WNBN-AM in Meridian Mississippi has a problem, and so does the FCC.<\/p>\n
Forfeiture Order<\/a><\/p>\n This document is somewhat garbled \u2013 it might be postscript or PDF format. The story described in the forfeiture order begins in 2007, when the FCC gets a complaint that WNBN-AM appears to not be reducing power at sunset. This can cause the AM station to skip off the ionosphere and interfere with many radio stations. Almost everything the FCC does is reactive, in response to a complaint. They rarely initiate investigations on their own. Complainer might have been another radio station, or might have been a DXer, a hobbyist who listens to AM radio stations at a long distance away and would be angry at this violation of the rules.<\/p>\n So the FCC investigator turns on his equipment from the office in Louisiana and hears the station loud and clear after sunset. Sometimes people make mistakes, so you like to see a pattern of failing to power down the transmitter. So the investigator listens for a second night for a longer period of time. The transmitter should have gone to low power at 5:15 PM but was still blasting away at 8:30 PM. Daylight saving time could explain a one hour screwup but not three hours. Looking more closely, he also realizes that the radio signal is not coming from the correct latitude and longitude.<\/p>\n So the investigator decides it is time to visit the radio station in person and see what the hell is going on. He meets with the owner and is able to get the relevant facts. The procedure the station is using is that the owner manually turns down the transmitter power at 9 PM, regardless of what time the sun is setting. The second issue is the transmitter location. The owner admits that the station is not transmitting from Its licensed location as the original plans fell through, so he built the tower at a different location, and just never got around to telling the FCC.<\/p>\n So the owner was hit with a “forfeiture order”, which is as close as the FCC has to any kind of ability to police anything. The language asserts that the station owner should make a “voluntary contribution” to the US treasury \u2013 or else! It would appear that the owner ignored the demand for money, and just kept on doing what he was doing. The only real sanction the FCC has is they will refuse to renew the license at the appropriate time. They can’t padlock the station, remove the equipment or anything like that. Some states have given the FCC state jurisdiction for pirate stations so that the sheriff can come out and do something, but in most states the FCC is powerless unless they can prove an imminent danger like interfering with airplane navigation. Annoying a DXer is not enough.<\/p>\n So in 2012, the license was up for renewal. The FCC threw out the “red light” rule, which means that if the FCC issued a demand for a “voluntary contribution” and you did not cough up the cash, they will refuse to renew the license until you do. So what if your license expires and you keep on broadcasting? Well, if the FCC thinks you might eventually pay, they can issue another forfeiture order for an unauthorized transmitter signal. So you keep broadcasting and the FCC keeps issuing uncollectible, unenforceable forfeiture orders. This little dance goes on until the owner dies or the bank forecloses. Pretty much everyone knows the entire radio station is worth less than the amount of the accrued forfeiture orders, but the FCC has no interest in taking over the radio station to operate it. So maybe the license gets deleted, maybe another party comes along and pays the fine to get the license, or it just sits in a limbo indefinitely. Deleting a license does not turn off the transmitter.<\/p>\n The FCC has been closing down its regional enforcement offices recently as being too expensive, which means the chance of an FCC inspector going out to a radio station in person is beginning to approach zero.<\/p>\n Happy MLK Junior day, and in Mississippi a happy Robert E Lee birthday to y’all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WNBN-AM in Meridian Mississippi has a problem, and so does the FCC. Forfeiture Order This document is somewhat garbled \u2013 it might be postscript or PDF format. The story described in the forfeiture order begins in 2007, when the FCC … Continue reading