FCC Actions

Universal Broadcasting of New York’s 1520 WTHE Mineola NY has agreed to a $5,000 consent decree over issues pertaining to its silent STA. WTHE went silent on January 25, 2018 after losing access to its tower site. During the government shutdown in January 2019, Universal sought to operate from a temporary antenna but could not get FCC approval because of the shutdown leading to the grant coming on February 1. The station filed to go silent again on February 5 and was sold to Cantico Nuevo Ministry two days later. In March, WIN Radio Broadcasting filed a petition claiming that WTHE has not resumed operation with authorized facilities in time and the license should be deleted. The FCC ruled that were it not for the shutdown the STA would have been timely granted, but that due to WTHE broadcasting without FCC approval during the shutdown it issued the $5000 consent decree. Upon receiving payment, the sale of WTHE will be granted as well.

Florida Community Radio’s Petition For Reconsideration to extend the tolling of the Construction Permit for 94.3 WRBD Horseshoe Beach FL was denied. WRBD’s CP was first granted on May 13, 2015 giving it until May 13, 2018 to be licensed. The first tolling request due to lack of space for its studio and facilities because of Hurricane Irma and a second due to construction delays by Hurricane Michael were both granted giving the station until May 15, 2019 to be built. A third tolling request was filed in April requesting time to determine whether to place power lines underground and to conduct a structural analysis to assess potential impact on a Category 5 hurricane on the antenna. The FCC requested proof that Hurricane Michael was responsible for the later delays and said that the analysis could’ve been done at any time in the past four years.

Chehalis Valley Educational Foundation’s application for review of a previous denial of a Petition For Reconsideration over the dismissal of the move of 91.3 KACS Chehalis WA to Rainier WA while upgrading from a Class A to C3 was dismissed. KACS applied for the move in 2016 but the FCC ruled that because the proposed contours would cover 53.6& of the Olympia/Lacey and 13% of the Seattle urbanized areas. In the Petition for Reconsideration, KACS argued that non-commercial stations’ 70dBu contour should be the principal community contour for a reserved-band station when applying the Urbanized Area Service Presumption and not 60dBu, but the FCC ruled that changing precedent should be done in a comment rulemaking proceeding.