CINCINNATI—Oklahoma Community Television (OCT) has selected GatesAir and Triveni Digital as key technology partners in an ATSC 3.0 deployment that establishes a cost-efficient networking model for low-power transmission sites through a convergence of RF and IP technology.

The successful proof-of-concept offers a basis for developing future means for a translator transition to ATSC 3.0, the companies said.

Developed by Jack Mills, general manager of OCT, a division of broadcast group Griffin Media, the networking innovation brings the SRT protocol directly into the RF infrastructure featuring GatesAir transmitters though interoperability with advanced signaling technology from Triveni Digital.

Commonly deployed in live production scenarios, SRT ensures secure and reliable transport of video and audio content with very low latency, with built-in protections to maintain performance across unpredictable IP networks. Broadcasters often deploy SRT over managed fiber connections to maintain broadcast-quality standards. For very distant locations lacking fiber connections, the expense of running lines is often cost-prohibitive.

Mills faced this challenge with at least one OCT translator and inspired him to engineer a solution. Following a thorough testing phase, Mills successfully deployed ATSC 3.0 services to two new GatesAir Maxiva UAXTE-100 translators installed in August. The first stage carries the NextGen TV broadcasts of five Oklahoma City network affiliates over a 90-mile distance.

The five-station feed originates from Nexstar Media Group-owned KAUT-TV’s ATSC 3.0 Lighthouse site to OCT’s translator site in Strong City, Okla., leveraging SRT transport over existing fiber and IP connections. The SRT signal is processed through equipment from DTV Innovations and transmitted locally through the UAXTE-100 on Channel 29.

The much greater challenge was preparing those same services for a second translator site in Elk City, Okla., with no existing microwave, fiber or wired connectivity. Mills favored an off-air RF hop from the Strong City site, which required a solution to regenerate ATSC 3.0 signals for broadcast over a different RF channel.

He ultimately found the Triveni ATSC 3.0 Translator to be a reliable, cost-efficient solution to decode and regenerate the signal for broadcast on Channel 26, reducing equipment costs. The ATSC 3.0 Translator receives and regenerates the signal, applies a unique DRM signature for legal broadcast rights management and hands it off to the GatesAir translator in Elk City, which delivers the ATSC 3.0 feed at 120 W.

“The United States has a very large installed base of approximately 5,000 LPTV and translators operating today. The recent interest in mandating ATSC 3.0 will force many broadcasters to make decisions with their translators: find an affordable way for translators to transmit in ATSC 3.0, or eventually go dark,” said Mills, who is also president of the National Television Association.

“In addition to the transmission, translator operators use microwave systems, some form of IP, fiber and OTA over mountainous terrain and very long distances to reach their translator sites. Our approach proves that affordable IP solutions and OTA can reliably feed ATSC 3.0 signals.”

Triveni ATSC 3.0 Translator integrates seamlessly with OCT’s existing filters, antennas and lines, Mills added, requiring no changes or additional investments in the RF infrastructure. Mills said he is actively exploring the deployment of auxiliary ATSC 3.0-ready services over the same two hops, including a Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) implementation for accuracy and timing.

More information is on the GatesAir and Triveni Digital websites.

The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would revise rules governing low power TV stations (LPTV) in a number of areas, including online public file requirements, and rules governing operations of Class A television (i.e. stations that operate at low power, like LPTV/TV translator stations, but are afforded primary interference protection status), LPTV, and TV translator stations.

The FCC also announced that it will vote on the NPRM, which would significantly increase the rules governing LPTV stations, at the June Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 6, 2024. 

In announcing that it was seeking public comment on the NPRM, the FCC noted that “the Commission created the LPTV Service in 1982 to bring local television service to viewers “otherwise unserved or underserved” by existing full power stations. Today, the LPTV Service is an established component of the nation’s television system, delivering free over-the-air TV service, including locally produced programming, to millions of viewers. The NPRM proposes changes to our rules and policies to ensure it continues to flourish and serve the public interest.”

More specifically the NPRM would seek comment on whether to require top-four network affiliated LPTV stations to comply with the same online public file (OPIF) requirements applicable to full power and Class A television stations, or alternatively whether OPIF requirements should be applied to LPTV stations that are among the top-four TV stations in each market based on the Nielsen ratings.

It also proposes to adopt procedures for LPTV stations to establish an OPIF, and it proposes to make public inspection and political broadcasting rules applicable to all LPTV stations.

In addition the NPRM proposes a number of technical and operational amendments to the FCC’s current rules relating to translators and other issues. 

Those technical and operational amendments would include a proposal to amend the method for calculating the maximum distance that a displaced or channel sharing station may move under the FCC displacement rule and clarify the maximum distance that Class A and LPTV/TV translator stations may move under our minor modification rule.

It would also require that Class A and LPTV/TV translator stations “specify a community of license within their station’s contour”; adopt minimum operating and defined minimum video program requirements for LPTV stations; require stations in the LPTV Service seek authority to change designation and maintain a call sign consistent with their class of service; specify requirements pertaining to emissions masks; prohibit LPTV/TV translator station operations above TV channel 36; and clarify the circumstances in which LPTV/TV translators stations are eligible for displacement.

The FCC noted that NPRM was being released as part of a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding. Any presentations or views on the subject expressed to the Commission or its staff, including by email, must be filed in MB Docket Nos. 24-147 and 24-148, which may be accessed via the Electronic Comment Filing System (https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/). 

The full NPRM can be found here. 

WASHINGTON—Now that the FCC has opened a 60-day filing window for LPTV, translator and FM broadcast stations impacted by the channel repack, the commission has announced that it will hold an informational webinar on Aug. 28 to answer filers’ questions.

Scheduled for 11 a.m.-noon Eastern Time, the webinar will be hosted by the Incentive Auction Task Force and the Media Bureau and will cover topics including:

• Filing FCC Form 2100, Schedule 399 (Reimbursement Form), including the certification demonstrating that an entity meets the eligibility criteria for reimbursement (Eligibility Certification);
• Providing estimates of reimbursement costs;
• Submitting invoices for actual expenses incurred;
• Overview of the allocation and payment processes and additional topics related to the reimbursement process

Attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions via email during the live webinar and a recording of the event will be available afterwards.

The broadcasters have until Oct. 15 to submit paperwork.

Visit this link to join the webinar.

For more news and insight on the repack, visit TV Technology'srepack silo.

WASHINGTON--The FCC has cancelled a planned construction permit auction for low power and translator TV facilities affected by the channel repack.

The commission adopted rules that gave LPTV/Class A TV facilities that would be displaced by the repack until July 22, 2019 to enter into agreements that would resolve mutual exclusivity. On Friday, it announced that it had accepted and approved all dismissal requests or settlement proposals surrounding the issue.

LPTVs and Class A/translator stations are not protected in the channel repack, which is scheduled to be completed a year from now. 

"It is good to see that these displacements from the incentive auction repacking process have been resolved, and that the spectrum can be quickly put into productive use," said Mike Gravino of the Next Gen TV Coalition, an organization representing LPTV/Class A stations. "These are along with the 1,456 displacements filed, and the 1,390 which have been granted, and 66 pending. 

"The FCC's Video Division and Media Bureau have served the industry well with this efficient and user-friendly process," Gravino continued. "And along with the thousands of those not impacted by the auction or repack, the LPTV industry can say for sure it survived and has great potential going forward and into next gen TV. We trust this bodes well for the $150 million displacement fund process next fiscal year, as those funds need to be equitably distributed." 

For more information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.

This article has been updated. 

DENVER — Dr. Byron St. Clair, president emeritus of the National Translator Association, died May 20 in Denver of brain cancer. He was 93.

St. Clair, who served as president of the National Translator Association for 19 years, is known as the "father of translators, LPTV and low-power FM," the association said.

He worked to serve those living in the mountainous rural western United States with broadcast service and in so doing created a new class of over-the-air broadcasting, which has grown to more than 4,000 stations that serve millions of people.

“Byron was a friend and mentor to all, a man of immense intellect, wisdom, ethics, kindness and vision,” said NTA President John Terrill.

During his career, St. Clair was director of R&D for Adler Electronics and founded and served as president of EMCEE, a manufacturer and installer of TV translators. In 1967, he founded and was president of Television Technology Corp. in Arvada, Colo., which later became Larcan-TTC.

St. Clair obtained a BSEE in 1945 and a master’s degree in physics in 1949 from Columbia University. He earned a Ph.D in physics in 1953 from Syracuse University.

He was a member of the National High Definition Television Subcommittees, Systems Subcommittee Working Party to Field Test Task Force, a board member of the Advanced Television Broadcast Alliance, a member and active participant in the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFCCE). St. Clair also was a member of the board of directors for Denver public broadcaster KBDI-TV.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering recognized St. Clair in 2017 with its Jules Cohen award for lifetime achievement.

AFCCE President John Lyons said, “I had the pleasure to sit and speak with with Byron over the last several years discussing his time in New York while attending Columbia for his BS and MA in Physics. He reminisced about living on the waterfront and his enjoyment of education. We will all stand to toast Byron at our Annual Meeting next month in Seattle."

The NTA is establishing The Byron W. St. Clair Memorial Scholarship Fund in partnership with the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers for promising undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in a career in broadcast engineering at accredited U.S. universities and colleges.

St. Clair is survived by his wife of 71 years, Julie, and daughter Susan Hansen of Arvada, Colo. A memorial service will be held in June. Details were not immediately available.

SALT LAKE CITY—Representatives from the FCC, NAB and OET will discuss the latest developments on how the television channel repack is impacting rural communities and OTA broadcasters, including translators and LPTV stations at the National Translator Association's annual convention, May 4-6. 

“Americans should know that their free TV is being altered starting now and continuing across the country for three years,” National Translator Association President John Terrill said in an announcement about the association’s convention.

At this year’s event, Federal Communications Commission Deputy Chief Video Division Hossein Hashemzadeh will address ways “to help translators and LPTV stations that have been forced to change to frequencies find a way to continue to serve their local communities.”

[Read: How Could The T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Affect The TV Repack?]

Hashemzadeh will be joined on Satuday by OET Technical Analysis Branch Chief Martin Doczkat and OET’s Mark Colombo to review how to file for a new channel for translators.

Additionally, National Association of Broadcasters Vice President of Spectrum Policy Robert Weller will review the government’s policies on reimbursement for displaced stations, and FCC Audio Division Assistant Chief Robert Gates will provide an update on the future of FM translators.

For comprehensive news and information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.

WASHINGTON—Low-power TV stations and translator licensees displaced in the incentive auction will be able apply for leftover channels early next year, according to the timeframe described in a May 12 Public Notice from the Federal Communications Commission. LPTVs and translators were not allowed to participate in the auction and have to wait until full-power and Class A stations have settled on new channels before choosing from the leftovers.

“We anticipate the exact dates for the Special Displacement Window will be announced by public notice approximately seven to eight months after release of the Closing and Channel Reassignment Public Notice on April 13, 2017,” the May 12 PN states.

The timeframe accommodates the 90-day filing window for full-power and Class A licensees that ends in mid-July, plus two, 30-day true-up windows after that, pushing that process into mid-September. A public notice announcing the Special Displacement Window will come in November or December, “not less than 60 days” before it opens, pushing the application window into 2018.

The displacement public notice will include data identifying occupied channels based on TVStudy, the software now being used to repack the diminished, post-auction TV band. It will show the final locations of full-power and Class A stations, plus those LPTV and translators that were not displaced in the auction. LPTV and translator licensees that apply for a new channel will have to provide “technical showings” demonstrating allowable interference levels to surrounding stations and land-mobile operations. (See “Repack TVStudy v2.2 Targets LPTVs,” April 14, 2017.)

LPTVs and translators must be “operating” and “displaced” to be eligible to apply for a new channel during the 30-day window. A station is considered “operating” if it had its “authorized construction permit facilities” or an “application for a license to cover” on file with the commission as of April 13, 2017. It is considered “displaced” if another station is taking its current channel or it’s in the new 600 MHz wireless band comprising Chs. 38-51.

Displaced stations now transmitting on Chs. 38-51 will have to cease operations on those channels no later than July 13, 2020. Those on Ch. 2-36 will have to either dial back the interference or go dark when the new licensee fires up the transmitter full time.

Displacement applications will be treated as a “minor change,” and carry no filing fees.

Eligible digital stations can move their transmitter site no more than 48 kilometers from their existing community of license. Analogs can move their antenna location no more than 16.1 kilometers. (The LPTV digital transition deadline is now July 13, 2021.)

Applicants will be able to apply for open channels in the new TV band—Chs. 2-36—as well as those being relinquished by full-power and Class A stations.

LPTV and translators may be able to avoid moving by making “minor changes” in antenna height, power levels or location that bring them in compliance with interference rules. The commission urged LPTV and translators to “file such minor change applications as soon as possible.”

All displacement applications will be treated as if they were filed on the last day of the 30-day window rather than first come, first serve, so licensees applying for the same channel can resolve the situation during a settlement window to be announced in a separate public notice. Analog-to-digital and digital-to-digital replacement translators will have priority over LPTVs and translator stations where mutual exclusivity remains after the settlement window. If an A-to-D or a D-to-D remain mutually exclusive, or two more LPTV and translators, the commission’s competitive bidding rules will apply.

Displaced digital LPTVs and translators will have three yearsto construct new facilities. Displaced analog operations will be subject to the July 13, 2021 digital transition deadline. Construction extensions up to 180 days will be considered in individual circumstances until March 13, 2021. After that, extensions are subject to the commission’s tolling rule.

Displace stations that have to go dark for more than 30 days before completing new facilities may file a request for silent authority. Stations that go dark for more than 10 days must notify the commission no later than the 10th day of suspended operations. Stations that go dark for any consecutive 12-month period will have their licenses suspended, unless and until it is extended through administrative or judicial appeal.

LPTV and translator licensees that do not qualify for the Special Displacement Window or don’t apply will have to wait until the commission lifts its freeze on digital companion channel and customary displacement applications, which the Media Bureau will do in a future public notice.

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission today unanimously voted to let LPTVs and translators share a channel with full-power and Class A licensees, providing them with more options to stay on the air once the musical-channels repack process begins. The vote also affirmed established carriage rights within these arrangements.

“This new flexibility will further assist secondary stations that are displaced by the… repacking process” and “may reduce construction and operating costs for resource-constrained secondary stations, including small minority-owned stations,” said Shaun Maher of the FCC’s Media Bureau.

Displacement by the Numbers
The post-incentive auction TV band will be reduced by 14 channels, from Ch. 38 to Ch. 50, inclusive. (The TV band previously extended to Ch. 51 but those licenses were frozen after their wireless neighbors—who won 18 TV channels in the 2008 auction—reported interference.) Stations now assigned to UHF frequencies on Ch. 38 or above will have to move to fewer, lower frequencies in a channel repack following the March 30 close of the auction.

With regard to the numbers, according to the FCC’s Dec. 31, 2016 station count, there are:

1,033 full-power commercial UHF stations
351 full-power commercial VHFs
289 full-power educational UHFs
105 full-power educational VHFs
393 Class A UHFs
24 Class A VHFs, totaling
1,600 UHF LPTVs
366 VHF LPTVs
2,911 UHF translators
878 VHF translators

All told, there are 6,226 broadcasters operating in UHF spectrum, which extends downward to Ch. 14, so not all of them are on the relinquished frequencies

According to the FCC’s own estimate, 1,274 full-power and Class A stations will have to move. According to the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition—a lobby formed by LPTV and translator licensees to protect their interest through the incentive auction process—said “ 3,150 LPTV and TV translator licenses and new permits ” are sure to be displaced, and possibly as many as 4,000.

The full extent of displacement will not be made public until after the final phase of the auction concludes March 30, when the commission will issue its “Auction Closing and Channel Reassignment Public Notice.”

In the meantime, the National Association of Broadcasters continues to hammer against the FCC’s hard 39-month deadline for completion of the. TheNAB filed a petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s repack rules March 17. There had been no response as of this writing. ~D.D.McAdams Channel-sharing began as an option in the TV spectrum incentive auction that allowed stations to sell their own 6 MHz license and share with another willing station. LPTVs and translators previously were allowed to share with each other, but not with full-power and Class As. Neither were LPTVs and translators allowed to participate in the auction, nor are they guaranteed a channel in the reduced, post-auction TV band. (See sidebar.)

Today’s Report and Order allows sharing among and between LPTV, translator, Class A and full-power TV licensees; and it allows new channel-sharing arrangements, or CSAs, beyond those hammered out for the auction process. These so-called “second-generation” CSAs can be an extension of an existing partnership or a new agreement with another party.

With regard to pay-TV carriage rights, the R&O extends the same carriage rights to stations in a second-generation CSA that they had going into it. The rule was crafted to prevent stations from using channel-sharing as a “shortcut to obtaining cable carriage rights,” Maher said.

Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Republican Commissioner Michael O’Rielly split the sheet on this one. Clyburn advocated for allowing LPTVs new must-carry opportunities. O’Reilly was like, no way.

Said Clyburn, “What disappoints me is that today we have actually closed the door on the very rare instances in which a secondary station could gain must-carry rights as a result of channel-sharing. In doing so, we have stricken from the Order a simple acknowledgement that the benefits of channel-sharing for secondary stations outweigh any theoretical increase in the number of secondary stations cable operators may be required to carry.”

O’Reilly stressed that in maintaining the status quo with regard to carriage rights, the FCC was “deciding not to reopen that can of worms here.”

“Must-carry rights are not being expanded,” he said. “The item maintains the status quo with regard to must-carry. Whatever rights the station had to trigger must-carry previously are retained and no new rights are created.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai invoked a “Care Bear” analogy about “caring and sharing,” and went on to say his colleagues pretty much covered the benefits therein.

Clyburn, always an advocate of diversity in media, called LPTV stations “a relative bright spot when it comes to broadcast ownership diversity.

“Women owned 13.9 percent of low-power television stations compared to just 6.3 percent of full-power commercial television stations in 2013.

“Similarly, the commission’s own data found that Hispanics own 3 percent of full-power stations compared to 10 percent of low-power television stations,” she said.

“The more meaningful story should actually be what channel-sharing means for those who love broadcast television as well as the opportunities it presents for the nation’s smallest broadcasters,” Clyburn said.

See more TV Technology coverage at our spectrum auction silo.