FIRM SEEKS TO ADD LOW-POWER TV TRANSMITTER

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Marcus Seyer decided farming on a steep hillside along Highway A and Scott County Road 223 was more troublesome than profitable, so he began looking for alternative uses for the land.

"It wasn't profitable because of erosion," he said. He leased the land to a cattle farmer for some time so the herd could graze.

But he found the best solution to his hillside dilemma when KYRX-104.7 FM needed property for a radio transmitter tower. Seyer leases at least an acre of land to the radio station for their tower; the rest is still used for grazing cattle.

But another antenna could be in store for the tower on his land.

MS Communications, a Los Angeles-based company, is seeking permission from the Federal Communications Commission to build a transmitter for a low-power television station. The transmitter would be built onto the existing KYRX tower.

The company is seeking to have a construction permit reassigned by the FCC. The permit had been granted to the Brewer Family Trust in Canoga Park, Calif.

No one from MS Communications could be reached for comment by the Southeast Missourian, despite several attempts.

Putting a low-power television station tower on an existing radio tower shouldn't cause any overlap in signals, said Jim Dufek, a mass communications professor at Southeast Missouri State University. Both operate on UHF signals.

"The audio could overlap but not enough so that the signal would cause interference with the existing channels out there," said Dufek. "The FCC is pretty particular about that."

The FCC completes an interference analysis for each construction permit application "to make sure it complies with all the applicable rules," said Hossein Hashemzadeh, who handles LPTV engineering for the FCC's Mass Media bureau.

If a construction permit is granted, it comes with a three-year expiration date. The person seeking the permit has to build the station within that three years and apply for a license application as soon as the station hits the air, Hashemzadeh said.

Low-power television uses much lower wattage and cannot broadcast in a wide area. Often the towers are built on hills so that the signals have the farthest reach possible. In urban areas, where the signal might be blocked by buildings or hills, the reach might only be 5 or 10 miles, Dufek said.

Towers in Southeast Missouri are often constructed on land leased from farmers in the region. The property owners are assessed taxes at a commercial rate for the acreage where the tower sits. The remainder of the land is assessed at the agriculture rate, said Randy Grant with the Scott County assessor's office.

Of the communications towers in Scott County, whether they be used for cellular, radio or television transmission, most have been given addresses through the county's 911 system.

Joe Burton, director of the county's 911 system, has been assigning addresses to towers "so that if we have trouble, they can go right to it," a dispatcher said. The system has yet to pinpoint exact locations for calls from cellular telephones, "but it's a start toward that."

Low-power television was first approved by the FCC in 1982 as a way for people to receive more local programming. There are more low-power stations -- 2,000 operating in the United States, according to the FCC -- in the country than there are larger network stations.

Alaska has the most low-power TV stations in the nation because of its terrain. Signals cannot reach wide areas, so transmitter and low-power towers are used to fill in the gaps.

Missouri already has 17 LPTV channels operating, including Channel 45 in Cape Girardeau. Another 35 applications are still under consideration by the FCC.

Low-power stations "touch a population base that isn't being served by local or even independent stations," Dufek said. Many of the new licenses being granted are going to Christian broadcasting groups.

But universities, county governing boards and others are applying for licenses. Getting a license might not be terribly difficult, but it doesn't mean that operating a station is easy.

"There is a lot of cost from master control to production and preventive maintenance to keep it running and make sure the signal is out there," Dufek said.

Maintaining a signal is an important part of operating the tower. "When we issue a license, the licensee is obligated to keep the station on the air," Hashemzadeh said. "If for any reason the station is silent, they have to notify us within 10 days."

A broadcast company couldn't just receive a license and not carry some sort of programming. However, much of the low-power stations broadcast old syndicated programs or buy services instead of creating their own.

Digital television should have a great impact on low power television, Dufek said. The FCC estimates that 35-45 percent of the existing stations will be affected by the switch from analog to digital.

Low-power stations cannot cause interference with full-power stations but must accept any interference they receive. Full-power stations have must-carry rights, which means they have to be carried on local cable systems. Low-power stations don't have that right granted by the FCC.

Channel 45 is carried on the Charter Cable system in Cape Girardeau because it rebroadcasts programming for a full-power station in Southern Illinois.

And as the full-power stations switch to digital, the FCC is granting them a second channel so they can adjust signals and broadcast in both analog and digital. Many of the higher band channels in the range from 60-69 will be granted to full power stations making the switch to digital.

Some LPTV stations "will just lose their license because of it or be relegated to a different part of the spectrum," Dufek said.

MS Communications plans to broadcast as Channel 65, K65GP.

Some LPTV stations will be reassigned and won't have to compete with new applicants for channels. However, the reassignments are granted on a first-come, first-serve basis.