No parties opposed requests by two separate groups of engineers...
No parties opposed requests by two separate groups of engineers for the FCC to look into allowing Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) Remote Pickup Stations (RPUs) to operate narrowband digital channels. The Society of Broadcast Engineers in November asked the commission…
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to waive portions of the Part 74 rules that prohibit RPUs from using some digital voice and data emissions. A month earlier, the Engineers for the Integrity of Broadcast Auxiliary Services Spectrum (EIBASS) petitioned the FCC to start a rulemaking revising some of those same rules. EIBASS, SBE and NAB all filed comments in response to a public notice on the petitions, and they all asked the commission to proceed. “In the 108 days since EIBASS filed its Petition for Rulemaking, nothing has changed regarding the need to revise the allowable center frequencies for RPU stations, allow RPU stations to use digital modulation and allow the ‘watermark’ method of station identification defined in the ATSC A/82 DRL standard,” EIBASS said. NAB might prefer SBE’s approach over EIBASS’s because “it appears simpler” and “would allow the commission to retain existing channel frequency centers… rather than creating a new table of channel frequency centers with varying bandwidths,” it said: “We urge the Commission to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to consider their requests, and to consider, in the interim,” SBE’s waiver request.