Transcript of the NAB panel on "pirate radio"

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This is the transcript of the NAB panel on "pirate radio" that was held this last April in Las Vegas. Kudos to Carol Denney for transcribing it.

Stephen Dunifer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 20:34:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Carol Denney <cdenney@igc.org>
To: frbspd@crl.com
Subject: NAB transcript

Dear Stephen, Here comes ninteen pages of pure comedy. Carol
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Announcer: "National Association of Broadcasters 1997 Conference: "Setting the Pace of Convergence," April 5th through 10th, 1997. We bring you live to Las Vegas, Nevada, where this program is just underway."

2nd Announcer: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the 1997 broadcast engineering conference and this morning's session on radio technical regulatory issues. We have three panelists lined up for you this morning, uh, the first is on pirate radio, uh, beginning now, and at 10:00 am we'll move on to grandfathered short spaced FM stations and at 11:00 we'll address am technical regulatory issues. Uh, before we dive into, uh, pirate radio I have a few quick reminders for you, uh, today the technology luncheon will be held in the Baron room of the Las Vegas Hilton starting at 12:15 pm, the keynote speaker will be Joel Brinkley, the NY Times political editor. He's a winner of a pulitzer prize and other national journalism and writing awards, and he's going to be speaking about among other things his new book "Defining Vision" regarding the development of digital television. Also, when the conference sessions end today at 6:00 pm there will the annual amateur radio opeperator's reception so those of you who are amateur radio operators may want to head on over to the ballroom C at the Las Vegas Hilton, that event is sponsored by Richardson electronics and I-Mac (sp).

"Now let's get into our discussion on pirate radio. We've assembled an all-star cast for you here today. I think if you looked all over the country you'd be hard-pressed to find any four people who are more qualified to talk about the issues involved in pirate radio than the folks we have here today. To my right....John DeVecca from LPV was unable to make it due to a family emergency today, but, in his stead his colleague at LPV Dick Burton is filling in for him, Dick is a graduate of the RCA Institutes, he is a member of the National Stereophonic Radio Committee, a member of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Study of Televison Sound, a member of the National Radio Systems Committee, a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, and a certified professional broadcast engineer. To Dick's right, is Bill Ruck, Bill is a native San Franciscan who attending the University of San Francisco and was chief engineer of that school's non-commercial FM station KUSF when it first went on the air. He put together KUSF's first transmitter and has been very involved in Bay Area engineering ever since. In 1978 Mr. Ruck became engineering manager at KFOG FM, KNBR AM also became his responsiblity in 1989. He has participated on various NAB technical committees and provided valuable support to the DAB field testing program that was carried out in the Bay Area over the past couple of years. He is rebuilding a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains and spends his other spare time restoring Indian motorcycles.

"To Bill's right is Beverly Baker, Beverly Baker is the Chief of the Compliance and Information Bureau with the FCC. Beverly joined the FCC in 1979 and held various positions as a staff attorney in the Common Carrier Bureau. She became chief of the legal branch of the tariff division of the Common Carrier Bureau in 1984. In 1987 she became legal assistant to the chief of the Private Radio Bureau, which has since been reorganized into the wireless telecommunications bureau. And in 1988 she was appointed Deputy Chief of the Private Radio Bureau. In 1994 Ms. Baker was appointed Chief of the Compliance and Information Bureau, which as many people know used to be called the field operations bureau. She received her BA degree from Denison University and her JD from Cornell University, she is member of the bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and of the Supreme Court of Ohio. She and her husband Don live in Washington DC.

"And last but certainly not least is Jack Goodman. Jack works for the National Association of Broadcasters as the Vice President Policy Council. He is responsible for developing and coordinating NAB regulatory and legislative policy objectives. He joined NAB in 1990 as special council and has worked in the areas of cable television regulation, the economic relationship between cable and over the air television, financing of broadcast stations, broadcast ownership regulation and the regulation of political broadcasting. And he's here with us today because Jack is the point man at NAB on the issue of pirate radio stations. Mr. Goodman has been one of the principle NAB attorneys involved in the court challenges to the 1992 Cable Act, and he's been dancing in the streets ever since the Supreme Court (UI) last week. Mr. Goodman is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina Law School. He was for many years a member of the board of directors of the Law Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina and a member of the Advisory Committee on Rules for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. He is also chair of the Federal Communications Co mmission Bar Association's committee on judicial practise.

"The format of our presentations this morning we're going to start off giving each person a opportunity to make some opening comments. Dick's going to talk a little bit first about what are the legitimate uses of a low-power, unlicensed broadcast band transmitter. And since his company is in the business of selling those types of transmitters through companies who make use (sic) them for legitimate purposes. After Dick speaks we'll move on to the others, Bill's going to talk some about his vast experience with pirate radios in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Beverly's going to talk about what the FCC has been doing with regard to pirate radio. And then Jack will make a few comments about what NAB has done to help support the FCC's efforts to get after these pirate radio broadcasters. So with that I'll turn it over to you, Dick."

Dick Burton: "Okay. Thank you. Looking at the history of low-power radio we go back into the late thirties, thirty-nine and later, where we started carrier card. Carrier card for those who do not know is the practise of putting the RF signal on top of the power wiring so that it follows throughout a building. And probably the most well-known where it's used in many many college campuses. That's been the most legitimate use that I know of. We've used low power in many many drive-in theaters, we've used low power for language translation in churches, we've used low power for language, uh, for services where people want to go to church but do not want to go inside. I've done this with a number of churches and it's surprising to me that people don't want to go inside that they'd rather sit outside in their cars. But probably the most well-known of this is the Garden Grove Community Church, uh, better known as the Crystal Cathedral. We have about 5,000 feet of radiating cable buried in the parking lots. So that, uh, if you don't want to go into the service you can sit outside and the good father can talk to you. We ha ve used radiating cable at the entrance to theme parks such as Walt Disney's Epcot Center in Walt Disney World. There are a number that I can't probably remember but those are the most well-known. Another legitimate reason, uh, use of low-power radio is that of inside sports stadias, uh, those of you AM broadcasters who have trouble getting your signal through the thick walls of inside sports arenas realize this problem. We have used radiating cable in many of these sports stadias usually hung by the, from the catwalk in the ceiling. Most of these are AM, however there is one FM which was put in just recently last fall, all of these contain your signals inside the building to what the FCC considers acceptable as far as the rules are concerned. There are in the FM and in the realm of radiating systems from antennas there is of course what's well known as the travelers information service which is a licensed situation, but there are part 15 uses there are 100 milliwatt AM transmitters which are really only designed to go a few hundred feet. However some people put them in in a manner that they far exceed those three or four, maybe two or three hundred feet. The rules state basically that you're allowed a roughly three meter antenna. I like to work in feet, roughly you have an eight foot antenna and about two foot of ground lead. And that's supposed to be a non-radiating ground andsome people just run that down the side of a building and you have a nice big long antenna and you get out a little bit further. Again, these are not in accordance with the rules. There are FM, I call them equivalent type transmitters again which limit their field to two-hundred and fifty microvolts at a distance of three meters. They're used a lot in language translations and other type, maybe for the hard of hearing we have both cable, inflection (?) cable systems and these low power transmitters are useable for language translation or hard of hearing people. (UI) a lot of good, legitimate uses for these things but you can't destroy the spectrum when you're trying to do this. And this is my concern I, we've had a number of people come into the booth, well, I only want to get out one or two miles, and I say, you can't do that. It's not that we can't provide them with the equipment to do that, it's not right to do that. And we try to explain the rules and regulations so that people understand them. There's no way we can stop pirate radio. I've had a number of occasions where people have found a transmitter that's no longer used in a university or the like and they'll come and they'll want to know how to make an antenna tuned to this thing and I'm saying no, you can't do that. But it's interesting to talk to some of these people. They have a lot of conviction in what they want to do they believe it's right. We tell them that you can't be involved in broadcasting if you're going to confuse or destroy the spectrum. And that's my personal belief. I talk to them a lot, they don't necessarily listen ."

Announcer: "Okay. Uh, Bill, you want to go next? Since you're next."

Bill Ruck: "We're going to be sequential. Um I've been asked to make some comments about the unlicensed operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and I'm going to make some general comments about where I'm coming from so you understand me a little bit, describe some of the pirate, the more major ones in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'll show you a little, some field measurements of how it affects the actual stations affected, and I want to draw some conclusions. But before I really get into that I've been asked to say that the comments I'm going to make are Bill Ruck's and they don't reflect on KFOG, KFFG, KNBR or any other station we've bought recently, Susquehanna Radio, Susquehanna Media, or Susquehanna Falls (UI) companies. The preceding was required by our very nervous attornies. (Laughter) The first general comment is that for us to go oh my god an unlicenses operation I think is a bit much because for many broadcast engineers a rite of passage in our teens was a night kit phono oscillator (sp) and perhaps a little bit more than that. Or in many cases, you know, we got creative, looked in the arial handbook, built something a little more powerful and had a visit from our local federal agency. Most of us grew out of that, we discovered girls and cars and moved into other things, so, but it's not like oh my god I would never do that. It's also quite common for the alleged anonymous friend of a friend to give a little help with when a DJ wanted to do something out of his house, so, now let's be real, guys, it happens and we should at least keep that in mind. The second comment is that I really believe that there's a need for something that I'm going to call event radio which is like a music festival, boy scout camp things like that which are little ad hoc kind of things and I can see a legitimate need for it, I can't see a hole for them to in spectrum-wise, but I can see where there a reason for people to call up Dick and want to buy one of their transmitters. Unfortunately it's become very common and a major any most of the music festivals have a little transmitter, uh, most major touring acts now tour with a transmitter, the Pearl jam tour in '96 actually had at the bottom of their advertisement you know in the paper, we're going to be here Saturday and Sunday listen to us on micropower radio at 88.1 nationwide. This isn't really new, Dan Healy was doing it with the Grateful Dead in the 70's and 80's so that the dope dealers in the parking lot could listen to the show. And last week at a station I can't mention I was asked about this from a road manager for a major act he says I want to have a little transmitter so we can go, you know, five-ten miles and have people coming and hear what's going on I said it's illegal. He says yeah I know it's illegal but everybody's doing it nobody ever gets caught and we want to do that. I say yeah, but it's illegal. And about the fourth illegal he realized that he's going to have to find another source for his hardware . My final comment, and this is a personal belief I have is I'm a very strong believer in local radio. Especially in non-commercial. Non-commercial should be local radio, and that's why I had rather nasty violent arguments with friends at NPR when they did the4 big power grab and class Ds went away. And CPB said for funding reasons we want to have regional stations, it's spectrum efficient and so as a result local radio has really been curtailed and we now have I think bad examples of local radio like KQED FM in San Francisco which spends more time soliciting money to keep their payroll up than doing anything and they're a regional station, they don't relate anymore to a local community. Now it doesn't mean there aren't good local radio stations in San Francisco, I'll mention KALW and KUSF which are very oriented but they're class As, they're not regional stations. And my very very favorite local station is KUZU(?) in Pacific Grove they're excellent example of how local radio s hould be. So that's my basic background, now, just so you don't get me confused with, uh, with the real broadcast, hang on a minute, (laughter)..."

Beverly Baker: "You're not going to put that on, are you? Oh, you are putting it on. Now I recognise you."(laughter)

Bill Ruck: "We want to make sure that I separate Bill Ruck from another Bill Ruck, so..."

Beverly Baker: "You ought to stand up." (Laughter)

Bill Ruck: "We, in the interests of equal time...pirate radio, avast me mateys oh, actually, ahoy me mateys avast ye scurvy dogs and join me on a tour of the good ship pirate radio. I can't see so I'm going to take that part off. Actually, uh, so we don't offend them, they don't like being called pirate radio, they much prefer the monikker micropower broadcasting. We have several in the Bay Area the most famous one is Free Radio Berkeley, this is principally run by Stephen Dunifer and I just want to give you a little background on Steve, cause he's misguided perhaps, but you need to understand where he's coming from so you understand what he's trying to do. Steve was basically driven out of KPFA Pacifica Foundation for he was too radical for KPFA, which is somewhere to the left of left. He actually is technically a very good engineer has actually designed his own equipment and actually is doing all the stuff on it. Is, uh, Stephen's shop. One of the things he does to help support Free Radio Berkeley is they sell kits and they range in quality and everything else. So that you can see if it comes into focus (UI) focus...well, they start at, uh, a five watt transmitter goes up through 20-35 watt amplifier, this is an old ad actually they go up to about a hundred watts now. Output filter kit, all this, he basically wants you to buy the output filter so you don't have any out of band harmonics they're pretty clean about that thing. And this is a an example of what it looks like. Now he knows what he's doing because there's a disclaimer that says 'for educational purposes only, blah blah blah blah blah.' Now, I don't don't think we should hit Steve for this one because Ramsey, Zandee, and a bunch of other people are selling kits , Ramsey, for example, has a kit that has a power amp that goes in a box that's audio sterio in RF out and it says at the bottom for export use only but they're selling it in US dollars for delivery to US addresses, so he's not unique in that particular area. They also give you advise on how to build the rest of your radio station. This is their their antenna design and you'll see what it looks like in real life shortly. Free Radio Berkeley really started early on as a backpacked transmitter that moves on top of the Berkeley hills on Sunday nights and then on 88.1but he moved around, but they've gotten a little more upscale now and they're located 1840 Alcatraz in Berkeley, that's Steve at the controls, it really wasn't hard to find the station, I was driving around doing simple direction finding I don't have an MADF car and I had spotted the antenna hadn't quite figured out what building it was in when they gave out their address so it's pretty easy to find 1840 Alcatraz when they're saying mail us at 1840 Alcatraz and our phone number is , whatever the numbers are. They're certainly not low profile about this address, this is the front, it says FRB folks, hit the button, uh, whenever something times two, ring doorbell, wait and it says FRB right on the doorbell. So, that's our friends in Berkeley, this is their antenna, unfortunately it was a grey day and a grey antenna against a grey day disappears but it's basically two vertically polarized dipoles, this is from the side view. They're hanging off the end there we can almost see them it's white against grey so you it's hard to see that. But they're not the only one. Another very prominent one although with a very difference political purpose is San Francisco Liberation Radio. I call this the propaganda voice of Food Not Bombs. And this is a group that says we shouldn't be putting money into military thigns we should be using the money for feeding the homeless, etc., etc. The only thing about Food Not Bombs is they'd much rather have a police riot than actually distribute any food, they believe they should not have to get permits and comply with health code regulations, they just want to give food away. And as a result, there's always a police riot whenever they show up cause they arrest everyone and throw (UI) away. A thing I do want to point out that in San Francisco there are a lot of groups that give away food and they all seem to manage to comply with police and health code and everything else, but these guys insist that they don't need to have permits cause they're doing a good thing. Their principle head is a guy by the name of Richard Edmundson and he's got another bunch of history which I'll skip over, this is him, originally they had a camper on top of Twin Peaks and here he is setting up his antenna. These guys get a lot of press everything you're seeing other than the slides. I took are pictures from various articles they've had in the p ress, the press love them. And he's setting up his camper here, and this is inside, setting up inside the camper but it gets cold on top of the Twin Peaks so, actually they're located right now at 561 41st Avenue in the Richmond District in San Francisco. this is their antenna looking down from Geary, the antenna's up there. And then this is view of the front of their headquarters, um, there's a little peace symbol in the lower window, you can see the clogs(?) draping down the front of that. That's that's our friends at San Francisco Liberation Radio. Again, there's a lot more, and I I'm tired of counting them, they come and go, but Radio Libre is been fairly active at 103.3, there's a second 104.1 in San Francisco, Dunifer has been kown to say that that engineer from KFOG is interfering with us. Actually if the engineer from KFOG wanted to interfere he'd be doing it with about 20 kilowatts at 104.1 so it ain't me. There's a lot of ones that come and go in SOMA, which is south of Market, uh, mostly catering to the rave and the dance mix crowd, there's also a KGAY that came and went for awhile in San Francisco makes a whole lot of sense and everything else. So, anyway, back to broadcast engineering. One of the things that we have now is an opportunity to evaluate second adjacent stations in real life. So here is, uh, a real life example, this is Free Radio Berkeley is at 104.1, uh, KKSF is 103.7, and then KFOG is at 104.5, I might have an interest in one of these alleged stations I can't mention that, but anyway this is in front of 1840 Alcatraz and you can see that KFRB in the center is is about 20 or more db higher than either KFOG or KKSF it actually it's worse in the rear, much higher signal strength, this is in, uh, in db and off (UI) an antenna I could tell you volts per meter but I didn't quite do the calculation. In this immediate area both KFOG and KKSF are clobbered pretty badly it's mostly from an overload (UI) for all they are 20 dbs stronger, KKSF is worse because they're about five kilohert z low, I guess (UI) doesn't apply to them. But as we start going away from Alcatraz it changes pretty dramatically. This should be Ellis and Alcatraz this is about two blocks away maybe a quarter mile. At this point their level has dropped a little bit it's not too bad on KFOG but KKSF is definitely getting clobbered we go two more blocks, though to Alcatraz and Sacramento we're now about half a mile away, uh, we're approximately equal level just a little bit of interference on KKSF probably because they're off frequency, but KFOG isn't hurt at all and as we continue to drive away from the station, for example to Alcatraz and San Pablo at this point there's no interference at all to KFOG and KKSF. And as we head basically westish toward this is the San Francisco bridge toll plaza at this point Free Radio Berkeley's recieving interference from either KFOG or KKSF cause they're substantially lower in level. So what are the overall effects on KKSF and KFOG? I happen to be involved in potentially one of those theoretical stations uh, a good friend of mine, actually, both chief engineers at the other KKSF station uh, we talk a lot about that and basically we did get some complaints, we got about 15 to 20 so it's hard to say exactly becuse either our air staff didn't bother writing it down or in many cases the complainer doesn't want to give out a name and a phone number so we can follow through and find out what the real deal is. And it's hard to, you know, chase mythical listener complaints. Ah, but, but fundamentally our ratings have been unharmed, uh, and actually in over for the last couple years they've increased and they've gotten higher, the revenues have been unharmed they're actually increasing and higher so overall one has to say that there's been a very small part of our audience that has been affected by them, and in our Bay Area probably that small part of the audience is so much less than the area that can't receive us because of terrain limitations that it's been fairly benign and I have to be ho nest. This is my personal observation not company policy but it really has not crippled KFOG. Or KKSF. So, my first conclusion is if Free Radio Berkeley and Stephen Dunifer wanted to promote micropower broadcasting or local radio then they could document what they're doing, show the extent of the interference in fact is relatively minimal, propose some things and actually petition for rule-making which is open to anybody it doesn't require a lot of work to do that. However instead they're into their own self-serving anarchy kind of mentality and they'd rather do the first amendment stuff which I'll let our lawyers talk about over here. My second conclusion though is that cheez if all the second adjacent stuff works so well, maybe we could use this extra spectrum for uh, you know, translators, I'm sure Moody Bible (UI) would love to have translators all throughout the United States dropped in cause obviously there's all this unused spectrum here. And I think that all the concerns about IBOC and IBAC spectrum management is probably a little too conservative I don't really see that huge a problem there. My third conclusion is also even darker, there's so much unused spectrum in the FM band maybe we could, or not we I'm, maybe some organization on M Street could consider to auction this extra spectrum off to something with the words personal wireless digital communiations something services I mean after all there's a whole lot of money in these investor scams and senators like to have their campaigns funded and, uh, and Uncle Sam could actually make some money in the deal. And it, it seems to be out there, guys. And my final conclusion is that our faith in and the respect for the FCC has been eroding over this whole process. There is unlicensed operations in all bands, not just part 73 and 74 the land mobile people have it, it's endemic in land mobile, even local governments have been known to operate without licenses and I've, I know several cases within the Bay Area of that, operational fixed, you never rea lly know what's gonna go on because people buy microwaves and turn them on the air. Now, for me that's great cause I make a lot of money running around San Francisco spur-busting, and doing private interference looking, so that's good, but what's happening, though is, uh, and this is a question asked to me this last summer by a general manager and owner of a small station in northern California and he says well, why can't I just get put in a larger transmitter and turn it on? And there really isn't a good answer to that question right now because it's the impression has becoming that, hey, it's a free-for-all, if I want more power, I'll just put in a bigger transmitter. Now I know what's going to happen here is Beverly's going to leave here she's going to get on the phone and say hey Marty, uh, there's this guy Bill Ruck and you need to send (UI) over there and show him a little respect, so, I'll pay for that later."

Beverly Baker: "Can I have a business card, please?"

Bill Ruck: "Yeah, I'll make it easy for you. Any pictures? So, anyway, that's my perspective on what's going on in the Bay Area, and uh, and I'm sure I'll have some more comments later. Thank you."

Announcer: "Yeah, Beverly?"

Beverly Baker: "That's fascinating. Ah, first of all Dave I got a big problem with that film clip you showed earlier, the, uh, what's the name of the movie? About micropower?"

Unknown: "The movie was called Pump Up the Volume. It was out in 1990."

Beverly Baker: "Pump Up the Volume, okay, well, first of all the FCC person in there doesn't look a darn thing like me. And, we don't have any yellow step vans that say FCC on the side, if you see a yellow van around your station that says FCC don't worry it's not us. Our vans are much older. It's a large and growing problem, obviously, and as in any law enforcement area, where we have laws it's because there are economic incentives to do what the law prohibts, otherwise we wouldn't need the laws, so by definition Dick Burton and presumeably Bill Ruck although some of the things you said were a little ambiguous the people who are fully complying with the laws are at a disadvantage and by their integrity in this area they put themselves at a disadvantage. There are all kinds of unlicensed operators and as Bill said they're in all bands. And they're not in the radio bands, they're not all micropower some of them are very high power indeed, we have one in the northeast that covers most of an entire state. The legitimate uses of low power are not of interest to these folks because as Dick mentioned the transmission only goes about a block and that's not what these folks are interested in covering. It is our experience that a great many of the people who just buy a transmitterand go on the air don't really know it's illegal. So when we call that to their attention in about forty to fifty percent of the cases they quit, they go off the air. So that is that is what we do first, when we find out, somebody lets us know or we discover an unlicensed operator on the air we will send them a letter saying we have been advised that you may be engaging in this kind of activity if you are doing that it is illegal, you might be subject to penalities and very often then they go off the air. If they don't, then the other penalties that we, or the other tools we have to use, there are forfeitures, potential forfeitures for operation, $11,000 now for each instance, and each instance in this case would be every time they key up the radio and go on the air. We can also with the help of the US attorney's offices proceed in rem, what that means, legal latin, we can go after the stuff, we can get the things, we can go in and seize the equipment that the unlicensed operator is using. That is my personal favorite, it's particularly effective in getting them off the air or at least temporarily until they go buy more equipment. We can also go for injunctions, these are not mutually exclusive remedies, we can use many of them together, we can go for a preliminary injunction which we often do , we can go for a permanent injunction against the activity. And in some cases there are criminal penalties, it's not likely that we would go for a criminal penalty in very many cases, although as I mentioned on the panel I was on yesterday we have in recent years had at least one unlicensed operator who happened to be willfully and intentionally jamming the FBI in a major city, and that guy went to the slammer, and so it is possible, criminal penalities of a year, up to a year and fines against individuals up to $100,000. The problems that are currently complicating the, and escalating the unlicensed operator problemare first of all this US District Court case on a preliminary injunction where the judge denied our preliminary injunction request suggesting that maybe we ought to look at whether there was a first amendment issue here. We do not believe there is a first amendment issue, but now in just about every instance where you have somebody proseltyzing for pirate radio they mention an absolute first amendment right to do this. We think this is nonsense, the supreme court has already decided this issue and then affirmed that decision, repeated that decision a generation later that you don't have a first amendment right just to buy a transmitter and to go on the air. That is why the FCC was created in 1927 and 1934 was to prevent the kind of chaos on the airwaves it would render them unuseable for everybody, that this would cause, so we think that argument the first amedment argument is ultimately a loser, we just don't know how long it will take the court to again say that this is not correct. The other thing that complicates the problem is the internet, uh, for good and for ill, the internet makes distribution of information wide distribution of information quite possible so there are a number of internet sites where people are explaining in some detail how one can set up an unauthorized unlicensed radio station and go on the air. This is not helpful to us. As I think I mentioned, we're currently awar e of well over a hundred pirate operations on the air, we, although I am not going to talk about the details of any particular case, we are very actively proceeding against about fourteen hard-core cases that have not heeded our warning letters and have not gone off the air. The others we will be dealing as they come up in the priority list. You can help us by first of all letting us know about the pirates in your area, particularly if they are causing interference for your listeners, and if they are getting advertisers, which is economic harm to you, let us know about them and the more you can tell us about them the easier it will be for us to deal with them. And then I think it's time to start thinking creatively about what other possibilities there might be here, what about the advertisers who advertise on these unauthorized operations many of them, I suspect, do not know that the broadcaster is illegal. They may have plunked down some money and signed a deal and the broadcaster could be taken off the air at any time. Advertisers might not like that kind fo association, they might not like to lose the money. What about some private actions, and can we assume that these unauthorized broadcasters are in fact paying their copyright fees? Can we assume that? Probably not, where's ASCAP when we really need them? ASCAP went after the girl scouts for heaven's sakes, uh, kids camps, so I would think they might have some interest in this use. And finally, don't make it easy for them, please play better music than they do so they can't catch your listeners in the first place. Our objective is to get them all off the air of course like any law enforcement agency we have to prioritize the cases and we rely heavily on the legitimate broadcasters to let us know what the most troublesome cases are."

Jack Goodman: "Uh, thank you Beverly. I'm going to talk a little bit about what the NAB has done and why we've done it, and a couple of the issues that have come up. We've been very heavily involved in this case against Stephen Paul Dunifer in Berkeley and the background of our involvement is after the commission had the preliminary injunction denied with a suggestion by the court that there may be a first amendment interest here, the general council's office approached us with the real question of did we think there was anything to this and if not was there would we be interested in filing a brief in support of the commission to indicate, to give them some support and to help explain to the court how deeply wrong they were the court was. We were very happy to do that. We're certain that there is no doubt that there is no first amendment right to buy a transmitter and put it on the air in violation of the FCC's rules. And in fact everything that the FCC does rests on that fou ndation. If the FCC cannot control who uses the airwaves and when then everything else the commission does essentially falls apart. So this is the absolute bedrock of FCC regulation and indeed as Beverly mentioned it is the reasons the FCC was created. Because in the 20's there was no licensing process that was effective and effect and anybody could go on the air and interference steadily increased and is the reason why we have communications regulation. And one of the points that Mr. Dunifer makes is he says he's such a good engineer that he can insure that there is no interference. Well, as we've seen already that isn't quite true, but it's really irrelevant because everybody may not be as good an engineer as he is and it may be that one station one unlicensed operator in one obscure part of Berkeley doesn't have much of an impact but if you have 100 or 1,000 or however many you may have that this simply goes out of control, the entire scheme of radio regulation is affected. And the commission has also done a really splendid job of responding to this argument in a an order denying reconsideration of a forfeiture order against Mr. Dunifer where he made that argument that well, it doesn't really matter I'm not going to cause any interference and t hey point out and there's a fairly long and I won't go in repeat it, long discussion of exactly how if you put even a very low opera- low powered operator in one part in one spot the interference that it creates is quite substantial and covers a large area even a largely far beyond the area where he can that station can be heard. So essentially you have a domino effect across the entire FM allocation scheme. In any event as the commission, as the case went on we filed an amicus brief together with the radio operators caucus and MSTV, pointing out that there is no first amendment right here, that the court, the Supreme Court has rejected the notion of unlicensed operation it rejected in the thirties, forties, fifteis, sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, it's been remarkably consistent. The other point that Dunifer tried to argue is that he gets to have a first amendment right to have the FCC change its rules. We have pointed out with the commission that they can't do that he can't do that in district court, that there is a process, that if he believes the FCC's rules are wrong, we don't, but it's a fair argument, then he can seek rule-making, well, he can file an application for a low-powered radio station and seek a waiver of the rules. His response is this is just a big broadcaster argument and it's too expensive to do that. It's actually quite inexpensive as Bill pointed out I think you know lterally you can file a peition for rule-making at the commission for the price of postage. And in all these years of litigation where he says the commission should change its rules it is noteable that neither he nor any other microradio operator has done this instead their preference is to simply violate the law. And as has been mentioned they've been quite a favorite in the press, this sort of notion that they are, you know, championing, you know, small guys championing broadcasting. The fact is they're crooks. There really isn't any way around it there is a clear federal law and they are have a lot of op tions and they choose to ignore them and take it on themselves. So we are continuing to litigate this case, unfortunately the judge has a reputation where she doesn't like the result the law leads her to to simply sit, and I was out in San Francisco for the oral argument a year ago this week right before the NAB convention. It was quite a, it was quite a an event, there was a huge demonstration in front of the courthouse, uh, Dunifer and his cohorts attempted to pack the courtroom without much success and the judges simply sat on it but as Bill Kinnard (sp), the general council said yesterday the FCC will win this case. She will decide this case sooner or later and if she decides in favor of Dunifer it will go to the court of appeals, the NAB will continue to support the commission and eventually the court of appeals will hold as every single court has ever done since 1927 that you have there is no right to put on a radio station without a license from the FCC. So again this is a growing interest on the part of the nab because we're getting a large number of complaints and we've been working very closely with the FCC to try to speed up and help their process along and we continue to have discussions with them about different ways in which that could be done but we are going to continue to work with them to try to nip this sudden spurt of pirate radio in the bud."

Announcer: "Okay, very good. Now we're going to open the floor up for questions now and take questions from the audience. I I'm just like to start off by asking a quick question of Beverly. You mentioned that there was about a hundred or well over a hundred pirate radio broadcasters estimated in the country. Is there any, do you have any kind of a feel for a particular geographic concentration of those I mean obviously there's a lot in San Francisco where they "

Baker: "Right. There are a lot in San Francisco there are quite a few in Florida. In Florida there are quite a few that are connected with the drug trade. These folks run a whole gamut. Some are just they they think it would be fun a nice hobby they get a transmitter and go on the air and they don't have a clue it's illegal. There are quite a few that are connected with the militia movement. Obviously they hate the federal government. I have some concern about sending an unarmed FCC agent up to the door of one of these place so we're cautious about the safety of our own agents when we deal with them but California and Florida there are some in Michigan there are some in the northeast. They pretty much spread all over the country."

Announcer: "Okay, thank you. Uh, front mike?"

Harold Halakinan: "And good morning I'm Harold Halakinan(sp) from San Luis Obispo, California, and there are several pirate radio stations in our area. One thing that's interesting of one of them is that they're providing more public service than any of the licensed stations. They're the only ones broadcasting a local city council meeting."

Baker: "Interesting."

Harold Halakinan: "There is of course no question that the stations are violating the law I think one of the traditional methods of challenging the law is to violate the law and take it to court and that appears to be what Mr. Dunifer has done. I have not heard exactly how the FCC has answered the constitutional questions other than saying that the Supreme Court has said through the years that there is no constitutional right to turn on a transmitter. It does appear that there could in the spectrum allocation process be a couple of channels set aside for unlicensed use with FCC approved transmitters on a non-interfering basis sort of an expansion of part 15 another area is this as Mr. Ruck mentioned the elimination of Class D stations and the lack of local origination on FM translators and I'm wondering if these FCC prohibitions are the least restrictive method of serving a legitimate government interest which I think is the first amendment quesiton Mr. Dunifer is pushing. Thankyou."

Baker: "Shall I start on that and then you pick up? The Supreme Court precedent one is a 1943 case, is it NBC?"

Unknown "Yes."

Baker: "There they make the obvious point that if everybody just goes on the air then there will be a massive amount of interference and the airwaves will be unuseable."

The first tape ends here. The second tape picks up with Baker speaking.

Baker: "...is no constitutional right because of the impossibility of having it operate that way. This was then dealt with again in 1969 in the Red Lion case. The points you raise are not entirely worthless points, it's worth thinking about. The FCC has considered whether we should have a lower power broadcasting service a couple of times. What the commission in its allocations for broadcasting has tried to do is to create the maximum number of outlets for the maximum number of people, and what they concluded I think the most recent time they considered this was that if you have a low-power station, 10 watts, you still have to as a matter of engineering and physics you still have to protect that station for what is it about 92 kilometers if you go up to 100 watts it only goes up to 116 kilometers so so a a low power station takes up quite a bit of space out of proportion to the power so in order to maximize the number of outlets the commission concluded that we should have a minimum power of about 100 watts. We considered this again when we looked at whether a translator station should be allowed to originate programming so we have looked at it fairly recently. Uh, if hypothetically I were not of the FCC and I were making the argument I might come in and say we ought to look at this another time. The landscape has changed. We no longer have the tax certificates for minority stations. We have the 1996 Communications Act that will allow much greater concentration in the media, isn't it possible that we should be taking another look at this just to insure an adequate number of voices. So it would not be a constitutional argument a constitutional argument is a bit of a loser it would be a public interest argument that the commission should consider what is new in the overall environment and make the public interest determination a different way. But that again as Jack pointed out should be in a petition for rule-making before the commission and so far we haven't gotten anything like that."

Jack Goodman: "Let me add a couple points. You suggested that the constitutional test that would be applied is that the commission must use the least restrictive means. I don't believe that's the test that would be applied here. The commission has very ample authority to balance a large number of interests, some of which are first amendment related others are not in terms of its licensing and as Beverly pointed out there is a tension in licensing. The commission could authorize the maximum number of people but a relatively small number of listeners could hear it because it could have very very low power stations only and have lots and lots of people having them but they wouldn't get very far. On the other hand it could take the position of the greatest efficiency and have very very few very high-powered stations. Again that would provide a great deal of service to a large number of people but would restrict the number of outlets. The commission has struck somewhat of a middle course and has balanced both and has provided a variety of stations. And I think it's instructive one of the points that Mr. Dunifer and others make is that Canada does have a licensed low power FM radio service and that is indeed true. But Canada also has only 334 licensed FM stations across the entire country. The number in the United States is in excess of 7200 licensed FM stations plus another 5000 plus licensed AM stations. So the notion that there's a shortage of radio in the United States is one that is really difficult to credit given there is far more radio available here on a per capita basis than there is anywhere in the country. But the issue is as Beverly says a legitimate one the NAB almost certainly would op posed the introduction of a low-power radio service we opposed the introduction of the low power television service and continue to believe the commission erred in doing so. But the issue is one that if Mr. Dunifer if someone wants to file a petition for rule-making the commission can address it and we will certainly come in and make our point. But it is not, as Beverly said, a constitutional issue."

Announcer: "Yes, in the rear mike."

Mark Krieker (sp) "Uh, My name is Mark Krieker I'm chief engineer at WGAR FM nationwide communications Cleveland Ohio and I'm also frequency coordinator for SBE Chapter 70 northeast Ohio. I have been well introduced to both sides of this argument.. My problem is and the problem for a lot of working folks out here is what to do with some of the pirates we have set up in our markets. I'll give you one example we have a nightclub in downtown Cleveland which has set up operation at 96.9. They have been on that frequency for about a year now, maybe a little over a year. They run 15 watts of power and they put out a substantial signal. I should also point out that while I've heard the argument by many pirate broadcasters that golly we're meticulous we're sharp enough to control our signals and we don't interfere this guy's answer to the fact that he cannot afford audio processing is to deviate approximately 200%. There are very few receivers you can even listen to the station on without getting gross clipping due to IF pass band limitations. So this guy's continue to operate we we we basically went to him as an SBE Chapter and asked him to cease operation some time ago about six to eight months ago. He responded by coming to one of our SBE meetings and lecturing us on why we should support him. At that point we turned the information over to the commission, the field office in Detroit and we do get occassionally get a phone call from Detroit asking oh, is he still on the air? Yes he is. Oh, okay. And to me you know I we expect a little bit more from the commission. At the same time I understand the arguemtns out in the community that there are a lot of people that feel that with the concentration of media that's taking place consolidation in the industry that community groups don't have a voice. That's a legitimate argument the problem is how are you going to regulate a low power service? I really think the best thing we can do is encourage these people to look at the internet as an alternate broadcast media and I think ultimately that's where we're going to find the answer."

Beverly Baker: "Good points. If you want to, uh, give me your business card afterwards I'll check up on your Cleveland problem."

Mark Krieker: "Incidentally we did call ASCAP."

Baker: "Oh, good."

Mark Krieker: "And mentioned to them that as long as they're going to set up operation they ought to pay licensing fees like the rest of us,so..."

Jack Goodman: "What did they tell you?"

Mark Krieker: "Oh, they were very interested. They took all the information and they were very interested in it."

Charles Townsend: "Uh, morning I'm Charles Townsend from the state of Florida's Division Communications and I have a couple comments some of them are state oriented some of them my own personal...in '93 we had some tourist killings back in Miami we were able to get a station on the air which is second adjacent channel to the station at Pompano, and uh, we run 25 watts ERP at 300 feet in downtown Miami. It's WAEM and its total purpose is public safety and tourist information it has a digital loop, it runs a maximum of five or six minutes in five languages. We have a Harris THE-1. The station is well-engineered and its been all the paperwork was sent to the commission after it was checked out. We spent about $25,000 on the station and about $70,000 in legal and engineering fees give you some idea of the scale of what we're into. We've done studies and reports on the station the second adjacent channel study proved that we cause no interference to stations some thirty miles away WMXJ Pompan o and I know that (UI) next and they did our engineering coordination on finding our frequency and such. We think we have a very good legitimate purpose for public safety which is our total slant from the state's point of view. We don't run music we don't run advertising it's totally for the benefit of the people. And surveys have showed from professional survey organizations that the station is appreciated and has worked out well with the sun symbol program on the highways and some things that the tourism bureau is doing in Miami. There are other uses that we would probably like to see and probably I don't make policy for the division but we've had inquiries we've had interest in our department which is management services management services oversees all the state buildings as far as rental and construction around the state and in our new office park about five miles out of Tallahassee in a very rural area we'd like to see a TIS type of operation on the FM band where we could put a 1/4 watt station of twnety feet for example get about 3 microvolts about 2000 feet up and down the highway to guide visitors and vendors and such coming in from the airport and the downtown area into this rural office park and help them find agencies addresses the capital, police and so forth. I talk to uh, yesterday, (UI) John DeVeccio over at the booth who put me onto this very interesting meeting. Apparently there's a dearth of legitimate equipment out there, people that claim to have legitimate equipment perhaps don't because it's never been type accepted notified or otherwise. What we're thinking of and I guess this is my personal comment is there would be a perhaps a minimal power service very much like the TIS service where your eligibility is controlled. You have to be, uh, meet certain criteria antenna heights power you might have to be an educational institution or a government agency you don't run advertising you don't run music, so forth. The (UI) local services have constraints such as 20 foot rule and height he ight and power and AATR now a consideration when you go for your filings through APCO or through neighbor(sp, probably an acronym). Whatever neighbor's called now. And there is a way to do it there's a way we think to file put yourself on paper you agree to the rules you agree to the principles you sign the bottom line and you are therefore at least notifying the commission or you may like a TIS and get a license in which there is actually some engineering study done then you go out and you check your results you cut your power back if your contour is too hot at the perimeter. These are things that I think that could be maybe worked out and I think that our agency if the commission were interested or others we might be able to work out something where we could use our engineering expertise to come up with something, experiments in this area in the under one watt half watt area and look at something like this that would be developed that would be easy to administrate and yet you are bound by the rules and you agree when you sign at the bottom line that you want to do this. And I understand there has been some input to the commission, uh, not a whole lot in petitions to do this sort of thing."

Beverly Baker: "Has there been a petition filed to, um...?"

Charles Townsend: "We are just getting in, uh, with WAEM it served its purpose for the tourism people and the tourists to my knowledge no one's filed a petition for rule-making and the other instance we're just getting into the area of interest of maybe being able to talk people through an office park or something like this and nothing's been done we haven't even we have that's why we need some experimentation you can sit down with the computer all day long play with the numbers but we would like to see what multi-path and other things do at that power level within an office complex."

Baker: "That's a very interesting idea, and it is possible in some instances to get an experimental license through the office of engineering and technology at the FCC. I don't know if this would be an appropriate case or not."

Charles Townsend: "The one in Miami is an experimental and we were subject to the graces of the commission on that it comes up again in May. I'm trying to avoid the experimental area because of the need to perform a long-term experiment now in the case of establishing the service an experiment might be very appropriate. Yeah, I would agree with that."

Announcer: "If I could just make a quick statement here that for those of you coming in for the grandfather short space session uh, we're going to get to that in a moment I just want to give an opportunity to ask the remaining questions they have for pirate radio. I think Dick had something he didn't get to say."

Dick Burton: "What is the problem with the present TIS in your opinion."

Charles Townsend: "Okay. TIS. We filed a through part 90 for TIS over in St. Augustine there was a state park and the thing about TIS is first of all there one of the things is it covers too much. The coverage for example Florida State University's got one on 530 AM it far it more than covers the campus. It covers at least halfway across town you can read it. And we don't want to cover than kind of area we just need to cover about a radius of about our say our office park 2000 a few thousand feet."

Dick Burton: "Okay."

Charles Townsend: "That's one reason."

Beverly Baker: "Interesting."

Dick Burton: "You know one of the things that I've found at least in TIS in my my travels is that you're allowed to milivolts in one and a half kilometers. Lot of these things are not measured. They're supposed to be you have sixty days after you get this in to get it measured a lot of these are not as presented they are running more power in some cases transmitter run more you're allowed ten watts but they run ten watts and it gives you maybe two or three times what you're allowed. I've had to back a number of these things back. So that's one problem and you you still a little hundred miliwatt will do a number of things for you, too."

Charles Townsend: "It probably would on AM. But if you're in a rental car fact I have a Chevrolet I got over here at the airport it took me quite a while to find the light switch it's backwards it's totally different now you picture yourself you're trying to drive through traffic you're trying to find an address you're trying to find the AM-FM button on a digitally tuned radio and then you have to find 530 or 1610. You're (UI) you have the handful."

Dick Burton: "You could do it on any area in the broadcast band just like you your, your FM."

Charles Townsend: "Right, I understand I talked to John yesterday about that. Yes."

Dick Burton: "Yeah. But there's no reason why you couldn't put a TIS and then back it down. If you had- if you wanted to."

Charles Townsend: "We could we possibly could do that, but the problem is that the clari- we think for my own personal point of you know the clarity and performance of FM there's no question of the way it performs over AM with the ignition noise and everything else and uh..."

Announcer: "Perhaps, perhaps we could uh, perhaps we could (UI) after the session."

Dick Burton: "We're getting onto your next session, I'm apologize for taking up so much of your time."

Announcer: "I'll take the rear mike."

Beverly Baker: "Thanks for the interesting idea, though."

Barry Thomas: "Barry Thomas, KYLD Evergreen Media in San Francisco. Couple real quick points, um, that one, I think Mark had a good point in that the FCC is constantly being pers-or increasingly being perceived as a tiger without teeth. In that enforcement is down and in the past ten years, any sort of, um, litigation and fining has always been tied up ten to twenty years or so, and been reduced every step of the ways so it's the, the agency itself is perceived as having no power and less and less a, jurisdiction, so that's going to be an issue that's going to increase the proliferation of pirates, the other thing is the more commercial radio stations and the large groups my own included parlay to a more commercial mandate in deference to their public mandate we're going to see a continual increase in these pirate FMs to serve the local mandate, the local interest."

Announcer: "Okay, let's go back to this since you already has a chance, go back to the back rear mike."

Neil Langer: "Hello, my name is Neil Langer I'm a consultant engineer in Vermont and this is just close to pirate radio but it's a chance to speak to Beverly from the FCC. I understand as also a ham radio operator that there are some frequencies there that the FCC's thinking of changing or taking away from the ham radio operators. And without going to long extents on what a good group of people they are, um, some of them probably use that as their outlet, it's the best citizen-controlled use of some radio bands and I hate to see it taken away from them. I'll keep my comments short to that since it's late."

Beverly Baker: "Okay. I've been dealing with the hams for years and I am well aware of the contributions to radio made by the amateur operators."

Jack Goodman(?): "Let me just point out that the FCC if we're referring to the same spectrum we are, that wasn't the FCC's decision it was Congress's decision and it was done without a great deal of thought, unfortunately."

Announcer: "Gee, what a surprise. Uh, Harold."

Harold (Halakinan?): "I'm sorry to take more of your time, I just wanted to point out that the gentleman's part 90 TIS question, and also the possibility of answering constitutional questions and so on could all be handled through an existing low power FM radio service called FM translators if local origination were allowed. So, final comment, thankyou."

Beverly Baker: "Alright. That of course is the decision as just 1993 where the commission decided not to do that and...."

(?) "And we we weren't going to play with words, Harold, but a FM translator with local origination is essentially a class D station. So I mean, you can call what you want to but it's basically a class D station. Or it used to be called a class D station."

Announcer: "Front mike?"

Craig Fox: "My name is Craig Fox I'm from Syracuse, NY, as a broadcaster I generally don't have a problem with pirates as long as they don't cause interference or get ratings or revenue, and generally if they do cause interference I track them down, explain to them why they're causing interference and suggest that they move to another frequency which they usually do, um, same thing with overmodulation or being off frequency or things like that. But my main question is that, well, two things, I find a lot of colleges where groups in colleges are starting what they consider to be limited power AM stations but in fact are broadcasting and think what they're doing is legitimate and as long as they don't cause interference they believe that it's okay and I think there should be some consideration for colleges like that. The other thing that's springing up in a lot of places are malls that are doing mall radio stations and I see them advertising as you drive into the mall to listen to a certain frequency I've heard some of these stations that cover miles, that have miles of coverage. And a mall seems to be almost a legitimate kind of a thing that there should be something enacted in the rules to allow them to promote features that are happening different things like that and I was wondering if there was any consideration for that."

Beverly Baker: "There's there's nothing pending now that would do that but, but you really, you make the point that there are just all kinds of of uses, all kinds of unlicensed operation that's going on now, not all of, not all of these people wear the black eyepatch that, uh, Bill Ruck had on earlier."

Announcer: "Yeah, I think also that's one of the things that LPB sells, that uh, Dick Burton's company works with is a low power, legal low power licensed equipment. I'm going to have to uh, I'll take another couple of questions but I'm going to have to cut this off say at ten twenty-five so we can get on to grandfathered short space stations. Let's go to the front mike here."

Norwood Patterson: "I came in just a little bit early to get the second program that hasn't started yet, but I'm really glad I did. I find this very very interesting. My name is Norwood Patterson I'm a consulting engineering and our family has been in the radio business prior to the FCC's foundation in 1934. My father got his first station in 1933 under the old federal radio commission. I must come to the defense of the FCC. We have worked with them we have had legal stations many of them within our family one of themis in the San Luis Obispo area i have to take offense to Mr. Halakinan I'm sure we do a lot more public service for the community than does a pirate radio. My point is the commission does a very good job and they've got many rules that every one of these people who've come up here could go through the rule-making process and get their ideas heard and explored very thoroughly and there's many provisions that could be used that would satisfy the pirate radio presently in the present rules. It might take a basic station and then some translators or other things but there's many ways I feel in many instances it's a lack of education to the people in private radio in some instances in other instances they just want to break the law and it doesn't make any difference what the law is. But I still must come to the aid of the FCC they do a great job and I'll say one thing, you don't want to get them to jump on you with their four feet because they jump really hard when they do."

Beverly Baker: "Thank you very much."

Announcer: "Okay I'll take the right mike and then the back and that'll be it."

Ed Buchan: "Everybody keeps mentioning, you know, ITS or some other low power services and maybe there is a public need but this idea of mall radio? You know okay maybe we're not covering maybe some commercial broadcasters don't do their public service but to allow a mall to operate a commercial radio station cause they don't want to pay the freight on the commercial station that that would be that would serve no purpose other than to drive the commercial radio broadcasters out of business I think we're doing a pretty good job of serving that, uh, market right now. Sorry I didn't introduce myself I'm sorry Ed Buchan(sp) with WWZZ. I I I hope the commission isn't thinking along the lines of allowing low power you know mall broadcasters that would seem to me to be very clearly a pirate thing something designed to make a profit off of not participating legally in the broadcast marketplace unlike the folks who are claiming to provide a public service."

Beverly Baker: "We don't have anything pending now, uh, nobody has filed a petition with us that, uh, that's come up yet, uh, but you know think about what's what's happening in the next few years with the switch to digital over the next however long it will take, 2006, it opens up a tremendous number of possibilities for other things that one can do with spectrum that will be freed up. It might be that a lot of the ideas that are presented today could be considered at that time."

Unknown: "Absolutely."

Announcer: "Okay, great. Rear mike?"

Gary Smith: "Gary Smith Trumper Communications out of Salt Lake City. The FCC has provided ample means whereby a mall may use a radio to broadcast their information regarding their mall also for broadcast of sports events within arenas and things like that and it's all covered under the tunnel radio rules. Mr. Burton manufactures the equipment that does a very adequate job of donig that. The provision is is that the radiated signal may not leave the building or the quote unquote tunnel. And a careful study of the rules will show that it is very very possible to provide an indoor inside the mall or inside the arena coverage and stay perfectly within the confines of the rules. So if there are those not doing that they need to review what they're doing and get their act together. That's all I have."

Beverly Baker: "Thanks."

Well if I could just, uh, I Beverly you may may be oable to help me out on this but I believe a building is not considered a tunnel doesn't a tunnel have to be surrounded by earth or some sort of a..."

Beverly Baker: "Do we have actually have a service that operates only in tunnels under the ground."

Unknown: "Yeah, under part 15 there is a tunnel radio service."

Beverly Baker: "I don't know, beats me."

Unknown: "The answer but if I could interrupt here the tunnel radio service doesn't define the tunnel has having to be surrounded by earth it only provides it be in a closed structure, and uh, providing that the uh radiation does not leave the structure it can qualify under the tunnel radio rule as..."

Unknown: "(UI) stronger than the tunnel."

Unknown: "Mr. Ron Rackley at Dutrail and Rackley is helped us in securing those services when they're been needed."

Bill Ruck: "One can also though like for a drive-in church or drive-in theater as long as the signal meets perfecting regulations at the edge of your property line you can do you can even have something in your parking lot the key is it has to be engineered well so that when you drive into the mall parking lot or into the church parking lot or whatever area which is then becomes private property, uh, as long as inside of that you can exceed part 15 it's your property line which you have to watch for. Many people can do this and do it legally and do it effectively but in many many cases you have people they go to the building engineer he looks it up in a catalogue and he buys it and turns it on and he has no idea what field strength is TIS is a prime example of how that is abused because most TIS stations aren't measured, they're just turned on."

Announcer: "Okay, thank you very much, very informative panel."

END OF PANEL