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Question about FM translators

B

BruceB

Banned
An AM station in my area operates with two FM translators. The AM is 4500 watts day and 300 watts night but it seems the AM is only on a few hours a week. I only check them in the daytime.
Even the imaging has changed.Now they only mention the FM frequencies and "on your smart speaker".No mention of the AM at all.
My question is, how many hours a week must the AM be on air to justify the translators?
Are the operators of this station just doing this because they think no one will notice? Or is this in compliance?
 
BruceB said:
An AM station in my area operates with two FM translators. The AM is 4500 watts day and 300 watts night but it seems the AM is only on a few hours a week. I only check them in the daytime.
Even the imaging has changed.Now they only mention the FM frequencies and "on your smart speaker".No mention of the AM at all.
My question is, how many hours a week must the AM be on air to justify the translators?
Are the operators of this station just doing this because they think no one will notice? Or is this in compliance?
Click to expand...
Imaging is not regulated. There's no rule that the AM needs to be promoted, only that the AM has it's legal ID broadcast once an hour.
 
To answer the broadcast hours: 2/3rds of the time 6am to 6pm and 2/3rds of the time 6pm to Midnight except Sunday when they are not required to be on the air.

Most AMs with translators quit mentioning the AM a few years back except for the legal ID that is typically buried in the final stop set of the hour.
 
bturner1 said:
To answer the broadcast hours: 2/3rds of the time 6am to 6pm and 2/3rds of the time 6pm to Midnight except Sunday when they are not required to be on the air.

Most AMs with translators quit mentioning the AM a few years back except for the legal ID that is typically buried in the final stop set of the hour.
Click to expand...

But - the letter of the rule says that the translator can't be on the air when the AM is off the air unless it's a daytimer. So in theory, an AM station that operates only 2/3rds of the time would have to shut off the translator when it's not on AM.

That, of course, is just theory. The reality is that the FCC doesn't have the enforcement staff to ride herd on all the AMs that don't actually follow the rules with their translators. There are plenty of translators out there running without their AMs on the air, and unless the FCC gets a complaint from another broadcaster, the odds are small that they'll get caught or penalized.
 
fybush said:
But - the letter of the rule says that the translator can't be on the air when the AM is off the air unless it's a daytimer. So in theory, an AM station that operates only 2/3rds of the time would have to shut off the translator when it's not on AM.

That, of course, is just theory. The reality is that the FCC doesn't have the enforcement staff to ride herd on all the AMs that don't actually follow the rules with their translators. There are plenty of translators out there running without their AMs on the air, and unless the FCC gets a complaint from another broadcaster, the odds are small that they'll get caught or penalized.
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The station plays 50s snd 60s Oldies and barely shows up in the ratings.
So I doubt that the big guys will complain about a station with a .5.
So I guess they get away with it.
 
You must not have dealt with the FCC BruceB. They could care less what your ratings are. In just the same way you're getting a ticket for going 20 miles over and your income of how nice or crappy your car is has no bearing. If you're #1 or last in the ratings, all stations are expected to abide by FCC Rules. Let's just say if they are barely making it, that fine could be a death knell or bump their credit card past the credit limit.
 
bturner1 said:
You must not have dealt with the FCC BruceB. They could care less what your ratings are. In just the same way you're getting a ticket for going 20 miles over and your income of how nice or crappy your car is has no bearing. If you're #1 or last in the ratings, all stations are expected to abide by FCC Rules. Let's just say if they are barely making it, that fine could be a death knell or bump their credit card past the credit limit.
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What I was saying is the FCC will not know about it because they will not be reported due to their low ratings not being a threat to other stations in the market.
I was not saying they get a pass because their ratings are low.
I think you misunderstood my meaning.
 
We had a story in the news a few months ago about how vandals took down a small-town AM station's tower for its scrap price. The station supposedly had an AM signal and an FM translator. When the news came out about the robbery of a station's tower, a nearby iHeart station was willing to let the demolished station use one of iHeart's HD subchannels to continue feeding the translator until the AM tower could be rebuilt.

The funny thing is, at first the owner was given a lot of sympathy for this brazen act of robbery. But as the story got told, it turns out that AM tower had been off the air for a while before it was vandalized. Even the Google Streetview picture showed it was falling down from months earlier. Everyone realized the owner had been operating the translator illegally and getting away with it.
 
Gregg. said:
We had a story in the news a few months ago about how vandals took down a small-town AM station's tower for its scrap price. The station supposedly had an AM signal and an FM translator. When the news came out about the robbery of a station's tower, a nearby iHeart station was willing to let the demolished station use one of iHeart's HD subchannels to continue feeding the translator until the AM tower could be rebuilt.

The funny thing is, at first the owner was given a lot of sympathy for this brazen act of robbery. But as the story got told, it turns out that AM tower had been off the air for a while before it was vandalized. Even the Google Streetview picture showed it was falling down from months earlier. Everyone realized the owner had been operating the translator illegally and getting away with it.
Click to expand...
Is this that station in, I believe it was, Alabama? Something about the AM had been off the air due to a transmitter failure, the station changed hands, and remained off the air except for the translator for well over a year before the AM tower was torn down.
 
These owners are going to get away with this stuff unless someone rats them out, the FCC just doesn't have a Radio Police to go around and check up on everybody.
Nor would we want them to.
 
Sometimes the owners don't know. A small town AM/ FM tx near me had the AM off air and the Translator was still on the air. I pass through the town every couple weeks. The next time I passed through the same . I know the owner and emailed him. He did not know the AM was off air and said, "yeah, we were having trouble with that transmitter." The next week he was back on the air on AM. The issue is no one is listening to the AM, and smaller owners, (he has 3 other stations) just don't have the technology, time and money to spend to monitor their AM's that exist only to feed the translators.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
Sometimes the owners don't know. A small town AM/ FM tx near me had the AM off air and the Translator was still on the air. I pass through the town every couple weeks. The next time I passed through the same . I know the owner and emailed him. He did not know the AM was off air and said, "yeah, we were having trouble with that transmitter." The next week he was back on the air on AM. The issue is no one is listening to the AM, and smaller owners, (he has 3 other stations) just don't have the technology, time and money to spend to monitor their AM's that exist only to feed the translators.
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If no one is listening and the owners don’t even know it’s off why bother waste money keeping them powered on.
 
Don CT said:
If no one is listening and the owners don’t even know it’s off why bother waste money keeping them powered on.
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In case you've not noticed, the AMs that have gone permanently silent and surrendered their licenses are for the most part ones that have no FM translator. There are already a few isolated cases -- where an owner has the benefit of their translator not being permanently attached to the AM license -- making arrangements to move the programming to a HD subchannel of an FM in the market, switch the translator to that and go silent on the AM.

But that doesn't cover all circumstances and each station owner has to decide based on what theirs is. But I will agree with you to some degree that if an AM is standalone, off the air, and no one notices, it's a good candidate for going silent.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
Sometimes the owners don't know. A small town AM/ FM tx near me had the AM off air and the Translator was still on the air. I pass through the town every couple weeks. The next time I passed through the same . I know the owner and emailed him. He did not know the AM was off air and said, "yeah, we were having trouble with that transmitter." The next week he was back on the air on AM. The issue is no one is listening to the AM, and smaller owners, (he has 3 other stations) just don't have the technology, time and money to spend to monitor their AM's that exist only to feed the translators.
Click to expand...
I don't know if that's a very good excuse. Remote control systems that will monitor and call or text your smartphone are cheap, especially some of the older used units. As a broadcaster, you're responsible for monitoring your facilities' condition, not relying on the listener to call and tell you it's off the air.
If they can't afford a simple remote control with monitoring and notification, they need to consider getting out of the business.
 
Kelly A said:
I don't know if that's a very good excuse. Remote control systems that will monitor and call or text your smartphone are cheap, especially some of the older used units. As a broadcaster, you're responsible for monitoring your facilities' condition, not relying on the listener to call and tell you it's off the air.
If they can't afford a simple remote control with monitoring and notification, they need to consider getting out of the business.
Click to expand...
I agree with you. when you are the owner of a property, whether it be a gas station or an apartment complex, or an AM Radio station you have a responsibility for the upkeep of that property, in the case of a radio station, those responsibilities are very specific.The excuse of "oh.Is it off the air?Why wasn't I told?" Is not going to fly.
 
I'm the guy that started the thread. Saving AM Radio. one of my ideas is to force AM stations that are not properly maintaining their equipment and their signal to surrender their license. Then those stations on the same frequencies that are in compliance might be able to increase their power to punch through the noise floor. As for the FM translators belonging to AM stations that are not even on the air, their translators could be sold to other operators in the market that are maintaining their AM properties.
 
BruceB said:
I'm the guy that started the thread. Saving AM Radio. one of my ideas is to force AM stations that are not properly maintaining their equipment and their signal to surrender their license. Then those stations on the same frequencies that are in compliance might be able to increase their power to punch through the noise floor. As for the FM translators belonging to AM stations that are not even on the air, their translators could be sold to other operators in the market that are maintaining their AM properties.
Click to expand...
I wish it was that simple. If the commission came down hard on unethical operators there would be law suits. The FCC would have to actually have to do field work which most likely is "not in the budget". IIRC any fines go to the US Treasury. If there is no complaints no action will take place.
 
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