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Wacky technical stuff you've done

Quite common, especially for a few days or so. Commission might get excited if this went on for months and months--would want an STA filed.

If the Commission did fuss about using an exciter for a few days I would suspect someone would chew them out at the next NAB show. Or should.
 
TomT said:
Quite common, especially for a few days or so. Commission might get excited if this went on for months and months--would want an STA filed.

If the Commission did fuss about using an exciter for a few days I would suspect someone would chew them out at the next NAB show. Or should.
Click to expand...


The way I read what CatFM was saying, the operation on the exciter only happened late at night. If it was on Sundays or after 10pm, that could have gone on forever.


§ 73.1740 Minimum operating schedule.
(a) All commercial broadcast stations are required to operate not less than the following minimum hours:

(1) AM and FM stations. Two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. local time and two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 p.m. and midnight, local time, each day of the week except Sunday.


Since nobody is saying you have to be on the air at all, it can't matter that you're only operating at 50 watts ERP, or whatever it was.

And also, there are provisions for ceasing operations completely up to a month-


(4) In the event that causes beyond the control of a licensee make it impossible to adhere to the operating schedule of this section or to continue operating, the station may limit or discontinue operation for a period of not more than 30 days without further authority from the FCC. Notification must be sent to the FCC in Washington, D.C. not later than the 10th day of limited or discontinued operation. During such period, the licensee shall continue to adhere to the requirements in the station license pertaining to the lighting of antenna structures. In the event normal operation is restored prior to the expiration of the 30 day period, the licensee will so notify the FCC of this date. If the causes beyond the control of the licensee make it impossible to comply within the allowed period, informal written request shall be made to the FCC no later than the 30th day for such additional time as may be deemed necessary.



I'm sure the FCC was never notified of the operation on the exciter at night, and that is fine. It wasn't necessary to do so.
 
Don't believe it is necessary to license an auxiliary facility where all you are doing is switching in a back-up transmitter to allow for maintenance or repair on the main transmitter. Even if the back-up is lower power than the main. I have a BE 1 kilowatt that is presently connected to an antenna switch with our main 3-phase 10 kw transmitter. If the power fails, we use the 1 kilowatt with our single phase 20 kw geni (which also runs the co-located studios).

Since the BE is frequency-agile, only weighs around 40 pounds,and fits in the trunk of my car, I also use it as a back-up for an ECO-4 at another station. I have it powered by a piece of SO cable terminated in a 15 amp 220 plug. At the other station I have a 220 outlet in the rack & a rack shelf mounted upside down. If the ECO-4 fails, I can have the BE on the air within an hour. Just slide it in the rack, connect a jumper with an N to 1 5/8" adapter to the feedline, plug it in, connect audio, reset the frequency and I'm back on the air.

The intent of licensing an auxiliary facility is where you are using a different (FM) antenna or even a different site. For example, if you had a short tower at the studio with one bay as an auxiliary facility, to be used when the licensed taller tower/higher power site was unavailable.

As noted, when a few days is going to stretch into weeks (such as where a fire destroys the main transmitter site), then the station must request an STA.
 
The key there is they ran that way for an extended period of time with no STA. The public file part of the fine is a given. The FCC is all about stupid paperwork and not really making stations adhere to technical standards or even serve the public much anymore, sadly.
 
Yes, as a rule of thumb, if the main transmitter blows up & it will be a week for a part to arrive, no problem. If the main transmitter starts a fire and the transmitter building burns down--file for an STA, you're going to be a while putting the pieces back together, even if you can splice into the feed line and run off a borrowed transmitter in the back of a U-Haul truck.

Actually did that for a while--we had to build a new AM site--highway taking the old site-- & the transmitter building was a nice portable building. Put the Collins 1 kilowatt in the back of a truck, jury-rigged the power and remote control, hauled the building out to the new site (where we installed a new transmitter) and turned the new site on a week later.

Of course, if the temporary operation involves an AM DA, or where an entirely different site is required (e.g. tornado takes down the FM tower), best to request the STA & keep the Commission informed on what you are doing.
 
I got thinking of the time one station I worked for lost one of the three top guy wires on the 160' AM tower. As I pulled into our studio/transmitter location I happened to notice the the top section of the tower was leaning. The guy had broken away from the tower at the top. I went in and called the owner/chief and our tower guy. The tower guy came to the station with a Very long length of rope and actually climbed the tower (no way for me) and rigged the rope through the remaining insulator then came down and tied it off to the ground anchor. We remained on the air till the new guys were installed (VERY SOON) and the tower didn't fall over, much to the relief of EVERYONE involved. All the staff was cautioned about the tower and they worked in the building at their own risk. Fortunately we didn't have any heavy winds during that time.
 
Speaking of towers falling down.
Back in '75 50 kw ND-D/ 25 kw DA-N lost the day-ND tower in a thunderstorm. FCC decided that the station could only run 1 kw ND at night. This was before the 25% rule. How do you get a 50 kw GE to run that low? You can't. No backup transmitter either. The GE's HV was switched to the wye config and put out about 18 kw for the daytime. Only 2" line into a funky load. At sundown they ran the loading (power control in that transmitter) all the way "down" and cranked the tuning 'till it was putting about 8 kw out. They rigged up a BIG set of resistors that was switched in for night. Took about 10 minutes to do that routine. It was a manned site at the time so it gave the operator something to do. Really sounded like c**p. Distortion, hum and all.

Later I ran the same GE in wye when one of the Peter Dahl plate transformers blew smoke. (They replaced the origional three 35 kva pole-pigs due to PCBs.) Some hum but I got the bias's set to here it wasn't distorted. Ran 8 kw that way.
 
When I was the corporate chief for Behan Broadcasting, I flew from CA into Lamar CO to fix a downed Class C FM. When I got to the Xmtr site late that night, I realized it was going to be a long fix. Rigged a cable with a BNC on one end and clips on the other from the 10 watt exciter to the output connector in the transmitter going to the 8 bay antenna. The sales manager went around the next morning telling everyone we were back on fully. 10 watts badly matched into 8 bays kept the small town covered, but I'm sure the rural audience was still hurting. 2 days later, the 25 KW main was back up and a month later the boss bought a backup 1 KW FM for backup.
 
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