[BC] City Of License/Transmitter site question

[Glen Kippel]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Barry Mishkind <barry at oldradio.com> wrote:

> I think the real issue is that with limited power, there is NO WAY an
> LPFM could be expected to cover any  but the smallest of COLs.

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Yes, case in point, our local TSA.  The Coachella Valley has a permanent
population of about 350,000, rising by another 150,000 snowbirds in the
winter, not to mention those people who just come here for a weekend, or a
week or two of vacation.  That's been about 4,000,000 per year -- probably
somewhat less in our present economy.  There are mountains on three sides of
us; the open end of the valley has nothing but sand, lizards and
rattlesnakes and a few signals from Mexico.  But, to cover the area requires
some decent power at one of the three mountaintop sites.  A local church had
applied for an LPFM but never built it.  Perhaps they discovered that about
all they could cover with an LPFM would be part of their COL, Indian Wells;
the north part of La Quinta, and the small unincorporated community of
Bermuda Dunes.  That's maybe 20,000 people, max, and of course only a small
fraction of that would actually be listeners since there are many other
stations they could listen to.  Also, any listeners would probably
homebound, as I would expect that motorists would not care to listen to a
station that fades out after they drive five miles.  So, maybe LPFMs would
have some utility in an isolated area of the country with few other signals,
but probably would not be sustainable in an area like ours.