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Graham Brock, Inc. |
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Broadcast Technical Consultants |
| Vol. XII, No. 3 |
R. Stuart Graham, Jr. |
| March 2005 |
Jefferson G. Brock |
| Digital Radio or High Definition radio continues to
move forward. The FCC has recently issued a Public
Notice regarding multiple audio streams within stations’
digital radio transmissions. National Public Radio
(“NPR”) has been experimenting with two separate audio
channels within some of its stations’ Digital streams
and has asked the Commission to allow more widespread
use of this expanded system. However, the FCC, has
indicated that, while it will allow the use of secondary
audio channels, the authorization will be an
Experimental Authorization. Requests for this
authorization can be made in letter form on an informal
basis, with no associated filing fee. |
| Several dozen groups of television stations have
submitted proposed Negotiated Channel Elections for
stations in various parts of the country. These
proposed channel selections are intended to make the
final transition more orderly in the cities
involved. These agreements will be factored into the
Commission’s review of the channels selected by all
TV stations that submitted a channel request during
the first round of elections (for those stations
with both in-core analog and digital channels).
These Negotiated Channel Elections will be reviewed
for interference issues, and could be rejected by
the Commission if found to interfere with stations
not party to the agreement. |
| AM Applications Dismissed |
| The FCC has dismissed fifty-four pending AM
applications which were originally submitted in
January 2004, during the last AM major
change/new application window. These
applications were found not to cause
interference to, or receive interference from,
any other application filed in the same window,
and thus were deemed singletons. The applicants
were to submit a formal, complete Form 301
application. However, in the case of these
fifty-four proposals, no complete applications
were submitted and the original applications
were dismissed. |
| As part of the Commission’s license
renewal process for radio and television
stations, an updated radio frequency
analysis must be made prior to submitting
the renewal application. For radio stations,
this generally requires reviewing the
station’s licensed facility using the RF
worksheet. If the licensee can certify
compliance with the worksheet, nothing
further is required. However, TV stations,
and radio stations located on TV towers,
can’t use the worksheets nor can the
worksheets be used to show compliance when
multiple radio stations are co-located on
short towers. In these cases a more detailed
review is needed and compliance can be
determined using specific frequency and
antenna data. In rare cases, actual on-site
measurements are needed to show compliance.
Do not wait until the last minute to begin
this review, as your station will be one
among many filing for license renewal. |
| It’s time once again to spring west
(at least for us) to visit Las Vegas for
the NAB convention. Stu and Jeff will be
in Las Vegas from Saturday afternoon
until Wednesday morning. Please let
either of them know if you would like to
meet while you are attending the
convention. |
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