KPCQ(AM), Chubbuck, ID is heading for a hearing in front of the FCC’s Administrative Law Judge to decide whether its license should be renewed. That’s because the station’s been off the air so long and operating at reduced power since 2019. KPCQ’s story begins in June 2018, when the site owner required station owner Snake River Radio (SRR) to remove the station’s tower. KPCQ is a Class C AM, currently authorized for .75 kW day/1 kW night.
With spectrum so scarce, the FCC gets peeved when stations sit on unused spectrum, not to mention a station’s license can expire automatically if it’s off the air for a consecutive 12 months. According to the order signed by Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, KPCQ was off the air 80 percent of its license term since SRR took over on February 1, 2018, through October 1, 2021.
KPCQ said the tower site land, which it didn’t own, was sold to a developer. But after SRR had to remove the tower, on June 30, 2018, six days later, KPCQ told the FCC it resumed operation. That was not mentioned in the station’s license renewal, so the hearing will cover that, “[b]ecause it is improbable that SRR was able to resume operation with the station’s licensed facilities after dismantling its tower,” noted Sauer in the order. The hearing, for which a date has not yet been set, will also determine whether KPCQ’s license expired at the end of the license term.
KPQC went off the air again on June 17, 2019, when SRR told the agency a construction crew clipped and severed a guy wire, causing the tower to collapse. SRR then filed an application for a CP to change sites. It was granted on September 12, 2019, and expired on September 12, 2022. KPCQ operated for one day on June 14, 2020, “using a temporary long wire facility,” noted the bureau.
The station went dark again when that facility was destroyed by a construction crew and asked for an extension of silent authority because its new site was still under construction. KPCQ remained off the air until June 14, 2021, when it resumed operation using program test authority prior to filing its license application to cover the CP, according to the bureau. It has operated since that date, while its license application remains pending.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
Reader Interactions