Meintel, Sgrignoli, and Wallace (MSW) is putting numbers to potential scenarios that can affect public radio FMs co-located with TV stations expected to be impacted by the channel repack following the incentive auction. The Public Radio Satellite System published a report commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on the repack so public radio stations can see what they’re likely to encounter and plan ahead.
MSW says that 152 CPB-eligible radio stations are within 250 meters of a full-power or Class A television station that may be repacked. Of those, 95 CPB-eligible radio stations are on the same tower as a Class A television station. See Appendix A for a list.
Thirty-four of the 95 are co-located on a tower with a station that is currently operating on channels 38-51, which is the FCC clearing spectrum. “These stations will most certainly be impacted as these TV stations will either be repacked or go off the air as a “winner” in the FCC Incentive Auction,” say Dennis Wallace and William Meintel in the report. See Appendix B for a list.
Inside Towers reported on several repack situations that can impact an FM station. MSW’s list ranges from some stations needing to go off-air or transmit at reduced power as they lose their antenna location because of tower overloading and the need to remove loads to accommodate larger, heavier new DTV antennas on the TV tower.
Other tower changes during the repack may mean co-located FMs need to reduce power or go off-air completely including tower rigging or derigging. Also, FM antennas may need to be removed temporarily to accommodate gin poles and transmission lines, or helicopter lifts, for example.
Many towers “will not pass the loading standard” under the new EIA-222-G structural standard, according to MSW; it recommends co-located FMs needing tower or antenna work complete that “immediately or deferred” until after the repack.
February 22, 2017
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