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College FM dark for holidays - legal to leave XMTR on?

J

jtudor

At Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory NC, it seems that everyone has gone for the holiday, and left the transmitter on with dead air.

Is that legal under current regulations? I have been out of radio long enough that I don't know what has changed and what has not.

I don't know where their transmitter actually is located, but I picked up the dead air this morning all the way to Statesville (25 miles away), so I am sure it is not just the exciter left on.

I listened across the top of an hour and of course there also was not a station ID either. Is that also legal?

I discovered it since they are on on 99.3 same as WBT-FM, and I have a preset on that since I use it a lot at night when I am not in Hickory.

My questions are:

Is it legal for a college station to go off the air for 2 - 3 weeks over a school break?

Is it legal for them to leave the transwmitter on over break with no station ID?

Are the rules any different because this station is on a commercial frequency instead of the non-commercial portion of the band?
 
Realistically they should probally drop carrier if their not going to program over a break, but I guess in theory as long as their EAS equipment works the FCC likely would not do anything major to them...

I hear LPFMs and College stations in this area where I live go dark all the with nothing but a carrier for hours ...

For all we know they had automation that crashed whlie no one was in to check on it.
 
1) Station ID's:
To answer part of your question, see Page 6 of an actual case:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=8839

2) Operating Schedule:
47CFR73.850
"...however, stations licensed to educational institutions are not required to operate on Saturday or Sunday or to observe the minimum operating requirements during those days designated on the official school calendar as vacation or recess periods."

3) It's an LPFM
 
radiomaps said:
1) Station ID's:
To answer part of your question, see Page 6 of an actual case:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=8839

2) Operating Schedule:
47CFR73.850
"...however, stations licensed to educational institutions are not required to operate on Saturday or Sunday or to observe the minimum operating requirements during those days designated on the official school calendar as vacation or recess periods."

3) It's an LPFM
Click to expand...

I don't think "not required to operate includes throwing a dead carrier over vacation." Anyone with a general ticket should remember the question: Regardless of the class of license, ANY transmitter, for ANY reason, that becomes unable to identify a silent carrier by audio, code, or other approved means shall do the following: B. Terminate carrier immediately
 
In the referenced Petition to Deny letter, the FCC said "as noted by Trinity, nothing in our Rules requires an authorized silent station to continue station identifications while it is off-air. This holds true even if that station continues to operate its subcarrier." Apparently, the station had informed the FCC they would not be operational for a period of time, but left the carrier on so their SCA service could continue.

This is the kind of thing we can expect from a Commission of lawyers and bureaucrats...it would be nice if there were an engineer or two! If your carrier is up, you're on the air! Common sense would tell me a station is operating any time its carrier was up...modulation or not...and proper ID is needed somehow.
 
Also, realize that these non-comm stations could lose their license to a "time sharing" evangelical operation if they go off the air for any amount of time. That's why so many are going 24/7 year round.
 
How hard would it be for them to load up a laptop with 2000 tunes in Zara and let that run while school's out?
It could easily run 2-3 weeks without intervention.
At current prices for used computers, they could have this for a couple hundred bucks.

How about a loop announcement that says, "This FM signal, (W-K)xxx is intentionally left blank. Please join us on Jan x when
Whatzit College resumes classes."
 
It's legal to have 59 minutes and 58 seconds of dead air every hour forever, with a 2 second legal ID "WDED Nowhereville" at the top of the hour.
 
What about transmitter meter readings?
Was anyone taking them? If not, they're in violation.
 
Been quite a while since readings were required on radio. Stations I worked for in the mid 70's were still logging them every 30 minutes. Now I know of some stations doing them every 2 hours, some every 3, some once a day & some never. The current rules place the burden of compliance on the licensee. If the licensee believes taking readings every few months will insure compliance, the licensee is free to live in that fantasy world.
 
The licensee can't possibly prove that they're in compliance without taking transmitter readings.
And how is it possible to know whether you're in compliance if there is nobody around to maintain control of the transmitter?
 
How is it possible to know if your antenna has iced up, the SWR has gone off the map, and your tx is turning into toast?
I guess everybody trusts modern transmitters to shut down on high SWR.
 
Transmitter operating parameters are simply programmed into a dial out remote control. If something goes out of tolerance the remote control calls you and you deal with it. Are there holes in this? Of course, but if you have everything set up properly with a landline and a UPS it's pretty darn reliable. You can even do this with a cell phone. Stations have been operating unattended for years and it's perfectly legal, but someone has to be diligent in the setup and checking of the systems or you can find yourself in violation, though it's rarely pursued by Uncle Charlie.
 
jtudor said:
At Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory NC, it seems that everyone has gone for the holiday, and left the transmitter on with dead air.
My questions are:
Is it legal for a college station to go off the air for 2 - 3 weeks over a school break?
Is it legal for them to leave the transwmitter on over break with no station ID?
Are the rules any different because this station is on a commercial frequency instead of the non-commercial portion of the band?
Click to expand...
This is not a "legal" matter; rather it's a question about FCC Rules and Regulations.
Stations of this type do not have to conform to the FCC "minimum operation schedule" regulation. They may shut down during semester/quarter recesses.
However, it looks like you've got them on the second point. The Commission does require a legal ID every hour. Other than that, they may program dead air. So that is a concern.

My question for you, is, since you know the station and the institution it’s affiliated with, did you attempt to call them and inform them of the situation? I know the station was not manned during the recess, but I’m sure a call to the Lenoir Rhyne University main switchboard at 828-328-1741 or their security office at 828-328-7146 might have saved them some trouble.
 
Maybe this helps? The FCC had this to say about an NCE-FM going through an ownership change in Miami:

Petitioners assert that the Station violated Section 73.1201 of the\ Rules by not providing hourly station identifications during a three-week period in October 2007 in which the Station operated its transmitter carrier but was otherwise silent. That Rule requires that station identifications be made “at the beginning and ending of each time of operation” and “hourly, as close to the hour as possible, at a natural break in program offerings.”

In Opposition, Trinity notes that, during the period that the Station was off-air, “there were no
program offerings to break in between, and the broadcast operation had ended and not yet begun again.”
It asserts that nothing under our Rules requires the hourly identification of an otherwise silent station.

While it concedes that the Station’s transmitter carrier continued to operate while the broadcast station
was silent, Trinity maintains that “there are no station identification requirements for subcarrier uses, and
the subcarrier use was provided in accordance with the Commission’s Rules.”

We agree. The Station was silent with authority pursuant to Section 73.1740 of the Rules.

FULL TEXT OF RULING HERE:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=8839
 
Ack! I missed where this case had been referenced in an earlier post on this board! :-\

Well, radio is nothing if not redundant!
 
We used to use Winamp at my college for automation, I also created simple batch files that would open new playlists as needed and set up windows scheduler to fire them. Cheap 'n Nasty but it did the job. Last I knew of they were using MegaSeg which is also pretty inexpensive but very effective for simple automation.
 
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