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question about Class A (I-B) stations owned by the same company

R

radiotower40

I want to know if two co-channel clears owned by the same company can permit daytime or class B's to vary from FCC spacing and coverage protection rules.

I'll use this as an example, this is not the frequency I have heard about, I don't want to give any secrets away.

On AM 1530 KFBK Sacramento and WCKY Cincinatti are both owned by CC, since the channel is for practical purposes is under their control. In that they protect each others skywave.

Since they are co owned can they waiver from FCC rules? Say for instance run ND on WCKY if they chose to?

I know they follow the rules set out by the commision now, by going directional at night, with WCKY on daytime mode until sunset in Sacramento, to protect one another. Are they doing it because this would cause problems to both or that they have to follow the letter of the law?

They are not required to protect other stations that are daytime on the frequency. Could they "give permission" for a station like WCKG in Chicago to run at night?

When I say "permission" I mean that if the FCC rules do not allow WCKG to run after sunset, which is the case, because it is close to WCKY and would cause interfernce.

I want to know that if a station like WCKG in Chicago(Elmhurst) asked CC if they could run after dark and CC didn't have a problem with the interference to their stations outside of their daytime contours, could they say to the FCC that it is acceptable because they run both stations that are afforded protection, or do the FCC rules still trump any type of arrangment like this.

This is really out of left field, I do have a reason for asking this as is it pertains to a station I'm with, which I can't disclose at this time.
 
I'm not a lawyer of engineer but if you owned 2 stations on the same channel, or could work out an agreement with a neighboring on channel station, you could increase a station's signal at the expense of the other station's coverage if there is no interference issue. It has been done. Example 100.1 WRQQ was a class A FM until they "engineered" several stations moving including WIKI Carrolton KY moving from 100.1 to 95.3. Now WRQQ is a C2 and have a competitive signal in Lexington KY. The COL's have to be covered. On the AM band WOWO's 1190 nighttime signal was butchered so 1190 could be competitive in NYC. If you have the funds and ownership or permission from the affected stations you can upgrade one station at the expense of the other.

If you plan to do something like hire an expert, experienced Engineer or Engineering firm. Find in that has done this before. You can look at FCC filings and see some examples of filings.
 
Going back to Nashville said:
This is really out of left field, I do have a reason for asking this as is it pertains to a station I'm with, which I can't disclose at this time.
Click to expand...

Hopefully, Scott Fybush will jump in here with his extensive knowledge (and his corrections of anything I am about to say that is imprecise).

But, as a starter, the overall picture is that the FCC protects stations on AM and allocations on FM.

If a station wants to buy out another station and change its power, pattern, or even turn in its license, then the surviving or dominant party can up power, change directionality, etc. within the rules but without the diminished or disappeared station.

WINS bought 1010 in Little Rock to be able to let out the pattern a bit towards the SW. WADO took 1290 on Long Island silent to up the WADO power. 830 in Orange County, CA, took 850 in Thousand Oaks off so 830 could move and up power. Clear Channel in LA wanted to increase the KIIS (AM) power and bought and closed 1150 in Moro Bay.

There was even talk at one time about taking KFI in LA directional so Clear's 640 in ATL could improve its facilities.

In the example you give, were 1530 in Ohio to move non-directional, KFBK might have to protect Ohio...

And in some cases, Canadian and Mexican notifications have to be protected, active or not. Even with Mexico essentially clearing out the AM band, as long as an operation is notified, it is likely the FCC will protect it as they do with Canadian channels / stations that have fallen silent.

On FM, you protect the allocation. If there is a tight separation, perhaps you can get another station to move transmitter site a bit. Or you can petition for a change in the table of allocations, but that, I believe, requires that all existing stations be preserved even if they move to different channels. Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are the poster trio for large changes in the table of allocations.
 
I wish to thank you for your explanation's they seem to mold with my thinking on the question. When you say a Canada clear, is 1550 still in that situation? If I remember correctly all the US stations had to stay with their very low power at night, regardless if Canada populated the channel due to the agreement between The US, Mexico and Canada.

I remember the downgrade of WOWO when the happened, being near Ft. Wayne at the time. The people in NY were not saying much it was very loud in areas affected by the loss of the WOWO signal in some areas, the folks were none to happy about it to say least, they made their opinion known as you know it did not make a whole lot of difference in the end.

I should say once again that 1530 was an example that fit well with my question, I have no connection with any station on that frequency I would not want anyone to read this and think that WCKY is going away.

If I am understanding correctly existing protected stations would have to be modified to allow smaller stations to be powered up.

The situation I'm in now places a station which is a D smack dab in the middle of two clears owned by the same company, the station has to run lower power during CH and flea power at night. Their thinking was on the line of "can we make a deal with company X to run day pattern at CH and get out of single digits at night".

As you may have suspected the station I am referring to is a family owned, stand alone AM. They have not asked any formal permission to do anything, rather just some ideas tossed around the station. They know and follow all current rules now, the main reason for this is local sports broadcasts are web only for many of their listeners. They have competition who is more than willing and often tries to market themselves as having that special class of "sporting hours". They often run at a power more than allowed during games, we know it's not their mandated day or night power, rather something in between. The station I am asking about will not break the rules set and are afraid of losing a high school team that is actually profitable for them, not only at game time, also integrated in the schedule with trivia and contests during the day.

Losing this would cause a financial hit if lost. The owners will not break the law however and they will not report the station not following the rules. The owners are just down to earth folks who are older and operate on ethics they have always lived their lives.

They would rather take the loss and follow the law and telling on their neighbors is not something they would do.

So they were just tossing this about to see if it was worth pursuing. It would be great if you could ad your knowledge here Scott, please jump in if you can.
 
David's pretty much nailed it as regards the difference between AM stations and FM allocations being protected.

The key thing to note these days is that there is no such thing as "I-A" or "I-B" anymore...just "class A" and "class B." As long as a station has class A status, its skywave coverage is (and must be) protected from interference from all sources, including co-owned stations. While the FCC always has the right to grant a waiver of those rules, I haven't seen any indication that they're willing to do so, even to a co-owned station. That's why we've seen the "breakdown" cases that we've seen with WOWO and more recently with KGA in Spokane.

The blessing and the curse of medium-wave skywave is that it requires only the tiniest amount of power to create a lot of interference over a much larger area than actually receives useful service. Getting "out of double digits," as you suggest, might give the class D station a few extra miles of usable coverage, but might create ten times as much interference to the edges of the incumbent class A station on the channel. Even if the owner of the class A were willing to entertain such an interference deal, the FCC is (rightfully, I think) loath to set a precedent by allowing it. Once one class D on a clear channel has been allowed to upgrade and create interference, how do you tell the dozen others that might also be on that channel that they can't then upgrade also? (And once they have done so, the noise floor probably gets so high that any advantage to the original class D upgrade is lost anyway.)

As for 1550, yes, it's still a Canadian clear and is even in use once again by a class A facility in Windsor, Ontario that receives full protection under international treaty.

Assuming the station in question doesn't have the kind of money to fully buy out and downgrade the class A on its channel (and even if it does), I agree that an FM translator would be a much more prudent move.
 
secondchoice said:
Just another thought on translators, I don't know the specific rules but apparently non com translators 88.1 to 91.9 can be "refrequencyed" to the commercial channels like WRGC did with W209AE moving it from 2 watts on 89.7 to 250 watts on 99.5

http://www.radio-locator.com/info/W209AE-FX
Click to expand...

There's not actually any such thing as a "non-commercial translator," interestingly enough. Translators in the non-com part of the dial (87.9-91.9) can only relay a noncommercial primary station, of course, and can be fed by any means instead of being required to be fed off-air.

But any translator, regardless of frequency, can make a minor change, which is any move plus or minus 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 MHz away...or any move 10.6 or 10.8 MHz away. And simply by making that move out of the reserved band, that translator can then be used to relay a commercial station.
 
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