LPFM In The News: Let's Expand LPFM | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio, LPFM/FM Translator Standoff Continues | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio, Red tape to get low-power FM radio licenses should end | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio, Obama Signs Local Community Radio Act | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio, For LPFMers, radio act brings ‘a ton of joy’ | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio | Nexus Broadcast - Start a Radio Station!

Listening to the Radio like doing Cocaine | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio

Well now, this explains a few things. Always interested in carrying science forward, I read with interest the article on Gawker which cites a study from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The gist of the article states that we seek out music we enjoy because of a chemical reaction in our brains:

Ever had goosebumps or felt euphoric chills when listening to a piece of music? If so, your brain is reacting to the music in the same way as it would to some delicious food or a psychoactive drug such as cocaine, according to scientists.

The experience of pleasure is mediated in all these situations by the release of the brain's reward chemical, dopamine, according to results of experiments carried out by a team led by Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, which are published today in Nature Neuroscience.

Music seems to tap into the circuitry in the brain that has evolved to drive human motivation – any time we do something our brains want us to do again, dopamine is released into these circuits. "Now we're showing that this ancient reward system that's involved in biologically adaptive behaviours is being tapped into by a cognitive reward," said Salimpoor.

If music-induced emotional states can lead to dopamine release, as our findings indicate, it may begin to explain why musical experiences are so valued. These results further speak to why music can be effectively used in rituals, marketing or film to manipulate hedonistic states. Our findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense
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For LPFMers, radio act brings ‘a ton of joy’ | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio

"Stop making us jump through hoops,” radio activists urged at NAB headquarters in campaign that overcame opposition to the LPFM bill. (Photo: Brian Long, courtesy of Prometheus.)

Published in Current, Jan. 10, 2011
By Karen Everhart

Low-power FM advocates are celebrating a hard-won victory with enactment of the Local Community Radio Act, approved in the last days of the 111th Congress and signed Jan. 4 by President Obama.

The law clears the way for expansion of low-power FM stations, a noncommercial licensing category established by the FCC a decade ago but confined to small markets and rural communities by interference-protection rules demanded by full-power broadcasters. Their transmitter power is limited to 100 watts, reaching from three to five miles.

Approved with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, the law gives the FCC more flexibility in assigning channels to LPFMs and resolving interference problems with full-power FMs and their translators.

“The thing that people really feel is really a ton of joy,” says Hannah Sassaman, a longtime organizer for Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia-based group that led a spirited, broad-based and tenacious grassroots campaign to get the bill moving through Congress. “Now there’s going to be thousands of opportunities to license LPFMs in cities and towns.”

Advocates predict as many as 1000 LPFMs could sign on, although the FCC has many issues to resolve before anyone knows how many channels will be available.

“There’s abou
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Obama Signs Local Community Radio Act | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio

As the illusion of a free internet slips even further away with the FCC’s watered down Net Neutrality ruling, is radio poised to give voice to American political and economic anger?

By DJ Pangburn, Death + Taxes Magazine

The Local Community Radio Act was signed into law by President Obama this past Wednesday.

The act had its origins during the Bush administration when MAIN-FM, a local radio station in Ashville, NC, went on the air as WPVM “The Progressive Voice of the Mountains” with only 2 watts of signal power when their license granted them 100 watts. The FCC restriction was the result of the lobbying efforts of various commercial broadcasters to restrict the signals of local broadcasters.

The victory was the result of a long battle by a coalition of media reformers. One of the organizations involved, Media & Democracy Coalition, had this to say of the Act being signed into law:

“After years of well-executed strategy the Prometheus Radio Project, OC Inc at the United Church of Christ, the Media Access Project, the Future of Music Coalition, Free Press, the Media & Democracy Coalition, and many other public interest organizations can share in the pride that many more low-power FM radio licenses will be available for communities across the country. This is a great achievement for local, independent media and will help to create a more diverse radio dial.”

What most Americans are unaware of in history of the radio wars is that much of this can be traced directly back to Bill
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Red tape to get low-power FM radio licenses should end | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio

By Halimah Marcus and Jonathan Lawson
Special to The Seattle Times

PEOPLE are sometimes surprised when Jeff Hoyt tells them his Vashon Island community organization has waited 10 years to start a radio station. Radio? What about podcasts, what about the Internet?

"We viewed starting an Internet station as strapping on a life preserver and treading water until we could get a low-power FM radio station," said Hoyt.

Hoyt's group, Voice of Vashon, runs a locally focused Web radio stream, as well as a tiny microtransmitter offering travel information to car passengers waiting at the island's ferry dock. The past decade has been something of a waiting game for Voice of Vashon. When the Federal Communications Commission first distributed low-power FM (LPFM) licenses in 2000, Hoyt was one of thousands who applied. However, like many others, the Vashon application was thrown out on a technicality.

LPFMs are community-run, noncommercial radio stations that broadcast at a modest 100 watts — far smaller than their neighbors on the FM dial. The licenses are free and the stations are small and inexpensive to build, making them accessible to just about anyone — if only there were more licenses to go around.

With nowhere left to turn, an Internet station was Hoyt's answer to being denied a license. Over 10 years, Voice of Vashon has built a faithful volunteer and listener base, and nurtured Vashon's vibrant artistic community. Programs like "This I Believe — Vashon" share the personal passions of island re
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LPFM/FM Translator Standoff Continues | LPFM | Low Power FM Radio

Dec 1, 2010 1:00 AM, By Harry Martin Radiomagonline.com

There has been no movement at the FCC in the on-going battle between, on one hand, LPFM interests, and, on the other, broadcasters seeking to protect their rights to FM translator facilities. At stake is whether the FCC will adopt a "cap of 10" applicable to still-pending applications for FM translators, thereby freeing spectrum for LPFM, and at the same time give LPFM applicants priority rights over long-pending FM translator applications.

FM translator application flood. This deadlock began to develop shortly after the FM translator window in 2003: In that window approximately 13,000 applications were filed, reportedly far beyond the FCC's expectations or processing capabilities. Nevertheless, the Commission managed to process approximately 6,000 of the 13,000 applications, mostly "singletons," by the end of 2007. This left 7,000 applications, most of which are mutually exclusive with others and thus will have to be processed through comparative "points" hearings. Of these, approximately 2,000 are attributable to two applicants.

LPFM interests have a stake in this matter since they use the same channels as FM translators. Thus the Commission is reluctant to open an LPFM application window with 7,000 translator applications still pending. Under current rules the pending translator proposals have cut-off rights that would preclude later-filed mutually exclusive LPFM applications.

Cap of 10 debated. A cap of 10 applications was proposed
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