|
Graham Brock, Inc. |
|
Broadcast Technical Consultants |
| Vol. XIV, No. 2 |
R. Stuart Graham, Jr. |
| February 2007 |
Jefferson G. Brock |
|
The first date AM and FM commercial stations could
submit applications to change their communities of
license was January 19, and 147 applications were
submitted. The expected large rush of first day filers
did not materialize. There were also four non-commercial
applications filed that sought to change their city of
license; however, as indicated in a previous newsletter,
these applications cannot be officially submitted until
the Form 340 application is revised, which will be
sometime in March 2007. Hopefully, now that changes of
community of license will become more routine, it will
become a shorter process. As of this date the proposed
FCC website listing all applications filed for changes
of community of license is not yet available. |
The first FM auction of the year ended in late
January. The highest price, $1,109,000, was for the
Kihei, Hawaii channel, which was well above the
initial amount of $90,000 set by the FCC. The lowest
was $43,000 for an FM channel in Outlook, Montana.
Auction 70 will be in March, and there are 120
channels on the block. |
|
Last month the FCC issued a Public Notice in
which they dismissed some of the AM applications
submitted in January 2004 for failing to submit
engineering resolutions, settlement agreements,
or Section 307(b) showings. In all, 162
applications were dismissed. In some cases,
these dismissals may eliminate some of the
mutually exclusive filings, leaving some
applications as singletons. |
|
In the last several weeks there have been many
FCC notices of fines from failure to file timely
renewal applications, inoperable or no EAS
systems, AM tower fencing issues, Antenna
Structure Registration issues, and RF exposure
compliance. An AM station was fined $6,000 for
failing to keep the base of its tower secured to
prevent access. The station argued that a
portion of the access was effectively blocked by
a swamp, due to tides. However, the FCC noted
that the swamp was not an absolute barrier, and
that a fence was needed. An LPTV station located
atop a building was inspected by the FCC six
times over a period of more than six months. In
the initial inspection, the inspector determined
there was insufficient warning signs of RF
levels on the roof and insufficient instructions
to persons having access to the roof to warrant
controlled access values. There were also some
non-compliant hot spots on the roof, primarily
caused by the LPTV station. The licensee took
some steps to remedy the issues; however, after
many inspections, the inspector felt that the
licensee did not take enough steps to remedy the
problems and fined the station $25,000 for
failure to comply with the RF exposure
regulations. |
|
Going to the NAB in April |
|
It is just two months until the annual spring
trek to the desert for the NAB Convention in Las
Vegas where Stu and Jeff will be in attendance.
If you or your station personnel will be there,
Jeff and Stu would welcome the opportunity to
get together, but don’t wait until the last
minute to schedule. |
|
|
|
