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DST Changes to PSRA and PSSA

R

RadioFlyerAtl

First, for those who may have forgotten or overlooked the fact, Daylight Saving Time will begin in just over a week. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 added a few extra weeks of the advanced time to the year (three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall, to be exact) starting in 2007. Hence, DST will begin at 2 a.m. local time on March 11 this year (for most of the US).

They point to energy conservation as the reasoning behind the change, but little do they realize how much of a hassle it is to the technical community to adapt hardware and software to their "minor" change. I have a two good friends in the IT industry who've been working on this for weeks.

Now it appears that we may also have to contend with something else during this change. The FCC has issued new guidance for AM stations with Pre-Sunrise and Post-Sunset Authority (PSRA and PSSA, respectively). From a Public Notice (DA 07-938) issued by the FCC Media Bureau today, "...the Media Bureau, pursuant to Section 73.99(i) of the Commission's Rules, withdraws all PSRAs and PSSAs issued prior to February 1, 2007. This action is effective March 11, 2007."

They've recalculated the PSRA and PSSA operating powers for all eligible AM stations, and these new authorizations, which supersede any previous authorization for PSRA and/or PSSA, can be found online in the station's Correspondence Folder of the CDBS.

I've viewed the authorizations for a few of our AMs, and one or two have remained the same, while the others have seen drastic changes - from 500 watts PSRA down to 46 watts at one facility and 500 watts PSRA down to 3 watts at another. In some cases, these power reductions would be detrimental to those critical hours of morning drive.

The Commission states, "...These changes in DST hours require modification of all outstanding PSRA and PSSA authorizations, which are premised on assumptions regarding local time based upon the previous DST schedule. Continued operation pursuant to these legacy authorizations could result in impermissible interference."

Go online and take a look at the revised PSRA and PSSA authorizations for your station(s). Note: you won't receive a mailed copy of these authorizations unless you request it by phone. You can find the full version of FCC Public Notice DA 07-938 at: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/audio/DA-07-938A1.pdf.

Quite a hot topic, and sure to be a controversial point over the next couple of weeks. Personally, I'm all for keeping the DST changes as they were.

Boy, what a can of worms they've now opened...
 
THANK YOU for bringing this to my attention. While they are blaming this on DST, one of my stations requested a copy of their PSSA levels 1 year ago and that resulted in a recalculation of their PSRA as well. The Feb 27 figures are identical to the ones from 1 year ago. At the time, the FCC said they were in the process of recalculating everyone & that it was long overdue. This was being worked on a year ago...nice that they gave us so much lead time! The real irony is that my daytime stations with a few watts of night power are all being asked to reduce power to less than their night power during the last hour before sunset. I would presume that it's just a matter of time before the night powers get slashed too...I wonder if it's legal to operate with night power from sunset to sunrise & disregard the PSSA powers?
 
Hi Bob,

According to the Public Notice, "Licensees are reminded that, if a station is authorized for greater nighttime operating power than the value shown on the PSRA or PSSA, the licensed value takes precendence." I had the same question before viewing the Notice. One of our stations with a directional nighttime pattern was given a PSSA with ridiculously low power output. Other ND stations were given revised PSSA authorizations lower than their nighttime authorization, and others had their PSSA pretty much eliminated.

I think the short notice the Bureau's been giving recently on rulings is unacceptable. We give them months or years on applications, and they give us a week. Couple that with the reducing field of radio engineers and our already packed schedules, and it's a nightmare for us.

What about most of those small market stations out there with PSRA and PSSA who will never hear about these changes? They're not sending out mailings and are just expecting licensees to check online to retrieve the new authorizations. We'll have a few who are in compliance and struggling with the interference created by the majority of AM stations out there who have no clue these changes have even occurred.

I, too, wonder when those nighttime authorizations under 250 watts will be cut and what excuse we'll get for those. I've always had the understanding that PSRA was just one of those things that we knew created interference, but that it was a side effect of being able to serve each station's principal community during those early-morning pre-sunrise hours.
 
I, too, found that one of our AM stations had their PSRA cut back drastically, from 500 watts to 12 watts. However, I have since seen information that states that the computer program the FCC uses to calculate these, had some errors, and they are re-doing all the calculations. So look again in the Correspondence Folder for an updated PSRA and PSSA. The information I got says that no one should have dramatic changes in their power levels, and if you do, contact the FCC.
 
One of my stations in Indiana had it's PSRA limiting stations listed as being in Haiti and Guatemala! My map stops at 1600 miles & these stations are farther away than that. Hopefully this is one of the errors...
 
I have also heard that much of this has been blamed on computer errors, but I'm finding that difficult to believe. I've looked at the scenarios for several of our AM stations, and the interference and limiting stations are generally in agreement with other study programs. The root of the matter is that we knew operating with PSRA and PSSA created interference long ago, but we accepted that interference during those critical hours in order to serve our principal communities. It's not difficult to arrive at the conclusion that a local daytimer would better serve its community during those hours than a national clear channel. The same still holds true today.

In my opinion, it was a move by the Bureau to clean up some of the interference on the AM band. The change in DST start and end dates simply provided a good excuse. However, you can't easily go back in time to do that at this point. We now have established stations that depend on these PSRA and PSSA power levels to make their morning and/or afternoon drives. Moreover, we have the communities that are dependent upon them to be there during those times. Although the Bureau has the ability to do such under the law, as they've clearly pointed out in their Public Notice on the issue, they're going to find it difficult to exercise that ability over such a broad-based initiative as this one.

I heard that "all hell broke loose" on this topic at the Commission on Friday. I guess we'll see what pans out this coming week.
 
What's been posted in the correspondence folders is NOT the final word...not yet, anyhow.

From a remailer system I subscribe to: This letter was received today by a station which had complained to the FCC that their new PSRA & PSSA power levels were well below what they should have been:

"After publishing the PSRAs and PSSAs modified to reflect the change in DST,
we found that there were some problems with the software generating the
authorizations, and that incorrect PSRA and PSSA power reductions were
suffered by a number of stations. These power reductions appear to be the
result of undue protection being given to foreign stations by the software.
We are currently in the process of correcting the software and recalculating
the PSRAs and PSSAs, which we will then post in each station's
correspondence file. It looks as if we will be recalculating all of the
PSRAs and PSSAs issued, just to be on the safe side. .

Best regards.

Susan

Susan N. Crawford
Assistant Chief
Federal Communications Commission
Media Bureau, Audio Division
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Voice: 202-418-2754
Fax: 202-418-1411
Email: [email protected]
 
Why even go here? Why open a can of worms like this? Why can't they just leave this alone? It's just a time change... it's just 3 weeks early, does this mean we have to redesign the wheel?

I wonder how many manhours were worked on this waste of time? For years these PSRA and PSSA's existed w/o and problems. Now we have to rework the wheel. Who says they won't come back with other changes?

JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!
 
AND...after those man hours, they now say some calculations are incorrect....I agree...leave it as is...it will take us man hours to implement, and WHY?
 
This is now such an unmitigated disaster, they're throwing the whole thing out and starting over. Apparently that computer glitch is much worse than they originally thought:

From: Charles Miller [EDIT]
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 2:01 PM
Subject: RE: PRE AND POST HOURS

....., we're pulling the plug on this project for now. It turned into a
complete disaster when an undiscovered bug in the program was brought to
light by the mass recalculation. Please advise all clients to disregard
the new PSRA/PSSAs, and to use April numbers for March advanced time. We
plan to get the bug fixed and new round of authorizations released before
November...


Charles N. "Norm" Miller, Engineer
Audio Division, Media Bureau
Federal Communications Commission
[EDIT]

[EDIT-removed for privacy concerns]
 
I got it working, thank you! I notice one of my local stations shows 12 watts presunrise and between 198 and 500 post-sunset. I wonder if that's the bug they were talking about.
 
A new Public Notice (DA 07-1076) was released today basically reversing the actions of the previous one mentioned at the start of this discussion thread. You can view it online at: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/audio/DA-07-1076A1.pdf.

In summary, the recently issued PSRA and PSSA authorizations will be suspended and revised, possibly by this fall, before being reissued with new power calculations. Until then, stations are to use the April DST powers and time periods shown on their current PSRA and PSSA authorizations from March 11 through March 31.

It has been an interesting week in AM broadcasting, to say the least, and an interesting one for the folks in the Portals Building, too.
 
I was a mainframe programmer for a major corporation in the late 60's (yes, that's right), and the instructor predicted that many errors would be blamed on the computer...but that very few would be the computer 's error ...it would be in the Programming...so, was he right or not? A computer only computes what you tell it to...it behooves the programmer to adequately test his instructions and assumptions extensively to verify the correct results. This (used to) mean extensive comparisons between manual and electronic results. I guess the computers will now suffer the blame for the lack of adequate precautions. This is my view...Thanks...JBI
 
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