Post by Deleted on May 28, 2015 13:02:28 GMT
The May 20, 2015 edition of Radio World includes a Commentary by Bill DeFelice titled "Distinquish Pirates From Part 15 Operators" and subtitled "Broadcast engineer defends hobbyists and hopes FM dial won't turn into the Wild West."
The opening paragraph sets a tone that is not carried in the rest of the article: "The announced closing of almost half of the FCC field offices has many in the engineering community concerned and worried about the future of the broadcast bands."
By the way, the FCC has NOT announced the closing of field offices but, rather, has PROPOSED closing field offices, but it's never too early to be "concerned and worried." Anyway, this point is never revisited in the Commentary, so let's look where it does take us...
Paragraph 2 - "Many pirate stations had long life spans due to lack of FCC manpower." But, all the field offices were open for business at the time and still are... so, ah... well, no examples of long lived pirate stations is given so we can only imagine.
Mr. DeFelice serves as a janitor for a school and says he installed what he calls a "campus-limited station" which we assume operates on the FM band given the sub-title's hope that the FM dial "won't turn into the Wild West." But, the Rule 15.221 permits "campus-limited stations" on the AM dial, so it becomes unclear whether the Commentary is referring to AM or FM. But he does say, "Feedback from visitors to his hobby website is that FCC inspectors rarely discern between FM pirates and those who operate within the bounds of part 15." But the example raised involves an iAM transmitter operating in the AM band inspected because of a complaint from a "spiteful group." That's where the Commentary gets interesting because we'd like to know more about that group and their spite, but instead our attention is returned to FM "which is pretty much limited to inhome and yardcasting under 15.239," according to DeFelice.
So, whereas we began with worry and concern over the POSSIBLE closing of some FCC field offices, the actual concern expressed by DeFelice has to do with inspections of the past that have no connection to future closings. The reader is left wondering what, exactly, to worry about.
Good working for a school, though, because an English teacher could be very helpful.
The opening paragraph sets a tone that is not carried in the rest of the article: "The announced closing of almost half of the FCC field offices has many in the engineering community concerned and worried about the future of the broadcast bands."
By the way, the FCC has NOT announced the closing of field offices but, rather, has PROPOSED closing field offices, but it's never too early to be "concerned and worried." Anyway, this point is never revisited in the Commentary, so let's look where it does take us...
Paragraph 2 - "Many pirate stations had long life spans due to lack of FCC manpower." But, all the field offices were open for business at the time and still are... so, ah... well, no examples of long lived pirate stations is given so we can only imagine.
Mr. DeFelice serves as a janitor for a school and says he installed what he calls a "campus-limited station" which we assume operates on the FM band given the sub-title's hope that the FM dial "won't turn into the Wild West." But, the Rule 15.221 permits "campus-limited stations" on the AM dial, so it becomes unclear whether the Commentary is referring to AM or FM. But he does say, "Feedback from visitors to his hobby website is that FCC inspectors rarely discern between FM pirates and those who operate within the bounds of part 15." But the example raised involves an iAM transmitter operating in the AM band inspected because of a complaint from a "spiteful group." That's where the Commentary gets interesting because we'd like to know more about that group and their spite, but instead our attention is returned to FM "which is pretty much limited to inhome and yardcasting under 15.239," according to DeFelice.
So, whereas we began with worry and concern over the POSSIBLE closing of some FCC field offices, the actual concern expressed by DeFelice has to do with inspections of the past that have no connection to future closings. The reader is left wondering what, exactly, to worry about.
Good working for a school, though, because an English teacher could be very helpful.