[BC] 1620Khz Blackfoot, ID License Cancelled

[RSTYPE@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/11/2006 1:50:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
scott at fybush.com writes:
Barry Mishkind wrote:
> Roy,
> 
> was the loophole where they could sell the license prior to five years 
> plugged?  Wasn't that what happened in New Jersey?

If you're referring to WJDM 1530/1660, that was a different sort of a 
loophole. That X-bander (along with what's now KFOX 1650 in LA and KDIA 
1640 in Vallejo CA) was created under a separate Congressional 
authorization that provided an automatic preference for an X-band slot, 
with no five-year sunset date, to any daytimer that was the only local 
broadcast service in a community of 100,000 or more people. (It was, 
unsurprisingly, crafted by and passed specifically for John Quinn, whose 
WJDM in Elizabeth NJ happened to be a daytimer that was the only local 
broadcast service in a community of just over 100,000 people.)

Nothing in that provision explicitly barred the X-banders so created 
from being sold, or from being moved to other unserved communities, so 
1660 ended up in "Jersey City" (diplexed with NYC's WKDM 1380 in 
Carlstadt NJ) and 1650 ended up moving from Costa Mesa to Torrance 
(diplexed, IIRC, with KWKW 1330 LA.)

More recently, under the "normal" X-band rules that contain the sunset 
provision, WHWH 1350 in Princeton NJ spawned WTTM 1680, the X-bander 
Neal Newman just moved down to the Philly market ("Lindenwold NJ"). Both 
WHWH and WTTM have filed for license renewals. It'll be interesting to 
see what the FCC does with this one - WHWH can't claim that it's the 
only broadcast service remaining in Princeton, since WPRB(FM) is 
licensed there as well.

s
Scott:

As far as I know, there is no exception to the five year "sunset" provision 
for the daytimers in large communities who were given top priority for expanded 
band facilities by Congress.  They must cease operating on one of the 
frequencies five years after the grant date of the initial expanded band license.  
This won't occur for WJDM/WWRU, however, until April 9, 2007, five years aftetr 
the grant of the initial liciense for WWRU.  

KFOX was paired with KKGO (540 kHz) in Costa Mesa, California, whose license 
was cancelled on August 15, 2000, less than five years after the initial KFOX 
license was granted on July 31, 1998.  (The KKGO call sign has since been 
moved to 1260 kHz in Beverly Hills.)

KDIA is paired with KDYA (1190 kHz) and should have ceased operation on 
January 4, 2005.  A check of the CDBS however, appears to indicate that they are 
attempting to fight the five year sunset provision and that, as a result, the 
KDYA license has not yet been cancelled. KDYA's July, 2005 license renewal 
application has not been granted, however, and they have had a request to extend 
some sort of special temporary authority for KDYA pending with the FCC since 
September 16, 2005.

The "loophone" Barry referred to was a bit of a headache for the FCC, but it 
is my understanding that one of the two stations must still cease operation by 
the fifth anniversary of the grant of a license for the expanded band 
station.  I believe it was this situation and the inability of the FCC to block the 
separation of the ownership of the expanded band station from its paired main 
band station that inspired them to issue a single license document (and 
conformed call signs) for an analog TV station and its paired DTV station in an 
effort to prevent problems in shutting down analog facilities which may have been 
separated from their paired DTV facility at the end of the DTV transition.

Roy Stype