Re: when are legal IDs supposed to be done?

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@erols.com>]

Garrett writes:
> The specific rule is to be found at 47 CFR 73.1201, which is quoted
at
> <http://www.bostonradio.org/radio/legal-id.html>.  Stations are
> required to identify ``hourly, as close to the hour as feasible, at
a
> natural break'' in programming, as well as at every sign-on
and -off.

Reading the rule further, it's interesting to note that it's okay to
inject the dial position and/or license holder in between the calls
and the COL.  Seems rare to hear a station split the two, however.
I'd think that a station, trying to bury its COL, might opt to try
something other than whispering the COL and lung-ing it's ADI goal, or
string of them.  It would muddy up the reference to the COL and remain
legal at the same time without all that painful itching and bloating.
In OH and WV (we'll be back there soon) I noted many multi-city IDs.
That is less common here, it seems, now that the rule is not fresh
from the printers any longer.

Ex.  WMGG Gallipolis(OH) Huntington, Charleston (WV), Ashland, Ironton
(KY), Point Pleasant (WV).  (Pull eze)  They're 105.5 MHz, 50 kW with
a 3 kW synchronous repeater licensed to Huntington (about 45 mins.
away).  Havn't heard them ID the repeater, but who's counting.  It's
on my list to check out WBGS (1030 Point Pleasant, WV, 1 kW D, PSSA)
to see if they're sticking to their allotment.  In the past, I'd
noticed the (fairly recent drop-in) station running very late,
disallowing me the chance to hear of news back home on WBZ, 800 linear
miles away.  I made a call to the station one late evening to inquire
and the guy who answered the phone at the station seemed to devolve
into exuding flop-sweat (unless the roof was leaking in the
background) as I expanded upon my interest in hearing the clear
channel station the way nature intended.  (I may have been out of line
as the sunset time out there on the west end of ET is about and hour
later than here.)

Bill O'Neill

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