Feds move to shut pirate radio station

Is it easier for those stations to get a license? Most of them are connected to colleges and things, and I assumed they still paid up the ass to get permission to broadcast...

Most smaller wattage non-commercial stations are grandfathered from the days when the FCC was more willing to dole out licenses to lower wattage stations. Later on, probably as a result of the FCC's revolving door and lobbying, they thought it more efficient use of spectrum to grant fewer licenses to larger wattage stations, commercial or not. And then there's the use of translators to help stations reach holes in their transmissions (for example, when a station lists it has more than one frequency during a break..)

A few things to note:

3rd adjacency rules are outdated. Modern transmitters and tuners can be made better, (some already are) stations can be closer. This would open up more frequencies in crowded markets.

The new LPFM licenses pretty much leave out urban centers, where these stations can actually be effective because there's a concentrated enough population.

Online broadcasting doesn't necessarily make it easy for small groups and small companies, either. The expense of licensing to broadcast ASCAP/BMI/etc music is too high, the rules too..difficult. I suppose it's fine for unlicensed music, but it's hard to break through the clutter and still hard to get into people's vehicles. But more widespread adoption of the internet does make it easier, through blogging and podcasting, to have a voice. However, radio is more entrenched in some cultures than others, and the media habits of a target audience have to be considered.

Lastly, if they were interfering with airport communications, that's bad. However, it's often used as an excuse and rarely the case. There are licensed stations that cause interference.

won't ever happen. Why?

Because radio stations depend on demographics/broadcast area to sell ad spots. The FCC knows this.

For example, let's say radio station "WHUB" on 99.1 FM broadcasts at 3000watts from the top of Prospect Hill in Somerville. WHUB says "we reach 100% of Somerville in our broadcast area". So lets say... Diesel wants to advertise. Diesel pays for the spot knowing it will reach all of Somerville.

Well lets say a un-licensed 'pirate' station broadcasts on 99.1 FM at 100w (very low power) from a dorm room at Tufts. Now the two frequencies are conflicting, so depending on how close you are to the pirate radio station, the less likely you will get WHUB since the frequencies are jammed (conflicting).

What happens is, the advertisers get mad, and the radio station gets mad because now its lost half its broadcast area due to this pirate station.

The FCC tries to regulate this knowing that x station @ 1000watts on this frequency from this location can reach this many square miles from its transmitter. They try not to overlap the stations as little as possible.

Regions are setup by the FCC as different classes (Boston is a Class A region, while Providence and Manchester are Class B). This is also why you almost never see any overlap in TV station numbers (NTSC stations). Hense why the channel numbers 2,4, 5, and 7 are only used in Boston, and the next city that gets those is NYC (as WCBS (2), WNBC (4), WFOX (5), and WABC (7). And why Channel 3 is WSFB in Hartford, CT, and Channel 3 is WCAX in burlington.)

I think I've waay over explained the point, but yea I agree, it sucks I can't have a low powered station and am reduced to the low end of the dial (which has a far lower transmission range than the higher end (99.1-107.9)