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Affordable Non Comm Engineering?

J

JimmyJames

Guest
I'm involved with a local non profit in a very rural area. It's actually rural enough that there IS space on the dial for a new station.

These folks want to undergo the process of finding and adding a channel(s) to the allotments table for noncommercial use with the ultimate goal being they'd operate one or a small group to service their region.

However, they want to find an engineer that will understand their limited budget and community service nature and would work with them, affordably to do this work. Any recommendations? Please feel free to PM me on this.
 
Just to let you know: "limited budget and community service nature" is a phrase that, as a consultant, would send me running for the hills. That usually means "we're needy and clueless and cannot pay you even 10% of your normal rate". You can do what you like...but if it were me, I wouldn't tout that as a defining characteristic of my organization when I'm trying to find a quality consultant. ::)

Anyways, Clarence Beverage/Laura Mizrahi, Gray Haertig and Doug Vernier all immediately come to mind as engineers who do spectrum analysis with an eye towards new facilities. Google their names to find their businesses. None of them are cheap, but, you get quality work. That's the tradeoff. When I did it my rates were $50/hr, and I was one of the less expensive engineers in this business; because I was part of a firm that could assign me certain tasks at a lower rate, and keep the more knowledgeable senior engineers around to handle bigger issues, on an as-needed basis, at the higher rate (which was usually around $150-$250/hr).

More relevant to this discussion is that the FCC just opened a 2-week-long "filing window" in October of 2007 for new and major-change applications in the non-commercial band. Until they open another window, you cannot apply for a new station. The window was closed for 10 years prior to 2007, so it might be a while before they open it again. My suspicion is that the FCC will wait until all the MX'ed applications from the 2007 window are cleared up, then they'll wait another three years to give everyone a chance to build their CP's, and only THEN will open another window. That could indeed take until 2017. Or longer, or maybe shorter. Until that point, trying to plan for getting a new station is arguably a waste of money; too much could change between now and then.

If your group is hellbent on getting a license, you're better off trying to buy an existing facility or maybe an unbuilt-CP. Neither will be a cheap way to go, though. Even in these times, I've seen FM translators (~100 watts) in medium markets with depressed economies still sell on the high side of five figures.

I'd suggest browsing some brokerage sites to get a feel for things:
http://www.radiobroker.com/
http://cmsstationbrokerage.com/stations_for_sale.shtml
 
JimmyJames said:
These folks want to undergo the process of finding and adding a channel(s) to the allotments table for noncommercial use with the ultimate goal being they'd operate one or a small group to service their region.
Click to expand...

There is no allotments table for reserved frequencies below 92MHz.

(but you're still subject to the filing window limitations aaronread posted)

Or are you saying the only open space is above 92MHz? In which case you will indeed need to file to add the channel to the table -- and to get it reserved non-commercial -- which will only be allowed in limited circumstances.

(Aaron, isn't it possible to file a petition to amend the Table of Allocations at *any* time, just that after that channel gets allotted you have to wait for the filing window to apply to *use* it?)
 
(Aaron, isn't it possible to file a petition to amend the Table of Allocations at *any* time, just that after that channel gets allotted you have to wait for the filing window to apply to *use* it?)
Click to expand...

I believe so, but honestly I'm not sure; commercial-band is not my specialty. I don't know much beyond what's specified here: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/allotmentfinder.html

Regardless, any allocation...commercial or non-commercial...that's not in the reserved band (87.9 - 91.9 MHz) must be auctioned off; that's a Congressional mandate. So it can be fiendishly expensive to get that allocation, even if it's non-commercial. And I don't think you can just petition for a commercial-band allotment to be non-commercial; you have to auction for it with everyone else. The FCC does sometimes auction off vacant FM allotments and limit it to non-commercial applicants and limit the resulting facilities to non-commercial operation; we just had an auction for that about a week and a half ago. But they're relatively rare. In the 10 years I've been working in radio professionally, I think it's happened twice.
 
aaronread said:
Regardless, any allocation...commercial or non-commercial...that's not in the reserved band (87.9 - 91.9 MHz) must be auctioned off; that's a Congressional mandate. So it can be fiendishly expensive to get that allocation, even if it's non-commercial. And I don't think you can just petition for a commercial-band allotment to be non-commercial; you have to auction for it with everyone else. The FCC does sometimes auction off vacant FM allotments and limit it to non-commercial applicants and limit the resulting facilities to non-commercial operation; we just had an auction for that about a week and a half ago. But they're relatively rare. In the 10 years I've been working in radio professionally, I think it's happened twice.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have a hard time finding the citations before leaving for work... but I'm pretty sure it's possible to get a frequency above 92 reserved for non-commercial use. At that point, the channel is treated like one below 92 - i.e., no auction is used.

You have to make some kind of showing to the effect that no suitable channel is available in the reserved band and you'd provide the first or second non-commercial service to some number of people. So it's not easy! - but I'm pretty sure it's possible.

I've heard of non-commercial operators winning commercial channels at auction too.
 
I stand corrected, as the most recent vacant-FM-allotments filing two weeks ago was indeed NOT an auction. Although I'm now confused because the last time I remember one of these, I was living in Boston and it was a big deal that WGBH paid something north of $3mil to get what eventually became WZAI down on Cape Cod. I could've sworn that was an auction...maybe it wasn't limited solely to non-comm applicants?

I've heard of non-commercial operators winning commercial channels at auction too.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, me too. It can happen...I know some non-comm operations that are a heckuva lot more "profitable" than their commercial counterparts these days. ;D
 
Well, the 2007 non-commercial filing window is long gone, but not resolved yet. I expect it to be a few more years before anyone at the FCC will entertain the idea of another filing window like that. And these folks just missed the commercial channel reserved for non-commercial use filing window, although it was only in select locations. I have been involved with quite a few commercial channel going non-commercial type filings, although it has now been more than 15 years since anything like that has happened on a petition basis, as the long-time freeze on new non-commercial applications put a stop to all of that. Petitioning for a new commercial channel is a long-term wait and see kind of thing, likely a decade or more, and you can expect to have competition. Not worth it, in my opinion.
The quickest way for these folks to get a station is to find an LPFM frequency, and wait for the next filing window for LPFM. That could happen in a year or two. As for hiring a consultant to figure this all out, Aaron has good suggestions there (you forgot to include me Aaron!). But don't also forget the folks at Prometheus Radio as a resource for this kind of thing as well:

http://www.prometheusradio.org/

They are very helpful, and will supply a good dose of reality into any discussion. Good luck!
 
Sorry Don, thought you were swamped with work already! ;D

Prometheus is a good site for LPFM information...just don't ask them about HD Radio! ::)
 
The biggest problem, as many here before me also stated, it even having a filing window to try to get a freqency. When there's a window open, come back and ask us again here. I know of a couple people that do stuff on the side (have the computer program available to do licensing stuff), but there's no need until there's an open window. :(
 
The biggest problem, as many here before me also stated, it even having a filing window to try to get a freqency. When there's a window open, come back and ask us again here. I know of a couple people that do stuff on the side (have the computer program available to do licensing stuff), but there's no need until there's an open window.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. You'll want to keep your ear to the ground about when/if a filing window is to be opened soon. Often the FCC announces a window with only a few months' advance notice. That can mean that the available contract engineers out there can get swamped with requests for help rilly, rilly quickly. That sure was the case for the Oct.2007 NCE filing window!

If you start hearing a lot of rumors about a window coming up, you may want to have an engineer do at least a prelim study that can be later updated with less effort.
 
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