WBTS Doraville closer to reality

[RickRose]

On June 2nd the FCC granted the application for 95.5 The Beat to change their city of license to Doraville from Athens. A while back the FCC approved the change in the table of allotments to allott 95.5 to Doraville but Cox had to file a minor change in license facilities to actually make the change. Since there is no facility change I would say that the legal ID could change at anytime once they cut the new legal ID's.
Now the next thing to watch for is a application to change their facilities now that the city of license change is now granted. They are grandfathered short-spaced to 94.9 and 96.1 so that may be the ticket to soon move the transmitter into town.

 

[ssnake]

> Now the next thing to watch for is a application to change
> their facilities now that the city of license change is now
> granted. They are grandfathered short-spaced to 94.9 and
> 96.1 so that may be the ticket to soon move the transmitter
> into town.

If they are grandfathered short-spaced, does that mean that the area of prohibited contour overlap must not be increased? Wouldn't the short-spacing be worse with a closer transmitter?

 

[kjallen]

> If they are grandfathered short-spaced, does that mean that
> the area of prohibited contour overlap must not be
> increased? Wouldn't the short-spacing be worse with a
> closer transmitter?
>

No, the grand-fathered status means that you can flat out ignore the 3rd adjacency short-spacing issues (if both stations involved are "grandfathered"). A move here in Georgia a few years back is actually one of the big precedents set in regards to this issue, and you can see it referenced in a number of applications around the country. When 106.1 WSTE (now WNGC) moved to their new tower site near Lulu, GA; they increased their short-spacing to 106.7 WYAY by a very big distance. WSTE argued that since both WSTE and WYAY were allotted before the 3rd adjacency rules were put into place, they should not have to observe them. And the commission said okay!

You are right, normally, grandfathered means that you can stay where you are, but if you change something (or make the situation worse), you have to play by everyone else’s rules.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard that if one of those big grandfathered FM’s that operate over 100kw move, they will be forced to go down to 100kw. To me, that is what “grandfathered” should mean.