REC has made some additional enhancements to myLPFM.
Second Adjacent Channel Waiver
myLPFM will now take tower heights into consideration when determining the overlap zone.
When accessing the Check Waiver Potential for a particular channel, two overlap zones will now display per channel. One is the overlap from the radiation center (existing functionality) and also the overlap zone at ground level. If the interference does not reach the ground, the ground level overlap zone will display "NONE".
When the tower height is used and interference reaches the ground, the second map (Test 2) will now display two circles. The blue circle is the overlap zone at the radiation center (existing functionality) and a red circle will display the overlap zone at ground level.
Please note that even if there is overlap at the radiation center but not at ground level, the channel search (left side of screen) will still show these channels with overlap. Check each channel individually to determine the actual overlap zone.
Translator Amended Application Tracking
On June 16, the FCC announced the official dates for the filing window. It also mentioned that LPFM applicants are not required to protect any application activity after June 16.
Last week, the FCC has opened a limited window for Auction 83 translator applicants who have singletons to file their long form applications. In these amendments, the applicant can make some minor technical changes. The FCC did warn that any application amendments that proposes technical changes will not be protected from LPFM window filings.
REC has developed a program that will run during the Saturday morning batch update that will review all applications that the FCC has tagged as being amendments to determine if they are translators and if they were filed on June 16 or later. If so, the program compare the amendment filed with the previous version of the application. If there are any changes to location (except for extremely small coordinate corrections [e.g. less than 2 seconds]), output power, channel or antenna height, those applications will be flagged.
On the Channel Search (left side), if a channel is showing available entirely or partially due to a flagged translator application, a blue message will advise that the channel is being made available as a result of an application for a translator that was filed after June 16, 2013.
On the Channel Report, a message will appear under all application records that have been flagged:
Amendment filed on or after June 17, 2013 - amendment was filed after FCC announced the LPFM window. For the October 15, 2013 window, LPFM applicants will not be required to protect this application. If this application is granted prior to the window, a granted LPFM application could displace it. For more information, see FCC Public Notice. This applicant has changed some technical aspect of this facility (such as channel, power, location or antenna height). Since the amendment to change facilities was filed after June 17, 2013 (the announcement of the LPFM window), it does not need to be protected by LPFM window appliacnts and any granted translator applications are subject to displacement by those LPFM applications. Use this channel for LPFM only as a last resort.
REC's recommendation is that these channels should be used as a last resort if no other channels are better.
Full service (primary) stations were not included in this triggering as their primary status can trump many LPFM application situations.
HAAT issues
Fixed a bug that was incorrectly displaying the HAAT on the 60dBu coverage map when an antenna height was selected.
Tower heights now save to the short code.
Remember, all of these changes are for the desktop version only. We will be working on the mobile site soon!
