Radio stations to be located in Waterville?

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:59:55 -0500, "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@verizon.net> said:

> I think I understand the principle, but Fairfield and Skowhegan are two
> distinctly separate towns.  And in this case, neither the studio nor the
> transmission tower are in Fairfield.  I can see how a station might be
> grandfathered (e.g., WTAG's place of license is Worcester, though the
> transmitter has long been in Holden and the studios are now in Paxton), but
> how does the definition apply regarding WCTB?   (I'm a layman.)     -Doug

Before the rulemaking was done to add a 93.5 in Fairfield, there were
no stations licensed to Fairfield.  (Where their studios or
transmitters are has no bearing.)  Therefore, the proposed 93.5 was a
"first local service" to Fairfield.  I don't know if there were any
mutually-exclusive rulemaking petitions at the same time, but if they
were, the Fairfield petition would have trumped a request for a second
(or third or ...) channel in any other community.

An applicant for a construction permit is required to show that the
principal community ("city-grade") contour of the station encompasses
the community of license, however defined, and the legal main studio
must be located within 25 miles of the community, or within the
principal community contour.  (Or, in cases other than the ones we are
discussing, with the principal community contour of any other
broadcast station, in any class of service, licensed to the same
community.)

For example, go to
<http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_sear.htm> and
search for facility ID 26388.  You'll see as the very first thing on
the list of applications WFMX's filing to modify its construction
permit for an upgrade to class C2, filed at the end of October.  Click
on "Application" and scroll down to the "Comprehensive Engineering
Exhibit".  Open it (it's a PDF file) and look at Figure 1 on page 3.
The dark green line is the proposed new city-grade contour; note how
Skowhegan is called out as "community of license" on the map, showing
that it is within the contour.  (Thanks to WTOS-FM, WFMX's studio
could be almost anywhere in central Maine.)

-GAWollman