The SBE urged the commission Feb. 17 to begin a rulemaking proceeding to allow TV Pickup licensees to document the location and height of their ENG receive only, ENG-RO, sites and to allow Remote Pickup, RPU, sites to do the same in the commission’s Universal Licensing System.
The SBE comments were filed in response to an FCC Public Notice released Jan. 23 regarding an earlier petition from the society for such rulemaking.
In its comments, the SBE asserted that “highly sensitive” ENG receive only sites are at risk from high-power commercial mobile radio service operator base stations operating on adjacent bands. Without allowing ENG-RO sites to identify their location in the ULS, these mobile radio operators have no “practical means” of locating such sites. Other operators, including the military, broadband radio service Channel 1 licensees, mobile satellite service licensees and “WiFi entities” would benefit from the information as well, according to the comments.
The society also spelled out what it does not wish any modifications to the ULS to do, including making TV Pickup and RPU licensee location and height registration mandatory. Nor does the SBE seek changes to TV broadcast auxiliary service rules or to propose establishing any minimum separation distance between ENG-RO and RPU sites and other operators.
The petition pointed out that amending the system to allow voluntary submission of ENG-RO and RPU locations and antenna heights would “allow interested parties that might not want to risk revealing a planned deployment” to call up the information they required in a way that kept their inquiry “a matter (that’s) solely between the ULS and the interest party.”
For more information, visit www.sbe.org.
