Comments of Southern Minnesota Broadcasting Company

BEFORE THE Federal Communications Commission WASHINGTON, D. C. 20554

In re
Microstation Radio Broadcast Service Petitions for Rulemaking
RM-9208
RM-9246

TO: The Commission

COMMENTS IN OPPOSITION TO PETITIONS FOR RULEMAKING

Southern Minnesota Broadcasting Company (SMBC), by its attorney, hereby respectfully subrnits these Comments in Opposition to Petitions for Rulemaking seeking the establishment of a "Microstation Radio Broadcast Service". These comments are filed within the time allowed by the Order Extending Time, DA 98-437, released March 5, 1998.

Preliminary Statement

1. SMBC is one of the oldest family-owned broadcast licensees in the nation. It has been the licensee and operator of Standard Broadcast Station KROC, Rochester, Minnesota, since October, 1935. Today, SMBC is the licensee of eight commercial broadcast stations, and the permittee of an additional operating FM station: KROC(AM) and KROC-FM, Rochester, Minnesota; KYBA(FM), Stewartville, Minnesota; KXRB(AM), KSOO(AM), KKLS-FM and KMXC(FM), Sioux Falls, South Dakota; KIKN(FM), Salern, South Dakota; and KYBB(FM), Canton, South Dakota (operating under program test authority).

2. As a licensee which is just one year younger than the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, SMBC believes that the current allocation plan for AM and FM stations serves the public best, and that the addition of ad hoc "microstations" would cause chaos on the broadcast dial and would ruin the best broadcasting system in the world.

The Microstations Proposal Will Cause Interference and Will Disserve the Public Interest

3. SMBC hereby associates itself with comments filed by Vernon Baker, an experienced broadcaster based in Blacksburg, Virginia. Mr. Baker retained the consulting radio engineering firm of Carl E. Smith Consulting Engineers, whose qualifications are well known to the Commission. The conclusions reached by the Carl E. Smith study were as follows:

In order to properly protect the signals of existing broadcasters, it will be necessary to clear seven channels nationwide to institute this new proposed service, thereby requiring the displacement of may existing broadcasters.
The FM band in many areas of the country is so congested, that it would be virtually impossible to find even one clear channel for the microstation proposal.
The Skywave propagation in the AM band during nighttime service would cause catastrophic interference, thereby reversing all of the recent improvements in AM service resulting from such proceedings as MM Docket 87-267.
International treaty requirements are likely to stifle the institution of this new service in many areas.
If, as requested, non-type accepted equipment is permitted, there will be destructive harmonic and spurious radiation problems, which could also result in risk to human life or public safety.

4. One example of the potential mischief that could be caused by microstations on the FM band is the situation where an FM channel is not in use in a major metropolitan area, but is instead in use in a medium-sized community about 100 miles away. A case in point is in the state of Minnesota. The frequencies 105.3 MHz and 106.9 MHz are not in use in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area by licensed commercial broadcast stations; however, these are the frequencies utilized by SMBC in southeast Minnesota for stations KYBA(FM) and KROC-FM. It does not take much imagination to visualize "microstations" operating on these channels in the Twin Cities, which could cause enough interference to the service provided by KYBA(FM) and KROC-FM to rural areas in southeast Minnesota which depend on those stations, particularly in winter for weather information.

5. Another example of microstation mischief which the Commission has docurnented is that which occurs when "pirate" microstations cause interference to radio communications affecting aviation generally and air traffic control operations specifically. There is appended hereto a Commission "Public Notice, Compliance and Information Action", Report No. CI 98-3, released March 20, 1998, detailing the interference caused by a "pirate" microstation on 107.2 MHz in the Sacramento, California region which affected aviation overhead the city of Napa, some 60 highway miles west-southwest of Sacramento. Indeed, according to the FCC's account, interference was caused by the microstation to a number of frequencies not immediately adjacent to 107.2 MHz, such as 119.5, 122.2, 125.0 and 126.8 MHz.

The FCC's Mission Must Return to the Reason for Its Formation - Interference Prevention

6. The Communications Act of 1934 was passed, and the FCC was formed, in large part, to prevent radio stations from causing destructive interference to each other. Over the years, the FCC has taken a "frolic and detour" into areas such as employment discrimination, where there is another federal agency which is expert in adjudicating discirmination claims (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). The Commission needs to get out of areas where
it need not be acting, and return its focus to areas in which it is expert-such as the prevention of interference between existing stations, and the "gatekeeper" to any new stations which might create interference to existing stations.

7. The instant "microstation" proposal would be a complete abdication of the FCC's core responsibility to the broadcasting industry and to the public. The Commission should not be moved by a number of individuals who do not have the public interest at heart. Nor should the Commission be deterred by a lone renegade federal district judge in California who refuses, for reasons relating to her own personal agenda, to enforce the Communications Act of 1934.

WHEREFORE, it is urged that the Commission DENY the pending "Petitions for Rulemaking" and that the Commission TERMINATE THIS PROCEEDING.

Respectfully submitted,

SOUTHERN MINNESOTA BROADCASTING COMPANY

By
Dennis J. Kelly
(D. C. Bar #292631)
Its Attorney

LAW OFFICE OF DENNIS J. KELLY
Post Office Box 6648
Annapolis, MD 21401
Telephone: 888-322-5291

April 27, 1998

Report No. CI 98-3 COMPLIANCE AND INFORMATION ACTION March 20,
1998 FCC CLOSES DOWN UNLICENSED RADIO OPERATION THAT THREATENED AIR SAFETY AT SACRAMENTO AIRPORT; FOURTH AIRPORT INTERFERENCE INCIDENT IN FIVE MONTHS

[link to document at FCC web site substituted for copy of document. hh]

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

It is hereby certified that true copies of the foregoing "Comments in Opposition to Petition for Rulemaking" were served by first-class United States mail, postage prepaid, on this 27th day of April, 1998, upon the following:

Nickolaus E. Leggett
Judith F. Leggett
1432 Northgate Square, #2A
Reston, VA 20l90-3748

Donald J. Schellhardt, Esq.
45 Bracewood Road
Waterbury, CT 06706

Dennis J. Ke1ly