On Thursday, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to streamline FM translator interference complaints. Because they are secondary stations, any interference caused by a translator needs to be taken care of by the owner of that translator or shut it down. Because the FCC has opened the floodgates for translators, there’s been a rise in complaints about interference, so the Commission is looking at ways to address those concerns.
Here’s what the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concludes:
If interference is shown to or from any other station, FM translators should have greater flexibility to move to another available frequency.
A minimum of six complaints should be required to support an interference claim.
Revised rules are needed to clarify and standardize complaint requirements.
Proposed technical criteria should be used to assess actual and predicted interference.
An outer-distance limit should be created beyond which interference complaints would not be actionable.
Yet again, The NAB want even more concessions. The rule specifies very clearly the limit to radio stations a company can own at any given market, but with their stupid translators, companies like Iheart Media have even more fully functional radio stations on their markets. What a fucking JOKE!!! The rules are the RULES! Respect them!! If a translator is allowed to broadcast from an AM feed signal, or from a Digital Transmitter, If it breaks the ownership rules, that translator should be rendered useless!!!
But of course! The NAB are friends of the Corrupt idiots of the FCC, and the FCC is part of the other stupid idiots who own Ibiquity, another fail technology, who’s digital transmitters have nothing of digital and who’s only attraction is that you can simulcast different streams on their bigger bandwidth. But, who can afford those stupid transmitters? Only the big guys who already own too many radio stations, and translators can afford them, yet they want more, and more, and more, and more concessions and control form the stupid idiot who is in charge of the FCC!! An Stupid idiot who was the CEO of another Private American Corporation! Their Greed and their gluttony for more radio stations, more power, and more translators; has no limits!!
Read the article. A translator is NOT a “fully functional radio station.” It is a secondary station, and if it interferes with a primary station, it must be shut down. That’s the point, and that doesn’t change as a result of this proposal. All this proposal does is change the complaint system. But a translator is still a secondary station, so it is not restricted by ownership laws.
Translators have trashed the band. Where you once had a solid signal serving an area you now have noise as two stations fight for the frequency. We have e-skip a few times a year here where I live and that really messes things up!