Low power FM radio (LPFM), or "microradio" refers to 10 watt or 100 watt stations the FCC expects to license in the coming year and a half. LPFM stations would be located throughout the FM band, initially licensed only to local, community-based and nonprofit entities.

LPFM stations will be noncommercial and inexpensive - an alternative to the often homogeneous, non-controversial, non-local programming that dominates the airwaves today. With signals best suited for narrow casting to neighborhoods or small cities, the potential uses of LPFM are limited only by the ingenuity of LPFM applicants.

Here are a few:

• local radio service to small cities, large and small towns, and neighborhoods
• information to union members at a large plant
• discussion about controversial issues
• music, culture and nontraditional formats not heard on "top 40" or NPR
• languages not heard on full power stations
• training students or community residents in radio broadcast techniques
• church services to shut-ins

Congress recently passed legislation that will limit the number of low power radio licenses that the FCC will be able to issue. I'm currently working with LPFM applicants on this and other legal issues. You can visit the NLG Center on Democratic Communications (CDC) Web site for the most up-to-date information on LPFM.

Low Power FM and Microradio Links

• The Center for Democratic Communications of the National Lawyers Guild (CDC)
• Federal Communications Commission LPFM Web site
• Media Access Project (MAP)
• The Microradio Implementation Project
• National Federation of Community Broadcasters
• Prometheus Radio Project