On the heels of my post about FCC enforcement of “legal” low-power AM broadcasting, I learn that Pacifica plans to jump into the LPAM arena. The plan is for Pacifica’s Los Angeles station KPFK to serve its Spanish-speaking audience with a network of Part 15 LPAM stations deployed strategically in Latino neighborhoods. According to a recent Radio World article, the LPAM plan is to compensate for the fact that KPFK only has 24 hours in a broadcast day, already split amongst many different types of programming, but with an apparently strong audience for its three hours of Spanish programming a night.

Networks of LPAM stations have been tried before. Perhaps the most prominent was Allston-Brighton Free Radio, a Massachusetts station that started out as a 20 watt unlicensed FM before going Part 15 LPAM. The station has been mostly defunct since 2003, but that doesn’t mean the idea isn’t a good one.

Rather, given the limited broadcast range of LPAM stations I think it shows that it’s difficult to keep a full schedule of volunteer DJs motivated and the station funded. Therefore KPFK’s idea of using LPAMs to rebroadcast a stream of already existing Spanish programming seems more sensible. According to RW the cost of a transmitter setup is just $850 — it likely will cost more to feed the station a good audio feed. KPFK program director Alan Minsky tells RW that the station won’t produce more Spanish programming. Instead it will rebroadcast its current Spanish block supplemented by programming from other sources.

However, I suspect that the FCC might pay a little more attention to a prominent licensed station messing around with unlicensed AM transmitters. Commission field agents will probably want to confirm that those transmitters are fully compliant with Part 15 regs.

This should be a very interested experiment to watch when it gets off the ground.

A small pocket radio is my constant traveling companion to help me make every hotel room a little more homey, in addition to letting me check out the local radio scene. Whenever I’m in a new city I immediately check out the left end of the dial. In LA the first station I came to was the well regarded public station, KCRW in Santa Monica.

KCRW stands apart from most public radio stations in its commitment to music programming, in addition to the standard national news programs like All Things Considered. It was an unusual pleasure to listen to Morning Edition transition into the long-running Morning Becomes Eclectic from 9 AM to noon, giving me an opportunity to get both my dose of drive-time news and some nice indie-leaning musical sounds.

After noon through the evening drive KCRW goes back to news-talk programming, but again shifts to music at 8 PM most weekdays. The station’s music programming roughly fits the format known as Adult Album Alternative, or AAA. In fact, KCRW is one of the originating stations that can be said to have defined the format. But as Generation Xers enter their 30s and 40s, AAA stations like KCRW seem to be staying more current, playing more cutting-edge indie rock–bands like Best Coast or MGMT–that appeals just as much to 20-somethings.

Looking for something a little more challenging I tuned down a little more left on the FM dial and found KXLU at 88.9 FM, broadcasting from Loyola Marymount University. I found the station on Monday night and mostly kept my radio tuned there for the next two days. KXLU sounded like good college radio, with a very eclectic mix of musical genres and styles that nevertheless worked well together.

The program I enjoyed the most was Monday night’s She Rocks, featuring women in rock music. The night I tuned in the hosts were playing a tribute to Ari Up, vocalist for the pioneering punk band the Slits, who passed away on Oct. 20. The hosts had interviewed Ari a few years earlier and so replayed parts of that interview along with music from different stages of her career, including tracks from the Slits, as well as her many innovative dub projects.

The hosts of She Rocks were clearly touched and affected by Ari Up’s music and life, which came across so well on air that a listener couldn’t help but be drawn in and affected. To me this is the sort of programming that college and community radio do so well, and that is rarely heard on commercial–and even public–radio except in the case of very well-known celebrities, like Michael Jackson.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to tune in clearly any other interesting college, community or public stations during my stay. Nevertheless KCRW and KXLU made for very comforting companions for my off-time in my hotel room. And that’s something which radio is uniquely suited to do.

A piece in the L.A. Times profiles AM station KAZN in Pasadena, California, which was the first 24-hour Chinese language station in the country. According to the article:

“…KAZN remains the dominant voice in the Chinese community in L.A. and serves as a clearinghouse for all sorts of general information. On the weekends, one can hear Bible stories, Buddhist sermons, family counseling, celebrity interviews and lectures on immigration law.”

All the way across the country in Ithaca, New York, a college student writes a love letter for FM radio, explaining how much the stations rule compared with similar offerings in other parts of New York. Justine Fields writes in the Cornell Daily Sun:

“Since these stations have filled my VW beetle with so much musical pleasantry, I thought I’d take this column to touch the surface in dissecting the magnificent state of Ithaca’s rock and pop music frequencies.”

Justine’s top choice? College radio station WICB (Ithaca College).