Prometheus is coordinating a nationwide effort to get City Councils to pass resolutions in support of expanded low-power radio access. Check out our City Council Resolution Toolkit for a guide on how to pass a resolution in your city or town.

Get involved with the campaign!

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If you just have a minute, email your representatives and ask them to co-sponsor the Local Community Radio Act--which will make room for hundreds, if not thousands, more local radio stations, even in our biggest cities!

The FCC is currently considering a petition for a tenfold power increase for the new digital signals of full power radio stations. This could cause a lot of trouble for the regular analog signals that we all listen to.

Now branded as HD Radio, In-Band-On-Channel (IBOC) technology has been proven to produce poor coverage and even interference to existing analog signals. Though the technology was adopted on the basis that a digital signal can provide more coverage with less power, in practice many digital signals are in fact covering less than the old analog signals did. But now that IBOC has been deemed the sole digital radio technology, what’s their solution when it doesn’t work?... Give it more power!

A coalition of the biggest HD radio broadcasters and manufacturers has recently petitioned the FCC to permit an additional 10 fold power increase in digital operation power, citing a study by IBiquity Corporation. However, an NPR led study showed such an increase could cause interference to existing analog stations. Low power community stations could be left especially vulnerable. The irony is that the same broadcasters who fought the creation of analog Low-power FM (LPFM) stations on the bogus basis of cross-channel interference, are now advocating a power increase that would create vastly more interference than LPFMs ever could have...

Imagine turning on the radio and hearing news about your neighborhood, or local music, or information about local issues. Now imagine building your own transmitter, broadcasting over the local airwaves information on local politics, interviews with activists and artists, or playing your favorite local music. Sound good? Welcome to the world of low-power radio, a growing national movement of people-powered broadcasting.

It's been eight years since community groups have had a chance to find a place on the air through low power FM, and that's eight years too long. There's legislation to solve this, and give more places on the air for these stations. But time is running out, and we need your help!

Now, as the station faces major fines for broadcasting without a license, they are fighting for low power FM to be expanded to Boston and beyond with the passage of the Local Community Radio Act, House Bill 2802, Senate Bill 1675. You can tell your legislators to cosponsor these vital bills -- to bring community radio to Boston and beyond!

Read June 23rd's Boston Globe editorial on the importance of expanding LPFM, and this article on the great work the station is doing in Boston and beyond.

Click here or or here to tell your legislators -- now is the time to expand LPFM radio to every city and community in the US!

Want to learn more? Visit http://www.prometheusradio.org/take_action to fight for low power FM at the FCC and in Congress now!

On December 11th, the Federal Communications Commission released a new set of rules on low power FM radio. They also asked a number of other important questions on how to change and adapt low power FM now, and in the future! What do these rules mean? How will they affect current LPFM radio stations, and community groups who want to build stations in cities and towns nationwide?

UPDATE: We've completed our preliminary analysis of the long Report and Order from the Commission, and it describes our sense of what the FCC did, what it means for LPFM, and what we might want to do next! Click here to download the report, in .doc format: http://www.prometheusradio.org/media/whos_on_second_LPFM_rulemaking_analysis_PRP_dec_13_2007.doc and here to read the report in .pdf: http://www.prometheusradio.org/media/whos_on_second_LPFM_rulemaking_analysis_PRP_dec_13_2007.pdf. And read below for the text of the Commission's report, and statements from the Commissioners!