The Valdosta Alliance is not taking no for an answer. The licensee of 89.7 WFAG(LP) in Valdosta, Ga., filed a petition on Oct. 12 asking the FCC's Audio Division to reconsider its Oct. 1 denial of a waiver that would have let the low power FM station operate at 250 watts. The LPFM rules cap effective radiated power at 100 watts.
The alliance first requested the waiver on Aug. 3, saying interference from E-skip, tropospheric ducting and nearby stations across the Georgia Sawgrass region and neighboring parts of Florida leaves a 100-watt signal unable to serve its community. In the reconsideration petition, alliance head Paula Greer said the station had already been forced off its original 103.7 frequency by co-channel interference. "250 watts power is necessary to strengthen the signal to protect our primary contour," Greer wrote.
The alliance argued that higher power would not create prohibited overlap with other stations on or near 89.7, based on its own contour analysis covering co-channel, first-adjacent and second-adjacent facilities. It also cited the emergency waiver granted after Hurricane Katrina that allowed WQRZ(LP) in Bay St. Louis, Miss., to run 1,000 watts ERP. That remains the only time the commission has let an LPFM exceed 100 watts.
The Audio Division was not persuaded the first time. It said the alliance showed no special circumstances justifying a waiver, and that a change effectively raising power for the whole service belongs in a rulemaking, not an individual licensing case. "It would be inappropriate to make such a policy decision potentially affecting many LPFM stations in the context of an individual waiver request in a licensing proceeding," the division wrote. It also rejected the contour-based approach, saying a grant built on contour overlap instead of required distance separations would create widely applicable exceptions to the LPFM minimum-spacing rules.
The denial restated two points LPFM operators deal with every day. LPFM is a secondary service, and the FCC has said from the start that LPFM stations will not be protected against interference from full-service upgrades, modifications or new FM stations. LPFM facilities are also licensed on minimum distance separations to other stations rather than on contour studies, which is why the contour argument carried little weight.
The broader idea of raising the LPFM ceiling to 250 watts has been raised before through petitions for rulemaking, and that route, not individual waivers, is where the Audio Division has signaled the question belongs. LPFM operators following the issue can watch the commission's actions and rulemaking dockets for any movement on power limits.