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mew5175_TheSecond t1_jdclm83 wrote

I am the biggest radio advocate there is. I worked in radio for the majority of my professional life and believe when operated correctly (having all local programming, personalities, and content), it is truly the best medium.

With that being said, this article and commenters here painting this as some sort of government overreach or overreaction is ridiculous. You cannot just broadcast on a random frequency all willy nilly. Those licenses are insanely expensive and these brothers should just have an internet radio station where they won't run into trouble.

Also the FCC has essentially no other powers other than legislating public airwaves so this is in no way a waste of their time or resources. This is exactly what they are set up to do. This is not the equivalent of 30 cops showing up to a drug store for a stolen candy bar and it should not be treated as such.

These brothers are providing a valuable resource for a specific community. No denying that. But you gotta do it legally. And it seems like they were given plenty of warnings ahead of time that they completely ignored. I have no sympathy here.

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Based_nobody t1_jdcot9g wrote

Yes But they're not issuing any more licenses for am/fm.

So how do you get a new radio station if you can't? Fucking "I Heart Whatever the fuck" owns all the goddamn stations in the US almost. The rock stations are all BS drivel.

Don't you want new music and new opinions? These guys provided a service for a group of people. That's more than anyone can say of the FCC.

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BeMoreChill t1_jdcq089 wrote

Have you heard of this new thing called the internet?

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attackplango t1_jddgrbf wrote

So internet access and devices to access it are free now? Or at least as affordable as the one-time purchase of a radio?

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BeMoreChill t1_jddh82s wrote

I see more homeless people with cell phones than AM/FM radios lol

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attackplango t1_jddhhjt wrote

Ah yes, I remember the article you had published in The Journal of Unsubstantiated Anecdotes. Your dedication to lack of peer review was inspired.

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BeMoreChill t1_jddi8gh wrote

There’s public services that literally give cell phones out to people in need for free

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attackplango t1_jddiddb wrote

That’s great! What kind of data plan do those cell phones have?

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BeMoreChill t1_jddimc9 wrote

Pretty decent. There’s also free WiFi around the city. You new here?

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mew5175_TheSecond t1_jdcvvff wrote

Trust me I can go back and forth with you all day on the decline of radio and the reasons for it. I agree with everything you're saying about the state of the industry. Our only hope at this point is for the behemoths like iHeart and whatnot to no longer deal with the billions in debt they have and sell off their assets to various local owners who make radio what it should be. But that's a tall ask and an extremely unlikely future.

But at this point if you can't get an AM or FM license, you gotta go online. And fact of the matter is, most people are only listening to radio in their cars, and you can still listen to internet radio via your phone + bluetooth or aux cable in a car.

An AM/FM signal perhaps makes you seem more legitimate which is the only reason I can think of as to why these brothers continued to pirate the airwaves, but I assume all the advertising they are doing for themselves is online anyway. They promoted their programs on Instagram and whatnot so they could still do that for an internet-only station. When they got their first ever letter/warning from the FCC, they should have used their final moments on FM to say we are shutting down and used the opportunity to promote their new internet-only radio station. They opted not to do that and now they have to pay the price for it.

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attackplango t1_jddgljd wrote

I don’t think a lot of people in NYC are listening to internet radio in their cars. I would wonder how many people in the audience know that internet radio is a thing. Also, there’s the hurdle of being able to afford monthly internet, and having something that can access it.

Yes, there’s licensing, and yes we don’t want unexpected interference. But also, the spectrum is a publicly owned thing, and if no more licenses are available because corporations have bought all of a very limited stock, what is the solution there? Internet is not accessible in the same way radio is.

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familygamereview t1_jddcf47 wrote

But for the audience, the internet costs money they might not have. Maybe theyre serving a community stuck with heart radio because they lack income and cant afford to go over their data plan if they even have a data plan let alone a subscription. Radio is free. Its kind of weird to assume theyre pirating radio for the prestige.

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Steelemedia t1_jddob12 wrote

They actually do issue new licenses. It takes money and attorneys and engineers to navigate the process. Better to ask permission than forgiveness.

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hamhead t1_jdd7bgt wrote

There's a reason they aren't issuing more...

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wrongwaycorrigan t1_jdhs2kt wrote

If I set up a high power radio transmitter in your neighborhood on 2.5GHz and 5GHz would you mind that it interfered with your WiFi at home? That's what this is about. There is a band plan and licensing. You are restricted to transmit within frequencies and power based on your license.

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mymindisgoo t1_jdjpnsr wrote

89.1, 89.9, 90.7, 91.1, 107.1 say no they aren't all drivel.

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Pays_in_snakes t1_jdd8rkl wrote

There's a huge issue of equity here too; the unfair allocation and costs of radio licenses means that an immigrant community that actually still would like to use radio for something other than classic rock and bad advertising has no way to access it, and internet radio is simply not as accessible to everyone in that community

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Steelemedia t1_jddo0wo wrote

Wife is on the board of a community radio station that started as a pirate radio station. It took work, visits to DC and attorneys to transform a hobby into an entity that serves a community. Now they have a call sign and their frequency is protected.

No mention in the article about the wattage or bleeding into KISS FM 105.5. They should have formed an LPFM station.

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k1lk1 t1_jddcy0a wrote

Both things are true:

  • Regulating the airwaves is important

  • Licenses need to be easier and less expensive to acquire

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The_CerealDefense t1_jdegxw4 wrote

> Licenses need to be easier and less expensive to acquire

They are... just not in the frequencies and geographies that many people want to broadcast in. There are tons of cheap, especially low power stations across the country... a lot of them religious based. A lot. Like way more than you'd ever imagine

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_jdctpzk wrote

Yup. And there’s a reason so much frequency is empty on your dial. Preventing interference is one of their primary jobs.

Which is why they need to enforce illegal broadcasting. This can be effectively jamming radio in other parts of a market.

And that does have safety implications as radio is one of the most basic signals to broadcast in an emergency.

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[deleted] t1_jdg3if6 wrote

>You cannot just broadcast on a random frequency all willy nilly. Those licenses are insanely expensive and these brothers should just have an internet radio station where they won't run into trouble.

Why shouldn't you be able to do it without a license to begin with?

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mew5175_TheSecond t1_jdhk149 wrote

Because there is a very limited amount of airwave space and you wouldn't want the "wrong people" seizing those spots.

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[deleted] t1_jdiboyj wrote

What's wrong with a free for all except on emergency frequency?

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woman_thorned t1_jddamgd wrote

The fcc should be the ones cracking down on bots and open ai, and they could be working on that, or spam, or hackers, if they wanted to, and no one made them choose this use of resources. And yes, I know they don't have regulatory power over most of those things but they could be working to get it if they let fucking Ecuadorians buy the license they have been asking to buy for 15 years and been told no.

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