A New Hampshire non-profit was unable to convince the FCC to overturn the rejection of its application from the 2023 LPFM window.
Latino Public Radio hoped to broadcast on 97.9 FM from an antenna site just south of Nashua. It wanted to air news, information, and educational content to the Latino community there.
The FCC Media Bureau dismissed its application in January, saying it would violate second-adjacent spacing requirements in respect to 97.5 WOKQ(FM), a Class B signal licensed to Dover.
The commission said the proposed tower site would be 66 kilometers from WOKQ. Its spacing requirement is 67 kilometers or around 42 miles.
Latino Public Radio submitted a petition for reconsideration at the end of January. It argued that the short-spacing was “merely 30 meters” and said a simple data entry error on the part of its consulting engineer had resulted in the placement of its proposed antenna being too close to WOKQ. It provided an updated set of coordinates that it said would make the application a singleton worthy of the commission’s reconsideration.
But the FCC has denied Latino Public Radio’s request.
It said the original application violated second-adjacent requirements and that the organization had failed to submit a suitable waiver request under the Local Community Radio Act.
The commission also dismissed Latino Public Radio’s coordinate adjustment. It held firm that “errors of technical assistants” are not an excuse for failure to adhere to the rules. The application’s status as a singleton was also not grounds in the commission’s assessment for reconsideration.
As has been the case in several similar dismissed cases from the 2023 window, the commission said it will only consider a petition that points to an error in its original judgment or facts not known at the time the application was filed.
Thus Latino Public Radio’s petition for reconsideration was denied.
