> IVE ONLY BEEN IN THE BIZ 5 YEARS AND AM STILL LEARNING
> ALOT... BUT I THINK LEGAL ID'S AND COL IS SOMETHING I WILL
> NEVER UNDERSTAND!
It's not all that complicated, really.
The legal ID part is easy - it's supposed to consist of:
*your call letters (as stated on your license, so for WPHH, it should be "WPHH," not "WPHHFM")
*(optionally) your frequency or channel number (for WPHH, that could be "104.1" or "channel 281"; unlike my friend txengineer, I find "104.1 FM" acceptable as well)
*(optionally) the name of your licensee, as stated on your license ("Capstar TX Limited Partnership," in the case of WPHH; the parent company "Clear Channel" would not be technically permissible, though the FCC would almost surely let it slide)
*your city of license ("Waterbury")
Anything before the calls or after the city of license doesn't count, and it's all supposed to be done "at the closest natural break in programming" to the top of the hour, and whenever the station begins or ceases operation.
It's not brain surgery, really.
Now, as for the city of license business - for the 92.1-107.9 MHz FM band and TV, there are allocation tables that are written into federal law, specifying what channels can be used, at what power, in what communities. For AM and for 87.9-91.9 MHz FM, stations are licensed based on contour protection - you can't overlap a specific signal-strength contour with specific contours of other stations on the same channel or on up to the third-adjacent channel. So, if you're on 88.9, let's say, you need to protect the signals of other stations from 88.3 up to 89.5. If you're on 1430, you need to worry about stations from 1400-1460. The exact details are set out in the appropriate parts of the FCC rules.
What does city of license have to do with this? Whether your allotment comes from a table or from contour protection, your station must provide a certain signal strength (70 dBu, for commercial FM stations; 5 mV/m, for AM stations) over all of its city of license. You must have a toll-free number to reach the station's office from the city of license, and you must maintain a legal main studio (with full-time personnel and a public file) within 25 miles of that community (or, alternatively, within the city-grade contour of any station licensed to that community.)
So let's take WPHH as an example:
Its CITY OF LICENSE is Waterbury, because that's where the table of allocations says it is. Clear Channel could, theoretically, go before the FCC and petition for a change to the allocations table to move it to Hartford, but because that would add one more allotment to a city that already has many of them, at the expense of a community that has only one other class B FM allotment, it would run afoul of the "equitable distribution" provision of the Communications Act.
Its TRANSMITTER is on West Peak in Meriden. It can be there, because from there it puts a 70 dBu signal over all of Waterbury, the city of license, and meets all applicable spacing requirements to other stations from 91.9-93.1 on the dial. And it's there because from West Peak, it can not only meet those requirements but also serve the much larger Hartford market.
Its STUDIOS are in Farmington, if memory serves. They can be there because it's within the city-grade contour of at least one station licensed to Waterbury (in this case, WPHH itself, but also WWYZ and WTXX.) If you were to look in the Waterbury phone book, you'd see (or at least you should see) a number for WPHH that can be dialed without toll charges from Waterbury.
All these things are true of WHTZ as well - COL in Newark, transmitter on the Empire State Building, studios in Jersey City. They tend to do a very quick "WHTZ Newark" legal ID in the stopset 10 minutes before the hour, then a big produced "WHTZ NEW YORK" at the top of the hour, which is what you heard. Not technically legal, but the FCC lets it slide.<P ID="signature">______________
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