How to Respond to Interference to KRDE (or any other full-service station)
I've noticed more and more that when I want to listen to a station outside the immediate Phoenix metro area (like KSWG-96.3 Wickenburg or KCDX-103.1 Florence or KRDE-94.1 Globe), more and more there are new local low-power stations on adjacent frequencies that are butting in on the job and interfering with what I want to listen to. In the case of KSWG, there's some religious station out of Superior, Arizona that apparently now has a local satellite station in Phoenix on 96.5 that sometimes messes up my listening to 96.3. In the case of KCDX, there is now another station on 103.1 broadcasting out of Sun City West or thereabouts and now I can't listen to KCDX out by where my mother lives anymore. This new station interferes until I almost reach the I-17 corridor.
So what's up with this idiocy? Why are all these new stations allowed to goof up what I'm trying to listen to? Help!
hm, please visit KRDE's web site, <http://www.krde.com/interference-problem-in-the-greater-phoenix-area/>, download and fill out the complaint form, and send it in to the station.
KRDE is fighting an interference problem caused by an FM Translator authorized by the FCC a couple of months ago to operate on 93.9 MHz, the first-adjacent-channel to KRDE. How the authorization came to be granted is a long story. If you are interested, I can supply you with links to FCC filings that I have made on KRDE's behalf that will tell you the story.
In brief, the grant of the Construction Permit for the 93.9-MHz Translator is the subject of a pending Petition for Reconsideration filed by me on KRDE's behalf. I have also filed against the application for a license to cover the Construction Permit. I intend to file a supplemental pleading with interference complaints from affected listeners.
Pursuant to § 74.1203 of the FCC's Rules, an FM Translator cannot cause any interference to a full-service station. The rule defines interference as any impairment to the reception of a full-service station, regardless of the quality of reception in the absence of interference. If an FM Translator makes the reception worse, the Translator is causing interference. If an FM Translator is causing interference, it must eliminate the interference, or go off the air. But it takes complaints for that to happen, and the FCC gives the Translator operator a chance to resolve the interference, e.g., through the application of filters to the victim receivers. (In this case, the use of filters will not work, given the limitations of economically practical filters and the proximity of the interferer's frequency to the desired frequency.)
If you listen to KRDE and are now having problems doing so, please complain! If you do complain, it will help KRDE get the FCC to act.
KRDE intends to do everything necessary to insure that its listeners can pick up the Station without any interference from FM Translators.
FYI, KRDE succeeded in getting pitched an application for an FM Translator in Phoenix on 94.1 MHz, cochannel to KRDE. The applicant has sought reconsideration, and KRDE has opposed the request. KRDE has also sought limited reconsideration because the FCC staff dismissed the application "without prejudice" to refiling, rather than "with prejudice" as I had asked on KRDE's behalf.
John Joseph McVeigh, Attorney at Law
16230 Falls Road, P.O. Box 128
Butler, Maryland 21023-0128
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Practice before the Federal Communications Commission
Member NY, DC, and USPTO Bars
Amateur Radio Operator KD4VS
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