[RTC List] Responsible Frequency Assignments

[Dwight Winegar]

I'm going to bring this subject up here since it deals with Technology  
and have not been able to get answers or even responses from other  
sources, including the respective broadcasters.

I have a complaint about how the FCC or whomever is assigning FM  
frequencies lately to camp-over their signals of adjacent significant  
regional stations.  For several months now, we have a new station that  
supposedly is from Eureka, but also lists as being from Trinidad, at  
95.5 FM, called "All Hits".  However that station is interfering with  
the broadcast signal of KURY-FM 95.3, which has been responsible for  
regional emergency broadcasting and news in an emergency, as was the  
case with the 2007 Winter Storms.  I think that was 2007, when all but  
two (2) FM station serving Northern Humboldt was knocked out due to  
winds around 100 MPH.  One of those was KHUM, with the DJs  
broadcasting from their living rooms in Ferndale (and got an award as  
a result).  The other one which is an AP News affiliate, with hourly  
news broadcasts on the hour, and serves the Wild Rivers Coast with  
service as far south as McKinleyville is KURY-FM, broadcasting from  
Brookings, OR, but owned by the same owners as KINS AM in Eureka.

With the new All-Hits 95.5 FM broadcasting at that frequency there is  
an overlap on 95.3 until Trinidad, and not clearing until Big Lagoon.

I've also seen a problem with the FCC allowing a low powered religious  
station to broadcast at 107.3 (the same frequency as KNHT - Jefferson  
Public Radio's main coastal signal) in the Del Norte County area, with  
neither station coming in clear because of the overlap.  There is an  
LP translator assigned to JPR for Crescent City, but it is so weak  
that it is pretty much limited to the City Limits.  Why wouldn't the  
FCC assign "that" frequency to the religious station in Smith River,  
instead of overlapping with the main regional signal of JPR?

NOW - to top it all off, I've just heard that another station filing  
by McCutchen of Los Angeles wants to broadcast on 107.7? and 95.1 FM,  
with a request to move JPR's KNHT from 107.3 to 102.5.   That just  
does not make good sense!   95.1 will certainly kill any reception of  
95.3, and WHY move 107.3 when that is, again, the main broadcast  
frequency of JPR's "Classics and News" for the whole North Coast?

Who makes these decisions?  Is it still  the FCC, or they so far  
distant removed from the local region they don't have a clue about  
overlapping signals, emergency broadcasts, and regional stations?

- Dwight