It’s certainly easy to understand the sentiment expressed by a commenter to my last LPFM post:

If the NAB is for it, you can pretty much guarantee that it is to the detriment to LPFM.

And while the LPFM bill passed by the House yesterday, HR 6533, does contain compromises agreed to by the NAB, on balance it is far more positive for LPFM than negative. I’m certain we have Prometheus Radio Project and other LPFM groups to thank for the positives.

Michelle Eyre of REC Networks did us a favor by breaking down the details of the bill. The primary concession to the National Association of Broadcasters is that while LPFM stations will be permitted to be spaced closer on the dial to full power stations, the would have to obtain a “second adjacent waiver” in order to be positioned as close as two spaces (say at 100.1 when there’s a full-power station at 100.5). In order to obtain this waiver, an LPFM applicant will have to demonstrate through an engineering study that it will cause no interference. And if there is a complaint of interference the LPFM station will have to remediate it, by first suspending operations and then taking technical measures

Other concessions include making LPFM a secondary service to full-power radio, which means that a full-power station can bump a low-power one if a legitimate change to its license would require it. Furthermore, LPFM stations would be on equal footing with translator stations, meaning that an LPFM applicant could not bump a translator using a frequency qualified for LPFM.

Certainly, this is not quite a win for LPFM that a simple restoration of the FCC’s original 2000 specification would be. In particular, applying for LPFM stations in large metropolitan areas with crowded dials will be more complex than the LPFM process has been so far. Those LPFM applicants looking at second-adjacent channels will have to do more work ahead of time to prove they will not interfere with adjacent stations. Furthermore, they will be more prone to objections from those adjacent full-power stations, who may be able to delay or stymie their applications with objections about potential interference.

Now, these sorts of administrative hassles have always been a part of full-power station licensing. For instance, the community station I worked at in Champaign, IL had its application delayed for years due to objections filed by a station on the same frequency more than 120 miles away in Chicago. But these sorts of speedbumps have not existed for LPFM before, which was designed to have a relatively simple and inexpensive application process in order to greatly lower the barrier to entry.

The bill still has not yet come to a vote in the Senate, There could be changes made in the other house of Congress, but I’m doubting supporters would want to mess with things. At least the Senate is finally out of gridlock and bringing bills to a vote this weekend, so there is hope. I’ll be following LPFM’s progress this weekend and will certainly post if and when something happens.

It’s a day that thousands of low-power FM and community radio activists have been awaiting for just about nine years. This evening, at 7:06 pm the House of Representatives, with a minimum of drama, passed H.R. 1147, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009 by voice vote. Little drama for the House nevertheless meant nearly two days of sitting on the edge of the seat for LPFM advocates as they waited for the House to move through its usual machinations and other business. Regardless of how much we might wish LPFM was at the top of the legislative agenda, instead it seemed more like an afterthought. At least it was enough of a no-brainer for the House that they didn’t even need a roll call vote. I’ll take it.

The bill restores the original technical specifications for LPFM which the FCC instituted in 2000. These specs allow a low-power station to be placed as close as the third adjacent channel on the dial. In practice that means if a full-power station broadcasts on 100.1 FM then a LPFM may be placed at 100.7 FM, provided that the frequency is otherwise available.

On Dec. 18, 2000 a provision limiting LPFM stations to obeying the spacing requirements of full-power stations was slipped into an omnibus budget bill and signed into law by President Clinton after a long series of back-room horsetrading. Under these still-current rules, a LPFM station may only be spaced as close as 100.9 FM next to that hypothetical full power station at 100.1 FM.

.2 MHz may not seem like a big difference, but when it comes to spacing stations on the FM dial, it is a game fought and won by tenths of a megahertz. This difference is of particular importance in the nation’s largest radio markets which already have very full dials that will not permit the addition of another full-power station or LPFM that has to obey full-power spacing rules. LPFM proponents estimate that passage of the Local Community Radio Act will create the potential for at least a hundred new stations nationwide.

Now the focus moves to the Senate, where the Commerce Committee has already approved the Senate version of the bill. If it goes to a floor vote and is passed then it is likely to be signed by President Obama.

This is the first time that a vote on a bill to restore low-power FM to the FCC’s original specifications has been scheduled for the full House since 2000. Signs are looking good that the bill may finally pass, though we’ll know much more tomorrow…. maybe.