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RouteAround Radio 

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Steve MacLaughlin http://www.strathlachlan.com

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The guy I was talking to last night wasn't looking to get his school in the radio business either. He was comparing the project costs of setting up an old fashioned school radio station operating on the licensed FM band with doing something much cheaper on the Net.

Actually, when he brought the subject up we quickly visited the problem for stations like his school is contemplating: licensed Low Power FM has been gradually squashed by large forces, including NPR, over the last 30 years. Meaning that, unless his school is out in Northwest Nowhere, there isn't an available channel.

Many years ago, you could start a 10-watt school or community station. Many of those have grown to become big-time noncommercial stations since then. Alas, thanks to successful lobbying by NPR and others, now you can't. New LPFM regs adopted in 2000 were scaled waaay back. And there has always been this silly notion, still embodied in communications law, that noncommercial broadcasting has an "educational" charter. Back in the days when low power licenses were still available, applicants needed to bullshit about their "educational" intentions. Not that it mattered. Witness all the evangelical christian stations that fill the FM dial south of 92MHz. I'm not knocking them, but I am saying that "education" is just as far from their agenda as anything happening among nonreligious stations on the same corner of the dial.

Anyway, I'm far more excited about what's possible on the open range of the Net than on the closed cages of licensed (even satellite) radio.

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Satellite radio has a somewhat different model, where the consumers are also customers, but so (in some cases) are the advertisers. That makes satellite radio *far* more accountable to its listeners than regular commercial radio. No wonder the old guard is freaked.

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Satellite radio has the "old guard" freaked because to them it appears as a much more immediate threat to what they are doing. Hence all the lawsuits barring local repeaters from also broadcasting local content. And the reason why most on-air talent are barred from even discussing sat radio.

The radio folks don't see Web radio as taking away customers, just taking away consumers that don't have "real" value to them. The whole stream-on/stream-off episode of a few years ago made them even more techno-phobic than they already are.

One thing I will say is that using Web radio could be a great alternative...but it is very difficult to find out basic how-to's...unless I'm just not searching in the right places.

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Having watched the NPR takeover of a formerly student-run and student-funded station, I'll never--ever!--give those people a penny out of my pocket. I've attended live broadcasts of Whad'Ya Know (a great PRI show which NPR has, in my opinion, targeted for death with Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, a very funny show except for being used as a programming weapon), and would do the same for Prarie Home Companion or This American Life (also PRI shows). I regret the part of my cash that goes to the NPR stations which put on the local shows, though.

One other thing--and this is hard for me to say, as I am neither right-wing nor Christian, let alone fundamentalist--but if you listen to the finance shows on NPR stations and those on the Christian stations, it quickly becomes obvious what audience each serves. The NPR stuff is almost exclusively aimed at upper-middle-class and above, while the Christian stations program for the middle-class and below. It's a stark divide, and in this case, the fundies happen to be doing the right thing--they give good practical advice.

Shame on NPR and those who give them money.

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That guy would be me. ;-)

Thanks for the tips, Doc.

I have a meeting with the school today (a new public charter high school called ARTech that my daughter attends) and I'll report back what they want to do. My worry is that this model won't compete as well with the sexiness of a live radio station ala Pump Up the Volume.

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If the school and the proposed transmitter are anywhere near The Cities, there won't be a channel available anyway.

Let's go through the exercize.

Here are the coordinates for downtown minneapolis:

Latitude:    N 44 58 47
Longitude: W 93 15 48

Here is the FCC's audio division's page for looking up records for a frequency or a locality:

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/atlas2.html

Here are your results for a 100km radius from that location.

Note that most of the "NEW" and "APP" are for christian stations of one kind or another. The most resourceful FM facilities engineers out there today are all working for religious organizations. The secular schools and nonprofits are waaaay behind the ball on this one. For most locations in the country, the game is over.

Webcasting is the only way to go.

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It looks like only two are categorized as Class L1 (100 watt LPFM) and they're 30 and 45 miles from us. But you're saying that wouldn't matter?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not eager to work on trying to get a LPFM license for the school. I'm just trying to line up the arguments for those who might be.

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