A large percentage of the NCE (educational) channels are being used for religious programming.
The window for filing an application for an NCE channel has now closed. These "window" things are a recent development in the history of the FCC and it is hard to predict what will come next. I would expect two to four years at least will pass before they would hold another one.
In the meantime I also expect a lot of push and shove to happen which could result in changes to the rules and changes to traditional time frames. Daytime AM broadcasters are beginning to yell and scream for some low power FM to let them serve their communities. Now NCE works in a different set of channels, but there are some NCEs and some religious translators using some channels in the commercial band and AM broadcasters are going to be trying to move some religious broadcasters to free up a channel in their community.
I gave some thought to making an application for an NCE during the window that just closed. I contacted a consulting engineer and found that just to find out if there was an open frequency would cost me $500. To get them to then prepare the application would probably be another $3,000 to 5,000.
I know just enough engineering to be dangerous. I took my own look at the community I was interested in and come to the conclusion there was no reason to pay the consultant $500 to learn what I could already see: there was no available channel there. (When they publish a list of the applications, I may be kicking myself if some DID figure out a vacant place for one.)
Have you considered the possibility of acquiring an existing NCE? That you can do on YOUR time frame, not four years from now.
Yes, I know SOME of the steps. I am not too excited about listing them here and I would not think you are too excitied about telling me here what community you are interested in. Drop me a note at <
[email protected]> if you want to bounce some thoughts between us.
