Radio’s Journal of Record since 1984 — now online & updated daily at www.TheRadioJournal.com
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Scott Fybush - Editor
[email protected]
KSIQ makes its San Diego move. Cherry Creek Radio’s westward move of KSIQ, Brawley, CA (96.1) became a
reality last week when the station turned off its class B facility in the rural Imperial Valley, 100 miles east of San
Diego, ending three decades as a small-market top-40 station. KSIQ’s new facility is a San Diego rimshot, running
25-kw/102’ as a B1 licensed to Campo, CA, in eastern San Diego County. But that new signal, which began testing
last week, isn’t the way most San Diegans will hear the relocated KSIQ – it also has a CP for a 700-watt on-channel
booster atop Mount San Miguel, southeast of San Diego. It’s expected to be on the air sometime next month with a
permanent format.
FCC knocks down “interstate” argument, upholds pirate fine in Texas. For decades now, pirate radio operators
have challenged the FCC’s authority to regulate broadcasts that don’t cross state lines – and while nobody’s ever
won a case on those grounds, it hasn’t stopped people from trying. The latest challenge came from Jerry and
Deborah Stevens of Austin, Texas, who were busted by the FCC last August for unlicensed operation on 90.1.
They fought a proposed $10,000 fine, and last week the FCC upheld the forfeiture, arguing that section 301 of the
Communications Act of 1934 “explicitly sets forth the Commission’s jurisdiction over all radio transmissions, both
interstate and intrastate.” But the Stevenses aren’t backing down in their battle against the Commission; instead,
they’re turning to Texas courts in an attempt to keep the FCC off their backs —
+A suit against an FCC resident agent. The Stevenses are just two of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in November
against FCC agent Steven Lee. They’re joined by former Travis County sheriff Raymond Frank, who’s also been fined
for unlicensed operation on 90.1 in the Austin area. They’re claiming that there isn’t “any restriction on broadcasting
within the state of Texas,” and that the $10,000 NAL against them was a form of “retaliation” for their attempts to
question Lee’s authority to cite them. That’s not all: their suit claims that the FCC is “an instrument of oppression and
treasonous intrusion into the affairs of the state of Texas.” They want the FCC permanently enjoined from enforcing
its rules against them. The case has already been moved from state court to federal court, and the FCC has asked
the court to remove agent Lee as an individual defendant.
WFUV finishes its antenna project. It’s been a long struggle for Fordham University’s WFUV, New York (90.7)
to cover the city with a usable signal. A long fight with neighbors at the New York Botanical Garden over a nevercompleted new tower ended in 2006 with a move to a different site, a new tower atop a Montefiore Medical Center
building in the Bronx. But the 10-bay antenna that went up there never quite lived up to expectations, either – and
now WFUV has replaced it with a new six-bay Shively that’s reportedly producing improved results. WFUV already
uses one on-channel booster, atop Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, to reach listeners on the west side of
Manhattan; it’s now wrapping up a fundraising campaign to begin construction of a second on-channel booster near
Herald Square, aimed at listeners in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Just down the NYC FM dial, a long-delayed coda to 9/11. Out of the four FM stations that were operating from
the World Trade Center on that fateful morning more than eight years ago, only one – Clear Channel’s WKTU, Lake
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Success, NY (103.5) – was relicensed for operation on the Empire State Building fairly quickly, in 2003. Two others,
SBS’ WPAT-FM, Paterson, NJ (93.1) and public broadcaster WNYC-FM (93.9), also moved to Empire at full power,
but issues with short-spacing have kept them operating under Special Temporary Authority ever since. One more
station, Columbia University’s WKCR (89.9), moved to the city’s other master FM facility at 4 Times Square, where it’s
also been operating under STA. That changed last week, when the FCC finally granted WKCR a license for its 1350watt/932’ B1 facility at 4 Times Square. That’s more power at a lower height than the old Trade Center facility, where
WKCR ran 630 watts/1420’.
WAMD, adieu. For more than half a century, WAMD, Aberdeen, MD (970) was the small-town AM voice for Harford
County, a half-hour northeast of Baltimore. But its days were numbered when Salem Communications bought the
station last year, dialing back its power (to just 300 watts daytime, 500 watts at night) to clear the way for a power
increase at co-owned WNYM, Hackensack, NJ (970), which now puts out a 50,000-watt day signal over New York City.
As of last Sunday, WAMD is history – Salem has closed it down and put the license up for sale.
North Dakota’s tall tower loses a world record. From 1963 until 1974, and again since the collapse of an even taller
tower in Poland in 1991, the honor of “tallest man-made structure in the world” belonged to the 2063-foot guyed tower
of Fargo, North Dakota’s KVLY-TV (Channel 11). But that mighty tower (actually located near Blanchard, some 30
miles north of Fargo) lost that distinction last week with the completion of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. At 2717
feet, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest structure ever built on Earth, and its website says the tower has “communications
and broadcast” facilities on its 156th through 160th floors, just below its spire, though it’s not clear whether any radio or
TV stations are actually broadcasting there yet—
+So what’s the tallest radio tower? The very tallest guyed towers in the US – the KVLY-TV tower, the nearby KXJBTV tower at 2060’, and the 2049’ KXTV/KOVR candelabra south of Sacramento, California – have no radio on them.
But among the more than 20 guyed towers tied for fourth place at exactly 2000’ are several with FM antennas mounted
on them, and a handful built specifically for FM stations: WDVW-KYRK tower midway between New Orleans and Baton
Rouge; Liberman Broadcasting’s KNOR (93.7) tower north of Dallas; Cumulus’ KHJK (103.7) tower outside of Houston
and most recently, Perry Broadcasting’s KVSP-FM (103.5) tower south of Oklahoma City. And there are several more
big FM-only towers scattered from the Carolinas to Texas that also fall in that “2,000-foot” class, though the tape
measure puts them just a few feet shy of that exact mark.
Tower move for a northwest Indiana public broadcaster. Lakeshore Public Broadcasting’s WLPR-FM, Lowell, IN
(89.1) has been operating as a 2.4-kw/253’ class A signal from the tower of commercial station WXRD, Crown Point
(103.9) – but it’s applying to move from that leased location to the nearby tower of WYIN-DT, which Lakeshore owns.
From there, WLPR would gain antenna height and reduce power, going to 600 watts/886’ with a directional antenna
and picking up some additional coverage to the north, in the most populous parts of Lake County, east of Chicago.
Tower worker faces a big fine for California wildfire. Last week, we told you about Crawford Broadcasting’s plans
to move KBRT, Avalon, CA (740) from remote Catalina Island to the southern California mainland – a move driven,
at least in part, by the problems the station has had with island residents after a 2007 wildfire that was sparked by a
contract tower crew replacing guy wires on a KBRT tower. Crawford wasn’t responsible for the blaze, which did millions
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of dollars in damage, but last week crew member Gary Hunt of Indiana was ordered to pay $11.9 million in restitution
to Southern California Edison. Hunt had pleaded no contest to recklessly starting the fire; he’s also on the hook for
$4 million in additional restitution, as well as 90 days of jail or 720 hours of community service, plus five years of
probation. Hunt’s lawyer says insurance will likely cover most of the damage award.
Northern Nevada FM shuffle moves ahead. Lahontan Valley Broadcasting’s KVLV-FM, Fallon, NV fought a proposal
that would have moved it from its longtime class A home on 99.3 up the dial to 99.5. The shift was requested by Jerry
Evans’ KKFT, Gardnerville-Minden, NV, which hoped to upgrade from 99.1C3 to 99.1C2 with a bigger signal over
nearby Reno. The FCC rejected KVLV’s attempt to stay put, and in the end the Fallon station will end up with a bigger
signal anyway: it now holds a CP to upgrade from 3.7-kw/249’, horizontal-only, on 99.3 to a full 6-kw/249’ with circular
polarization on 99.5.
If you want a noncommercial license…it helps to be noncommercial. That’s the reminder the FCC offered to the
Mora family of Texas when they applied to convert KTNR, Kenedy, TX (92.1) from commercial to noncommercial status.
That application was quickly dismissed by letter, with a reminder that the “current licensee is not a noncommercial
organization or institution,” and therefore is ineligible for a noncommercial license – and for the reduced FCC fees that
go along with that status.
Alaska’s EAS test deemed success despite a handful of radio glitches. Broadcasters and emergency officials
in Alaska can breathe a little easier, now that their first-ever test of the Emergency Action Notification (EAN) code is
over. How did last Wednesday’s test go? “It was a success,” says Alaska Broadcasters Association executive director
Darlene Simono. The EAN went out from Washington, DC at 10:01am Alaska Standard Time and lasted for two and
a half minutes before the end code put local programming back on the air. The test wasn’t without some glitches. An
Anchorage station didn’t air the alert because the daisy-chained signal was too weak to activate its EAS software. A
snowstorm that hit the market may have had an impact. And the state’s largest cable company never received the alert.
More than 300 Alaska residents have already filed reports saying they heard or viewed the message. Since its creation
in 1963, the emergency broadcast network has never been tested (intentionally, anyway) with a live EAN code. The
FCC is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build the next generation alert system. Public
Safety and Homeland Security Bureau chief Jamie Barnett says, “We will need some time to analyze the results, but
we intend to move quickly to improve the system.” The agency’s annual EAS Summit is scheduled for February 28. A
national EAS test will be conducted later this year.
Canada This Week—
Frequency change for a Quebec AM-to-FM move. It took Antenne Group 6 a couple of tries to win CRTC permission
to move CFGT, Alma, QC from 1270 on the AM dial to 97.7 FM. Now CFGT says “�����������������������������������������
due to constraints related to the use of
the 97.7 MHz frequency in the Alma market,” it needs to pick a different frequency for its new FM home 120 miles north
of Quebec City. CFGT is now asking the CRTC to allow it to locate at 104.5 FM instead, when it makes its move.
Copyright 2010. M Street Corporation. All rights reserved. No portion of the Radio Journal may be copied, faxed, retransmitted or reproduced in any form without written
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online at www.TheRadioJournal.com. Annual rate: $169. Scott Fybush, Editor. To advertise, call Gene McKay, General Manager, 800-640-8852 or Beth Dell’Isola, 770-831-4585.