• Contents for this Newsletter

About This Newsletter
Meeting Announcement
Upcoming Meeting Schedule
Meeting Minutes
Tower Industry Part 3- Tower Technician Safety
Call For Nominations
Amateur Radio News
Do You Have An Idea For A SBE Meeting
Telcom Industry News
SBE Short Circuits
FCC Rulemakings
Local Legals
SBE Resume Service
Chapter Sustaining Members
Return to 2001 Newsletter Archives

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The Chapter 24 Newsletter is published monthly by Chapter 24 of the Society of Broadcast Engineers; Madison, Wisconsin. Original hard copy edited by Mike Norton on Pagemaker 5.0. Submissions of interest to the broadcast technical community are welcome. You can make your submissions by e-mail to:

© 2001 by SBE Chapter 24. Views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the Society, its officers, or its members. SBE Chapter 24 regrets, but is not liable for, any omissions or errors. The Chapter 24 Newsletter is published twelve times per year. Other SBE Chapters are permitted to use excerpts if attributed to the original author, sources, and SBE Chapter 24.

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This month the program will be a follow-up to the Youth Night program that was held last fall. This will give interested area high school students the chance to see the opportunities available in broadcasting, and talk with those working in the field.

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Chapter 24 of the Society of Broadcast Engineers met on Tuesday, February 20, 2001 at Babe’s Grill & Bar West in Madison, Wisconsin. There were 20 members in attendance, 17 of who were certified, and 2 guests.

Chairperson, Kevin Ruppert, called the meeting to order at 7:02 PM. Minutes of the January meeting, as published in the February newsletter, were approved.

Treasurer, Stan Scharch, reported that the chapter’s bank account is in the black.

Newsletter Editor, Mike Norton, reported the deadline for the next newsletter as midnight on Friday, March 2, with the folding party the following Wednesday, March 7 at WKOW-TV beginning at 5:30 PM.

Sustaining Membership coordinator, Fred Sperry, announced that Chapter 24 remains at 24 sustaining members. Clark Wire and Cable, Harris Corporation, and Richardson Electronics recently renewed their memberships.

Program Committee, Denise Maney, announced that the March program, Youth Night, will be held at Madison Media Institute. She is trying to arrange for the students to have a tour of nearby Fox 47 as well. The youth will begin their meeting at 4:30 PM. Pizza will be available for students and chapter members at 6:00 PM.

Certification, Jim Hermanson, reported that several people took the CBNT exam on February 19, 2001 in the WKOW conference room. NAB is the next chance to take a SBE exam. There will be an Ennes workshop held on April 21 where participants will receive the CBNT course and test. The application can be downloaded from the SBE web page. The next local exam period will be June 8 – 18. Applications are due by April 30.

Frequency Coordinator, Tom Smith, updated on recent requests for frequency coordination. Tom expects that channel 68 in Mayville is on the air now. The SBE national office sent Tom a report about 2 GHz relocation. Contact Tom if you would like to see that information.

National Liaison, Leonard Charles, reported that SBE headquarters has an opening for a part-time National Frequency Coordinator. He reminded the group that membership renewals are due by April 1. The national SBE office will be relocating during the first week in March.

For new business, Steve Paugh appraised us of the plans for a DTV display at the UW-Engineering Expo on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday April 21 – 23. The booth theme is ‘what DTV means to consumers.’ He would like to educate the public about antennas and selecting a DTV set. Steve encouraged digital broadcasters to send a high definition signal during the day for demonstration purposes. Also, he is seeking a Sencore server for use during the Engineering Expo. Craig Bluschke has assigned the booth to a secure location in the studio.

Kevin Ruppert mentioned that there would be several offices open for the April election. Anyone who is interested in running for office should contact a member of the Nomination Committee. Steve Paugh is the Chairperson for the nomination committee.

For professional announcements, meeting guest Al Cherne was introduced to the group. Mr. Cherne is the Regional Sales Manager for Leitch. In March, Leitch will be doing demonstrations at the Milwaukee and Fox Valley SBE meetings. Chapter 24 members are welcome to attend either meeting. Tom Smith mentioned that Mike Hanson has left WHA-TV to be an engineer at UW-Platteville. Bob Dischler reported with regret that Jim Braun of Video Images passed away recently.

Chairperson Kevin Ruppert adjourned the business meeting at 7:25 PM.

For the evening’s program, Tom Lorenzen and Dean Rosenthal of ADC presented on AES audio.

Thanks to Denise Maney and Fred Sperry for arranging and setting up the location and program for the February Meeting.

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This is part three in a series of articles about the tower industry. Last month, we learned about the career of the tower technician. This month, we will discuss tower technician safety. Many of the tower technician safety rules are common sense guidelines that could be applied to broadcast engineering as well. A few of the rules are unique to the career of a tower technician.

Twenty years ago, a tower technician would climb to the height they needed to work at and then attach their safety belt to the tower. That was considered an acceptable way to operate. Times have changed and that practice is no longer acceptable.

A daily job-site tailgate meeting is a requirement for safety. Safety training should occur on every job, every day. At daily site meetings, tower crews discuss fall hazards, RF exposure, and environmental risks, and then take appropriate action.

Some examples of tower safety rules would be: Tower technicians should be 100% tied-off when ascending, descending, or transitioning on a tower; Personnel and materials should never be hoisted together; No more than two personnel may be hoisted at a time; A tag line should be used to prevent personnel from contacting the tower during hoisting; A cat head (capstan winch) may not be used to lift personnel or free-spooled; Hoist/winch operators are to remain at the controls at all times when personnel are on the hoist line. These rules help prevent avoidable work site injuries.

Since the ‘100% attachment’ initiative began in the mid-1990s, fall protection has become a focal issue for tower technicians. Before ascending a tower, technicians get outfitted with their full-body climbing harness, lanyards, hard hat, and leather gloves (Figure 1). The full-body harness wraps around their waist, shoulders, and legs. Lanyards and other fall arrest connection devices connect to a D-ring in the center of the back of the harness. Optional side, front, and shoulder D-rings provide connection points for work positioning and retrieval from confined spaces. If a fall were to occur, the full-body harness distributes the impact force throughout the trunk of the body. The pelvis and shoulders absorb part of the shock, reducing the force to the abdominal region. A full-body harness is designed to absorb a maximum arrest force of 1800 pounds.

A connection device attaches the harness to the final tie-off point. A single lanyard or a combination of lanyards, lifelines, worklines, rope grabs, tie-off straps, and carabiners can make the connection.

Fall protection lanyards are constructed of steel, nylon rope, or nylon or Dacron webbing. The lanyard material type, free fall distance, and the weight of the worker determine the arresting force from a fall. Using a shock-absorbing lanyard or a higher tie-off point can reduce impact force. Some lanyards are shock-absorbent in order to reduce the potential fall arrest force. Since a lanyard used for fall protection is limited to allow a maximum free-fall of six feet, most lanyards are no longer than six feet.

The place where a lanyard or lifeline attaches to a tower structural member is the tie-off point. The structural support must have a 5400 pound capacity for each worker tying off. The tie-off point must always be at or above the D-ring of the worker’s harness to minimize free fall. To ensure that a worker will not strike a lower level during a fall, the following formula is followed to determine the tie-off point: worker height + lanyard length + elongation factor of 3.5 feet = minimum distance above the next lower level that the tie-off point must be placed.

A lifeline used in combination with a rope grab adds flexibility to a fall arrest system by allowing the worker to move along the length of the line rather than having to disconnect and find a new tie-off point. The system allows the worker to move as long as tension is slack on the lifeline. If the worker falls, the tension on the rope grab instantly triggers an internal mechanism to arrest a fall.

Safety equipment vendors stress that any equipment that has been exposed to a fall must be taken out of service and not used again for fall protection. OSHA requires that all fall arrest equipment be inspected prior to its use. Aging, mechanical wear, and ultraviolet ray degradation can weaken safety equipment over time. Inspection includes looking for frays or broken strands in lanyards, belts, and lifelines; and for oxidation or distortion of any metal connection devices.

While tower technicians can take comfort in the fact that they practice 100% attachment while working on a tower, they don’t have that protection when they must climb onto an antenna. For example, the tower technician may find the tower is entirely enclosed until they reach the antenna. When servicing the antenna, the technician may have to climb up another 100 feet. They can’t tie on to the antenna and are exposed to the risk of falling. There are no easy answers for dealing with this risk. The tower industry is pushing for antenna designers to engineer a safety system as an integral part of Pylon antennas.

Before a technician begins ascending, care should be taken that the appropriate transmitters have been deactivated and locked out. This precaution prevents anyone from accidentally turning on the transmitters while a technician is performing maintenance. With so many antennas sharing one tower, it becomes more difficult to confirm that all of the transmitters are deactivated. It may not be possible to have the co-located antennas that aren’t being serviced powered down. These other antennas may remain on while operating at reduced power.

Effective September 1, 2000, the FCC required practically every licensed station to comply with human radio frequency (RF) exposure standards. The goal of this rule is to limit human exposure to RF energy. While x-rays or nuclear energy cause ionizing radiation that can permanently change the molecular structure of a cell, RF energy is non-ionizing and is believed to heat cells without causing molecular change. RF energy does not do permanent damage to cells, as long as the amount of heating is limited to safe levels.

The FCC has specified safe levels for RF exposure based on: the intensity of the RF field; the wavelength of the energy (the body is most susceptible to heating from 30 MHz to 300 MHz); and the duration of the exposure. If RF levels exceed the FCC threshold in any of these areas, then FCC time limits apply. The FCC rules do not limit the maximum levels of RF encountered, but rather the maximum time that a human can be in the field.

As for the RF field, the FCC rules recognize two different types of areas. An accessible/uncontrolled area is one in which the public may be exposed to RF or one in which people may be exposed in the course of their employment and may not be fully aware of the exposure or cannot exercise control over their exposure. An occupational/controlled area is one in which people are exposed as a result of their occupation and those people who are exposed have been made fully aware and can exercise control over their exposure. The FCC rule limits the Maximum Permissible Exposure levels (MPEs) to 30 minutes for a controlled area and six minutes for an uncontrolled area.

When a technician is working in areas not in compliance with the Occupational/Controlled MPEs, and the situation cannot be controlled with engineering or work practice solutions, then Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) should be implemented. RF protective clothing should be worn to reduce the Electro Magnetic Energy (EME) exposure.

The Naptex RF attenuation suit has work coveralls to protect the body and a hood to protect the head. Polyester yarn is wound co-axially around stainless steel fibers to produce the surface of the RF attenuation suit. Tests have demonstrated that the suit can effectively reduce EME absorption within the body at virtually any frequency over the telecommunications spectrum by 10 dB to 12 dB. When working at lower frequency fields, the tower technician may be able to wear the suit without the hood.

Another tool for limiting RF exposure, the personal monitor, is a RF detector that alarms when the RF threshold (usually 50% Occupational/Controlled MPE) is exceeded. When nearing an antenna that needs maintenance, the tower technician can place the monitor near the antenna. If the monitor does not alarm, the technician can verify that the transmitter was deactivated. Some manufacturers of personal monitors suggest that monitors can be worn to show compliance. The risk of this strategy is that when the monitor is operated in accordance with its instructions, compliance is only designated at the location of the monitor. If the tower technician would wear the monitor on their belt, they may have a false sense of security if their head and shoulders may enter high fields without the meter on their belt alarming.

Although the job of tower technician has risks, those risks can be managed by diligently following safety guidelines. Next month, we’ll continue our discussion of the tower industry by taking a look at tower considerations for DTV.

Information for this article came from the following sources: Joann N. Brasington, "Basic Tower Site Safety Guidelines" Tower Times, November 2000; FCC, "Evaluating Compliance With FCC Guidelines for Human Exposure To Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields, OET Bulletin 65, Edition 97-01."; Ralph A. Haller, "Deadline for RF Exposure Compliance Going Going Gone!" RCR Magazine, September 25, 2000; Lab Safety Supply, "EZ Facts Safety Info- Document #130, Fall Protection Equipment"; Wave Communications/Skyline.

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In April we will hold elections for the offices of Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and Treasurer for the 2001-2002 term. All interested members of Chapter 24 who are current in their dues are eligible to run for elected office. The nominations committee is now accepting nominations for all four offices. As of this date, the following members have placed their names in nomination for the following positions:

During the March 21st meeting, the nominations committee will solicit the members present for additional nominations. If you would like to run for an office, or know someone who wishes to run, please bring it to the attention of the nominations committee. All nominees are requested to submit a short biography for publishing with the ballot. The nominations committee consists of Steve Paugh (Chair), Jim Hermanson and Denise Maney.

The appointed offices do not fall under the jurisdiction of the nominations committee and are appointed by the current Chair of Chapter 24. It is anticipated that the existing appointed officers would continue to serve under the new Chair. The new Chair will contact each appointed officer to determine his or her desire to continue. If you are a current appointed officer and would like to step down, please contact the current Chair Kevin Ruppert to ensure an orderly transition. If you would like to serve as an appointed officer please make your desire known to the Chair. To a large extent, the success of Chapter 24 is due to the tireless dedication of the appointed officers. Their hard work often goes unseen by the membership and we owe them a debt of gratitude for their service. The appointed offices are Program Committee Chair - Denise Maney , Program Committee Members - Fred Sperry, Steve Zimmerman, Steve Paugh, Membership - Paul Stoffel, Sustaining Membership - Fred Sperry, Special Events - Vicki Kipp, Certification and Education - Jim Hermanson, Frequency Coordination - Tom Smith and National Liaison - Leonard Charles.

The election ballot will be included in the April newsletter. The deadline for nominations and the submission of biographies will be 48 hours prior to the deadline for submissions to the April newsletter, as announced by Mike Norton during the March 21st meeting. We hope you will consider serving Chapter 24 as an elected or appointed officer. The office of Secretary is awaiting you!

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• Five high school students from Hawaii and one from American Samoa got a chance to talk via amateur radio with International Space Station Expedition 1 Commander William "Shep" Shepherd, KD5GSL. The approximately six-minute contact took place March 1 as part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, or ARISS, program.

The students were selected from participants of the Pacific Symposium for Science and Sustainability, a project of the Hawaii Academy of Sciences. The Sacred Hearts Academy contact from Honolulu was the first telebridge connection attempted in conjunction with an Earth-ISS amateur radio contact. In a telebridge, an amateur station handles the actual transmission and reception, and uplink and downlink audio for the participants is fed via telephone. The bridge allowed individuals at different locations, including the student in American Samoa, to participate in the chat.

The current crew of Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, will head home later this month aboard the shuttle Discovery. ARISS spokesman Will Marchant, KC6ROL, said he expects it will be sometime in late March before ARISS school contacts will resume with the new crew. The ISS Expedition 2 crew includes two hams, Russian cosmonaut and Commander Yuri Usachev, UA9AD, and US astronaut Susan Helms, KC7NHZ, in addition to US astronaut Jim Voss.

• Former WGN engineer Bob Baird, W9NN, was honored by about thirty hams and friends who gathered at the State Coach Inn in Mosinee, Wisconsin February 17. Baird has been a ham for 80 years and turned 95 in February. He is one of the founding fathers of the Quarter Century Wireless Association, having done so in 1947. Bob spent much of his working days as an engineer for WGN Radio, Chicago, and now lives in central Wisconsin.

(Excerpts from the American Radio Relay League and Badger State Smoke Signals web sites)

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Is there a topic you would like to see covered at one of our local Chapter 24 meetings? Or, better yet, is there a topic that you are qualified to speak on at an upcoming meeting?

Please forward any ideas to one of the Program committee members or to one of the Chapter 24 officers.

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There's an old urban legend floating around that goes something like this: you get a message on your answering machine urging you to call a certain telephone number because of some urgent situation (you've won a prize, a friend is in jail, a relative has died, whatever). The number happens to be in area code 809, but you dial it anyway, only to discover that the call is a scam (or at best, a non-working number). Then you get your phone bill: $24.00 a minute! Or maybe $2400 per minute!

This story has been circulating around the Internet for years, and every once in a while it pops up in the popular press. In its latest incarnation, it appeared in a news story on Boston's WBZ ("Newsradio 1030"), in a version asserting that calls from 809 originate in Bahamas. The station even repeated the story later the same day when talk-show host Gary LaPierre interviewed someone from Verizon about the alleged $2400-per-minute charge. The Verizon spokesman avoided a direct answer by claiming that Verizon "didn't know what rates would be charged," since they were not in the business of providing international calling.

Notwithstanding Verizon's unwillingness to comment, this story is mostly a hoax. There is, however, a kernel of truth to it. Here's the real story.

First of all, 809 isn't Bahamas; it's the Dominican Republic.

As I've previously reported in this newsletter, 809 was originally assigned to a hodgepodge of geopolitical entities in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, including United States Territories, British Territories, and several sovereign nations. However, since 1995, 809 has been split 19 ways, and each geopolitical entity now has its own area code:

   242  BHA   Bahamas
   246        Barbados
   264  ANG   Anguilla
   268  ANT   Antigua & Barbuda
   284  BVI   British Virgin Islands
   340        U.S. Virgin Islands
   345        Cayman Islands
   441        Bermuda 
   473  GRE   Grenada & Carriacou
   649        Turks & Caicos Islands
   664  MOI   Montserrat
   758  SLU   St. Lucia
   767  ROS   Dominica  (ROS = Roseau, the Capital City)
   784  SVG   St. Vincent & the Grenadines
   787  PTR   Puerto Rico
   809        Dominican Republic
   868  TNT   Trinidad & Tobago
   869        St. Kitts & Nevis
   876        Jamaica
   939        Puerto Rico
North American area codes in the Atlantic and Caribbean formerly assigned to
area code 809.  Since 1995, 809 has been split 19 ways, and a twentieth area
code (939) will added in Puerto Rico later this year.  Note that several of
these area codes have locally-significant alphabetic translations.  Unlike the
rest of North America (where new area codes are usually met with hostility),
new area codes were popular in these localities -- apparently it's a badge of
honor for a country to have its own area code.  
Table courtesy of Mark J. Cuccia, Tulane University; reprinted with permission.

As a result of this split, 809 now serves only the Dominican Republic. Bahamas received its own area code (242) in 1996.

There is some truth to the statement that calls to some of these countries (including Dominican Republic) are billed at a higher rate than intra-USA calls. But it's not because 809 numbers can be used like 900 numbers are used, as the WBZ story alleged. It's simply because either the long distance company charges more for carrying the call, or because the terminating country has a higher excise tax on inbound international calls. The call still goes to a local number in the terminating country, and (unlike 900), the called party does not receive part of the toll charge. But even at the higher rate, it's nowhere near the amounts alleged in the WBZ story.

The $2400-per-minute charge is an artifact of the way Usenet works. Usenet was a popular medium for digital communications during the early days of the Internet, before the rise of the World Wide Web. During the 80s, the 809 story was widely distributed on Usenet sites, although it probably originated even before that.

Usenet sites were (and still are) text-only message boards. Individual users have "news readers" installed on their computers. The earliest news readers, identified by such memorable names as trn or rn (as in "read news"), ran on UNIX-based mainframe machines. After IBM introduced the PC, DOS-  and Windows-based readers appeared. Today, Usenet readers are built into many proprietary application programs such as AOL and CompuServe.

In theory, all of these readers should produce identical results; after all, their basic function is fairly simple: display ASCII text on a monitor screen. But in practice, they don't all work alike.

And that's the root of the $2400-per-minute rumor. Linc Madison, a telecommunications consultant based in San Francisco, provided the following explanation in a recent post on Telecom Digest:

"The origin of the whole $2425/minute or $24,100 per call numbers is simply Usenet itself. Some systems convert the dollar sign into =24 (for ASCII hex value 0x24). Thus $25/minute turned into =2425/minute, which some helpful human turned into $2425/minute. If you ever see a spam claiming $242,425/minute, just remember you saw it here first." (Telecom Digest Volume 2000 Number 197, January 24 2001)

So does all this mean that you can ignore the original rumor? Not necessarily: there's no end to the number of ripoff schemes floating around out there. But keep in mind that bogus calls aren't restricted to area code 809; they can come from anywhere in the world: from any North American area code or from any foreign country code.

And if you're really worried about mystery calls from Bahamas, don't look for 809; look for 242 instead. But don't get it mixed up with 240 (Maryland), 246 (Barbados), or 248 (Michigan).

Editor's note: The author is a free-lance writer based in Utah. A former member of Chapter 24, he is now officially a member of Salt Lake City's Chapter 62. However, he still regards Chapter 24 as his "home chapter."

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Membership renewal notices have been sent to all Regular, Senior, Associate and Student members of the Society. Membership renewal is due by April 1. Dues for Regular, Senior and Associate members remain at the same level for the 10th year, at $55. Dues for Student Members remain at $15. Sustaining and Youth members renew in their memberships in the anniversary month of when they joined and receive notices at the appropriate time.

The SBE Certification Committee has established exam dates for 2001. Check the list below for the exam period that is best for you. For more information about SBE Certification, see your Chapter Certification Chair or contact Linda Godby, Certification Director at the SBE National Office at (317) 846-9000 or lgodby@sbe.org.

Nomination forms for the 2000 National SBE Awards program will appear in the March issue of the SBE SIGNAL. Members are encouraged to nominate deserving members for one or more of the awards available. Winners will be chosen by the National Awards Committee from nominations received and will be recognized at the SBE National Meeting, September 13 in Verona, New York, site of the Central New York SBE Regional Convention.

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The FCC has rejected a petition by Federal Signal that proposed the use of FM broadcast channel 200 (87.9 MHz) for use as an Emergency Radio Data Service. The proposed system was to operate with a output of one watt and be used to disseminate emergency information to motorists so they could avoid traffic accidents, emergency vehicles and weather related disasters.

The system would override whatever is playing on the vehicle audio system, whether it was the radio, a CD, or a cassette. It would also activate the radio, if it was off.

All but one commentor opposed the petition on the grounds of interference to TV channel 6 and FM stations on channel 201 (88.1 MHz). The FCC noted they already were proceeding with a rulemaking for a short range emergency and traffic information system on 5.850-5.925 GHz.

This notice was adopted on January 22, 2001 and released on January 24, 2001.

WT Docket No. 99-168; CS Docket No. 98-120; MM Docket No. 00-39: FCC 01-25

Clearing of the 740-806 MHz Band; Conversion to Digital Television

In this action, the FCC set some policy concerning mechanisms for the early clearing of Channels 60-69 for use by new wireless licenses that win the auctions for spectrum in that band. The FCC will leave all cost-sharing agreements to the parties involved. They will not conduct secondary spectrum auctions, but allow private auctions along with other negotiations. Early termination of analog transmissions will be allowed as well as the use of the analog channel only, with it being required to convert to digital transmission on the date set by FCC rules. Stations will be allowed to move to channels 52-59 on a temporary basis. Finally the FCC will allow three-way negotiations between a new wireless licensee and the 60-69 station and another in-band station for a multiple move to allow for the clearing of the band.

The only rule changes that the FCC made will allowing for the amending of the analog and DTV allocation tables, so a station can move out of the channel 60-69 band as long as they meet FCC interference requirements.

This notice was adopted on January 18, 2001 and released on January 23, 2001. It became effective on February 14th and was published in the FEDERAL REGISTER on the same date on pages 10,204-10,208.

In this action, the Commission affirmed most of it’s rules concerning local TV multiple ownership rules, radio/TV cross-ownership rules and grandfathers policies for conditional waivers on previous rules concerning radio/TV cross-ownership rules and local marketing agreements. They are not changing the number of independent voices required for TV duopolies to exist in a market, or the number of voices required for various radio/TV combinations. The rules defining other voices such as cable or newspapers also remain the same. The FCC allowed current local marketing agreements to remain in effect.

The only two rules that the FCC modified were that in large Designated Market Areas (DMAs), stations with common ownership whose grade B signals do not overlap will not be considered duopolies, but as separate stations as the rules have allowed in the past. The second station will not count as a station for computing number of independent voices required for duopolies to exist either. The second rule allows for all stations that place a grade B signal over any part of the grade B signal of one of the stations at issue for a doupoly request to count as independent voices.

This action was adopted on December 7, 2000 and released on January 19, 2001. It will become effective on April 9, 2001 and was published in the FEDERAL REGISTER on February 6, 2001 on pages 9,039-9,048.

From FCC Releases (wwww.fcc.gov) and the FEDERAL REGISTER (www.access.gpo.gov).

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Shockley Communications Corporation seeks permission to voluntary assign it’s license for WKOW-TV/DT to Shockley Communications Acquisition, LLC. Also included in the transfer is KDAL (610 KHz AM), KXTP ( 970 KHz AM), WDSM (710 KHz AM), KDAL-FM (95.7 MHz), KTCO (98.9 MHz FM), KRBR-FM (102.5 MHZ), all Superior/Duluth. Other TV stations included are WQOW-TV Channel 18, Eau Claire; WAOW-TV Channel 9, Wausau; WXOW-TV Channel19, LaCrosse; WYOW-TV Channel 34, Eagle River, and KXLT Channel 47, Rochester, MN.

Shockley Communications Acquisition, LLC will in turn seek assignment of KXLT to Shockley Broadcasting, LLC, and WKOW-TV, WAOW-TV, WYOW-TV, WQOW-TV and WXOW-TV to Quincy Newspapers, Inc.

The application for assignment from Shockley Communications Corporation to Shockley Communications Acquisition, LLC was announced on February 6, 2001, and the application for assignment from Shockley Communications Acquisition, LLC to Shockley Broadcasting, LLC and Quincy Newspapers, Inc. was announced on February 8, 2001.

Shockley Communications Acquisition, LLC is held by Roger Ohlrich. Shockley Communications Corporation was founded by Terry and Sandy Shockley, and they are owners of Shockley Broadcasting, LLC. Value of the transaction is estimated to be $150-200 million.

Trinity Broadcasting has applied to convert Channel 23 LPTV, Madison to Class A station Status. This would give primary status to Channel 23 instead of the current secondary status for Channel 54. Channel 23 is a replacement for Channel 54 because of dislocation due to DTV. A class A station must meet certain FCC requirements including a minimum number of hours of local origination a week.

This application was announced on February 16, 2001.

From FCC daily notices (www.fcc.gov) with additional information from BROADCASTING and CABLE (www.broadcastingcable.com)

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Want to get your resume out to employers? Participate in SBE’s new Resume Service, available to SBE members only, free of charge. Call the SBE National Office at (317) 846-9000 or e-mail Scott Jones at kjones@sbe.org for a Resume Service participation form.

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