The FCC shouldn’t let broadcasters use vacant spectrum channels for the ATSC 3.0 transition, said Consumer Reports and the Open Technology Institute at New America in a meeting last week with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, recounted a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. Doing so would harm the public interest and prevent TV white spaces from being used “to bridge the digital divide,” the groups said. Comparing the use of vacant channels to “doubling a station’s free spectrum assignment,” the groups said letting broadcasters use the spectrum isn’t needed to protect consumers, even if it would help broadcasters. The FCC should instead adopt a further notice to allow the use of location data to determine what sort of interference protections are needed to protect WMTS operations on channel 37, the filing said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will use next week’s NAB Show to demo HD Radio’s emergency alerting functionality for the agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), emailed a representative for HD Radio parent Xperi. The demos will be at FEMA’s IPAWS booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall, he said. Xperi also will demo HD Radio at its North Hall booth and will participate with NAB Pilot showcasing digital AM technology in the Future’s Park pavilion on the main show floor, he said. More than 320 HD Radio stations in 85 U.S. markets in January transmitted “emergency alert text notifications” to HD Radio receivers, said an Xperi white paper. HD Radio can enhance emergency alerting with many “advanced features and attributes,” including the ability to wake up receivers in sleep mode, “to provide greater resiliency, redundancy, and accessibility in the nation’s public alerting ecosystem,” it said.

“Myriad” ATSC 3.0 demos, sessions and technical papers will prevail at next week’s NAB Show, said ATSC Monday. Activities will include a “Ride the Road to ATSC 3.0" stage exhibit in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall featuring more than 20 free sessions on 3.0 deployments and future potential, it said. ATSC, CTA and NAB will be the exhibit’s lead sponsors, it said. NAB, with support from a number of technology companies, also will use the show to demo 3.0's single-frequency-network capabilities, it said. The SFN demos will show how reception “can be improved in difficult locations and in moving vehicles by deploying multiple broadcast towers transmitting the broadcast signal on the same channel,” it said. Four low-power transmitters will be deployed in the LVCC, and special 3.0 SFN “viewing kiosks” are planned for the LVCC lobby and the NAB Pilot exhibit in North Hall exhibit, plus at the Ride the Road stage at N2512, also in North Hall, it said. A guide to 3.0 activities and exhibits at the show is available for download, and will be distributed at a 3.0 information booth in LVCC’s Central Lobby, it said.

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau plan an auction Sept. 10 for construction permits for six groups of 19 low-power TV and translator stations that filed mutually exclusive applications in the post-incentive auction displacement window, said a public notice Friday. The agency is seeking comment on the procedures for Auction 104 by April 15, replies April 29.

One Media got extension of FCC permission to broadcast in ATSC 3.0 on a Washington, D.C., translator station through Sept. 30, said Office of Engineering and Technology materials for special temporary authority. ATSC 3.0 can be broadcast only through STAs and experimental licenses because the Media Bureau hasn’t created a form for broadcasters to transition to the new standard (see 1902260046).

The FCC Media Bureau granted Ion’s unopposed request to change the community of license for Alabama's WPXH-TV Gadsden to Hoover (see 1902050044), said a public notice Thursday.

The FCC Media Bureau and Incentive Auction Taskforce waived quarterly report due dates for repacking broadcasters that have phase completion dates close to the quarterly report deadline, said a public notice Thursday. Broadcasters have to file a report 10 weeks before their phase completion date. “As a practical matter, the close proximity of the Quarterly Report and 10-Week Report deadlines during Phases 3, 5, and 8 renders them duplicative,” the PN said. That means the April 10 report deadline for Phase 3 stations, the July 10 deadline for Phase 5 stations, and the Jan. 10 deadline for Phase 8 stations are all waived, the PN said. “Such stations will continue to be required to file their 10-Week Reports on the applicable due date.”

Eurofins Digital Testing will showcase a new conformance test suite for ATSC 3.0 at NAB, it said Wednesday. Arreios for ATSC 3.0 enables certification and testing for UHD, HDR, video over broadcast and broadband, interactive applications, targeted advertising, emergency alerts, content recovery and watermarking, it said. The company will exhibit at Futures Park in North Hall booth N1335 in the Las Vegas Convention Center and in Westgate Director C, it said.

A Dothan, Alabama, AM licensee faces a proposed forfeiture of $18,000 for originating programming on an FM translator, and relocating and going silent without permission, said an FCC Media Bureau notice of apparent liability and order Wednesday. Alabama Media’s translator station originated its own sports programming for several days and filed for a construction permit and special temporary authority only after a visit from FCC inspectors, the NAL said. Alabama Media’s translator was silent for 11 weeks, the NAL aid. “Considering the extensive and egregious nature of the apparent violations here, we believe that no downward adjustment is warranted." The bureau rejected for a lack of evidence an interference complaint and allegations Alabama Media was violating local ownership rules.

The FCC should let any AM station go all digital, Bryan Broadcasting petitioned for rulemaking, posted Tuesday in docket 13-249. The petition recognizes the reality of AM’s interference problem, blogged Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford, who represents Bryan. “For those AM stations that did not get a translator, or for those whose AM signal reaches farther than a translator can, other solutions are needed,” Oxenford said Wednesday. The FCC previously has considered allowing a digital shift for AM but never pulled the trigger on allowing it, Oxenford said. It’s likely to be a while before the Bryan petition would lead to a rule change, Oxenford said, though additional stations could ask for experimental authority to shift.