Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FM Broadcaster Interferes With public Safety System

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 19:06:48 -0400

FYI- Lincoln County runs a VHF system in the 150 Mhz range.
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FM Broadcaster Interferes With public Safety System

Article Last Updated: Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 10:45:27 PM
MST

County, station struggle with
interference issue
By Dianne Stallings
ruidoso news staff writer

A local FM station was off the air this week. County
officials say the black out is linked to the station's
interference with emergency services
communications. The station manager says an
antenna was damaged by the wind.

KNMB - FM 96.7 is licensed in Cloudcroft, but is heard
in Ruidoso and maintains offices here. Writing on
April 9 to Ken Letcher with White Mountain
Communications, the owner of the tower, Lincoln
County manager Tom Stewart said the continued
operation of the station "causes significant
degradation to public safety and emergency
services.

"You are hereby advised of the significant liabilities
that you are assuming for continued operation. If
the interference cannot be cleared immediately, I
request that you cease operations on this
frequency."

Although he requested that representatives appear
at the commission meeting Tuesday, no one turned
up for the item on the agenda.

"It should not be on the air today," Stewart said
Thursday. "It's been almost a month and that's long enough to wait for a
correction."

The manager told county commissioners that experts were at the
transmitting tower on Buck Mountain Monday trying to fix the problem,
but it wasn't resolved, "So I asked that they close the station down."

John Norlander with Key Communications, the Roswell firm that handles
the county's radios, said he spent two or three hours on the mountain
Monday with station representatives trying to locate the source of the
problem.

"They are running at full power a 10,000 watt transmitter," he said.
"Your repeater on Buck Mountain is rated 100 watts max."

But at this point, he thinks the problem is either a frequency issue or an
antennae problem.

"They're running 30 watts into their antenna today (Tuesday) and it's still
causing interference with everybody on the mountain," Norlander said.
"It's not just the county's equipment. There is an issue and it does need
to be addressed. As to what it will take to fix it, they're going to have to
figure that out unless they want to pay me and they don't want to do
that."

Commission Chairman Rex Wilson said the county faces a basic public
safety, health and welfare issue.

Stewart said the transmitter for the station is to be shut down until the
problem is solved.

Tim Keithley, general manager of AM station KRUI and a spokesman for
KNMB, said the station was licensed for the tower on Buck Mountain and
station officials are trying to cooperate with the county.

"We have told the county and everyone on that site that we will work
with them and do whatever we can to make sure we don't interfere with
anyone else's signal," he said. "We have been working with the county
and Key Communications to fix any interference problems that we may
be causing. There is all sorts of radio stuff up there.

"We're being a good neighbor and making sure we do not cause trouble
with anyone else's transmissions, but we haven't been able to solve the
problem."

High winds prevented working at the tower Tuesday, he said. The wind
damaged the KNMB antenna and other radio equipment there, Keithley
said.

"We're off the air because of antenna damage, but we're continuing to
work with the county to fix the problem," he said. "We're going back the
first of next week to work on it again. Of course, emergency services
come first, so we are willing to work with county in any way."
http://www.ruidosonews.com/Stories/0,1413,165%257E9426%257E1333780,00.html

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