[BC] Translator 'land-grabs'

[Scott Fybush]

WFIFeng at aol.com wrote:

> "Land-grab"... that sure sounds like what a certain station is
> doing/has done around here... peppering multiple places on the FM
> dial with copies of itself. Multiple x-lators, all within its primary
> coverage. The station and it's full-power x-lator/station overlap
> coverages, so the area resembles a peanut. Several of it's x-lators
> fall within that overlap zone. They also have an app for a 100 watt
> x-lator only about a mile away from an existing 18 watt x-lator.
> 
> Yeah, I guess that could be called a "land-grab". >:P

I'm no fan of land-grabs like this either, but there's this to be said 
for the process: it's eminently democratic. You or I could just as 
easily have applied for all those translators, and even if the FCC 
wasn't yet allowing FM translators for AMs (even under what I'll now 
call a "South Carolina STA"), they could easily have been parked as 
translators of something else inoffensive and non-competitive while 
awaiting an eventual rules changed.

That, after all, is what WRHI quietly did, and it certainly paid off for 
them.

Like the sleazy bad-credit/no-credit used car dealer here in town says 
in their ads, "We can't help everyone, but we can't help ANYONE if they 
don't apply."

s