prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from establishing rules authorizing the operation of new, low power FM radio stations. "

National Public Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

NPR is still against LPFM, so this is a very big deal.

Don't send money to your local NPR stations. Write them a note telling them that you support LPFM and sending any money to them is a conflict of interest.

NPR has run some very biased segments in the last few months. Disgusting if you ask me.

YRO means...

[unitron]

YRO also means Your Rights On-air! The FCC was created to protect those rights (even though they don't always act like it these days).
Actually the kind of "hearing 2 stations at once" interference the NAB "simulated" is more characteristic of AM (amplitude modulation) than of FM (frequency modulation).
This used to be one of the things that got FM talked up, the stronger signal "overrides" the weaker one.
There's actually a name (which I can't remember just now) for this effect, and it's in at least 2 or 3 of my electronics texts and references that're all packed up somewhere, so I'll let someone else come up with it and get the mod points.

now watch someone else post it and some jerk will come back 48 hours later and moderate me as redundant

Re:National Public Radio

[Asperity]

This lobbying on NPR's part against LPFM really incenses me, and normally I'm a big fan of NPR and their news coverage. (I sure do hope Click and Clack are innocent of all this...)

This is a free speech issue. The FCC has no business regulating broadcasters on such a small scale -- but at least with beginning to regulate LPFM they'll decriminalize it. I've often toyed with the idea of putting together my own small-scale radio operation, but the idea of buying the equipment just to have it confiscated later by the FCC isn't very appealing.

Pump me up, Christian!

[asparagirl]

Tell them we'll force Christian Slater to star in "Pump Up the Volume 2" unless they back off...

Heeeeey now; I actually liked "Pump Up the Volume"! Cheesy 80's movies are fun! Besides, wasn't Christian Slater's character a lot like your stereotypical geek? Shy, repressed, quiet...until you got him into his element (in his case, radio). Great soundtrack, too.

- Asparagirl

Re:Pump me up, Christian!

[Inoshiro]

I agree. That movie was great. I've watched it many times on video ;-) (No, not just for the skin parts)
---

No surpirse

[DaRkJaGuaR]

Well well well, we all complain about microsoft, but they are small fish compared to the US govt itself, i mean didn't the FBi say thast if there is a bi brother in the US, it ouwld be them? then recently they started restricting perviously easily availabel infomation and many other little event, stand up US cits and do somthing about it b4 u have no rights at all, land of the free and the brave my ASS

Re:YRO means...

[Detritus]

There's actually a name (which I can't remember just now) for this effect, and it's in at least 2 or 3 of my electronics texts and references that're all packed up somewhere, so I'll let someone else come up with it and get the mod points.

Capture Effect [bldrdoc.gov]

Shocking!

[www.sorehands.com]

I'm so shocked! I would never imagine that a large company or association would make misrepresentations or flat out lie to the public, government, or court.

Why would they do something like that? Just to try to keep their monopoly? Naahh.

NAB station interference tests

[cosmol]

The NAB has http://ww w.nab.org/newsroom/issues/lpfm/responsetofcc/techn icalrecord.asp [nab.org] as an example of "real-world" interference caused by adjacent stations. The thing that strikes me is that all of these interfering stations are said to be at least 32 times stronger. When is one of these low-power stations ever going to be 32 time stronger than an adjacent commercial station. I mean come on! a 100w (max) homebrew versus a 50,000 watt station on a huge ass tower! Thats 1/500, not even close to the 32/1 ratio of these tests.