[BC] Why it is important to do whay the FCC says

[Scott Bailey]

Hello All:

 

I decided to submerge from silence to comment on this matter. While a portion of you hate me on this "BC" List, I haven't a clue, I didn't do anything personal to you, and I am addressing the ones the have emailed me in private saying nasty things. I am a disabled man, I have had problems physically and mentally in the past five years, so I'll say this, if I said anything to upset any of you, I apologize, but I believe in God, and this is not a perfect world. If it was, I wouldn't see all the postings of what is wrong with EAS, as many other problems. To my knowledge, my new Sage EAS works just fine and I am doing what is required, as my Consultant Engineer tells me.

Let me clear the air for you. I am "NOT" a engineer. I have an consultant engineer, Jim "Turbo" Turvaville of the WAY Media Group. He guides me on changes and inspects my "AM Daytime" station to make sure I am legal.  

Let me just briefly get down to my opinion here and I won't reply back in public. I do not take any pity of any AM Station that can't follow FCC Rules, especially on the ones that run unauthorized power at night on a consistent basis. In most situations, what do they get out of it? nothing. Wasting Electricity, running up a high bill they can barley pay is one reason, then also it may effect their payroll when people are needed during the day.

 

My opinion is most people like me, watching TV at night (and I am unhappy CBS axed CSI Miami) and do not listen to the radio at night, unless there is a good talk program one of the Big "Class A" stations. I DX at night now, when I can't sleep because of some pain to my back and shoulder, and I have even heard some Class "D" stations on the regional channels, running daytime power, and they automated running a talk show off one of the satellite networks, or just plain ignoring to be a good operator and turn their power down at night.

My AM Station is licensed for 3 watts at night. I go ahead and run the 3 watts at night, as I live not a mile from my station. I can hear the station, but there there is so much interference on the channel at night, I really consider my station off at night. There is no money to be made in a small town, running higher than authorized power at night. In my opinion, it just a waste of electricity, especially during the summertime when the Electric Utilities ask us to conservative on the usage of electric power, due to it puts a strain on the substations. I did work at an electrical utility, so I know that. The reason why I leave the transmitter on 3 watts at night is because I feel it keeps the PAs warm in my BE AM-1A, so in the morning, time to go to day power, there is not such a strain on the PAs. I maybe wrong, but I guess it's like when I had a tube transmitter, I kept the filaments on so when I turned on the transmitter in the morning, it was not such a jolt on the tubes and other components.

If it comes to an emergency where the AM Daytime station has to operate more power at night or operate at night due to say a Tornado came in and ripped up half the town, then I work with the Local Police, Sheriff, EMS, FEMA, and who ever else needs access to my station to get emergency information out to the public. I had to do this in 2006 when a tornado ripped through my town, killing a number of people.  

After the emergency is over, and your station is not needed, then the proper way is to document what hours your AM Station was on daytime power/pattern, summit that to your FCC Attorney, and let the FCC know. It's so simple that some just want to violate the law just to say, my station is on 24/7. Wonder if in some other town, there was an station having to send out EAS Messages and cover an emergency situation in their town, and some other AM Station that should have gone to their authorized nighttime operations was causing interference to the station covering emergency information to the citizens of that town in trouble. It's just not right.

I will end with this, if an AM Station is so inclined to be on at night, stream you audio on your website, over the Internet. We live in the Digital Age, use it. Look for an FM Translator to buy, etc. 

 

Coming from an Operator that wants to do the right thing, it's just common sense. I know of some AMs nearby me that are not reducing their power at night, or going to their directional patterns. I realize this is not a perfect world, and a remote control can fail, but just doing it night after night, that's like not following the speed limit when driving a car. There is just no sense in this. O.K., ball me out all you want, but I believe in trying to do the right thing, follow the laws, and be a good operator. I will go back to silence now.

 

Scott Bailey

WMRO-AM, Gallatin, TN

 

> On Jun 13, 2012, at 11:44 AM, Barry Mishkind wrote:
> 
> >1. A station in Mississippi was running day power at night. A complaint brought a field agent - and then it got much worse.
> 
> It seems like if the FCC would tune an AM Radio around at night, they could bust enough Cheaters to pay off the National Debt from the Fines they could generate.
> 
> 73,
> Kevin Raper
> KJ4HYD
> CE WCKI WQIZ WLTQ