Re: School Stations -WSPS,Concord

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>1. Are school-owned/operated stations exempt from public service
>regs,EEO,EAS,etc etc if they are more than the old 10w class D's? Do
>they need public files?

All stations, school-owned or not, non-commercial or otherwise, have to
follow the FCC's EEO regs and file an annual report on same.  Even if you
don't have employees, you still have to file the report.

EAS requirements may be exempted for smaller stations; however, such stations
have to sign off and drop carrier in the event of a "national emergency"
(whatever that's supposed to mean these days...).

Public service regs are actually more stringent for all NCE stations than
their commercial counterparts, with quarterly reports that have to be placed
in the station's public file - and yes, they're all required to have those
too.

>2. Is a dead carrier legal (assuming you legally identified it)?

If they actually do insert a legal ID on the hour, then technically, having
a dead carrier the rest of the time may actually be legal, though I'm not
100% certain of this.  Of course, if an NCE station did do this, they'd
have a bear of a time trying to do the above-mentioned quarterly public
service reports, unless they can somehow justify dead air as being relevant
to the community... :-)

>3. What can I as a private citizen or us as a group do to force the FCC
>to stop this total waste of bandwidth and re-direct (read:auction) :( it
>to someone who will use it for its intended purpose-besides sending the
>FCC tapes,which I've done.

Very little.  The FCC doesn't seem to have the bandwidth to deal with
technical requirements these days.  Occasionally, on a whim, they might
choose to do station inspections and such - maybe if you worded your
complaint to say, "This non-use of bandwidth is an obscenity," then
maybe they'd investigate them for using bad language. ;-)  Maybe others
writing with the same complaint might get them to move - hard to say.

Of course, you do realize that if the station in question is located
in the 88-92 MHz range on the FM dial, any new owner would also have to
run it as a non-commercial station.

- -Shawn Mamros
Comptroller, WMBR Cambridge MA 88.1 FM
E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu

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