From The Department of Here We Go Again

[ContinuousWave]

Gary, who owns KOGT, is not looking for a translator....and there are none available in the area anyway....

And Chuck, no apologies, etc necessary...

Now I am headed to bed...have a lot of sales calls to make tomorrow....(oops, what?? Im not supposed to do that?? BTW, a lot of folks got PO'ed when 104.5 dropped the MIX format and went KISS so they are welcoming my station...also we are going to give away AM stereo tuners and upgrades...thanks to Meduci's board and their new AMAX rated tuner.....I have a lot of listeners already on 1300....and when we go live, it will get even better)....

 

[LibertyNT]

Gary, who owns KOGT, is not looking for a translator....and there are none available in the area anyway....

And Chuck, no apologies, etc necessary...

Now I am headed to bed...have a lot of sales calls to make tomorrow....(oops, what?? Im not supposed to do that?? BTW, a lot of folks got PO'ed when 104.5 dropped the MIX format and went KISS so they are welcoming my station...also we are going to give away AM stereo tuners and upgrades...thanks to Meduci's board and their new AMAX rated tuner.....I have a lot of listeners already on 1300....and when we go live, it will get even better)....

Glad things are working out for you CW!

More power to ya, its about time someone does radio right.

 

[b-turner]

Hopefully Continuous Wave is getting some nice nibbles doing those sales calls. In markets like Beaumont/Port Arthur either the local businesses are actively sought by other stations or the big boys center on agency buys. The station that goes after the local business can pick up some nice contracts pretty quickly especially if it is the later.

 

[Radio-X]

To answer your question whether having the studio at the transmitter site is legal...it can be.

So long as the station can be accessed during 'normal business hours' and there are no impediments to get there (fence blocking access to the transmitter building), that should be just fine.

I know a guy who owns a small town class A FM. Used to be a satellite-fed religious station...he bought it, added several rooms on the transmitter shack for living/studio, fenced off just the tower base, and basically has left it that way since 1992. It's in the back undeveloped corner of an older subdivision and he rarely if ever gets visitors there -- he goes out to meet clients. For a one-man classic rock operation, it's not a bad way to do it! And it seems quite legal...

Radio-X

 

[LibertyNT]

Didn't it used to be pretty common practice to have them at the same location?
I seem to recall many a studio with a transmitter visible.

 

[Radio-X]

I'm pretty sure a station these days may be left in "unattended operation" which means nobody has to be at the main studio or transmitter site. If anything goes awry, the engineer and/or owner gets a call.

And from what I can see in CFR 47 part 73, there are no requirements as to what needs to constitute a "studio" besides logs/public files, location, and staffing.

This sounds goofy, but if the logs are there, there is remote operating equipment, if at least one person uses that tx location as their base of work during business hours (again, they are not 'tied-down' to that location so long as it can be proven they work there full-time and had business to attend to during business hours), as long as there is some sort of equipment to control and potentially originate what is being broadcast at any time (this could be as simple as a computer -- no control board, CD players, etc), AND the studio site must be reasonably accessible to the public during business hours...even if it is the transmitter site!

If any of these are not fulfilled, it is not a main studio. That being said, I recall at least one FM station whose main studio was in a large woodshed. Even though it may have looked abandoned, it did have a $20 mic, a channel on the cheap DJ mixer going to a FM receiver with the simulcast audio, its logs, the engineer's office, 9-5 public access (mostly), and transmitter. It stayed like that for over 10 years until someone bought the station and moved it into a small, but ranked, market. FCC fined them for not having tower lights on at that location...apparently the studio was acceptable to the inspector!

I'd be interested what exactly is at their transmitter site. Could we legally call it a "main studio"? Any chance someone on the payroll actually spends any business hours there? If so, they may have just enough equipment at the tx site to be legal...

Radio-X

 

[b-turner]

Yes, the main studio rules are pretty minimal. I know a guy that used a vacant office at a small insurance agency and the receptionist doubled as an employee of the agency and radio station. Stations have used the owner's home as the main studio, etc.

With that said, there are many out there not maintaining a studio or local presence. Libraries and law offices are frequently locations for public files, if that. It does not just happen here but all over the country.

Sometimes it is financial, as in going over budget and needing to get some billing in order to put in a studio. I'm not making excuses, but I know of one small town station where the local economy suffered and the station ran from a source 70 miles away for a year or so and the FCC seemed okay with that. I suppose they think is it better this station go dark until they can afford to do it exactly right or allow them to stay on the air in hopes times will improve? In this instance it was the only local station.

I cannot speak for the FCC but it seems there may be 'degrees' of violations where some might be considered fairly minimal compared to others. I relate it to a cop not pulling you over for speeding when you're going 3 over. It seems if the EAS is working properly, the transmitter and site are maintained and operating properly and the Public File is up to date, they might give a little leeway, especially if you are in bad financial shape. Even so, following the rules to a "T" is the only way to avoid a fine. I look at it this way: if there are some minor issues in the mind of the FCC, they can likely uncover some more substantial issues if they look around. To compare it to driving, if you're going 3 miles per hour over and not wearing a seatbelt, chances are better you might have an expired license or inspection sticker and maybe not have insurance. Digging deeper they might find you have a warrant for an unpaid ticket too. In other words, there is a better chance there is a pattern there. Attention to detail is also a pattern.

The logging in to go on the air from a remote location has been used for several years by a good number of especially time brokered stations. It is a good way to insure you get paid for the airtime and you don't have to make the client come to you or find an alternate means of getting their programming to you. Redundancy is always good because there will always be times it fails. I love how one station handled things: if a client didn't pay as the contract dictated, the computer automatically reset the password.