[BC] LPFM's

[Alan Kline]

------ At 10:20 PM 9/5/2006 -0400, The Most Honourable Dana  Puopolo wrote: -------
>
>I supported LPFM for many reasons, the main one being the ownership limits.
>Noncom frequencies have been COMPLETELY taken over by the religious guys. They
>all run satellite programming on as many noncom frequencies as they can get.

That was, IIRC, the basis of my opposition.  I felt (and still do) that the
public interest would be better served by fixing a broken system, that put all
the power in the hands of huge corporations and massive groups of satellators,
than by lighting up hundreds or thousands of flea-power stations.  The groups
pushing for LPFM would be better served with full-power facilities than with
low-power.  As someone else pointed out, the biggest cost difference is the
power bill.  I think the groups involved, and the public, would be better 
served by some of those groups combining to build smaller numbers of higher-powered stations,rather than a flock of LP's.

(That wasn't the only reason I had, and 8+ years and several computers later,
I can no longer find my filing...)

If that problem had been addressed, and there were still many with legitimate
interest, and means, to build stations, then that would have been the time to
entertain the LPFM proceeding. 

>At least with LPFM's the local  schools and colleges have a CHANCE of getting
>a station against these guys. In the Boston area, there's a 15 kW noncom that
>has no local studio, just an FCC waiver allowing their transmitter to be
>controlled from California. Please explain how this benefits the local area??

It doesn't.  Again, what we have is a Commission that follows the money, and
not necessarily the law or the public interest.  And as I said, fix that first.
Now, if there is no filing window for LPFM's in the forseeable future, how can
those schools, colleges, or others get even that small chance of getting on air?

Enforce the main studio rule, instead of granting waivers to interests with big
$$$, and smaller groups might have a chance of getting on the existing band.

>Today I was driving through upstate New York listening to the noncom band. I
>heard a station ID that took almost THREE MINUTES because there were so many
>LOCAL noncoms involved! Please explain to me how THIS benefits the local
>area???

See above.

>The present noncom and translator rules are A JOKE!! At least the LPFM rules
>level the playing field....... a little......

I'm still skeptical...

ak