SBE says commission should deny Ericsson STA

The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) sent a letter March 23 to the chief of the FCC Experimental Licensing Branch objecting to an application filed by Ericsson for an experimental Special Temporary Authority (STA) for Parsippany, NJ.

The SBE objected to a March 16 filing from Ericsson seeking an experimental STA at 2110MHz to 2120MHz [the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) A-block].

The society opposes the filing because of a three-week episode of interference caused by another Ericsson experimental STA operating at 2110MHz to 2120MHz in Queens, NY. That experimental station caused WABC-TV in New York City to experience "serious interference" to its Northshore ENG receive-only site in Queens.

About three weeks passed before the station could identify the source of the interference. According to the letter, Ericsson shut down the experimental station upon being notified of the interference "at least during the heavy ENG use afternoon hours."

The SBE laid down two conditions for withdrawing its informal objection to the Parsippany STA. First, Ericsson must amend its application the say that it will contact "all TV pickup licenses in the area, plus the NYC area above-1GHz frequency coordinator" and determine where all ENG receive-only sites are located within 3mi of the proposed area where it will operate the AWS station. Second, the company must supply TV pickup licensees and the frequency coordinator with a hot-line telephone number whenever the Parsippany station is in use "with the understanding that in the event of harmful interference to an ENG-RO site the experimental operations will be immediately terminated" and not restarted until a means of mitigating possible future interference has been set up.

For more information, visit www.sbe.org.