Showing posts with label Hoosier Public Radio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hoosier Public Radio. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Miles From Its Licensed Location


Before GPS, it was more difficult to plant a radio tower in an exact location. It could be done, but it required a bit more math. So it is unsurprising that a tower and therefore an antenna may be a few feet from it's intended location. But sometimes stations are much further from their authorized transmitter location. The FCC lists those locations in Latitude and Longitude. You may skate by with a couple seconds off.. but not minutes. To that end, I'm going to list off a number of NAL actions by miles of error. 

0.3 Miles  - Mt. Rushmore Broadcasting
Multiple NALs went to Mt. Rushmore Broadcasting's stations in Casper, WY for operating STLs without licenses KQLT, KRAL-AM and KIQZ. The latter of which had an STL that was 0.3 miles from it's authorized location. But these violations stretched over a period of 15 years! so the fines were doubled to a total of $20,000.

0.5 Miles - RJ's Late Night Entertainment
In 2010, RJ's Late Night Entertainment moved their 12 watt, 88.1 WHPR transmitter a half-mile without authorization. Subsequently the FCC sent over a NAL in 2011 to stop that. RJLNE plead ignorance which was as effective as you'd expect. In the 2015 sequel that and some unrelated EAS equipment and public inspection file short-comings earned them a $22k fine. the FCC actually used the word "admonish." The BDR pointed out that fine works out to about $1,833 per Watt!

0.6 Miles - Four Corners Broadcasting
In 2014 the FCC imposed a penalty of $25,000 against Four Corners Broadcasting. They had three  STL all licensed, but none of them from that location. They were over half a mile off.  So fines were handed out for KIQX, KRSJ, KIUP-AM in Durango, Colorado.


3 Miles - Hoosier Public Radio Corp
In 2013 the FCC issued another NAL to Hoosier Public Radio for $8,000 over WRFM. This discrepancy came to light in a complaint by the FAA to the FCC over interference on aeronautical frequency of 126.83 MHz. Hoosier claimed they had a STA for the location atop a farm silo, but apparently they were fibbing. The $4k fine was doubled for the extra naughtiness. Hoosier has a history of scummy behavior, this was no surprise.

15 Miles - Gila Electronics
Arizona is pretty empty. While it has an average of 55 people per square mile, about 25 % of it's population is in Phoenix. The rest is well.. desert. So some broadcasters might get temped to play loose. But still Gila Electronics was operating the STA for 100.3 KUKY in Welton, AZ (pop 2,900) 15 miles away from where it should be. They received a forfeiture Order for $3,200. That's more than a dollar per person in their whole town.

24 Miles - M.J. Phillips Communications
M.J. Phillips Communications had a studio for 1440 WJJL-AM in West Seneca NY. But their STL was licensed at a site in Niagara Falls 24 miles away on an unauthorized frequency. It was a double no-no. In 2013 the FCC sent over a notice of violation and M.J. Phillips politely ignored it. 7 months later the fine increased to $2,400 under that "willful and repeated" criteria. (This follows on the heels of a 2007 fine for operating over power in 2006.)

36 Miles!!!! - Fellowship World Inc.
I think this is a world record. Fellowship world's 89.7 WFWO in Medina, NY was operating it's transmitter outside it's own protected contour. Instead of a standard $4,000 the FCC asked for twice that due to the egregious violation. They had effectively moved the station from Medina to Buffalo!  After initially agreeing to turn off the transmitter, the station turned it back on. Their excuse for the 2012 relocation was that their landlord was removing trees was rejected.  On February 12, 2013, WFWO went silent. In November it filed an STA to remain silent. On August 26, 2014 the FCC cancelled their license.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

The [Evil] ways of Hoosier Public Radio Corp.

Most radio people are familiar with the evil attempts of religious satcasters to seize airtime forcably from innocent hard-working non-commercial stations.


One such organization is Hoosier Public Radio Corporation (HPC), an [evil] Indiana radio organization with religious ties, [but no affiliations with any actual legit public radio groups.] They filed time share challenges against radio stations at one Kentucky college and four high schools and one college in Indiana; Franklin College’s WFCI. In this unique situation, Hoosier is not attacking a single high school station local to their group. No. HPC is blanketing a tri state area of educational frequencies with multiple goundless time-share challenges. It's a shot-gun approach, that has nothing to do with serving the community and everything to do with the eventual pay off.

Hoosier Public Radio Corp Currently runs WIKL 90.5 Indianapolis, with a particularly dull, satillite fed branded format we all know as K-LOVE. http://www.klove.com/
Their regional manager: John gale: 513-829-0333

In an April article by Reclaim the Media, the director of HPC Marty Hensley, said he planned to "broadcast [evil] community news... and [evil] sports, [evil]music, [evil]weather and reports on drunk driving, teen pregnancy, [and] drug use." If you beleive that I have a bridge to sell you. What he's going to do is pipe in satillite fed religous talk. Probably originating with our friends in Twin falls Idaho.

“If they’re not using their license 24 hours a day, we just want to use the hours they’re not using and help them operate the station,” Hensley said. He is speaking as if WFCI has publicly requested "help" operating the staiiton, which of course has never actually happened. The only "halp" an educational broadcaster ever really needs are donations of personal time and money.

The laws used to seize this air time were not meant for this purpose. In these attacks they are perverted. Share time arrangements were meant to "fully" utilize a channel, to "fully" serve a community. Syndicated, satillite-fed religious programming is not valid as a fulfilment of any local service.

This is not limited to the bread basket. WVPH, WLHS, WHJE, WEEM, WRFT, WBDG, KNHC, WSHJ and many others survived similar legal assaults from [evil] right-wing religous cult groups in recent years.

In another development, RB Schools (another evil religious cult) argued that despite the fact that WLHS is on air 24/7, they are still not using their frequency to the fullest extent with its programming. (They air music, sports and talk shows.) RB schools [evil] president Linda de Romanett said: R B Schools could improve the quality of WLHS and other stations through the [evil] programming she plans to broadcast.

This is the first time that argument has been used in a time-share challenge. It appears somewhat exploratory in nature. It's clearly baseless having no precedent to work from. The FCC rejected this one without comment I believe. They opted not to open that barrel of worms.