FCC illegal broadcasting enforcement ups its game

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RFI-EMI-GUY

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Words written. Extra money in the budget. Nothing will change.

If Congess thinks the budget will be balanced by the FCC issuing a few hundred $1million fines to radio pirates they are sadly mistaken. The flagrant ones in the urban areas, never pay and the pimply teenagers don't have $1million in their piggy banks.
 

KK4JUG

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If they wanted to balance the budget from the various radio infractions, they'd go to work on CB. They'd have a budget surplus in 72 hours. :)
 

Boombox

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If they wanted to balance the budget from the various radio infractions, they'd go to work on CB. They'd have a budget surplus in 72 hours. :)

Last few times I've checked the CB band with any of my radios it's been dead, dead, dead. Maybe in other areas of the US there are issues, though.
 

Boombox

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RE: the bigger picture (pirates on FM): Commercial radio is feeling the pinch. Advertisers do not value radio the same way they did 20 years ago. They have other places to advertise now (online). Consequently, advertising revenues are down. So, naturally, the commercial broadcasters are trying to protect their own medium, being that they are sort of forced doing so. They might see a pirate as taking some of their revenue potential, especially if that pirate runs commercial spots (I've never knowingly heard an FM pirate, so I have no idea if they do that or not -- I've heard that some do run ads).

When industries are beginning to hurt, they circle the wagons.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Commercial radio died when the stations started to be sold to the big national outlets. No longer did they have local flavor, they became saturated with pop music, talk radio and obnoxious, over modulated Toyota ads.

If these firms seriously think that a low powered pirate station is stealing their listener base, they need to reassess their business practices.

It is sort of like Uber running the crummy Yellow cab companies out of business. Who wants to ride in a dirty, in maintained cab with a driver that is dangerous and abusive?
 

Boombox

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Commercial radio died when the stations started to be sold to the big national outlets. No longer did they have local flavor, they became saturated with pop music, talk radio and obnoxious, over modulated Toyota ads.

If these firms seriously think that a low powered pirate station is stealing their listener base, they need to reassess their business practices.

It is sort of like Uber running the crummy Yellow cab companies out of business. Who wants to ride in a dirty, in maintained cab with a driver that is dangerous and abusive?

Like I said, I don't know if any pirate FM stations make money off of ads or not. But I can see why some radio stations are concerned about illegal competition, if pirate stations are actually competing in the market. I don't think there are that many pirate FM's around, though.

I'm sure some FM stations dislike the plethora of translators and non-comms using commercial frequencies as well. They can't do anything about those because they are legal. I have acquaintances who are fans of FM who think the band is overcrowded -- and they don't own or run stations, and have no money in the game, yet they see an issue with having too many stations on the band.
 

Boombox

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By the way, I want to add that that if the Federal government really wants to protect the radio airwaves from interference, maybe they should look closer at RFI. There are a lot more RFI emitting devices than there are pirate stations in the US.
 

KK4JUG

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By the way, I want to add that that if the Federal government really wants to protect the radio airwaves from interference, maybe they should look closer at RFI. There are a lot more RFI emitting devices than there are pirate stations in the US.
That's fine, I guess, but they pretty much put the burden on the consumer, according to the labels you find on everything.
 

nd5y

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The label says either
This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the condition that this device does not cause harmful interference.
or
This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
 

MTS2000des

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By the way, I want to add that that if the Federal government really wants to protect the radio airwaves from interference, maybe they should look closer at RFI. There are a lot more RFI emitting devices than there are pirate stations in the US.

This!!

RFI is becoming such an issue that radio spectrum is being polluted to the point where the noise floor on any given spectrum is rising. As a result, devices reliant on RF to function operate at higher output, the result is more noise.

The best analogy is a quiet cafe. A couple start bantering loudly and thus, everyone else raises their voice to compensate. It continues until everyone is shouting and no one can understand what the person in front of them is saying.

The OET rubber stamping anything that comes thru, grey market China pride electronics, and practically zero enforcement will soon mean no one can talk if we don't have a serious plan to protect our usable RF spectrum. RF spectrum is like water and air, only a finite usable amount and we have to all be responsible users.
 

evilbrad

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A Light Show in Illinois that won the ABC great light fight thinks it is legal to run a station you can here miles away on FM. Insane this guy isnt fined
 

Kaleier1

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It would be great if the FCC used our super advanced modern day technology to detect, round up, and severely punish those lunatic fools that abuse all the amateur bands ( principally) from HF through UHF with their obscenity, malicious interference and constant jamming and abuse of decent licensed operators. There is hardly a day that goes by that I don't hear these misfits using their radio equipment to damage and ruin the hobby. Many repeaters, for example, have been taken off the air simply due to this unending abuse. I know we have the technology to quickly find these animals. Let's do it and permanently disable their ability to interfere and abuse.
Sadly we can't even stop robo calls.
 

Kaleier1

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You haven't been paying attention.
That's just not true. "In June 2019, the FCC ruled that phone companies may, as a default, aggressively block unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers."

Notice the word "may". The excuse the phone companies used was that it would be unlawful to do so but the FCC gave the the green light to do it but they didn't. ATT&T will block for your cell phone for $4 per month. Too much money for the phone companies to make on robo callers.
 
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