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Breaking:FCC dismisses all the Weather Alert Radio Network LPFM Applications.
- Thread starter Bill Betten
- Start date
Predictable. If I'm not mistaken, @fybush called this out back when they were initially filed.
Both Scott and I have been calling this since day one. I knew it was coming, just the question of when.
I thought you could only have one low power. Did I miss something? I really don't that much about low power except I helped out one a few years ago. Why would anyone file for a bunch knowing you can only have one. If you could have multiple LPs I might have jumped on a couple.
governmental agencies, under the guise of publci safety. .can have multiple, as i call... the state of montana has one...... licensed to the town of...
Cell Site, Montana
What would've been the purpose of this Weather Alert Radio Network? Provide a NOAA Weather Radio-style broadcast to low-power FM signals?
It was a scam, trying to get 1 extra point over the other applicants.
So is this the end of the WARN story? Do they get to file an appeal.
(My gut instinct is that all of these transmitters if they had been approved would have been used or leased for religious broadcasting. People get their weather primarily from their phones, then AM/FM/TV, and oh yeah...NOAA Weatherradio.)
(My gut instinct is that all of these transmitters if they had been approved would have been used or leased for religious broadcasting. People get their weather primarily from their phones, then AM/FM/TV, and oh yeah...NOAA Weatherradio.)
That is true. In an emergency situation: hurricane, tornado, flash flood, etc., cell phone service can be down and there's a substantial number without NOAA Weather Radios. The question I have is what they were going to do to assure service in those times when power is off and a weather event is occurring or had just occurred. Will they have generators and how will they get the vital information if internet is down? It's not a bad idea but I saw nothing to indicate they would operate when needed most. With LPFM they could offer very localized information if they had a way to get that on the air.
But isn't a large chunk of what you mention in your comment above the very reason we already have EAS, which can be activated locally or nationally?
Of course the bigger question is where are they going to find the funding to build over 100 radio stations and maintain those facilities, especially on leased tower space. Without some kind of an advertising source or other methods that are not consistent with §399b, I can't see how they would be able to sustain these facilities. Trust me, if these were accepted for filing, they would have likely seen an REC Informal Objection of near-Cesar Guel proportions. The key word here is "jurisdiction". WARN did not provide any evidence that they have specific contracts/compacts to provide public safety services beyond providing radio services, such as actually providing police or fire services. I am very happy with the Audio Division's decision on this. This was a rule that I wanted changed prior to the window, but I did not want to delay the window. This is an issue we will be looking at on the back end before we have another window.
There are currently three remaining groups of multi-filer public safety applications pending:
Trinity County Information Service, Inc. proposes 8 facilities within one county in California. Their application does include a statement from the county that they can provide public safety radio services. Based on clarifications made in the WARN decision, it is very possible their applications will also be dismissed as they do not provide non-radio public safety services.
Gila River Telecommunications, Inc. (GRTI) proposes 3 facilities on the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) in Arizona. These are applications that I worked on. In this case, the applicant is a wholly tribal-owned corporation that is controlled by the Tribal Council that provides infrastructure services, such as fiber and copper within the Community. The controversy on these applications is that GRTI, again on behalf of the Tribe, is currently the licensee of several LPTV stations on Tribal land. In the 2012 LPFM Fifth Report and Order where the FCC expanded LPFM eligibility to Tribes, the FCC addressed cross-ownership by Tribes and punted on the issue stating that they would entertain a waiver request where it can be demonstrated that the grants would not be contrary to LPFM goals and would advance the FCC's longstanding goal of expanding service to Tribal lands and members or otherwise is in the public interest. The applications include waiver requests for cross-ownership and for recognition of GRTI as a governmental entity. Because of the nature of providing radio and television services on Tribal land, REC's position is that such cross-ownership would be in the public interest and that the addition of LPFM services would complement and not compete and would improve the quality of life on the GRIC. All applications are singleton. I also note that the FCC allows cross-ownership for colleges and universities that have full-service stations that propose an LPFM station where the latter is intended to be operated by students at the institution. REC's application for Minnesota State University Mankato (779685, Mankato, MN), which applied the "student station rule" was granted on February 14.
Dekalb County Emergency Management Agency. Proposing 6 facilities in Dekalb County, Alabama. These proposals are from the actual government entity with jurisdiction over the county. These applications are currently on public notice as accepted for filing and grants are expected. All applications are singleton.
There are currently three remaining groups of multi-filer public safety applications pending:
Trinity County Information Service, Inc. proposes 8 facilities within one county in California. Their application does include a statement from the county that they can provide public safety radio services. Based on clarifications made in the WARN decision, it is very possible their applications will also be dismissed as they do not provide non-radio public safety services.
Gila River Telecommunications, Inc. (GRTI) proposes 3 facilities on the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) in Arizona. These are applications that I worked on. In this case, the applicant is a wholly tribal-owned corporation that is controlled by the Tribal Council that provides infrastructure services, such as fiber and copper within the Community. The controversy on these applications is that GRTI, again on behalf of the Tribe, is currently the licensee of several LPTV stations on Tribal land. In the 2012 LPFM Fifth Report and Order where the FCC expanded LPFM eligibility to Tribes, the FCC addressed cross-ownership by Tribes and punted on the issue stating that they would entertain a waiver request where it can be demonstrated that the grants would not be contrary to LPFM goals and would advance the FCC's longstanding goal of expanding service to Tribal lands and members or otherwise is in the public interest. The applications include waiver requests for cross-ownership and for recognition of GRTI as a governmental entity. Because of the nature of providing radio and television services on Tribal land, REC's position is that such cross-ownership would be in the public interest and that the addition of LPFM services would complement and not compete and would improve the quality of life on the GRIC. All applications are singleton. I also note that the FCC allows cross-ownership for colleges and universities that have full-service stations that propose an LPFM station where the latter is intended to be operated by students at the institution. REC's application for Minnesota State University Mankato (779685, Mankato, MN), which applied the "student station rule" was granted on February 14.
Dekalb County Emergency Management Agency. Proposing 6 facilities in Dekalb County, Alabama. These proposals are from the actual government entity with jurisdiction over the county. These applications are currently on public notice as accepted for filing and grants are expected. All applications are singleton.
The difference being that the EAS seems to have a threshold, below which the FM NOAA service could. We had a rare tornado watch here in the Seattle metro a couple years ago. There was one EAS alert. Meanwhile, the NOAA VHF weather radio station kept alerting about it, and even notified any potential listeners when the tornado watch ended.
On the radio station where I heard the EAS alert, it was business as usual.
So the EAS system has its deficiencies.
That said, the FCC document states that WARN is not governmental, it's a private company, so as a private entity it didn't fulfill what was needed for an LPFM.
Maybe with NOAA it would be a different story.
But NOAA has a very large VHF infrastructure in place. They're also online as well, via the NOAA website, where you can listen to all of the various NOAA weather stations.
In Colorado, CDOT has been operating LPFM's for several years, in areas where the Feds have failed to do their job, and expand NOAA Weather Radio.
WARN's goal was to provide local weather information, preparedness and local resource information 24 hours per day and seven days per week. But how they planned to do it was to use AI technology to create a synthetic voice to distribute local forecasts from the National Weather Service, putting them into a podcast format and distributing them through their network from a central hub. Interesting idea but hardly in the spirit of local, community-based radio.
So how would that content be much different than what's already available (and has been for years) via NOAA weather radio? Not trying to come off as confrontational; I'm truly curious.
Another, somewhat related question: Is NOAA weather radio available nearly everywhere, at least in the continental US?
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I knew these apps would be dismissed and rejected. What a waste of FM spectrum. I think even TIS stations are in their last days too. We have phones now. All we have to do is Google the weather...voila there it is, with the weather alerts also listed. Tornado/severe T-storm warnings go out via EAS anyway, and in tornadic markets, ,major FM stations simulcast TV during severe weather.
Pretty much, yes. There are over 1000 NOAA weather radio transmitters around the country. There are some holes you can find, especially in mountain regions, and a few in some extremely rural regions (example: between Thief River Falls, MN and International Falls, MN, or near Dallam, TX)
What does a NOA weather transmitter site and antenna look like?
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