Re: "blank" signal question (was: WPAA...)

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

No, what they're doing is indeed illegal - although it's not ever 
proactively enforced by the FCC.  Someone must complain first, and I'm sure 
many have complained about WPAA to no effect (they produced our sitting 
President, why should they answer to the FCC...I'm told that's their attitude).

I imagine they also lack any positive transmitter control, either.  That's 
equally illegal, and I wouldn't be surprised if their EAS is way out of 
whack as well, which is highly illegal.  But again, money talks and the FCC 
shuts up.

WMFO also was leaving their transmitter on regardless of programming or not 
b/c they never paid their engineer to set up their Gentner VRC2500 for 
them.  During my time as Operations Director I repeatedly warned them about 
this to no avail...although I did rig up a simple means by which they could 
turn it on with a phone after a (frequent during the summer) power outage, 
but not turn it off.  After a year of this and seeing the handwriting on 
the wall...I got out of WMFO.  Turns out a few months later the FCC made a 
surprise visit and was not pleased.  WMFO got a Notice of Apparent 
Liability and a nasty four-figure fine but last I heard (which was 
recently) they got the fine dropped in light of their relatively quick 
(less than six months) action to get the problems corrected.  So it turned 
out to be a good thing, although I'm sure it scared a lot of people in the 
process; at least it got the problems fixed.

On a related note, the FCC grants a lot of leeway for non-commercial, 
education stations like WPAA to go dark (not dead carrier) a lot...they can 
go off without having to notify the FCC for all college campus break 
periods...including the entire summer...if they wish.  However, if a 
station is not meeting their minimum of 12 hours daily of programming - 
regardless of their non-comm status - then by default the FCC encourages 
them to enter an LMA with another entity (usually another, professional-run 
public radio station) to provide programming.  But they are not required to 
enter an LMA if they don't want to.   However, if another entity can prove 
they've attempted to enter an LMA and the parties cannot reach an 
agreement, and the outside entity can prove the station is not meeting 
their 12 hours daily requirement (and it helps if the station is not 
meeting other requirements - like EAS - as well).....then at license 
renewal time (2006 for Massachusetts stations) the station can indeed be 
forced to enter an LMA.

However, that's exceedingly rare...the FCC takes a dim view of an outside 
entity forcing a takeover of a license at renewal time.  Still, I have a 
suspicion that with the political pressure from LPFM...and the mass amounts 
of money from religious broadcasters...there are a few small Class A 
non-comm's that are gonna find themselves in hot water come license renewal 
time; no doubt many groups are going to attempt to force themselves into an 
LMA with the slacker stations.  Many high schools stations especially, 
since they frequently only broadcast on weekdays, and only them for 2 or 3 
hours in the morning, and 4 or 5 hours in the afternoon/early-evening.

Frankly, I also expect WBUR will attempt a "friendly takeover" on at least 
one or two Rhode Island non-comm FM's so they can get a FM primary to feed 
translators with for their WRNI programming.   Personally I don't view it 
as a bad thing...there are many smaller college stations across the country 
that benefit greatly from association with a larger public radio 
outlet.  Hell, right in our backyard we have WSDH and WCCT on the Cape 
doing just that with WBUR.



FWIW, WERS, until recently, used to go "dead carrier" from 3am to 6am every 
night (now they have an Enco Automation system supplying programming) but 
they have positive transmitter control, proper unattended-operation EAS 
procedures, and there was a CD that had one track, 60 minutes long, that 
just said "WERS, Boston" and then lots of silence.   It was because they 
have paying subcarrier customers so they needed the bare minimum to keep 
the main carrier live.

- Aaron


At 12:39 PM 7/28/2003, Mission Control wrote:
>Have the rules relaxed so much that leaving a transmitter on, without 
>progam material, is allowed? Are the stations that do such a thing, at 
>least putting out a legal ID at the top of the hour? (The last two days of 
>'COZ come to mind). Can these stations be grieved?
>
>Mike
>
> >snip<
>
>Since the end of June, they have been doing the same thing WPAA Andover MA 
>- Phillips Andover does, sending out a "blank" signal, but not "turning 
>off" the transmitter. I'd be willing to bet that the Exeter NH 90.5 signal 
>(Forget calls) for Philips Exeter is doing the same thing.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA