Lame excuses for being silent – if you h…

Lame excuses for being silent – if you hold an FCC License, you are obligated to be on the air all the time at close to authorized power (special exceptions for schools and LPFM…). If your station is going to be off the air for more than 30 days, you have to tell the FCC why and get permission. Rules Here The main rule about this is:

the Commission can not grant an STA to remain silent unless the reason for the station’s silence is beyond the control of the licensee.

Typical reasons for an STA that I’ve seen might include:
– The licensee is an individual who died
– The antenna was destroyed by a storm
– An FM station was leasing space on a tower and the tower owner terminated the lease
– Bankruptcy (until a receiver is appointed)

The idea here is that bandwidth is a scarce commodity and if a licensee is not using their allocated frequency, that means someone else is being denied the opportunity to use it. In addition, the community being served by the station is not getting emergency communications via EAS if the station is turned off.

The key thing here is “Beyond the control” of the licensee…. Things that should not result in a STA “Stay Silent” order being approved…
– “The current economic climate makes it impossible to operate profitably”
– “We can’t afford to repair the transmitter”
– “It’s not possible to obtain replacement parts for our transmitter”
– “We have staffing problems”

The rules seem to lack teeth though if the STA is turned down yet the station still remains silent. They’ve notified the FCC, but don’t have permission to stay silent – but there appears to be no penalty. If the station does stay silent for a year, then they can lose the license. A number of stations play the game of turning the power back on for a week then turning it back off and applying for another year of being silent.