REC History - 2012

Now that the Local Community Radio Act has been passed, it's time to get down to business and work towards implementing it.
Much of REC's contribution to the LPFM community in 2012 was related to the Federal Communications Commission's proposed rulemking to implement the LCRA. REC worked with other LPFM advocacy entities such as Prometheus Radio Project and Common Frequency to address the many shortcomings of the FCC's "grid" proposal for handling the protection of LPFM opportunities in urbanized areas for which the FCC accepted in part. REC, Prometheus and Common Frequency all worked together to support the implementation of a 50 watt LPFM service as a solution for urban areas that can not obtain LP-100 channels. The FCC decided to defer the implementation of 50 watt (and 250 watt) LPFM and would consider it on a separate rulemaking.
REC made itself a party in the Petition for Reconsideration filed by several translator applicants who were protesting the "one to a market" rule and translator giant Educational Media Foundation who was protesting the nationwide "50-cap". REC took a common sense approach to the translator cap by recognizing that Arbitron boundaries extend well beyond the urbanized areas and to restrict additional translators in rural parts of an Aribtron county was unreasonable. REC opposed EMF's Petition for Reconsideration and supported a national "50-cap". The FCC ended up expanding the per-market cap to 3 applications with additional restrictions and the national cap to 70 with additional restrictions.
REC was successful in removing burdens facing student-operated LPFM applicants at institutions that already have a full-power FM station that is not sutident-operated. Under REC's proposal, which the FCC accepted, student-operated LPFM applicants will no longer be automatically dismissed if there are competiting applications. Instead, student-operated LPFM stations will compete for points and may enter into time sharing agreements. We consider this one of REC's biggest LPFM victories.
REC introduced a limited offering of RECPRO, a text-based broadcast reference tool that included REC's channel search and query functions as well as other services not available through the web services.
REC also introduced myLPFM.com, a complete revision to the traditional REC LPFM Channel Search Tool. myLPFM allows users to set up accounts and save locations, offers more robust searching features than the old tool and a whole new layout.
For Prometheus Radio Project, REC designed and implemented a ZIP Code Search Tool for their website as well as provided consulting services on their RFREE Search Tool.
For the first time in REC's history, REC founder Michi Eyre gave presentations at the annual Grassroots Radio Conference.
J1 launches J1-HD, a 96K "high-definition" version of J1 Radio.
"Hikari e" by Miwa was the top single on J1 for the year 2012.