FCC Rejects Challenge To Translator Interference Analysis

The FCC has rejected petitions by NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO and SAN BERNARDINO COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT noncommercial KVCR/SAN BERNARDINO appealing the reinstatement of an application by LIVING WAY MINISTRIES for a new FM translator at SUN VALLEY, CA, within the protected 1 mVm (60 dBu) contour of second adjacent channel UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA noncommercial Classical KUSC/LOS ANGELES. LIVING WAY argued that its application was permissible because the area covered by the translator was unpopulated. 

In getting its petition reinstated, LIVING WAY used USGS maps to show lack of population and defined predicted interference using the "undesired-to-desired signal ratio method" ("U/D analysis"). NPR and KVCR complained that the use of U/D analysis was previously rejected by the Commission, but the FCC said that it had never intended to hold applicants to a rigid Contour overlap standard for interference analysis and noted that in its Grandfathered Short-Spaced FM Order, the commission actually required applicants to use U/D analysis.

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