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Independence fines

L

lurkerjock

Nice, very nice. Other stations that pay big dollars to comply, are forced to pay their fines. These guys are operating so poorly, they get their fines reduced. Why not simply take the license away? See below;

The other stations are KQMG AM & FM Independence IA, serving an area north of Cedar Rapids and east of Waterloo.

Neither station had a complete public file available for inspection. In addition, operationable EAS equipment was lacking and obstruction tower lighting was substandard – in fact, only one light was working, and once management found out about the problem at least as of 11/1/10, they neither fixed it as of 1/29/11 nor alerted the FAA as of 1/31/11. And finally, the FM was broadcasting above its authorized 2.9 kW power level – the signal was running at 108% and was unmonitored.

The combination of all these violations ran up a penalty tab of $42K: $8K for the EAS violation, $10K for the tower light failure, $4K for the power overage and $10K times two for public file violations at each station.
However, the FCC took the combo’s gross revenues into account and assessed it a notice of apparent liability for only $10K.
 
Don't know these guys. Don't know what's going on here. "No dog in the fight" whatsoever. BUT.....

....I noticed two things. First, this seems to be the only local radio service in a small rural county (albeit with canned programming as the bulk of their schedule.). Second, I noticed that their website ends in "org". A suffix reserved exclusively for non-profit organizations.

So perhaps the FCC was faced with issuing a "death sentence" and depriving a small community of their local radio service. Or working with the operators and coming up with a realistic...yet not exactly painless....solution.

Or in other words, opting for a potential "win-win" versus a "no-win". Certainly for a local community.
 
I don't think serving the community is high on their priority list. The owners already tried to move the FM station to the Cedar Rapids market, but were denied. They failed to include proper paperwork at the time, so it is no surprise to me that they are failing to do these things now. In my opinion no exceptions should have been made.
 
Okay....assuming you guys are correct....and I have absolutely no reason to believe otherwise....I stand corrected. Agree that if the current owners are not serving the community, give the licence to someone who will.
 
.org is not reserved for nonprofits. Anyone can get one. They may simply have found the url they wanted with a .com was already taken.
 
part of the problem is they haven't had stable management in the building for going on 2 years. also part of the problem is the home office is way over in Skokie. Kind of hard for the owners to keep an eye on things when they're 4 hours away. Regarding the fine, I would be surprised if the KQMG portion of the KM Communications company has even billed $10k recently. Bet this one hurt.
 
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