A certified radio broadcasting engineer is not the same as a station operator. The station operator’s main responsibility is to keep the radio station operating within the authorized permission of the station license – making sure the power output is not too high or too low, keeping the required logs, making sure an AM station is going to low power when the sun goes down, that the lights on the tower are working, that the perimeter fence is secure. The station engineer typically also does the wiring of the equipment inside the station, and maintains the link that connects the studio to the station.
A Certified Radio Engineer is a person with an engineering degree that belongs to the Society of Broadcast Engineers. They have a number of different levels of certification, based on education, experience and passing tests (and for the most senior classification, recommendations of other certified engineers)
It’s the most senior engineers who are capable of putting together a document like this:
http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=34219
FCC Rules require that a radio station have its main studio and offices located within the “Local” broadcast area of the station (defined by the 70 dB signal level).
KHLX-FM is owned by Clear Channel. The FCC has a “Predicted Coverage” pattern based on general assumptions about the tower and the type of transmitter. Based on the FCC pattern, the studio is not within the 70 dB contour, which could result in the FCC fining Clear Channel. An engineer standing at the studio can easily measure that the signal is above 70 dB, but that’s not good enough
So a consulting engineer is brought in to do this study to find out why the signal is strong at the studio, and proves that the signal is strong because the transmitter is on top of a mountain and there is nothing obstructing the signal between the transmitter and the studio location. The last page compares the simplistic FCC theoretical model based on averages with a specific analysis of this transmitter based on the exact terrain.
http://www.dlr.com/dutreilsrbio.html