FCC History of HSFB STA

[boiseengineer]

There was a time that the FCC would give a station extra time to do High School Football.
Right up there in importance with College Football and Truman's speech.
KLIV in San Jose got special permission to do so, back in 1946.
Go to page 3 here ftp://ftp.fcc.gov//pub/Bureaus/MB/Databases/HistoryCards/19531.pdf
(Hard to read)

 

[Icangelp]

Now the stations don't bother to ask. What with all the bureaucracy, must save the FCC a lot of money.

Can you imagine how many man (woman) hours it took to maintain these information files, not to mention the typewriter ribbon bills?

P.S. After looking in the FCC database, I see that they are still owned by Empire Broadcasting.

 

[cyberdad]

There was a time that the FCC would give a station extra time to do High School Football.
Right up there in importance with College Football and Truman's speech.
KLIV in San Jose got special permission to do so, back in 1946.
(Hard to read)

Also right up there with emergencies created by natural disasters, etc. "Presidential address, Earthquake, Flood or High School Football...We power up to cover it!"

As stated in previous posts, I have no problem with bending the rules a little for high school football games. The upside for a small AM that might otherwise be struggling probably outweighs a couple hours' downside for another station that might get its fringe signal temporarily trashed. If said station with trashed signal can demonstrate significant, lasting harm, it can always petition the FCC to step in and block the offending broadcaster.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

There should then be a set policy on how powerful such an STA may be, like PSSAs and PSAs. In no event should it exceed the PSA authorization. A single nondirectional former Class III-S 5000 watt station within 500 miles can easily increase the effective NIF of a well protected former Class III-A station from 3 mV/m to 10-15 mV/m. Since the 1250 and above region is more closely packed, these are more likely to be close and nondirectional.

 

[davideduardo]

There should then be a set policy on how powerful such an STA may be...

I wonder in what year the FCC stopped issuing those STAs?

Until I saw the card files linked here I had always thought that the "Footbball STA" was a humorous excuse for many a daytimer that illegally fudged sign-off times to run a school game.

Apparently, at one point, the FCC seems to have allowed such activities. But with the dial crowded with daytimers by the late 40's and early 50's (including Mexican and Canadian clears where no night operation was allowed) I assume that they ceased granting such exceptions or every small-town daytimer in America would have been on with High School and college games.