Radio Station Owner Proposes Letting Smaller AMs Move Fully to FM Translators
An owner of radio stations in the Bryan-College Station area of Texas proposed the FCC let smaller AM stations give up those licenses and transfer primary status to a new class of FM station: their translator. Bryan Broadcasting said that…
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could remedy any interference between those Class D's and higher-power Class A's while letting the smaller ones operate at higher nighttime power, acknowledging it's a "difficult problem" for the regulator to "resolve." Bryan Vice President Ben Downs said in a filing posted Friday that he told eighth-floor and Media Bureau officials including Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in several meetings that such "migration" would be allowed if the translator had been operating for a year or two without facing interference complaints. Downs wrote in docket 13-249 that the plan "would help reduce congestion in the AM band" as he "believes a substantial number of the over 850 Class D AM stations would be willing to take this trade." Class D's run "either daytime, limited time, or unlimited time with a nighttime power less than 0.250 kW," while D's can operate at much higher power 24 hours a day "on a clear channel," the bureau says. Downs said such AM to FM switches would give Class A's money from selling their transmitter sites, as many "AM sites have become more valuable as real estate than as part of an AM station." NAB and bureau representatives declined to comment.