[BC] AM on translator becomes new FM station...

[Kyle Magrill]

Well, licensees often do things to save money that are not in their long 
term best interest.  Consider the number of stations streaming very low 
bitrate mp3s to their transmitter sites as STLs over the public Internet, 
for example.  I'd suggest that feeding your AM from your FM translator, 
while not the best, is probably better than several common alternatives.  
I also don't think there's anything illegal about it, nor can I really think 
of a good reason why it should be.  FM translators, used as FM station 
fill-ins, have been fed by STLs for decades and, in a very few cases, the 
primary FM stations have retransmitted the translators due to difficult STL 
paths, etc.  I don't see this as being different just because it involves an 
AM station.  It's not an ideal solution, but that's the kind of market based 
decision that is best left to the local licensee, IMHO. 

In our town, there's a small, locally owned, AM/FM combo.  The owner had 
been paying $125/mo to AT&T to maintain a dedicated 8kc loop that had 
been in place since the 1970s.  I suggested that they use an FM subcarrier 
to deliver the AM audio, which was done, saving the station about $1500 per 
year.  The downside is that the AM is off if the FM is down (there's now also 
a backup phone coupler), but the upside was that they delivered a bunch of 
SCA receivers to select clients around town, so the the "AM" could be received 
inside large buildings, daycare centers, etc. with relatively higher quality.    

**********You Wrote: ************  

Which then begs the question if the AM *is* the principal signal ?

 This whole "FM translator for AM station" was fraught with these
 kinds of problems from the get-go, and thus a bad idea.
 Obvious unintended consequences that were simply ignored.

-- 
Cowboy