There are some exceptions, but in general if you own a radio station license, you have an obligation to keep the station in continuous operation.
Back in the “Good old days”, the FCC took this very seriously. If you were off the air for 30 days and the FCC didn’t accept your explanation of why, your license was at risk for cancellation.
Now, it’s not unusual for a station to be silent for years, and nobody cares. People on the same and nearby frequencies aren’t going to report you, since being off the air makes their signal better. If the station has no listeners, they won’t be complaining to the FCC.
But the process is still that you expect to be off the air for more than a few days, you have to ask to FCC for permission, but there appears to be no consequences if the FCC doesn’t like your reason.
So here is the application from KMAK-FM , a 72 watt Class A FM station in Orange Cove, CA, located near Fresno, but it doesn’t really reach Fresno [Map]. Last indication was maybe the station had been playing Mexican music.
Back on June 8th, this application was filed with the explanation that “COMPUTER SYSTEM HAS TO BE WORKED ON AND I HAVE TO LEARN THE PROGRAM. AND THE COMPUTER HAS TO BE BACKED UP.”
The station has been owned by the same person since the Construction Permit was issued in 1988.
The FCC just got around this week to dismissing the request. Perhaps the backup finished.
Oh, this story gets interesting…. the radio station web page has a link to a newspaper story about the “Tug of war” over the station
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/06/08/2419863/tug-of-war-keeps-kmak-off-the.html
It turns out the station was LMAed out to the guy doing the Mexican music format. It’s the guy who leased the station with the problem. He claimed that because the computer wouldn’t work, he refused to pay the rental on the station. The owner of the station says the rent is for the station, and the computers are the responsibility of the guy renting the station. So with the lease about to reach its one year anniversary, the owner pulled the plug for not being paid the rent. The web site for the station is owned by the station owner.
Man, why not fire the whole FCC dept? All they are is a clearing house for frequency’s they want to auction the cell phone companies.
At one time they were feared. People now advertise modifying(tuning) CB radio’s for more power. There was a rule you could not do that. At one time you would have to send in for a operators license for a CB and they gave you a call sign like HAM .
CB’ers use to fear ‘Uncle Charley’ if he found you with a ‘foot warmer’ (Linear). They had ‘radio vans’ with an antenna (like the ones the Gestapo uses on Hogans Hero’s) and traveled around and searched out scofflaws.
Times change. They don’t even monitor anything anymore do they? They might as well be shut down like the Dept. of Educateshun needs to be. (LOL)
Yeah, The CB radio in the late 60’s & 70’s was like the Internet today. You could find out about anything. Everyone had blogs
This is a double edged sword. The FCC lacks the staffing to enforce the laws. The telecom reform act in 1996 greatly reduced the teeth of the FCC in a lot of issues.
The FCC is now almost completely a reactive enforcer. I truly believe there are probably 500 or more AM stations that have gone off the air and nobody has noticed. If nobody complains to the FCC and it’s not in a major market, there is nothing to provoke the FCC to investigate. The license renew process just started up again – the first time it was 8 years between renewals, and I’m seeing lots of evidence that my theory is right. When they get the postcard reminding them the license renewal is up – and the station hasn’t been on the air for 3 years and the tower is dismantled sitting in a scrap yard… your choices are pretty limited. I think I’m seeing a lot of licenses change hands and the new owner immediately files a “STA” silent request – because in fact there is no station.
The FCC’s informal rule is they won’t approve the sale of a station that’s not on the air, but they aren’t going to send a field agent out 150 miles and kill an entire day just to check.
After the CB craze started, the “Ham” people started getting really upset – the CB folks would get hooked and “graduate” and get an amateur ham license and carried their behaviors forward – not mentioning their call sign on each transmission, transmissions lasting 3 seconds, profanity, running drug and prostitution rings, running over power. The morse code requirement was a huge obstacle for most of the yahoos which kept it a little bit under control, but now even that obstacle is gone.
So, is this another one for Judge Judy?
It gets even more interesting. The transmitter for this station is on a mountain that overlooks Fresno – almost everything for Fresno (TV Stations, ambulences, cell phone, wireless broadband, government agencies, PG&E are all on the same mountain.
It’s very unlikely that the radio station itself is on the top of the mountain. The location of the station in the FCC is a PO Box in Selma, a suburb of Fresno SE of Fresno, not even inside the “Local” contour of station.
A radio station is required to maintain an office so that 3t00z could ask to visit and look at the contract for the LMA and see what it says. I’m wondering exactly how the FCC let the station get in the situtation where its address is a PO Box.
It may well be that the only thing the “Station” has is a computer and internet connection to the top of the mountain to feed the transmitter.
After further research, here is address where the “Station” is located
View Larger Map
I just got back from Selma, I went with my daughter (in her Fresno Coroners office vehicle to look official ) and the guy at the station told me:
Contract ? Oh senior we don’ got no contract, we don’ got to show you any stink’n contract.
You left out the three critical words. the “Public Inspection File”. 🙂
The FCC is discussing maybe allowing radio stations to move the Public Inspection file onto their web sites to save you that trip driving to Selma.
The FCC has rejected this request.