Engineering Radio

Blanketing interference refers to the phenomena of receiving radio signals on devices not designed to do so.  In broadcast radio, this is defined for AM stations in part 73.88 as:

The licensee of each broadcast station is required to satisfy all reasonable complaints of blanketing interference within the 1 V/m contour.

And for FM stations, it is part 73.318:

Areas adjacent to the transmitting antenna that receive a signal with a strength of 115 dBu (562 mV/m) or greater will be assumed to be blanketed.

Any interference to any device with that signal contour is blanketing interference.  73.318 further states that:

permittees or licensees who either (1) commence program tests, or (2) replace their antennas, or (3) request facilities modifications and are issued a new construction permit must satisfy all complaints of blanketing interference which are received by the station during a one year period.

I have always taken a more pragmatic approach to interference complaints.  Rather than pass the buck and tell the home owner or business owner that it is not our (the radio station’s) problem, I’d go and try to help them out.  Generally speaking, the interference problems are close to the transmitter site, so on the next trip to that site, I would bring RFI filters and my 25 years of RF experience and solve the problem.  I would like to think this help the station’s and the company’s imagine in the community.

Most of the problems are pretty easily solved, although once in a while, I have come on some head scratchers.  An AM station playing on the outlets in a guys garage, the mic cords on a church PA system, and an off switch on a blender, off all things.  The Bare Naked Ladies had a line in the song Light up my Yard: “we can dance to the radio station that plays in our teeth.”

What I have found is start with the simple stuff first, check the ground on the electrical service entrance panel.  One might be surprised to find it disconnected, corroded or missing completely.  More than one occasion, I have fixed all of the RFI problems with a simple turn of the screw holding the ground wire to the grounding electrode.  In my experience, this is the most common single failure point.  A disconnected ground will cause the entire neutral wiring system to act like a giant AM antenna, with all sorts of bad outcomes.

RFI suppression ferrite

Most often, telephone answering machines, cordless phones and other devices powered by wall warts are suspect.  Those devices do not have a path to ground.  A few turns of all the wires coming and going from said device around a ferrite core such as a snap on TDK RFI EMI filter available from Mouser will take care of it.  Mouser has several different versions available.

Occasionally, one needs to put on a detective hat and do some foot work.  Mast mount TV antenna preamps can cause untold heartache and problems.  One such incident involved the second harmonic of an FM station falling exactly on channel 11’s audio frequency.  This was affecting several houses in a one block area.  I finally found the problem at one of the complaintent’s house when I pulled the TV out and found the preamp power supply.  Unplugging it made all the problems go away (I hate Radio Shack).

Usually process of elimination will discover the problem and thereby reveal a solution.  The aforementioned church incident was discovered after I began unplugging microphone cords from the back of the Mackie mixer in the choir loft.  It turns out several mic lines were plugged into the back of the mixer, unused and unterminated, creating a large long receiving antenna on the cable shield, which happened to be aligned perfectly to pick up RF from an AM station.

Shortwave Pirate broadcasting has been going on for years.  While it is illegal to transmit radio signals without a license, it is not illegal to receive those signals.  There is something sort of sneaky, like you are hearing something you shouldn’t, part of some underground thing, listening to these guys.  I am almost remiss to write something about it because I don’t want anyone to get into trouble.

Anyway, on any given day or night, pirate broadcasters roam the shortwave airwaves.  Much of what they do is typical sophomoric humor, such as playing a song where the only lyrics are “god damn you” over and over again.  Some of it can be somewhat entertaining.  A lot of what they tell as jokes are inside baseball, you have to listen and do a little research to get it, the Al Fansome reference is one.  There are no set times or frequencies.  It is quite common to hear one guy tuning up and getting ready to go on the air when the current frequency occupant signs off (happens often on 6925 KHz).

Most of these guys build their own transmitters based on designs found on various websites.  Power levels vary, but 10 to 50 watts is common.  Because of this, a good low noise receiving antenna is required to pull them out of the noise floor.  I have used, with good success, a K9AY terminated loop antenna.  We are in a rural area, so it is pretty low noise to begin with.  Even so, the coverage with a 50 watt transmitter is remarkable when propagation conditions are good.  Sound quality can be quite good for a homemade AM transmitter.

There is a lot of focus on FM pirates these days, that particular setup is likely the easiest to attain for most non-technical types.  There are a few AM pirates floating about, those are likely the most difficult to construct and conceal once they are on the air.  Both of those broadcast bands have the advantage in that there are many kits and or instructions on how to build a pretty good sounding transmitter.  Shortwave seems to be a small cadre of dedicated hobbyists that simply like to fool around on the radio.

In any case, with the FCC stretched thin, it is unlikely that a SW pirate will be busted but not unheard of.   One SW pirate station was busted in Florida about a month ago.  Even so, that was the first one in almost five years.

For the most part, the activity seems to center between 6850 to 6970 KHz or so.  Some others operate around 15055 to 15070 KHz.  Here is a brief selection of what one might find on the SW pirate frequencies:

• WHYP on 6925 USB “Who Wants To Be A Pirate Radio Operator” at 0156z.
• WMPR on 6925 AM “This is WMPR Dancy Party” ID at 0040z.
• Captain Morgan Shortwave Radio on 6925AM “Positive Captain Morgan Shortwave ID, email and twilight zone theme at 2209z.
• Radio Ronin Shortwave on 6950AM oriental-sounding interval signal, id at 01:04, Outer Limits intro, “She Blinded Me with Science”, strange version of “SOS”, anti-BP comedy skits, id at 01:19
• Indira Calling  on 6925AM pop music that I can’t identify, “Rock-It”, Indian music, id at about 00:37, “Beach Party 2000″ show, Calcutta mail drop, Beach Boys medley
• WEAK Radio on 6925 Shout out to Voice Of Honor. 0048z “Godzilla” 0055z Sabbath.
• Channel Z radio on 15067AM 2218z ID and contact info, must be an old show (Blue Ridge Summit maildrop)

And so on.  Those call signs are usually spoofs on something.  Occasionally, contact information is given out, usually in the form of a mail drop.  If so inclined, one might write a letter and receive a QSL card.

Radio Ronin QSL card

There is plenty of information floating around out there about shortwave pirate radio, if one cares to look for it.  Two of the more popular discussion forums are HF underground and Free Radio Network Grapevines.

FCC seal

I was this interesting tidbit on the Radio World website the other day.  The question is, how much authority does the FCC have to conduct a search of a private residence.   The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to know therefore they sent a FOIA request to the FCC seeking documents supporting this claimed authority.

The documents received seem to be redacted and some are mostly blank, such as the training module on how to obtain permission to enter private property is supposed to take 6 hours to complete, but consists of 3 paragraphs and 2 questions.  Hopefully that is redacted and does not reflect on the quality of agents the FCC is employing these days.  The upshot seems to be the agent either needs a warrant or permission.

It may be surprising to some citizens, however, the FCC does have the authority to investigate radio signals, whether they are intentionally generated, as in a pirate broadcaster, or unintentionally generated, as in a piece of gear gone bad.

According to federal regulations, an FCC agent may request entry to inspect a private building anytime he/she believes there may be a device emitting radio frequency energy.  This includes anything with a FCC part 15 sticker, which can be computers, TV remote controls, garage door openers, WiFi network routers, etc.  This basically covers every house in the US as well as most businesses.  Those rules were written when most homes and businesses did not have any RF generating devices and there was little to indicate that they ever would.

Consequences for failure to allow an FCC field agent into a residence or business appears to be the issuance of a citation in the form of a threatening letter.  Continued intransigence would be met with a NAL (Notice of Apparent Liability) followed by a forfeiture notice also known as a fine.  The typical FCC fine these days seems to be $10,000.00.  If it is a repeated and willful violation, equipment can be ceased and the perpetrator arrested.

In instances where safety of life is in question, then every step necessary to disable the offending device needs to be taken.  Things like transmitters spurring into aircraft frequencies or TV antenna amplifiers running wide open, also interfering with aircraft frequencies comes to mind.

One of the examples given details a field agent trying to track down a noisy cable TV amplifier.  From the FCC field agent’s perspective, the homeowner appears to be a royal pain in the ass.  In this day and age when everything has a computer and most of them generate RF, tracking down interference can be a painstaking process, especially where housing is dense.  Uncooperative home owners, especially dumb ones, who have no idea what they have plugged in only make things worse.

Still, there is the issue of forth amendment rights, which, if the above law was misinterpreted, misused or applied with the wrong standard would likely be trampled.  In these days of extra constitutional activity, giving Los Federales an entry into one’s house might invite unwanted scrutiny by other agencies.  As far as changing the rules, with the current group of scoundrels and rouges in the legislative branch, one might end up with something ten times worse than before.

The DC circuit court struck a stinging blow to any thoughts about so called “Net Neutrality” when it overturned the FCC attempts to force Comcast the abide by its rules regarding internet access.  The three judge panel ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to force Internet Service Providers (ISP) to give equal access to all its customers.  In a nut shell, this means that companies like Comcast, ATT, Verizon, can filter search engine results and traffic, baning  websites for no specific reasons.

So much for net neutrality.  Say I type something here that is critical of one of those companies, or any ISP for that matter.  With a few key strokes, my site will disappear.  Gone.  Just like that.  For those that think the internet is this wonderful open global village thing that can spread the word and and as a sort of modern day check and balance system, think again.  In this day and age, when corporations have the same rights as people, look for the large ISPs to spend significant lobbying dollars to keep the laws tilted in their favor.  I would expect to also see quite a few campaign contributions to legislators that are friendly to large corporations.

There are several letter writing campaigns, urging the FCC to change its classification of ISP’s to a common carrier status, something that would put the ISP’s squarely under the FCC’s control.   I look upon those with a jaundiced eye.  Perhaps the FCC can be convinced to change the rules, this time.  What will happen when a new FCC gets appointed?  Will those changes stay in effect?  The cynical side of me says no.

Independently run media outlets have traditionally acted as a backstop in our society.  There are fewer and fewer of those left these days.  I will readily acknowledge that the current crop of radio station owners, with some minor exceptions, have left the industry in a shambles.  Their decision to place profit above all considerations, in spite of  the license being granted in the public trust, has decimated news rooms, reduced staffing, and relegated community involvement  to a minor paper work shuffle at license renewal time.  All of this and more have conspired to make radio dull and uninformative.   Bland canned formats created and programmed thousands of miles away have ruined local radio flavor.  No wonder why people spend money to download from Itunes.

Yet, radio listenership is still high.  Radio’s saving grace is it is nearly universal, everyone has a radio, most households have four or five radios.  The technology is time tested and it works well.  Almost every square mile of the US is covered by broadcast radio signals.  Some areas are sparse, but there is at least one or two stations that come in.  People are used to radio, there is no learning curve, no subscriber fees, no censorship from a huge faceless mega corporation.  Well, that last part is in theory, anyway.  It is almost too much of a coincidence that mega corporations also own the majority of radio stations too.

Television as a medium is almost gone.  Very few people actually watch over the air TV, most people get their TV piped into their house via cable.  Once again, as those in the NY metropolitan area know, there is no guarantee that the local cable operator will carry a broadcast station, vis a vis the WABC-7 Cablevision dispute from last month.

Newspapers are struggling to stay afloat, even the once mighty New York Times has seen better days.

That leaves us with Radio to fill in role of un-censored informer.  Can they?  Will they?  It would be a radical departure from the current course and only time will tell.

From here:

Unlike some attorneys, engineers know that the laws of physics are not subject to negotiation.

Music, pure music.

The house version of this bill is HR 4809.  It seems that in this day and age, as the country is becoming more and more technologically advanced, the communications regulation arm of the federal government is feeling a little left behind.  This is a fairly common thing these days, companies are run by accountants and lawyers while the engineers and technologists that actually do what ever technical thing the organization is supposed to be doing are “those funny guys in the basement” or corner or wherever.  The bill reads as such:

Section 4(f)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 154(f)(2)) is amended by inserting after the first sentence the following new sentence: ‘Each commissioner may also appoint an electrical engineer or computer scientist to provide the commissioner technical consultation when appropriate and to interface with the Office of Engineering and Technology, Commission Bureaus, and other technical staff of the Commission for additional technical input and resources, provided that such engineer or scientist holds an undergraduate or graduate degree from an institution of higher education in their respective field of expertise.’.

That would be a step in the right direction.  Hopefully said engineer has several years of experience also, field experience would be even better.  As a radio engineer, I learned that theory is great and most of the time everything goes together exactly as it is supposed to.  There are those occasions, however, where theory has to be thrown out and a prove-fail/prove-pass approach needs to be taken.

In any case, the bill appears to be on the fast track and hopefully the FCC commissioners will choose and use their staff engineers wisely.

Rumor has it that iBiquity is going to release a software upgrade for the AM IBOC system they peddle.  Allegedly it is going to improve the sound quality of the digital signal, allow the analog signal to increase it’s bandwidth to 10 kHz and provide data such as song titles.  No word on whether they will be providing software upgrades to consumers for the many HD radio^TM receivers out there.

I have been following a discussion on AM quality over the last few days.  It seems many engineering types at least, acknowledge that analog AM can sound good, if not more natural that FM.  The addition of IBOC hybrid mode on AM station has created more noise and further degraded the station’s main signal by reducing the bandwidth to less than 5 kHz.

Tonight I am listening to WWVA on 1170 kHz, and there is this horrific white noise/hash over top of the station.  Same thing on 1190 kHz, all courstesy of WHAM 1180’s IBOC transmission.  It is one thing to trash your own station, limiting the analog audio response to 5 kHz.  It is quite another thing to trash the adjacent frequencies with noise making them unlistenable.

Here is a brief clip (recorded at 8:00 pm EDT, March 24, 2010):

Second clip, WWVA has faded out (recorded at 9:10 pm EDT, March 24, 2010)

The audio in these videos is adequate but not the best, still, it is pretty clear that there is a whole bunch of white noise on top of WWVA’s signal and on 1190 where no station is coming in. The only conclusion that I can draw is that WHAM is operating with their IBOC turned on. This was recorded at a location that is 197 miles from WHAM and 364 miles from WWVA.  I have made several better recordings directly into the computer without the video frequency readout reference.

In 1990, the FCC mandated NRSC-2 (73.44) spectral mask on all AM stations, requiring them to put in brick wall filtering to limit the bandwidth to 10 kHz or less.  They also require all AM station to do “equipment performance measurements” (73.1590) to verify that the stations are complying with FCC regulations.  This was done because of excessive sideband splatter by AM broadcasters creating interference to adjacent channel stations.  I agree in principle with the NRSC-2 standard, I think it serves a purpose.  Why then, are stations allowed to interfere with other stations with IBOC signals?  Even though Ibiquity has put up a spectral mask that complies with NRSC-2, it still creates interference.  Isn’t this a double standard?  A station in Pennsylvania gets fined $4,000.00 for operating past its sign off time (because operating after sign off might create harmful interference), yet, WHAM gets to generate noise all night and drowned out adjacent channel stations that are hundreds of miles away?

In the mean time, if the FCC inspector shows up at a station that has not made the required “equipment performance measurements” they will get a fine too.

Am I crazy, or is it hypocritical bull shit to fine one station for potential harmful interference, but then the FCC to ignores its own rules and allows another type interference?  Hint: I am not crazy.

I have recorded this in .wav format and I am sending it to the FCC with an interference complaint letter.  It is about time somebody made some noise about this noise.  Apparently, there are many engineers who feel the same way.  Will Ibiquity listen, or will they keep doing CPR on a corpse?

I read with interest the MMTC’s (Minority Media Telecommunication Council) ideas for rescuing radio.  In the summary, they make the statement:

By granting this Radio Rescue Plan quickly, the FCC can provide lenders and investors with assurance that the federal government stands behind the survival and sustainability of this industry that is so vital to public service, public safety, minority entrepreneurship and democracy

Red flag.  Anytime some groups want to rush something through because of some perceived crisis, it should be closely examined for potential conflicts of interest.

It is fine to look into the rules and make changes as technology evolves, rushing some change through because the economy has gone south is not the best plan.  If radio is in such bad shape that it needs a rules relaxation to survive, that indicates there is something seriously wrong with the underlying structure.  No amount of rules changing is going to help that.

Anyway, they lay out some ideas, most of which have been batted about before and have had little of the intended affects.

1. Re-purpose TV channel 5 and 6 to the FM broadcast band.  Allow AM station to migrate there with a priority given to relieve interference issues on the AM band.
2. Night time AM signal contour rules, relax requirement to cover 80 percent of city of license at night.
3. Modify or eliminate principle community coverage rules
4. Replace minimum efficiency standards for AM antenna systems with “minimum radiation standards”
5. Allow FM applicants to specify Class C, C0, C1, (etc) in zone I and IA.
6. Delete non-viable FM allotments from the table of allotments.

1.  The first idea is to re-purpose TV channel 5 and 6 to the FM band.  This would allow more FM stations to exist and presumably many AM station to migrate to the FM band.  Sort of like the expanded AM band project in the 1990s where AM stations moved to the 1600-1700 khz range and then turned in their old licenses in the 540-1600 khz range to reduce interference.  Worked out well except for the last part, almost no AM station that moved into the expanded band has ever turned in it’s original license.  I doubt that they would in an AM to FM band migration.

Perhaps using this expanded FM band to move all of the NCE stations from the commercial channels and allow for LPFM’s to proliferate would be a good idea.

Then there is the problem of what to do with the various LPTV-6 stations that are still around.

I doubt the FCC will go for this because they can make too much money auctioning off the spectrum in one whole chunk to the highest bidder.

2.  Night time AM coverage rules.  The proposal is to allow a relaxing of the night time AM coverage rules over the city of license.   Currently required to cover 80 percent of the area or population except in the expanded band, where the requirement is 50 percent.  Making it all one uniform standard (50%) would make the most sense.  Not that it would make a lot of difference listener wise, still, it might ease the burden on some AM station that would otherwise be solvent.

3.  Modify or eliminate principle community coverage contours.  This idea  just seems like a way to satisfy more big radio consolidators and have more stations move out of their communities of license, which they are supposed to be serving.  This is the money statement:

MTCC believes that modification fo these rules benefit small, women, minority, and all broadcasting licesnses by providing them with additional flexibility for site location

How?  I still cannot fathom how this will benefit those groups mentioned above, seems like a generic statement with no merit.

The rim shot signals which are at least providing some type of radio programming to rural areas would cease to exist as they would all pick up and move toward population centers.  This is a bad idea.  The owners who bought rim shots should have known they were buying rim shots in the first place and not be expecting too much in the way of moving things around to accommodate their idea of what the FM broadcast band should be.

4.  Replace minimum efficiency standards with a minimum radiation standard for AM antenna systems.   The proposal states that when those standards were adopted, land was plentiful and electricity was not.  I would comment that neither land nor electricity is plentiful today.  Reducing this standard would open up potential AM station buyers to risk of investing in a bigger money pit than what AM radio currently is today.

In other words, it is a bad idea which would only cause potential owners to be saddled with huge electric bills and hasten the end of AM radio.  As an engineer, I know that with the right amount of capacitance and inductance, I can load up an AM transmitter to a chain link fence.  That doesn’t mean it is a good idea.

5.  Allow FM applicants to specify class C, C0, C1, C2, C3, (etc) in zone I and IA.  I presume they mean to allow a class B to specify class C2 and a class B1 to specify a class C3.  This might make the application process a little more uniform, but I doubt it would make much difference in the FM band.

Also, they seem to use the term “spectrum warehousing” often.  What does that mean?  They make an elusion to the difference between a 54 dBu and a 60 dBu contour.  Is that 6 dBu a “spectrum warehouse?” It is really nonsensical, sort of like “precious bodily fluids” in Dr. Strangelove.

6.  Non-viable FM allotments.  Sure, delete them or re-align them so that they might be usable to someone.  Makes sense.

If I had to pick between allowing HD Radio^TM a 6 dB increase or removing the third adjacent protection for LPFM stations, I’d choose LPFM.

In tests performed by NPR, Ibiquity’s In Band On Channel (IBOC) digital radio scheme created significant interference to the first adjacent channel when running with 6% of the analog carrier power (-14 dB referenced to carrier) vs. the 1% (-20 dB referenced to carrier) currently allowed.  The NAB has would like to see -10 dB referenced to carrier or 10% of the analog carrier power.

Remember Bill Clinton’s sign during his first election, something about the economy, stupid.  In this case, it’s the Bandwidth, Stupid.  In the US and Canada, FM stations are allowed 200 kHz of spectrum to transmit their analog signals.   Analog signals include main channel mono (left plus right), and sub channels for stereo pilot (19 kHz) stereo matrix (left minus right), RDS (57 kHz) and any subcarriers in the 67-92 kHz range.

HD Radio^TM radio requires 400 kHz of spectrum to transmit it’s digital carriers.  Here come those laws of nature again, you can’t fit 400 kHz bandwidth into 200 kHz of spectrum.

Ibiquity decided to try it anyway, contravening the FCC’s rules about FM broadcasting bandwidth channels which had been in place since the advent of FM broadcasting in the early 1940’s.  What they attempted to do was make the power level on the adjacent channel so low that most analog radios would not have a problem with it while there was a strong signal from another station present.  (hey buddy, how about a little of this new thing called crack?) This is known as the capture effect.

Now, Ibiquity created this whole thing to make some money.  Nothing wrong with that, this is a market economy after all.  They marketed the hell out of HD Radio^TM radio, I saw them at various trade shows, they had full page advertisements in all the trade magazines, they hit the phones, it was a full court press (it’ll make you really cool, you’ll be able to do things you can do now and you’ll feel really good).  They would even reduce or waive the license fee (here, just take a little rock, try it, on me, you’ll see).

So they were able to sell a very expensive system that has significant coverage issues because of the low power levels needed to satisfy the FCC’s concerns about adjacent channel interference.  The NAB and many of the big radio groups bought in to it (gotcha, crackhead, you’re mine now).

Now, of course, those that bought into HD Radio^TM radio want their investment to work, (which it doesn’t right now) so all the talk of power increases and hey, lets just disregard that pesky interference issue.  If you ignore it, eventually it will go away (along with the entire FM band).

The problems with HD Radio^TM radio are:

1. Inadequate building penetration at the current power level (1% of carrier power)
2. Bandwidth that exceeds current channel assignments on both AM and FM frequencies.
3. Proprietary nature of HD Radio^TM’s CODECs and licensing for second channels give Ibiquity too large a role saying how radio is broadcast in the US.  Remember, radio station licenses are granted in the public interest, the owners are trustees of the public
4. Complete lack of public awareness.
5. It doesn’t really improve anything anyway.

By the way, shame on NPR (again) for their corporate stance contrary to maintaining good quality radio and serving public interest.

Compared to that, LPFM is a very minor thing.  As I said before, removing the third adjacent protection will raise the noise floor in the FM band and by default cause more interference.  However, I’ll take a little more interference created by community radio stations over the complete rack and  ruin of the FM band.

I sent off a letter to my Senators and Congressman this morning regarding HR 1147/S 592 AKA Local Community Radio Act.  Basically I am against this.  Not that I don’t appreciate what it is trying to accomplish.  I believe the technical degradation of the FM band is a higher concern.  After all, if we turn the FM band into what the AM band has become, nobody will listen to radio.

Radio is too important to ruin.  Here is what I wrote:

I strongly urge you NOT to support the bipartisan Local Community Radio Act (HR 1147/ S. 592) sponsored by Reps. Mike Doyle and Lee Terry and Sens. Maria Cantwell and John McCain.

In spite of what many have said, Low Power FM (LPFM) contributes to the technical degradation of the FM service.  By adding more and more signals covering every possible spot in the FM spectrum, the noise floor is raised causing many FM receivers to “picket fence” which is annoying to most listeners.

Radio has suffered enough degradation over the last few decades.  AM radio is now so fraught with interference, especially at night, most people do not even consider listening to it.  Packing the FM dial with thousands of low power operators will create the same problems and cause most people to abandon radio altogether.

I am a strong proponent of 1st amendment rights.  I believe the sponsors of this bill are well intentioned, however misinformed. I believe that the deregulation of commercial radio allowing one company to own 1,200 radio licenses has created most of the problems we see today.

Clear Channel, in particular, has removed almost all localism from radio, creating bland canned music channels.  Their modus operandi was to buy a group of radio stations in a market, combine the stations under one roof, get rid of most of the staff, and drop the advertising rates so other local stations could not compete.  Non-Clear Channel stations were then forced to make cuts in there advertising rates and or expenses to stay in business.

The answer is not to create a bigger mess.  Instead:

1.  Push the FCC to tighten ownership rules.  In some ways the horse is already out of the barn, but it would prevent another Clear Channel from forming in the future.
2.  If major radio groups go bankrupt and are broken up, allow it to happen, do not intervene.  This will allow real radio broadcasters to pick up the pieces and put something together.  Perhaps investigate supporting small radio owners by waiving FCC fees and limited tax breaks for a period of time.
3.  Push the FCC to continue with the localism hearings they were conducting.
4.  Push the FCC to update the EAS and make a workable Emergency Alert System in the US.

Radio is too important a resource to have it ruined.  Of all the media outlets, radio is the most robust.  During an emergency often times the utility grid is down.  Many radio stations have backup power generators and can provide vital information when the internet, phone system, cable TV network, cellphone system, e-mail, etc are down.

Radio can provide local government important mass access to their constituents during elections and at other important times.  Radio is free, there are no subscription fees, no service providers, etc.  Almost everyone owns a radio, most people own several.

Small savvy radio owners can make a go of it, provided the deck is not stacked against them.

Please DO NOT support the Local Community Radio Act. Thank you.

If you want to get involved, you can go the the Free Press website, there you will find a link to a “Take Action” page (not sure that link will work).  Again, I am not opposed to Free Press, or even Free Radio.  Packing the FM spectrum with LPFM, translators and the like will only create reception problems.  This is just become another reason for people not to listen to radio.