Blog Post #3: The Controversy

BRIEF OVERVIEW
Why is the technology of LPFM controversial?

FOR LPFM
Some people think that LPFM are a "slight corrective to the consolidation of commercial radio", perhaps a nice refreshing shift or addition to the more commercialized broadcasting we tend to hear everywhere. (www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/arts/25radio.html/)

AGAINST LPFM
However, it has been claimed that LPFM interferes with the signals from full power radio stations which is why many licenses for it was blocked for a period after 2000, preventing many from sharing local news and information with local communities.

THE VERDICT
LPFM stations do NOT interfere with full power stations, as concluded in a Federal Communications Commiusion study ("the Mitre Report") ordered by the Congress to conduct. According to the study, "increasing the number of LPFM stations would not interfere with full power stations. The FCC then urged Congress to repeal the LPFM restrictions."
( www.freepress.net/lpfm)


GREAT NEWS!
For all the local communities who cherish the broadcasting offered by the LPFM.

Local Community Radio Act

"On Dec. 18, 2010, Congress passed the Local Community Radio Act, a bill that promises to open the radio dial to thousands of new LPFM stations across the country, bringing fresh music, local perspectives and community news to the public airwaves.

President Obama's signed the bill into law in early 2011." (www.freepress.net/lpfm)

What the ADVOCATES have to say:
**Most information is from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/arts/25radio.html - if source is not listed, information is from this website.**

• LPFM promotes local and diverse cultures

e.g. In Louisiana, a large African-American community appreciate how LPFM plays a genre of music called zydeco, " a potent blend of Cajun, rhythm and blues and, among a younger generation, hip-hop, often features accordion and washboard"

• LPFM influences commercial radio to offer listeners a wider range of music

e.g. John Freedman, the executive director of KOZM, a LPFM radio station, said "he thought commercial stations had started playing more zydeco since KOCZ started broadcasting in 2002. “They know that we make them better,” he said. "

• Because LPFM is non-commercial, schools and organizations are able to promote many community service-related projects that help better the local neighborhood.

e.g. "KOCZ is licensed to the Southern Development Foundation, a civil rights group that grants scholarships and runs a business incubator but has fallen on hard times. The foundation treats the station as a 24-hour form of community outreach. "

• Bigger is not always better

e.g. “Low-power FM stations are small, but they make a giant contribution to local community programming,”

• Smaller means more local and tightknit- LPFM promotes a very close community

- "For KOCZ, smaller is better, because smaller means more local. "
-"a woman walked into the station ... asked for an announcement to be broadcast about her lost dog... 'She was able to get her dog back the next day,' said Helen Pickney, the station manager, still marveling at the story. "

• "“Low power FM radio stations not only put local music, news, and political debates on the FM dial, they saved lives after Hurricane Katrina because they put up-to-the-minute local information on the air – and they are small and flexible enough to keep running with a car battery when the power goes out,” said Pete Tridish, an organizer with the Prometheus Radio Project, a nonprofit that supports low power FM radio stations nationwide."

(http://www.wryr.org/news.html)

• LPFM is crucial for small communities in times of emergencies

“In this day and age, emergency management is a must for a city of our size and LPFM perfectly fits our needs. A low power FM radio station can stay on the air even if the power goes out. Low power FM saved lives during Katrina but strangely, the federal government is banning it from this part of Tennessee. That is not fair or wise. We have the right to be as safe as any other community in the US. "

(http://www.wryr.org/news.html)


What the CRITICS have to say:

• The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is one that proposed the campaign against LPFM
  ("http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-04-18/entertainment/18126057_1_low-power-lpfm-stations-nab)
  
  
• It is claimed that " NAB members want to protect their monopoly - noting the growing ownership of radio by large, nonlocal corporations that often syndicate programming among markets, cut down on local news and increase advertising time."
  

("http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-04-18/entertainment/18126057_1_low-power-lpfm-stations-nab)

• The NAB wants to make a compromise that the FCC can have the rights to offer LPFM radio but in more deserted spots

"They want to force the FCC to use an old, archaic way of finding spots for LPFM stations that no other radio broadcasters are required to use anymore for licensing. If the FCC were forced to use this method of licensing LPFM, there’d be no room for more LPFMs anywhere but unpopulated areas and America’s smallest towns.”"

• LPFM radio stations had to pay the same budget as other broadcasters after the NAB convinced the Congress that close-spaced LPFM was a threat to the full power stations

My Opinion?
Clearly, as suggested by the number of different valid points offered by LPFM advocates, the LPFM radio serves a far better purpose than it supposedly interferes with bigger broadcasting companies (it has already been proven in a study that it doesn't do this anyway). Local communities thrive on the local broadcasting offered by LPFM radios, and the existence of these stations has proven to be extremely beneficial in emergency and dire situations such as during Hurricane Katrina. It also operates when the power is out, ultimately suggesting its valuable use and existence.

_______________________________________________________________________________
EVALUATION

• The search tool you used and why
  I used Google to find results related to the controversy because I wanted to see if my experience with this search engine will outweigh all the other ones I used for my previous blog posts. I have always relied on Google as my main mode of searching and wanted to see if I can be just as satisfied with it knowing there are other ones out there with different ways of generating search topics.
  

• The exact search terms you used
  
  "Low Power FM"
  "Low Power FM Critics"
  
  
• The two best sites you found: give the full URLs and URLs to any specific pages that are especially helpful
  
  1. "Low-Power FM Radio to Gain Space on the Dial"
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/arts/25radio.html
  
  2. "Low Power FM" on Freepress
  http://www.freepress.net/lpfm
  
  
• Your evaluation of the credibility and reliability of these sites:
• What individual or organization is responsible for the site and what is their purpose or mission?
  
  1. New York Times - Mission is to "enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment."
  
  2. FreePress - Mission is to "promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, quality journalism and universal access to communications."
  
  
• How is the site funded?
  
  1. New York Times - funded by its investors
  
  2. FreePress - funded by its members as it is a nonprofit organization
  
  
• How current is the information?
  Both sites continually update their sites. The NY Times article was posted earlier this year. Information on FreePress includes blog posts that are fairly recent.
  
  
• What useful arguments on either side of the controversy you are studying can be found on the site? Are any of the arguments supported by research?
  
  1. There are many personal testimonies quoted on the NY Times article, which provides a very significant insight into the importance of LPFM to people in small communities. This article provided many quotes from advocates of LPFM.
  
  2. FreePress provided very valuable information that summarized the different acts imposed on the existence of LPFM, and it provided the detail that research was conducted saying that LPFM does NOT interfere with full power broadcasting systems. The study was worth $2 million and was ordered by the Congress for the FCC to conduct.
  
  
  
  
• Given your answers to the questions above, what points of view might be missing from this site? What other kinds of sites should you search for that might provide the missing points of view?
  
  The two websites I though were most significant only included information from the people in small communities, LPFM workers, and advocates of LPFM. Although I found other sites that contained opposing views, these sites lacked more evidence from organizations such as the National Association of Broadcasters (which opposed the usage of LPFM).
  
  I should look more into the NAB website to have a more profound understanding of their point of view on LPFM.
  
  
  

OTHER WEBSITES USED

http://www.wryr.org/news.html

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-04-18/entertainment/18126057_1_low-power-lpfm-stations-nab

Blog Post #2 - How The Technology Works

Let's recall... Low Power FM radios are locally based nonprofit frequencies that have to avoid full-power FM stations in order to minimize interference. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/a-comeback-for-low-power-fm-radio.ars)

Graphic from http://spindelvev.net/gallery/d/514-4/radio.jpg

Let's start with the basics.

1. What is a radio? According to the Wikia Engineering website, a radio is the "wireless transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of light." ( http://engineering.wikia.com/wiki/Radio)

2. What are radio waves?

Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation that gets created as a result of a charged object that accelerates with a frequency that lies in the radio frequency (RF- This range corresponds to frequency of alternating current electrical signals used to produce and detect radio waves) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This ranges from a few tens of Hz (hertz) to a few hundred GHz.

Electromagnetic radiation travels through oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space. It does not require a medium of transport. When radio waves pass an electrical conductor, the oscillating electric or magnetic field (depending on the shape of the conductor) induces an alternating current and voltage in the conductor. This can be transformed into audio or other signals that carry information.

It is interesting to note that...

Although the word 'radio' is used to describe the above phenomenon, the common transmissions we know of today as television, radio, radar, and cell phone are all classed as radio frequency emissions.

How is a radio signal created, transmitted and received?

Important terms:

Wavelength - distance from crest to crest of a wave

Frequency - the number of waves passing a given point a second.

Electromagnetic wavelengths are measured the same way.

Radio signals are usually in the form of AM or FM radio transmissions.

AM RADIO

AM radio takes the electrical image of a sound source to modulate the amplitude of a carrier wave. At the receiver end in the detection process, that image is stripped back off the carrier and turned back into sound by a loudspeaker. (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Audio/bcast.html#c3)

FM RADIO

According to the diagram on the left, FM radio takes the electrical image of a sound source to modulate the frequency of a carrier wave. At the receiver end in the detection process, that image is stripped back off the carrier and turned back into sound by a loudspeaker.

Diagrams and text from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Audio/bcast.html#c3

Simple signal transmissions can be done by something called straightforward amplitude modulation or frequency modulation. More complex transmissions require a signal upon a carrier wave that produces sidebands arising from the sum and difference frequencies.

Radio transmission

When electromagnetic waves come in contact with an antenna, they create a voltage (potential) in the antenna circuit which alternates (travels back and forth) with the frequency of waves, assuming that the circuit is of proper length. It is important for the circuit to be of proper length. In order to adjust the electrical length or tune it, a "Tuning Coil" is placed in the antenna circuit and connected to the ground. The coil is adjustable by which the number of coil turns is increased or decreased, thus changing the electrical length of the antenna circuit. By this adjustment the antenna frequency is tuned and synchronized with the frequency of the electromagnetic wave length which it is desired to receive. If not properly tuned, the antenna potential alternations (frequency) and the electromagnetic wave frequency clash.

FINDINGS

The search tool you used and why

I used Yahoo because I wanted to see if any of the search items from this search engine would have similar results to ones I found on Ask.com in the last project. I also want to explore what Yahoo has to offer that Google doesn't. I like how there is a tab on the side that has options for showing only Wikipedia results or if you want to show all results. The exact search terms you used

"Radio signal transmission" "Radio signal fm" "Low power fm technologies"

The two best sites you found:

Critical Past - http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675043000_Radio-transmission-and-Reception_coil-with-pendulum_filament-circuit_sound-waves

Wikia - http://engineering.wikia.com/wiki/Radio

What individual or organization is responsible for the site and what is their purpose or mission?

CriticalPast.com was formed by a team of archival research, film, and Internet professionals, that decided to create the largest privately held online archival footage sources in the world. The collection includes thousands of hours of video, millions of still photos, and more.

Wikia is a collaborative publishing platform that allows individuals and communities to discover, create and share content on any topic in multiple languages. It is not the same as Wikipedia, as Wikia focuses on being the true resource on many topics that do not fit into the typical encyclopedia model, so it builds its communities around pop culture content.

How is the site funded? No information on how the site is funded.

How current is the information?

Critical Past - uses clips from 1941, however there is no need to be current with the technicalities behind radio transmissions as it is a rather old concept. However, as for the site itself, it is fully maintained and kept up to date until today.

Wikia - no definite publishing date of information, however most current source used in Wikia for the Radio page is 2003.

What useful information about how your technology works is there on the site? Be sure to note any useful images and diagrams that would help explain and translate technical information for an audience of your peers.

Critical Past - It had a wonderful (but old) clip of how radio transmission and reception worked, which helped better my understanding of the technology behind radios. Easy to understand. Full of information.

Wikia - This website broke down the topic into different sub-categories that made it easier to understand the overall idea behind radios and how their signal transmissions work.

Given your answers to the questions above, what kind of information might be missing or unreliable on the site? What other kinds of sites should you search for that might provide the missing information?

Critical Past - no mention of any new advancements in the technology as the mission of the website is to provide an archive of old footage and films that can help us understand our world today better. It might help to go to a site with more recent updates on the technology to gain a more holistic perspective on our topic.

Wikia - No diagrams that helped illustrate the points being made. It would be more helpful to go to a less information-dense website to find diagrams that will help support the research being made.

Other websites

Arstechnica - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/a-comeback-for-low-power-fm-radio.ars

Hyper Physics - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Audio/bcast.html

Blog Post 1 - History of LPFM

(Image from www.vermontguardian.com)

So, what is LPFM?
Today, Low Power FM (LPFM) refers to a new FM radio service (authorized by the Federal Communications Commission/ FCC) that consists of:
-100-watt stations, which will serve areas with a radius of approximately 3.5 miles and
-10-watt stations, which would serve areas with a radius of approximately 1-2 miles.


( FCC Webpage - http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/)

Features of a LPFM:

• For noncommercial educational broadcasting only
• Operates with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100 watts (0.1 kilowatts) or less, with maximum facilities of 100 watts ERP at 30 meters (100 feet) antenna height above average terrain (HAAT)
• Has an approximate service range of a 100 watt LPFM station is 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles radius)
• Not protected from interference that may be received from other classes of FM stations
• A construction permit is required before a LPFM station can be constructed or operated
• Unavailable to individuals or for commercial operations
• Current broadcast licensees with interests in other media (broadcast or newspapers) are not eligible to obtain LPFM stations
  
  
  ( FCC Webpage - http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/)
  

SOME PERSPECTIVE INTO LPFM
Low Power FM radios were made legal by the FCC in 1948. They were considered Class-D stations which were originally licensed at 10 watts on the FM band, within the region of 88 to 92 MHz (known as the "educational band" of FM radio). The Class-D stations were intended for educational and community-oriented purposes (licensed only to schools and institutions) until 1970 when the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) noted that these stations were not employing efficient use of the spectrum.

There have been many controversies regarding the existence of LPFM because LPFM only caters to the local population due to the low wattage and because it interferes with larger broadcasting/full-power stations, limiting the scope of broadcasting as well as preventing larger companies to transmit their seemingly more important messages to the rest of the world.

According to Current.org in an article written in 2001,
"the Congress effectively cut the number of possible LPFM stations by an estimated 80 percent."

Below is a snippet from the same article expressing how pro-LPFM people felt about this cut:
"We are disappointed that Congress chose to ignore the will of the people," said Cheryl Leanza, deputy director of the pro-LPFM Media Access Project. "This was an unjustified power grab by all broadcasters for what was essentially a moderate request--to give a small piece of the airwaves back to the public."

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
Guglielmo Marconi was the man who pioneered the transmission of information using electronic magnetic wave radiation across the Atlantic Ocean (instead of electric current over conducting wires). He was essentially the first to produce a wireless electronic communication using Morse Code. But it was in 1919 when a man named Frank Conrad started a broadcasting venture through which the term "radio" was created and in which electronic magnetic wave radiation was employed. The public broadcast of radio was officially made known in 1922.


QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Why is the low power FM movement a reaction against commercial network control of radio?

According to an article on LPFM in PBS, the deregulation of radio stations wiped local broadcasting out of the picture. This means that people have less of a local experience with what they listen to on the radio.

"The radio dial turned into the aural equivalent of McDonalds: You'd find the same choices everywhere, but none of it had local flavor. Stations stopped serving their communities’ needs."

LPFM provides that local touch that people in communities seek for. Brice Phillips started the WQRZ-LP, a community low power FM radio station on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

"His station was the only one in the region that stayed on the air throughout both Katrina and Rita."

By creating this LPFM, people were able to stay updated with real time local news, which effectively helped the population during times of crises.

What are a few of the crucial technical advances involved in the creation of radio broadcasting?
Software-Defined Radio (SDR) originated from the military and is key to the coding and transmission techniques involved in radio broadcasting. It is a technique that enables fast and flexible switching between different frequency bands. Multiple radio protocols are possible through wide bandwidth analog decoding electronics that are combined with other sophisticated electronics. This enables listening to multiple frequencies. (www1.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse574-06/ftp/phy_trends.pdf)

Satellite radios that offer more than 100 channels of digital sound operate on a subscription basis just like pay television services. To gain competitive advantage, some radio stations are embedding a digital signal into their analog signals to offer better sound quality and display text such as the title and artist of the song.
(http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs017.htm)




EVALUATION

• The search tool you used and why
  I used Ask.com because I wanted to explore how differently it offers information compared to Google based on my typed searches. I really appreciate how it offers a side bar of related searches and a history of what I have already searched to keep myself updated of my progress. I also like how anything you click pops up in a new window.
  
• The exact search terms you used
  
  "LPFM history"
  "Class-D stations"
  " What is LPFM"
  "Advances in encoding radio signals"
  "Controversy LPFM"
  
• The two best sites you found: give the full URLs and URLs to any specific pages that are especially helpful
  
  
  • DIYMedia
  • Federal Communications Commission Website
    
    
• Your evaluation of the credibility and reliability of these sites:
• What individual or organization is responsible for the site and what is their purpose or mission?
  
  DIYMedia
  This website is handled by someone named John who only provided an email as the only source of identity: john@diymedia.net
  Although there is no copyright for the website or any "professional"-looking aspect to it, it provides thorough, informative and dense information on LPFM. However, from the name of the website, it seems that it is really a self-created amalgamation of resources related to LPFM. It may not be the most reliable source as the purpose seems to be "Thinking Out Loud (Since 1997)," implying that it is a website merely of one's personal thoughts.
  
  
  FCC
  The FCC Website was evidently created by the Commission, an inevitably reliable source as they are the ones proposing guidelines for the use of LPFM today. The specific web page I obtained information from was created by the Commission in January 2000. The purpose is to keep the public up to date with changes of guidelines and other news relating to LPFM.
  
• How is the site funded?
  For both sites, there is no mention of how they are funded.
  
  
• How current is the information?
  
  DIYMedia
  The site contains a lot of recent news, the latest of which is on April 6, 2011.
  It is clear that the website manager/creator stays up to date with news related to LPFM, however it seems that it is more of a blog than a highly certified website. Nevertheless, it provides extensive background on LPFM and this person's perspective on it. He seems to be very knowledgeable and interested in the topic.
  
  
  FCC
  They have documents up until 2005 and headlines until 2007.
  
• What useful information about how your technology works is there on the site? Be sure to note any useful images and diagrams that would help explain and translate technical information for an audience of your peers.
  
  DIYMedia
  John does a good job in delineating the history behind LPFM. There are numerous news articles that he posts on his main page relating to LPFM.
  
  
  FCC
  The website includes many PDF files which you can access by clicking. The PDF files elaborate more on certain guidelines or news topics which help clarify the ideas being talked about on the main page. Some topics that were elaborated on include the use of minimum distance separation requirements or the Report to Congress on the Low Power FM Interference Testing Program.
  
  
  
• Given your answers to the questions above, what kind of information might be missing or unreliable on the site? What other kinds of sites should you search for that might provide the missing information?
  
  DIYMedia
  The "credible" factor is missing in this page. The author John does not describe at all why he has this page. However, he does a good job linking to different and recent news.
  
  
  FCC
  This website does not include any perspectives from other people on the use of LPFM. This site only provides facts, updates, and news based on the FCC scope of information.
  
  
  

OTHER SOURCES

Current.org - http://www.current.org/tech/tech0101lpfm.html

Radio Free Oklahoma Blog - http://radiofreeoklahoma.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/brief-history-and-introduction-to-low-power-fm/

PBS - http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/08/_lowpower_fm_radio_share_it_wi.html

http://www1.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse574-06/ftp/phy_trends.pdf

http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs017.htm