With the change in regulations for LPFM limiting available frequencies at this time, we thought it might be helpful to look at various alternatives to Low Power FM. The following discussion presents a range of alternatives and options that offer various levels of viability. It is our judgement at Prometheus that none of these are as generally promising as fighting for a reinstatement and expansion of the original LPFM service. While none of them are as good as the promise that LPFM holds, one of them might be appropriate for your group to pursue.

UNLICENSED LEGAL FM

Regardless of popular misconceptions, it is not legal to broadcast on FM at low power, or at any power, without a license from the FCC. It doesn’t matter if you are less than 100 watts or less than 1 watt. That is why the FCC has been trying to institute LPFM – to provide a legitimate license to very low power operations.

The only exception is that you are allowed to broadcast on FM without a license if your transmitter produces about 1/25th of a watt, or 25 milliwatts. This is only enough power to go about 100 feet, under the best conditions.

It is actually not the power but the field strength that the FCC measures. The way the FCC checks for compliance with the law is whether you exceed a measurement of 250 microvolts /meter at 3 meters on a field strength meter, which is a tool that is specifically designed to measure the strength of electromagnetic fields.

This rule is designed not for broadcast transmitters, but more to allow for wireless microphones and similar devices. Because many garage door openers and computers accidentally exceed these limits, through poor design or breakdown of some sort, the fact is that FCC field agents actually spend very little of their time looking for illegal radio operators, but instead, are spending their days tracking down malfunctioning pieces of equipment like this that are inadvertently fouling up the electromagnetic spectrum.

If you chose to operate an FM transmitter outside these parameters, you would be considered a “pirate” in the eyes of the FCC, and you can be discovered, even though these rules are enforced unevenly. Sometimes a 1 watt station goes unnoticed by local licensed broadcasters, so a complaint is never filed and the FCC never finds out about it. Anecdotally, we have also heard of cases where FCC agents have turned a blind eye to 1 to 3 watt stations, if it seemed like they were not bothering any licensed broadcasters. At this level, despite operating at up to 75 times the legal limit, the actual power is so minuscule that the agent decided not to pursue the case. (This is akin to a cop pulling you over for speeding, but deciding to not give you the ticket because they think you're cute. You may be able to get away with it, but let no one fool you into thinking that it is actually legal.) 1- 3 watt stations might go as far as a mile or two.

Some members of Prometheus Radio Radio Project were involved in pirate broadcasting. We did this because we believed that the broadcast regulations of this country are fundamentally unfair. We ran great community radio stations in defiance of the wealth-based structure of our broadcast system. The FCC eventually confiscated our stations, but announced that they had gotten the message of our –civil disobedience and that they were going to create a legalized low power fm radio service. We decided to stop pirating and work with the FCC to build a permanent new community radio service for this country.

There is still a movement of unlicensed pirate stations that continue to operate in defiance of the broadcast regulations, which truthfully have only gotten slightly better as a result of LPFM. Morally we are sympathetic to these operations, but from a practical standpoint we do not devote our work to assisting them. We focus our efforts on the stations that are going to be able to become permanent fixtures in their communities, that are able to serve diverse communities because no one needs to worry about having their door busted down for operating without a license.