The FCC has dismissed a northwestern Iowa station’s request for a temporary facility, alleging that the specified tower site is in the middle of a street.
The application from Panther Communications’ KWIA/100.9 (Newell) requested special temporary authority to transmit from downtown Newell with 25 Watts, saying that the station’s licensed transmitter site elsewhere in Newell is no longer available to the licensee.
Audio Division Senior Engineer Dale Bickel dismissed the application in a May 14 letter, saying:
“The coordinates specified in the application map to the center of S. Fulton Street, just north of 3rd Street. It is obvious that no antenna supporting structure can be erected there, and no explanation by the licensee of what is intended has been supplied in the STA request. “
Last December, the FCC rejected a different proposed temporary facility for KWIA because it would have transmitted from Storm Lake and not provided a strong enough signal to Newell. The latest letter noted that KWIA has presumably been off the air since at least December since the filings said the licensed tower site is no longer available.
KWIA was first licensed in 2015 with a 100-Watt facility. As a class A station, it could potentially be upgraded to 6kW to reach Storm Lake.