Subject: Completing the Transition to Digital Television (Carney)
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 104815 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
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Hi everybody:
.......For those of you who are engaged in a tower "fight" with the FCC
or a telecom company, the following submission from attorney Deb Carney
is extremely important..... I tried to make a similar point with a press
"lady" recently..... She said, in effect, "Oh, that's just 'activist'
scare-talk."
I think it is terribly important to make sure that the following concept
is well understood by the press people..... We, who are deeply immersed
in this subject, have known for a long time ... that the initial antenna
on the tower is (all too often) 'just the beginning' of the story.....
Once they have their "foot in the door" -- they proceed to mount more and
more antennas -- different frequencies and power levels...... Sutro Tower
is perhaps one of the extreme examples....
Deb is explaining the legal context of this process below.....
Cheerio.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at:
EMF-L archives can be found at:
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 08:30:32 -0600
From: Deb Carney
To: "Beavers, Roy"
Subject: Completing the Transition to Digital Television
This government report explains the status of transition from analog
TV to digital: www.cbo.gov/index.html
The govt. wants to move TV to digital and then auction off the frequency
bandwidth previously used by analog TV to others.
The FCC at present has taken the position that once towers are in a
location, the location is an "antenna farm" and the FCC does not need to
comply with the National Environmental Protection Act, the Historic
Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, etc. In other words, the
FCC gives the broadcasters the green light to keep adding more and more
radiation emitting antennas up to the FCC recommended standard. This
FCC standard for broadcast radiation was set without looking at any
research for long-term non-heating effects.
The FCC has turned a deaf ear to our concerns about interference
with our electronic equipment. The only interference the FCC really
pays attention to is the potential of one radio or TV station to
interfere with another radio or TV station.
The National Association of Broadcasters has just filed a brief with
the FCC urging the FCC to pre-empt the ability of local governments to
say no to these digital TV towers. For the Federal Government to take
away the power of local govenments to make zoning decisions would be a
flagerant violation of Constitutional rights.
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1544&sequence=0&from=7
Tower Problems are just a tiny subset of this reasons that the
transition from analog to digital is difficult. Here is an excerpt:
Resolving Tower Problems
Broadcasters' most significant concern about the FCC's deadlines is
getting their broadcast towers ready for DTV transmitters. For many
stations, a key feature of upgrading their facilities is construction of a
new broadcast tower or retrofitting of an existing one to hold the extra
weight of a second antenna for DTV broadcasting. In addition, many
broadcasters may attempt to replicate their current audiences as well as
resolve some of the signal strength and multipath problems discussed
earlier by broadcasting their DTV signal from an antenna higher than the
corresponding one for analog signals.
When a new tower needs to be built, a broadcaster's first problem--the
solution of which may generate some controversy--is finding an appropriate
location with the proper zoning.(11) (Even retrofitting an existing tower
can be controversial, as shown in the case of the shared tower serving the
San Francisco Bay area.)(12) New construction, however, may offer
opportunities for collocating the transmitters of different broadcasters,
a practice that can greatly reduce potential interference between
stations. One analyst has estimated that 1,000 of the roughly 1,600
existing full-power TV broadcasters may need significant modifications or
new towers to upgrade their facilities for digital broadcasts; as many as
350 may need to construct new towers at least 1,000 feet high.(13) New
towers for DTV broadcasting can be as high as 2,000 feet and construction
can cost $1,000 per foot, making a new tower a major expense for some
broadcasters.(14) Retrofitting an existing tower can also be costly.
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Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com