N
NashRadio
Guest
(I'm a radio outsider), where will the 122 future fm licenses in FCC Auction 79 come from?
Thank you
Thank you
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Back in earlier times, someone who wanted a radio station hired a "consulting engineer" who would find a vacant place on the dial, prepare oodles of gobs of charts and maps, and an application would be filed for the vacant space.
The AM spectrum and to some extent the TV spectrum had been handled in this somewhat hap-hazard way. I think early FM was also. Give or take 40 years ago the FCC decided they would get the jump on FM so we would not have hap-hazard distribution of stations. They established allocations for communities. That way all interested applicants knew what frequency or frequencies were available for the community you wanted to serve. The allocations were based on how radio worked then, population patterns then, and economics then.
Today if you want a new FM station, you don't start the process by applying for a frequency you just found using your computer. (You can in NCE and LPFM.) If you find an unused frequency that would work in East Seedtick, OK provided you can locate the tower in this one tiny bit of geography 11 miles from "town" (East Seedtick consists of one convenience store, on every-other-week church and an antique shop.) Instead you apply to the FCC to "allocate" the channel. You can spend a lot of money getting this done. Then they don't let you just apply for the frequency, they throw it into the next auction which may be 4 years out. Now it is on a list and EVERYBODY can apply for the channel that at one time you were the only person who realized it could be made to work.
So, the simple answer to your question is that the channels to be auctioned are vacant, available spots on the dial that either the FCC has found, or that some would-be-station owner has found and provided the engineering study to prove the channel will work in that location.
A footnote: you may have noticed about 10 days ago a small group of broadcasters has asked the FCC to rethink their whole city-of-license concept. The FCC has had a philosophy that if available frequencies are in short supply, we should give priority to communities getting their first primary service. In my example above if you were trying to get that vacant space allocated to serve Tulsa, or Oklahoma City or Muskogee, there would be all this flack about those markets already having maybe too much service. But if you show up at the FCC with your hang-dog look and say: "The poor law abiding citizens of East Seedtick are under served. They get no local public service announcements. They get no local news. They deserve their own station!" The recent FCC rules make East Seedtick a shoe-in.
Then what happens? The tower gets built at E. Seedtick (well, 11 miles away) and the office/studio ends up in one of those metro areas... because that is where the big bucks are. Unfortunately, five miles from the new transmitter is Oklahoma's version of Mayberry, a county seat with only an AM station where the previous owner was too bone-headed to get an FM station when he could. The current owner at "Mayberry" is one of those classic owners who puts in the long hours and truly serves the community. But suddenly everybody in town finds that the new FM pretending to serve E Seedtick comes in so well on their cheap clock radios that they abandon their little AM that is almost lost in the static and noise of today.
Not that I am bitter. Not that I have a sour attitude about the way the spectrum is parcelled out, but that, to quote Mr. Conkite, "That's the way it is."
The AM spectrum and to some extent the TV spectrum had been handled in this somewhat hap-hazard way. I think early FM was also. Give or take 40 years ago the FCC decided they would get the jump on FM so we would not have hap-hazard distribution of stations. They established allocations for communities. That way all interested applicants knew what frequency or frequencies were available for the community you wanted to serve. The allocations were based on how radio worked then, population patterns then, and economics then.
Today if you want a new FM station, you don't start the process by applying for a frequency you just found using your computer. (You can in NCE and LPFM.) If you find an unused frequency that would work in East Seedtick, OK provided you can locate the tower in this one tiny bit of geography 11 miles from "town" (East Seedtick consists of one convenience store, on every-other-week church and an antique shop.) Instead you apply to the FCC to "allocate" the channel. You can spend a lot of money getting this done. Then they don't let you just apply for the frequency, they throw it into the next auction which may be 4 years out. Now it is on a list and EVERYBODY can apply for the channel that at one time you were the only person who realized it could be made to work.
So, the simple answer to your question is that the channels to be auctioned are vacant, available spots on the dial that either the FCC has found, or that some would-be-station owner has found and provided the engineering study to prove the channel will work in that location.
A footnote: you may have noticed about 10 days ago a small group of broadcasters has asked the FCC to rethink their whole city-of-license concept. The FCC has had a philosophy that if available frequencies are in short supply, we should give priority to communities getting their first primary service. In my example above if you were trying to get that vacant space allocated to serve Tulsa, or Oklahoma City or Muskogee, there would be all this flack about those markets already having maybe too much service. But if you show up at the FCC with your hang-dog look and say: "The poor law abiding citizens of East Seedtick are under served. They get no local public service announcements. They get no local news. They deserve their own station!" The recent FCC rules make East Seedtick a shoe-in.
Then what happens? The tower gets built at E. Seedtick (well, 11 miles away) and the office/studio ends up in one of those metro areas... because that is where the big bucks are. Unfortunately, five miles from the new transmitter is Oklahoma's version of Mayberry, a county seat with only an AM station where the previous owner was too bone-headed to get an FM station when he could. The current owner at "Mayberry" is one of those classic owners who puts in the long hours and truly serves the community. But suddenly everybody in town finds that the new FM pretending to serve E Seedtick comes in so well on their cheap clock radios that they abandon their little AM that is almost lost in the static and noise of today.
Not that I am bitter. Not that I have a sour attitude about the way the spectrum is parcelled out, but that, to quote Mr. Conkite, "That's the way it is."
I'm not competent to fully evaluate the Nashville market but I will look later.
But here is what happens. You find that little hamlet 40 or 50 miles from Nashville and get the CP. Put it on the air. Then you turn your spectrum-genius loose on the computer and pretty soon you come up with a plan. If someone in Cookeville or Manchester or Clarkesville will agree to move their tower (at your expense) another 20 miles away from Nashville and you can get someone much closer to Nashville to move over one or two channels (at your expense) then the way may be clear to move your new CP much closer to Nashville. For now you have the channel locked up because no one else can apply for that channel in Nashville because it would interfere with what you have.
It's not a game for the faint-of-heart or those with a light-weight pocket book.
I pulled up the list for Auction 79 and looked at some areas I am familiar with. Now my East Seedtick, OK was a figment of my imagination. Take a look at Cove, AR and Daisy, AR. Those are REAL towns and REAL allocations. I won't be standing in line to buy either of those CPs when they are granted!
But here is what happens. You find that little hamlet 40 or 50 miles from Nashville and get the CP. Put it on the air. Then you turn your spectrum-genius loose on the computer and pretty soon you come up with a plan. If someone in Cookeville or Manchester or Clarkesville will agree to move their tower (at your expense) another 20 miles away from Nashville and you can get someone much closer to Nashville to move over one or two channels (at your expense) then the way may be clear to move your new CP much closer to Nashville. For now you have the channel locked up because no one else can apply for that channel in Nashville because it would interfere with what you have.
It's not a game for the faint-of-heart or those with a light-weight pocket book.
I pulled up the list for Auction 79 and looked at some areas I am familiar with. Now my East Seedtick, OK was a figment of my imagination. Take a look at Cove, AR and Daisy, AR. Those are REAL towns and REAL allocations. I won't be standing in line to buy either of those CPs when they are granted!
Nock said:Wasn't 97.1 the last available frequency in Nashville when they came on 12 plus years ago?
When I first came to Nashville more than 20 years ago, I was told there were two missing frequencies in the greater area. They were 97.1 and 103.9. Of course, 97.1 went on the air, but the only use 103.9 has seen was by a Brentwood church running "low beam" for Sunday morning announcements and parking instructions.
N
NashRadio
Guest
So the 103.9 licensed to Drakesboro KY
on which 560 WNSR is simulcasting would or would not be the vacant Nashville frequency?
on which 560 WNSR is simulcasting would or would not be the vacant Nashville frequency?
Re: So the 103.9 licensed to Drakesboro KY
that's the one: many years ago there was talk of them moving to the 101.1 Cross Plains stick,
but no paperwork was ever filed that I know of. it may have been just that...idle talk.
D Dean said:on which 560 WNSR is simulcasting would or would not be the vacant Nashville frequency?
that's the one: many years ago there was talk of them moving to the 101.1 Cross Plains stick,
but no paperwork was ever filed that I know of. it may have been just that...idle talk.
jetfli said:Nock said:Wasn't 97.1 the last available frequency in Nashville when they came on 12 plus years ago?
When I first came to Nashville more than 20 years ago, I was told there were two missing frequencies in the greater area. They were 97.1 and 103.9. Of course, 97.1 went on the air, but the only use 103.9 has seen was by a Brentwood church running "low beam" for Sunday morning announcements and parking instructions.
103.9 can't be assigned for full-power use in or near Nashville because of WKDF 103.3 and WGFX 104.5. You have to be separated at least 800KHz from full-power stations with overlapping coverage.
I'm not sure why it took so long for 97.1 to come along. My guess is 96.9s in Paducah and Decatur, Ala. are the reason.
Until Docket 80-90 came along in 1980, 97.1 could only be assigned to 100kw Class C stations. If you couldn't run 100kw/2,000' on a frequency without interfering with someone else, you couldn't use the frequency at all.
Docket 80-90 allowed any class of station to operate on any frequency, and created the lower-powered C3, C2, C1, and eventually C0 classes. The lower classes of station require less distance separation. WRQQ is a C2 station, 50kw/500' (or equivalent), and it can be considerably closer to Paducah/Decatur than would be required for a full Class C.
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(IMHO, 800KHz of separation is not necessary. Only 600KHz is required in Canada; there are, for example, 100kw stations on both 92.1 and 92.7 in Regina. If we had the same rules here, a station might be possible on 103.9)
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There's a 103.9 in Drakesboro, Kentucky, in the middle of nowhere northeast of Hopkinsville. It's simulcast WNSR from time to time, among other things. Seems to be off the air more than it's on.
I've heard WNSR on 103.9 signals that sure didn't seem to be coming from Kentucky.
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If someone in Cookeville or Manchester or Clarkesville will agree to move their tower (at your expense) another 20 miles away from Nashville...
Ironically, there are no commercial FM stations licensed to Clarksville! It's got to be one of the largest cities with that situation.
'Course, Q108 and Z97-5 and Eagle 94.3 are, for all intents and purposes, Clarksville stations. But they're officially licensed to Fort Campbell, Hopkinsville, and Oak Grove respectively...
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