If you haven’t been keeping up with the mediageek radioshow or subscribing to the podcast, now is a good time to listen to this week’s show featuring our favorite FCC watcher, Matthew Lasar. We talk about the man reported to be Obama’s pick for FCC Chair, Julius Genachowski, and what his appointment to the FCC might mean for internet freedom and media ownership.
Listen to this show right now:
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The first show of the new year featured my annual year in review discussion with John Anderson of DIYmedia.net. In the first half of the program we noted the relative lack of progress on many issues and discussed Larry Lessig’s call to get rid of the FCC. For the second half we got down to brass tacks reviewing John’s research on FCC enforcement action against unlicensed broadcasters in 2008 — a whole lotta smoke, not much fire. Ragnar also excerpted a portion of this on his Pirate’s Week podcast.
Listen to part one of the year-in-review:
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Listen to part two, all about FCC enforcement in 2008:
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Tags: diymedia.net, fcc, fcc chairman, federal communications commission, john anderson, Julius Genachowski, matthew lasar, pirate radio, pirates week podcast, unlicensed radio
low-power radio, media ownership & consolidation, net neutrality / free the internet!, pirate/free radio, The FCC | Paul | 
January 19, 2009 2:18 am | 
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I’ve just spent a little chunk of time plowing through the archives of the Low Power Radio blog, which I found through my referrer logs. It promises insight on “how to set up and operate your own low power radio station.” By low power, the blogger Kev means:
Micro radio, micro power broadcasting, part 15 radio, community radio, neighborhood station, experimental broadcasting, hobby broadcasting – I love it all!
It’s primarily a pretty good compendium of annotated links that’s been going with a few posts a month since February. Indeed, I found info about many more part-15 low-power transmitters for both AM and FM than I knew were available. There’s been a community of so-called “legal” low-power broadcasters in the US for a very long time. Many enthusiasts and broadcasters have been congregating for years at a message board called “Community Radio USA”. One of the denizens of that board has his own site called HobbyBroadcasting.net HobbyBroadcaster.net, which I found while reading through the Low Power Radio Blog.
While here at the ‘geek the focus is often on unlicensed broadcasters operating with power above the part-15 limit (roughly 100 milliwatts or so), there’s much utility to be found with part-15 stations, especially in dense urban areas or similar circumstances. Since FM part-15 limits are based on field-strength it’s relatively difficult to build a station with much reach that remains truly legal — even if you pump only 10 milliwatts into a very efficient antenna several hundred feet off the ground you’ll likely be reaching further than part-15 regs allow.
However, AM limits are specified in antenna length and power (100 milliwatts), allowing much more room for creative engineering and getting more broadcast range without breaking the law. Kyle Drake’s excellent LPAM handbook is a great reference for anyone wanting to try out legal part-15 broadcasting on the AM dial.
Much of the info that the Low Power Radio blog has dug up is more historical in nature, culled from both internet and print sources, like this 1991 handbook for starting a station. While the references to equipment manufacturers and sellers may be outdated, there’s still some decent tech and historical info to glean. I’m glad that someone is compiling and sharing this stuff and I hope that the blog sticks around a while.
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