fcc – Page 6 – Engineering Radio

Comcast Buys FCC? or Business as Usual

I received this rather humorous, hyperventilating email from some group called “Freepress.net.”

Outrageous!

FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast – just four months after she voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger.

This is nothing new under the sun and has, in fact, been going on for years. It’s called “The Payoff.” Conflict of interest? On the surface, it sure seems that way, but perhaps there is some other innocent explanation for this move. I can’t, for the life of me, think of what that might be, but I’m sure somebody will come up with something.

The email continues with a plea to call some congressman to investigate the FCC. Perhaps I have grown a little cynical but I have my doubts about the effectiveness of such an effort.

In spite of my cynicism, as their motivations seem to be in the right place, I applaud Free Press for their efforts. Other like-minded groups need to keep the pressure on and keep this in the spotlight. Naturally, NBC and other networks have uttered not a peep about it. The public blindly goes along while big business and wall street banksters continue their efforts to return to Feudalism.

Soon, one company will own the entire country. Everyone will shop at the company store, Wal-something or another, live in company housing, go to the company medical clinic and worship at the company church.

The answer, of course, is independent voices, independent investigations, in-depth reporting, in short, everything that is currently missing from the media landscape today. That, and some kind of electric shock or something to get people off of their fat asses and care about something.

Update: Several people have taken notice; The New York Times, TIME magazine, and The Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Well, That Was Fast – Comcast/NBC Merger

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Rants

Keeping Public Radio Public has a good one.

And the lame-stream press — how dare they be called the “liberal media”! — only parrot the script prepared by the puppet masters, as corporate “largesse” and control has turned the media into toothless old watchdogs. They make good company for the regulatory agencies once charged with protecting the public from the excesses of corporate greed. They’re good dogs now, too.

Exactly why independent media outlets are not just a nice feature of a democracy. If one were to read the entire constitution of the United States, a theme, loosely known as “checks and balances” becomes apparent. You could also call that theme “Trust Not.” I recommend anyone who is interested in freedom read the Federalist Papers. Even with the watered-down press, US Congress has a 9% (Rasmussen, April 2011) approval rating. Surely, the public understands that something is amiss and needs to be fixed.

While the internet and new media are great, it is too easy to mess with the internet. True independent media needs to have independent distribution, and not be beholden to corporate ISPs, search engines, data centers, and so forth. Radio fits that bill, to the extent that it is not broadcasting homogenized safe, automated, faceless music formats programmed from afar or content from The Borg-like collective of NPR. Independent radio still exists in small pockets scattered here and there. Where it exists, it often thrives in spite of corporate conglomerates.

Of course, consolidation has reduced the radio business to a shell of its former self. The FCC has no interest in reigning in those corporations, or, so it seems, enforcing many of its own existing regulations. Money talks, screw the public.

What is the answer? Get involved. Don’t buy into the lies. Use your God-given senses and do some research. Draw your own conclusions. Make noise. Confront the corporatists with the facts. Use every means possible to get the word out. Write your representative or senator (after you register to vote). Talk to co-workers, friends, family people on the street, etc. It’s time, in fact, it’s now or never.

Blanketing Interference and RFI

Blanketing interference refers to the phenomenon 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 homeowner 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 helps the station’s and the company’s image 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 guy’s 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 to 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. On more than one occasion, I 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.

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 footwork. 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 complainant’s houses 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, the 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.

Al Fansome, Call your office

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 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.

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.