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FCC dismisses and denies DBS Market Modification Application for Review involving three Georgia counties.

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Quick, how does the loudness standard used at Spotify differ from that of public radio’s PRSS?

The answer can be found in a new reference list put together by RTW. The equipment manufacturer gathered info about several dozen audio delivery standards for content used by streaming and broadcast organizations.

“While aligning the perceived loudness of content in broadcast and digital delivery platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music and more is a good initiative, one of the consequences is a wealth of new delivery standards,” it stated in its announcement. “RTW sets out to provide an overview.”

[Read: A Quality Audio Crisis in the Music Industry]

It noted that loudness standards in broadcast have been in the news for the past decade but that many new digital streaming platforms have emerged in that time. “And in recent years, the companies behind these new platforms have also started to recognize the need for recommending specific loudness deliver specifications to its content providers.”

It noted that Spotify, Netflix, Apple, Sony, Amazon, Tidal and Google (YouTube) have their own loudness delivery guidelines. “Some of them are similar in terms of Integrated Loudness (LUFS), but may vary slightly with regard to True Peak (dBTP), and then again some are simply the same.”

The Public Radio Satellite System is one of the many organizations included, as are numerous global TV industry sectors. RTW said that it found nearly 50 specifications including 35 for broadcast.

The loudness delivery specifications on the RTW page include Loudness and True Peak targets. Depending on content type and destination, parameters such as Short Term Loudness, Momentary Loudness and Max Loudness Range may also be included, it said.

RTW’s Senior Director of Product Management Mike Kahsnitz was quoted saying that the list is aimed at content providers. “For instance, if you make music and would like to submit your content to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Deezer, you should not just bounce one file for all of them.”

The guide is here.

 

The post RTW Publishes List of Loudness Standards appeared first on Radio World.

The Multicultural, Media Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) have provided an outline of strategies they believe the FCC should implement to ensure multilingual populations receive critical information during emergencies, including pandemic and natural disasters.

MMTC and LULAC made two specific recommendations for the FCC to ensure that they deliver and maintain emergency communications to multilingual populations.

[Read: Multilingual Emergency Broadcasting: A Moral Imperative for the Radio Industry]

The first is for communications during a pandemic, when systems are not adversely impacted. In this case, the organizations believe the FCC should survey communication providers’ resiliency, redundancy and multiple language capabilities before, during and immediately after the emergency. Based on the results, the FCC should design and implement a training regimen to assist providers in meeting the information needs of multilingual populations in the event of such an emergency.

The second recommendation focuses more on hurricanes and tornadoes that take down electric wireline or wireless grids for communication. For this MMTC and LULAC want to see the FCC adopt the “Designated Hitter” system, which ensures that at least one commercial or noncommercial full power radio station is able to remain on air during and after a hurricane with the responsibility of distributing critical multilingual information.

Here’s what the organizations wrote about the “Designated Hitter” idea:

“For communication during and after a hurricane or tornado that takes down the electric, wireline or wireless grids — as happened with Hurricanes Andrew (1992), Katrina (2005), Maria (2017), Florence (2018), and Michael (2018) — the commission should adopt a radio station ‘Designated Hitter’ system. When radio is the last resort for mass communication, the Designated Hitter paradigm contemplates that at least one commercial or noncommercial full power radio station, able to remain on the air during and after a hurricane, will have arranged in advance to broadcast life-saving multilingual information.

“Initially, these arrangements would be made in radio markets that have no more than one full service in-language station (defined as a commercial full power FM, or an AM with at least 1 kw day and night) and where there are more than 50,000 persons likely to speak the target language). This paradigm is necessary if one or more grids go down, leaving radio stations with generators as the only channels capable of mass communication. The ‘Designated Hitter’ concept is the only method that can prearrange and generally assure the provision of life-saving multilingual information during and after a hurricane or tornado.”

 

The post MMTC, LULAC Urge FCC to Consider Multilingual Needs During Emergencies appeared first on Radio World.

A $4.7 million grant will help fund the creation of two more regional public radio newsrooms, NPR announced.

The organization said philanthropists Eric and Wendy Schmidt are donating to NPR’s Collaborative Journalism Network. Eric Schmidt held leadership positions at Google and Alphabet; Wendy Schmidt worked in marketing in Silicon Valley and started a residential interior design business; she is president of the Schmidt Family Foundation.

[Read: CPB Funds Noncom Election Reporting/Engagement Effort]

One newsroom will be in California, the other in the Midwest serving stations in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. The goal is to “increase local coverage across the states, especially in underserved communities” and expand investigative reporting capacity.

NPR announced the California regional newsroom in February. That collaboration will be led by KQED in San Francisco and includes KPBS in San Diego, CapRadio in Sacramento, KPCC/LAist and KCRW in Southern California, with NPR as the national partner. The newsroom will serve the 17 public radio stations in the state.

The 25 public radio stations in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska will have access to content from the Midwest regional newsroom, which will be led by KCUR in Kansas City, St. Louis Public Radio, Iowa Public Radio and NET in Nebraska with NPR as national partner.

NPR officials said these newsrooms will focus on investigative reporting, hiring small teams of investigative journalists to work with station reporters on their public service investigations.

The California news hub is the second regional collaboration with local stations under NPR’s Collaborative Journalism Network. The first was the Texas Newsroom. Separately public stations in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana joined to launch the Gulf States newsroom. The Midwest makes four, and NPR said more are in the works.

 

The post Schmidt Grant Helps Fund Public Radio Regional Newsrooms appeared first on Radio World.

It’s doubtful that any of the major radio broadcast groups in the United States included a pandemic on the list of emergencies they worried about when creating preparedness plans. Yet the coronavirus outbreak quickly demanded changes in operations at most stations.

The solutions that broadcasters have adopted are likely to have long-term implications. Managers say these new workflows will influence how stations operate after the pandemic ends.

Better Than Imagined

Maintaining critical infrastructure during the emergency, while coping with staff cuts, furloughs and medical absences, certainly challenged engineering leaders. Most broadcast groups also froze capital expenditure spending and placed numerous projects on hold.

One chief technology officer told Radio World his company’s build-out projects were “paused but not cancelled” pending a recovery.

The use of remote technology for air staff accelerated early in the crisis as broadcasters faced social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders.

One veteran broadcast engineer said in some cases, “Entire air staffs at radio stations are working from home, and working better than anyone imagined,” which leads him to believe “these short-term fixes could turn into long-term strategies.”

The versatility of the cloud also is being stretched in new ways, including ingesting production remotely through virtual private network capacity.

“This was like having a day or two to plan for a hurricane, since some studios were emptied out the same day a staff member tested positive for COVID-19,” said a corporate engineer. “We were mapping major technical changes that had to happen within 24 hours in many cases. It got ‘real’ really fast.”

Another engineering executive said it was “like going from 100 on-air studios to 4,000 home studios,” all with the same network security concerns. Most broadcasters established VPN or other remote access protocols for employees to connect to station servers from home.

Gaps in cybersecurity became a major focus of radio technical staffs worried that audio feeds could be hijacked from home computers protected by less-robust security systems, according to several engineers.

“Our first focus was getting everyone out of our buildings,” one said. “Beginning with sales then programming. Then you’re faced with moving the air staff to at home work and that’s the heavy lift, especially with live shows. Fortunately we can voicetrack the music stations. Everyone was VPNing in from distance. In some cases people just yanked the desktop from their work desk and took it home.”

It was a big job for many broadcasters. In Washington, WAMU Director of Technology Rob Bertrand said that by late April, “We finally got everyone out of the building. Hosts, producers, engineers, call screeners, editors, reporters … from national talk shows to regional podcasts … all from home,” he wrote in an email. “It’s been great to be able to breathe a sigh of relief that everyone is safe and we are able to keep going while the dust settles around the question of when and how to reopen everything.”

Video Conference Tools

Video conferencing is the new norm, and remote broadcasting from home studios has become routine for many broadcasters.

“The Bert Show,” a syndicated morning show distributed by Westwood One, used BlueJeans video conferencing to bring members of the morning show together on air.

At least one broadcaster utilized StreamYard, a live streaming studio app, to allow for the simultaneous stream distribution of remote content to YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn and Facebook, which they hoped would stimulate listener engagement.

Mike Cooney, CTO and executive VP of engineering for Beasley Broadcasting, said the company’s immediate focus was getting everyone home, especially in clusters with employees that tested positive for COVID-19.

“The transition to home was fairly smooth. I would say probably better than I could have hoped. We have a lot of people working on their home computers, so we had to implement a lot of security changes and installed a lot of VPNs,” Cooney said.

Beasley was not immune to the job cuts that have affected many companies. It eliminated 67 positions, including five broadcast engineers, in early April, according to a company announcement. That included one “corporate-level IT person,” Cooney said.

Operations at stations have continued without much interruption, Cooney said, even though the overall “on-air sound at times hasn’t been totally smooth.”

Beasley utilized remote gear “from some of our largest sports stations currently not being used” to supply some air staff with home studio equipment, Cooney said. “We did purchase about 10 additional Comrex units for air staff to use from home,” he said.

Cooney said that in the future he expects to see more “reciprocal agreements” among radio competitors within markets, to work together during a crisis.

“I think radio needs to stop competing against each other during a crisis like this pandemic. The landscape changes when things like this happen. I see a day when resources are shared, and that maybe even means sharing studios. It could bring some further consolidation, but groups could share generators, towers and maybe even engineering staff. But radio stations could still compete,” he said.

“I see a few things coming out of this — a more collaborative environment between radio groups, more shared workspace for employees and many more staff working from home.”

“Radio needs to stop competing against each other during a crisis like this pandemic. The landscape changes when things like this happen.”

— Mike Cooney

Cooney chairs the NAB’s Technology Committee and says the developments lend urgency to the group’s work dealing with the cloud.

“We have spent a lot of time focused on the ability for broadcasters to do more in the cloud, and looking at EAS and PPM encoding. We know you can do automation and processing in the cloud, but we think being able to remote control EAS and PPM encoding is a logical step,” Cooney said. “It would give a broadcaster the ability to easily run a broadcast facility from another market during an emergency.”

A More Remote Workforce

Jason Ornellas, director of engineering at Bonneville International, said even though engineers typically look for “solutions and answers, it’s hard to imagine such a scenario” as a pandemic.

Bonneville, which owns 21 stations in six markets in the U.S., quickly transitioned all employees in administration, sales, marketing and digital to remote work through VPN and Microsoft 365 in the cloud.

“We ordered remote home studio broadcast kits to make the home studio as turnkey as possible for our on-air talent’s convenience to make them feel comfortable and safe from their home. Tutorial videos were produced to show unpacking and setting up the equipment as well as using RCS Zetta2Go,” he said. “The file servers are providing everyone with a sense of being on the network from home.”

The home studio kits included an EV RE320 microphone with stand, XLR cables, RodeCaster Pro Board, Tascam headphones and Comrex BRIC Link II. (The Sacramento cluster is one of the case studies featured in Radio World’s “Broadcasting From Home” webcast series.)

Bonneville said in a press release in April it did not anticipate staff cuts. Ornellas said technical staff is needed now more than ever.

“I think long term you will see a lot more remote workforce. When we rebound, which I believe radio and audio will, virtualization, software-based solutions and cloud initiatives will be the forefront. Our vendors recognize that,” Ornellas said. “There is nothing like a real emergency to get things moving in a creative way. Some of our technical priorities have changed.”

Some industry observers expect there will be newly discovered cost savings and efficiencies as a result of the new virtualization adopted by broadcasters, which corporate owners might be anxious to implement.

“When we rebound — which I believe radio and audio will — virtualization, software-based solutions and cloud initiatives will be the forefront.”

— Jason Ornellas

“This crisis is likely to change the way we think about every single radio position in the building, including sales and programming. It is likely owners and managers will take a hard look at what lessons we learned,” said one corporate technical employee.

Remote work in general “will likely increase for broadcasters because everyone is going to be accustomed to a new normal,” another engineer said

“This pandemic has forced everyone to think about how they do their jobs. Everything has been hyper-focused right now on how to do things as efficiently as possible and I think some of that will hold over once this is over,” he said. “So the first step is getting through this crisis and then putting everything back together.”

Bertrand of WAMU said, “It was remarkable, while working to transition the live products of our talk show teams and local hosts to their homes, to walk through a fully vacant newsroom and then hear a record volume of content on the air and see it on our websites. It does make me wonder if we might adopt a more distributed work model for our journalists in the long term.”

He said WAMU grappled with questions about how, why and when to deploy automation functions, but decided that emergencies are when a live and local voice is more important than ever to its audience.  “Even if that voice is simply checking in between network elements, they are a reassuring companion for so many people who are seeking a foothold in this time of crisis.”

For WAMU’s complex national and local talk shows, he said it was a feat to move to 100% remote production, but he doesn’t foresee that being a new normal.

“Similarly, we have now proven that complex live newscasts are possible from home; and while this model might be helpful in storm responses in the future, it has also been challenging. I’m not sure that we would attempt to permanently distribute our entire journalism operation to quite the extent that has happened; but we have proven that it is possible,” Bertrand said.

“It does make you start to think about the cost of real estate per square foot, versus the alternatives. My dream is that this opens up new collaborative opportunities across the public media ecosystem; that we might all be stronger together in the aftermath of this pandemic.”

How do you think our industry and its technical workflows will change in the long term due to the coronavirus crisis? Email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.

The post Virtualization and Cloud Come to the Forefront appeared first on Radio World.

John Wordock, executive editor of the Westwood One Podcast Network

On Westwood One’s blog, John Wordock, the executive editor of the Westwood One Podcast Network, offers some guidance for podcasters on how to produce content that engages and retains listeners.

He also details ways to utilize Apple metrics, a dashboard tool that provide podcast publishers and show producers a look at past episodes, duration, devices, total time listened, time per device, and average consumption. (To access the dashboard, log into the Apple ID account used to publish the podcast and select “Podcast Analytics” from the drop-down menu on the left.) “Think of the Apple dashboard as a digital focus group letting you track actual behavior,” Wordock says.

In his post, Wordock recommends:

• Focusing on storytelling and preparation: “Want to produce a great podcast? Then prepare, prepare, prepare,” he says. “If you publish an interview podcast, do your homework, know your questions beforehand, and anticipate the answers. If you produce a scripted show, do table reads with your producer, pick apart your episode, and look for ways to improve your story. If you fly solo, bounce your ideas off a spouse or friend.”
• Getting creative with preroll ads: “Because listening decisions are made so quickly, avoid starting an episode with ad copy if possible … tease what lies ahead in the episode,” Wordock continues. “Introduce the theme. Promote your guest. Telegraph what to expect ahead. Doing all this before the first ad will buffer the audience from being bombarded by a commercial early on.”
  
• Experimentation: “The beauty of having Apple metrics at your fingertips? You have instant insight into how content performs, how your listeners react, and how ads are received,” Wordock says. “You see what works — and what doesn’t. You can use that information to format your podcast moving forward and make tweaks … so test things out. Experiment.”
• Holding the audience: “Strive to hold 80% of your audience to the mid-roll [promotional] position and use it as a draw for advertisers,” he stresses. “Look at the percentages on the right side of the dashboard. They tell a story. Consumption rates under 70% are fair. Good listenership sits around 80%. If you have a podcast reaching 90% or higher, congrats! You’re my hero.”
• Dealing with dips: “Through the Apple dashboard, you will spot potholes in the listening pattern,” Wordock explains. “What is that dip? Oh, it’s where the host read the ad copy. So how can you stop your listeners from fast-forwarding through the ads and leaving large divots on your data screen? The best podcast reads are often seamless and connect with the topics being discussed. The transitions are smooth and easy.”

To read in more detail about each of Wordock’s points, visit the Westwood One blog entry.

The post Westwood One’s Wordock on Maintaining — and Monitoring — Podcast Audiences appeared first on Radio World.

VALENCE, France — Radio Méga has been broadcasting from a fully functional, autonomous mobile radio studio since June 2019. Hosting three people plus a driver, the studio is equipped with a Focal PA system, a Digigram Iqoya Talk IP 4G codec and an iPad to play effects and other sound clips.

Radio Méga’s tricycle studio can be used on a public square to meet listeners more easily. All photos courtesy of Radio Méga.

Radio Méga is a community radio station based in Southern France. Since its establishment in 1981, its goal has been to “create links with listeners, wherever they are.” The station has a main studio in Valence, which features an Axia IQ audio console and WinMedia automation software Version 2.18. It also has a secondary studio in Romans-sur-Isère about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away, as well as a host of gear for mobile broadcasts.

TRYCICLE STUDIO

The “tricycle studio” idea came from Raphaël Terribilé, a former schoolteacher working at Radio Méga since 2003. He now has his own show, “Rock à la Casbah,” and is one of the five Radio Méga employees. The station also has 80 volunteers.

Radio Méga’s tricycle studio can also be used inside a building, like here in a museum — as long as the entrance doors are high and wide enough.

“We have always gone out to meet our listeners around Valence,” explains Terribilé. “We are generally hosted in office and state buildings such as city halls. But we noticed that many people didn’t dare come up to talk with us. So I had to find a way to eliminate this distance and encourage our audience to meet us.”

Instead of equipping a van or a caravan as a radio facility, Terribilé decided to use a three-wheel electric cycle to host the studio. The structure is designed to support the weight of the passengers and technical equipment.

“The ‘fun’ factor is huge and people are curious — our studio is really open to the world, there’s no obstacle, and listeners are not afraid to meet us anymore,” he added. “Sometimes, I drive right in the middle of the road, disturbing car or truck drivers, but they rarely honk at me. I usually get a thumbs up! Moreover, this mobile approach is fully environment-friendly.”

Radio Méga always prefers, when possible, to deal with local suppliers. The Urban Arrow Tender 1500 three-wheel electric tricycle is a Dutch model that is 3 meters (10 feet) long and 1.2 meters (4 feet) wide, weighs 230 kilograms (507 pounds), and has an autonomy of 40 kilometers (25 miles). It’s fitted with a wooden structure purpose-built at Lycée Amblard, a Valence vocational high school.

“Assisted by Mr. Gallot, the wood crafts teacher, and Ms. Lombard, the applied arts teacher, first-year students designed and built the box, engraved with Radio Méga logos. They stepped up to the challenge and pushed the project further than the first drawings we gave them to explain our concept.” The total cost was more than €20,000 (US$21,622).

A Radio Méga project in Sénégal offered the station the occasion to test the new Digigram Iqoya Talk IP 4G codec.

TECHNICAL SETUP

The wooden structure, which hosts three announcers, has gooseneck microphones and four speakers from French company Focal. It also features a Digigram Iqoya Talk IP codec/mixer. Sounds are triggered from an iPad mounted on a special support. The students successfully resolved all issues, including weight and cable-run problems.

Radio Méga acted as a beta tester for the Digigram Iqoya Talk IP 4G codec. “The company was about to release it, and they lent us a unit, to get our input — we asked them for modifications on the mic preamps, for example. We were even able to use it in harsh conditions,” he said. “In the Sénégal desert, for example, for an operation we had there. The system works fine: we use it with two different SIM cards simultaneously, as double streaming, for redundancy. It also automatically switches when a problem appears, and total latency is usually less than 60ms.”

The three-wheeler uses a camping/car battery to power the amplifiers; the Iqoya Talk has its own batteries (two of them, plus a third one, for spare, they are hot-swappable). In addition, there is a lockable wooden trunk above the right wheel arch, to put headphones, microphones and cables in when they are not in use. The Iqoya Talk codec and the iPad have their own briefcase.

Driving the tricycle studio from location to another between shows.

Built from January to June 2019, the tricycle/studio was inaugurated on June 23, for the “Hors les murs” show (“Outside the Walls”). It then was presented to the Nantes Festival de l’Info Locale, and was seen (and heard) on the Drôme roads at least once a week during the summer and the fall. The station has also used the mobile studio in the winter, for example during the “Jazz sur le Gril 2020’ festival; even if it’s harder to manage the broadcasts with the cold and rain.

ATTENTION

The Radio Méga three-wheeler was on show during the Salon de la Radio event in Paris last January, and attracted a lot of attention, including that of CSA President Roch Olivier-Maistre.

“We mainly use the studio outside, but we can also get into specific places if needed,” said Terribilé. “Sometimes, entrance doors are not high enough, and once at a museum, for instance, I had to deflate the tires to get the trycicle into the venue.”

People now expect Radio Méga to come to them with the three-wheeler, even for a “simple” interview… A major project took place during four weeks in May last year. This was the first ‘Traversée de la Drôme à vélo.’ (“Crossing the Drôme With a Bike”).

In collaboration with regional and national education organizations, Radio Méga trained a total of 500 middle school students as radio journalists. As part of the project, they were required to prepare and host their shows on-air, to interview people in villages, dealing with cultural aspects, patrimony or local initiatives.

Radio Méga then aired the shows and also made them available as podcasts. They also taught the students how to build a related multimedia website with text and pictures. Some pupils even created short videos about the crossing. All this is perfectly in line with Radio Méga’s philosophy: To be close to its listeners in a spirit of sharing and openness.

The post Radio Méga Creatively Connects With Listeners appeared first on Radio World.

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Dismissal of OTARD Petition

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KXSU(LP) at Seattle University is heard on 102.1 MHz.
Photo
: KXSU Seattle University

The FCC in April modified the technical rules covering low-power FM stations. It expanded the permissible use of directional antennas; permitted waivers of protections of television Channel 6 by a specific group of reserved channel stations; expanded the definition of minor change applications for LPFM stations; and allowed LPFM stations to own boosters. Read more about the changes here.

Michelle Bradley, founder of REC Networks, is an engineer and longtime LPFM advocate.

Radio World: What’s your overall assessment of the outcome and the scope of its impact in the LPFM community?

Michelle Bradley: While the FCC did not address three major issues that are impacting LPFM stations right now —the ability to address building penetration issues, the ability to reach “local” listeners in rural areas and the disparity in how LPFM stations protect FM translators vs. how translators protect LPFMs — the changes will benefit current LPFM stations by giving them more flexibility in moving locations, reduce the need for waivers and improve LPFM service in the southern border region. It will also open some additional opportunities for new LPFM stations in the next filing window.

RW: A concern was raised during the process that LPFMs might be required to conduct a proof of performance in order to use directional antennas, which would would be too costly for most of these stations. What was the outcome?

Bradley: The proof of performance issues came up as a result of concerns that LPFM stations would not properly install directional antennas correctly. The need for this language was a carryover from our proposals that involved the use of contour protection to protect other stations (which in most cases were rejected in the commission’s decisions to not allow for 250 watt LPFM stations or the use of contours to protect translators).

Michelle Bradley, founder of REC Networks

As we were getting very close to the adoption of the Report and Order, I did work very closely with the commission to address the issue of the proofs and verification, especially since the commission had previously allowed directional antennas for state highway public safety departments (there are currently no stations using directional antennas) and second-adjacent-channel waivers.

In those specific cases, staff stated that because the public safety stations still had to meet minimum distance separations and second-adjacent channel short-spacings had a remediation policy, those concerns were already addressed, such as the rule language around second adjacent channel interference remediation.

I had stated that in the case of stations near Mexico, recourse was already available through international notification process and that directional antennas installed for that purpose were not to protect specific stations. The FCC staff agreed. This is what resulted in the three exceptions to the proof rule for public safety, second adjacent and international agreement.

I do note though that for the previous concepts of LP-250 and proposed rules to allow LPFMs to use contours towards translators, I asked for a similar remediation rule to the one that FM translators use right now for LPFMs that decide to use contours. That was never addressed in the Report and Order.

RW: How many LPFMs do you think are likely to take advantage of the directional antenna option?

Bradley: Very few LPFM stations would benefit from directional antennas. This includes a subset of LPFM stations near the Mexican border and those where the directional characteristic of the antenna would benefit in a second adjacent waiver. New or modified LPFM stations proposing operation in the “reserved band” (88.1–91.9 MHz) could use a directional antenna to protect a full-service or low-power TV station on Channel 6. Despite that, the FCC is now allowing LPFM stations to obtain consent from the affected Channel 6 TV station, consistent with the current rules for FM translators.

Directional antennas could also be engaged in very rare cases of mutual interference between two properly spaced stations and could serve as a method for LPFM stations planning to use solar in order to reduce their transmitter power output (power consumption).

The use of directional antennas overall should be few and far between.

RW: What is the benefit of permitting waivers of protections for Channel 6?

Bradley: The waiver for Channel 6 puts LPFM on a more level playing field with FM translators. I originally proposed that LPFMs use the translator rules for Channel 6. The FCC’s original proposal to eliminate all Channel 6 protections was a complete surprise. The rejection of the total elimination of Channel 6 protection was spearheaded by ABC (WPVI) in ex parte after the comment period closed. I also note that the issues of FM to Channel 6 protections (and vice versa) are also being discussed in a separate proceeding for “Franken FM” stations. The waiver process is consistent with what I originally asked for. ABC also asked that any LPFM station seeking a waiver send a notification letter to the affected Channel 6 station. This was supported by NAB. After consideration of the issue and the number of potential waiver requests, I agreed it was a reasonable request. FM to Channel 6 will likely be revisited at a later date.

RW: The mention of boosters stands out; is that something you see a lot of demand for? 

Bradley: Boosters in LPFM only impact an extremely small subset of stations that have large lobes in their protected service contours due to what I call “foothill effect,” but because of terrain are unable to put service into those areas.

Currently, there are only four stations, all in Southern California, that have been authorized boosters, all of which I was involved with. One of those boosters is already on the air.

Boosters are very complex, especially in areas where terrain is not has “hard” as Southern California, where synchronization would need to be used. In addition, most of the country has much smaller service contour lobes and it would be impractical to squeeze a second signal inside the LPFM service contour. My request for codification was to assure the stability of the existing Southern California LPFM boosters and to have a process in place and in those rare cases where a booster would help fill in coverage for a terrain challenged LPFM, the option is available without waiver.

RW: What else should we know?

Bradley: I do remain concerned that the FCC does not want to pull the “training wheels” off of LPFM and let those who with the resources to have access to the more flexible methods allowed to other secondary users of the broadcast spectrum while still remaining in compliance with the statutory requirements of the Local Community Radio Act.

“The LPFM service has evolved and matured, and it is not the same service that former Chairman William Kennard pictured back in 1999 when LPFM was first proposed.” — Michelle Bradley

At one time, getting a contour study done normally involved a high-dollar engineering firm. In this day and age, with the use of various resources including those provided by the FCC, the ability to do contour studies has become more accessible, with less dependence on topo maps, slide rules and five-figure software packages.

While I understand that they want to keep LPFM simple, it’s important to realize that more than half of the LPFM applications filed in the 2013 window were assisted with “hired help.” This tells me that the resources to do contour studies are out there and within reach of LPFM applicants.

The use of consultants and/or engineers became necessary in 2012 when in implementing the Local Community Radio Act, the FCC allowed LPFM stations to use the Living Way method of waiving second adjacent channel protection rules. As I told the commissioners a while back, the LPFM service has evolved and matured, and it is not the same service that former Chairman William Kennard pictured back in 1999 when LPFM was first proposed. Yet, for some reason, the current FCC seems to want to hold it back.

The post FCC Tweaks LPFM Technical Rules appeared first on Radio World.