What happens to a translator when......

[AMRocks]

Curious what happens when a translator's originating signal goes down. If the HD of your station is off, shouldn't the translator go off, too?

Here in the Greenville-Spartanburg SC market, WJMZ-FM feeds a number of translators. HD-2 feeds alternative X 98-5 and HD-3 feeds Jack-FM at 99.5. But Summit's HD has been out for weeks on the station, yet the translators are still broadcasting.

Is that legal? Do they have a certain amount of time to correct the engineering problem?

 

[fybush]

It's not legal. But there's a lot of it going on. There's one near me that's going on a month without feeding audio to the HD2 it leases (as its "originating" signal), and another market not far away where three translators have been running for several years now without HD on the station that's supposed to be feeding them. (Which is especially ironic, because the company that owns them is notorious for turning competitors into the FCC when they catch them breaking the rules.)

 

[DavidEduardo]

It's not legal. But there's a lot of it going on. There's one near me that's going on a month without feeding audio to the HD2 it leases (as its "originating" signal), and another market not far away where three translators have been running for several years now without HD on the station that's supposed to be feeding them. (Which is especially ironic, because the company that owns them is notorious for turning competitors into the FCC when they catch them breaking the rules.)

And this is as good a moment as any to ask: do you think that the FCC policy of supporting AM stations by migrating them to generally small FMs (unless you are in Albuquerque) has been successful?

 

[Kemosabe]

What is the penalty for operating an orphaned translator?

 

[fybush]

And this is as good a moment as any to ask: do you think that the FCC policy of supporting AM stations by migrating them to generally small FMs (unless you are in Albuquerque) has been successful?

Define "successful."

If "successful" means preserving analog AM as a platform, no, of course not. The phrase I use in FCC comments is "a fully mature medium," but the reality is "dying." No amount of regulatory tinkering at this point is going to bring listeners back in big numbers. Stations that still have viable signals (fewer and fewer of them every year) and a legacy of programming that draws audiences can keep holding on for a while longer, but even for them, the smart move now is to treat AM as one platform among many ways to keep reaching an audience in the future.

If "successful" means allowing AM licensees to continue providing useful service to their markets by adding a new platform, then yes, I think there are plenty of success stories out there. Near me, it's not just Buddy Shula in Buffalo - it's Dave Radigan with his three translators for WEBO that revived a local radio voice between Binghamton and Elmira. It's Bob Savage and WYSL here in Rochester. It's Lloyd Lane and his WCJW operation that now has 6 (!) translators filling the air with local radio between Buffalo and Rochester. Those stations are all successful businesses - and ideally, the question of what platform they're on ought to be as irrelevant at this point as, say, whether a discussion board is built on vBulletin or XenForo.

I'm oversimplifying, of course - but I'm staunchly in favor, within some practical limits (there's only so much FM spectrum to go around), of a continued actual transition from AM to FM for broadcasters interested in making that move.

 

[fybush]

What is the penalty for operating an orphaned translator?

In theory, it could lead to license revocation or non-renewal.

In practice, the FCC doesn't seem to be making this an enforcement priority - but that can always change. So much of the Enforcement Bureau's decision-making about where to use its limited resources depends on who's complaining. If another broadcaster in a market blows a whistle on a misbehaving translator, that gets FCC attention much faster than a complaint from J. Random Maybe Listener. And we don't know what priorities a new Biden-era Commission might have, either.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I'm oversimplifying, of course - but I'm staunchly in favor, within some practical limits (there's only so much FM spectrum to go around), of a continued actual transition from AM to FM for broadcasters interested in making that move.

So you'd favor permitting AM stations to gradually transition to the translator only?

I see a couple of issues:

1. 1. Translators need to become a full protected class, such as "A3" or similar. That would insure that those that surrender their AM have protection for the FM-only.
2. Possibly create classes of translators as sub-classes of the "A" category. Current ones would be, for example, A3. Upgrade to 500 watts might be A2 and 1 kw A1, with the 3/6 kw traditional A's becoming just plain "A".
3. Consider allowing daytimers to be the first ones permitted to silence the AM.
4. Also consider minority owned stations for early priority, particularly if they locate the converted translator in a high density area of a market for that particular minority service.
5. Follow that by graveyarders and other AMs above 1200 kHz with 1 kw or less.
6. Incentivize with tax credits or something akin to them stations that, by signing off, allow inferior AMs to improve their service area and/or considerably reduce directional patterns.
7. Eliminate skywave protection except in the usable signal area of a station. Today, that means at least 5 mV/m (even that is "optimistic" in most areas).
8. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.

 

[fybush]

So you'd favor permitting AM stations to gradually transition to the translator only?

I see a couple of issues:

1. 1. Translators need to become a full protected class, such as "A3" or similar. That would insure that those that surrender their AM have protection for the FM-only.
2. Possibly create classes of translators as sub-classes of the "A" category. Current ones would be, for example, A3. Upgrade to 500 watts might be A2 and 1 kw A1, with the 3/6 kw traditional A's becoming just plain "A".
3. Consider allowing daytimers to be the first ones permitted to silence the AM.
4. Also consider minority owned stations for early priority, particularly if they locate the converted translator in a high density area of a market for that particular minority service.
5. Follow that by graveyarders and other AMs above 1200 kHz with 1 kw or less.
6. Incentivize with tax credits or something akin to them stations that, by signing off, allow inferior AMs to improve their service area and/or considerably reduce directional patterns.
7. Eliminate skywave protection except in the usable signal area of a station. Today, that means at least 5 mV/m (even that is "optimistic" in most areas).
8. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.

I've already said as much in several comments as part of the ongoing FCC proceedings.

The only area where I have some serious concern is the skywave protection. Because we have a Commission of lawyers and not engineers, there's a lack of understanding even at some of the highest levels of some of the MW propagation concepts that even the most basic DXer quickly learns.

The real-world concern isn't distant skywave reception of a desired station.... it's having the local groundwave reception of an AM station destroyed by incoming skywave interference from an undesired distant station.

There's no way around that on MW frequencies, of course. If you let the 1120s in Buffalo and Washington and Knoxville and eastern NC all light up at night with day facilities, it all adds to the noise floor under KMOX in St. Louis. If we haven't solved that dilemma in a century of doing AM radio, it's not going to be solved now. (And I'd contend that the laws of physics make it unsolvable.)