All days of iron hand fisted monopolistic behavior for corporations do eventually come to an end. I think for the longest time these Giants have gotten away with far too much. And it is my opinion that yes there had been a few of the hobbyist that might have accidentally caused interference however that situation could have been fixed with a little bit of help from others willing to lend a hand.
Fast forward to what we're seeing the pirate Act. Now Michelle Bradley's group rec net has made a statement clarifying the difference between a hobbyist who has gone a little bit above part 15 specifications running even a few Watts and a blatant pirate trying to get away with unlicensed commercial radio for-profit and running the same amount of power as someone who has followed the rules and got a license.
The broadcast associations are deliberately trying to make sure that there is no other competition from the little guys like us these people deliberately would try to blur the line and dare anyone to stand up and do something about it.
People like myself who might have gotten visited by the FCC and showing that they actually do care if they caused interference asking questions as to what frequencies did they interfere with. Also showing the commission how they run a show quite differently than what is available on the radio dial. Also too expressing how in rural areas they can help to communicate emergency situations such as severe weather and even other important messages from town officials.
Let's look at Hobby radio and its validity in certain situations versus a fixed multi thousand dollar set up. The first thing is what would happen in situations like Hurricane Katrina or even something smaller such as a nor'easter. Sometimes due to severe weather power would go out or because of severe weather you have ice on the antenna causing a licensed station not to be able to operate due to the high SWR. A hobby broadcaster operating in the micro power and able to get out say 2 miles can often put up a battery operated transmitter and can because the antennas are close to the ground take the snow off of them or ice and transmit the emergency information.
I know I've mentioned this before on a few forums but I'm going to mention it again the two years I had lived in Deltaville Virginia during the summer we have had tornado warnings and yes they were covered by the TV station WTVR Channel 6 in Richmond Virginia. Well many of you say well that's just well and good you can receive that on your cable TV. What is wrong with that statement you might ask? Well for one thing many people on Fishing Bay Road are elderly and are handicap and have low income. Now when it comes between paying your rent and keeping your cable TV which one do you think you're going to choose? Now some people say well TV is Free buy an antenna. Because of TV going digital it's not a matter of a picture being a little snowy and you can still hear the voice. With digital as a signal fades in and out you either have sound and picture or you have a message on your TV screen saying can't find usable signal. I have actually tried to help some neighbors who could not receive the local station with an outside antenna in Deltaville Virginia. So in a sense you're discriminating between the wealthy and the Not So wealthy. Just like the Titanic the folks who were poor where the first to drown on the ship. So too will happen in rural areas.
Okay let's say that I had a nice Broadcast Warehouse or Veronica transmitter. Let's say I was running 7 Watts off of that transmitter which is known to be very clean in fact both of them are. Now I am the only one in that rural area who used their Noggin and was able to use the internet along with the vipir radar app and I could see where the storm was right down to the street. I was able to report it did I just save some lives? possibly. One thing that is required of a commercial station is that they meet the public convenience interest and necessity. My station at the time met all three of those requirements.
Emergency alert systems we'll talk a little about that. Many of them simply receive the National Weather Service and are programmable for the counties that the station serves. Well that part could be done with a weather radio. A little hobbyist ingenuity building a voice operated relay circuit or Vox can have a homemade EAS system. Now some people may say but that's not as good as the standard required EAS. Well some emergency information for the rural area is better than none at all.
There is more good news Michelle Bradley is calling for a provision in the rules that would give hobby broadcasters some recognition and respect and the ability to have a little more power particularly in the AM broadcast band. There was even some mention of 87.7 and 87.9 megahertz being set aside for low power hobby Broadcasting. This was my vision on June 5th 2015. I guess certain things have to happen in history or change to occur. And this just might be one of them.
The problem with just letting anyone loose on the broadcast bands with watts of power is that most really don't know what they're doing. Or, as Bill DeFelice says, they are appliance operators.
Even a watt or two of power can cause chaos if transmitter, antenna, coax, etc. isn't installed correctly, particularly in an urban environment.
There's a reason that Part 15 exists the way it does - range is severely limited to not generate interference to existing users. Existing users includes both licensed stations, and a factor that is often overlooked - THEIR listeners. Quite often pirate operators are reported, not because the licensed station complained, but because someone who was attempting to listen to their favorite station tried to, and couldn't because of interference.
Now, my problem with this would be mitigated to some extent if there was some sort of licensing process to ensure that those broadcasting with watts of power knew what they were doing. Sort of like an amateur radio license, but for non commercial, hobbyist broadcasting.
I do know that when I wrote the amateur radio exam, a good percentage of the questions was on interference and avoiding it. With transmitting privilege comes some responsibility.
I agree entirely with what Admin has said, and would like to expound on this statement: "There's a reason that Part 15 exists the way it does."
Part 15's technical limitations tend to be exactly conducive to personal, private, individual experiment and broadcast within the range of an ordinary residence, with the side benefit that anyone within that neighborly range can be included in the process.
For me and my radio stations the Part 15 technical limitations provide exactly what I want, which happens to be the finest radio station on the dial programmed by myself and heard around the property.
There's no disappointment in it at all, because anyone else located anywhere else could do the same thing, so why would I try to reach out to total strangers who would never know I was trying to expose them to my taste?
One exception to my satisfaction is the ridiculous FM allowance detailed in the rules. It's not quite enough to get the job done and no harm would arise if the States matched the Canadian standard, which by all accounts does very well.
Also, TheLegacy and RecNET are right, we should have FM hobby channels of our own.
RSS-210 covers everything that Part 15 does and is equal in most respects, and is similar in intent as part15. Anything wireless that is an intentional radiator from car remotes to wi-fi to TV remotes to baby monitors, pagers, etc, etc, etc and it also includes the communication bands throughout the spectrum and AM and FM commercial radio bands....the majority of things license free with exceptions. The AM and FM commercial bands is exactly the same as part 15...FM is 250uV/M@3 meters also and is for your own home for personal use, not intended for the general public AM the same as part 15 too. But, and this is what Carl is referring to.....Canada has a separate category the USA doesn't have and that's BETS which deals with ONLY the commercial FM and AM bands, nothing else, and there's BETS-1,2,3,4,5 etc. that deals with different aspects of broadcasting but our concern is BETS-1 which allows "broadcasting" to the general public outside to an undefined border with no license needed providing the transmitter is approved for that use. This is where we have the extra coverage allowed on FM. That's why here you can get an FM hobby station off the ground. As Carl pointed out if the USA adopted BETS-1 standards everything wouldn't come to hell and high water.
