Broadcast Engineers Seek Technical Flexibility to Fix AM Band

Broadcast engineers urged the FCC to focus AM revitalization efforts on making rule modifications that allow AM stations to have flexibility. Technical changes that are possible today shouldn’t be held up by consideration of replacement strategies “involving reallocation of other spectrum for relocation of AM stations or a Quixotic quest for FM translator frequencies for all AM stations,” engineers from du Treil Lundin and Hatfield and Dawson broadcast consulting firms said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-249. They asked the FCC to keep in mind that not all AM stations are viable as businesses. Stations that are viable can benefit from being able to increase their coverage areas “if the ones that aren’t were out of the way,” they said. The FCC could allow station owners to work that out by including changes in the contingent application rules as well as implementation of the form of tax incentive program “that was previously used to encourage minority ownership of broadcast stations,” they said. The rules that enforce stringent daytime and nighttime first-adjacent protection should be undone, they said. They also urged the FCC to publish rules allocating the expanded band stations “to overlay those that were assigned after the initial rulemaking was concluded,” they said.