A noncom FM station in central California has lost its license for sitting silent for more than a year and/or for operating from the wrong location.
The FCC Media Bureau has sent the notification of cancellation to Peace and Justice Network of San Joaquin County, licensee of KVSJ-FM in Tracy, Calif., led by Richard Blackston.
“[T]he Media Bureau gave [the] licensee several opportunities to demonstrate that the station operated with authorized parameters and without gaps of 12 months or longer, but licensee failed to do so,” the bureau wrote. It also dismissed an application to renew the license and another for minor modification.
Timetable
The circumstances of this case date back nine years.
According to the FCC’s account, Class A station KVSJ lost its licensed transmitter site in 2017, after which it filed a series of requests for special temporary authority to operate at reduced power from temporary locations.
Most recently, in 2020, it had an STA to operate from the grounds of a local nursery. It also held a construction permit to build permanent facilities there.
But the station went silent in May of 2021, according to the FCC, and the STA and CP had both expired by late 2022 without the station filing for a covering license to reflect completion of construction.
In October 2021, the licensee did file a minor modification application that specified the same transmitter site as the 2019 permit, and it requested an additional STA to operate from the site of the 2020 STA. But both eventually were dismissed.
Meanwhile after a year had elapsed since the station went silent, the FCC sent a letter of inquiry, but it said the station gave only a partial response and did not provide enough information to demonstrate that it had resumed operation with authorized facilities.
Then in March 2023, the station filed an issues/programs list in its online public inspection file in which it wrote that it “continued broadcasts under pending temporary authorization after completing major construction and program tests” under the 2019 CP.
Soon after that, the Enforcement Bureau observed a signal on the station’s 89.5 frequency from the grounds of the nursery.
In another communication in early 2024, the station told the FCC it had been operating almost continuously since November 2021. In a subsequent online public file document, it stated that it was airing broadcasts of automated programming on a regular basis.
In December 2024 the station applied for a license to cover the expired CP; it said then that it was operating under program test authority. The next month it uploaded more issues/programs lists in which it indicated that it had been broadcasting since October 2021, though at reduced power.
The Enforcement Bureau monitored the station again in February 2025 and found that the station was transmitting an unmodulated carrier signal.
In May of 2025 the Media Bureau sent another letter of inquiry. It asked for explanations and documents to determine dates of operation and silence, the use of authorized/unauthorized parameters and other information. It warned that failure to respond would result in loss of the license.
The station replied in writing, but according to the commission it did not answer the questions.
“Licensee appears to be arguing that, but for bureau delays in taking action on the 2021 STA request and its request to withdraw that minor modification application, the station’s operation from a location at the nursery would have been authorized either pursuant to STA, program test authority or a license such that the station would not have been silent or operating from an unauthorized location for 12 consecutive months at any time after that date,” the commission wrote.
The Media Bureau gave the station more time to compile and submit documentation but hasn’t heard anything since August of 2025.
Outcome
Now the Media Bureau has ruled that the station has been silent and/or operating from an unauthorized location for more than 12 consecutive months, which means its license has died.
“We have enough information before us to determine that the station was either silent or operating from an unauthorized location for years and thus its license terminated.” It added that equipment tests or “dead air” is equivalent to silence.
The bureau also rejected claims putting the onus on FCC staff for delayed processing of the minor mod and a later STA.
“Staff delays or inaction do not bear on licensee’s failure to operate without authorization. … That those applications were pending for an extended period of time does not change the fact that licensee operated from an unauthorized location for years.”
And the bureau said that even if the license had not expired for the reasons above, it would have dismissed the renewal because the licensee failed to respond properly to two letters of inquiry. The FCC said those “brief responses are patently inadequate, failing to provide any of the requested documentation and ignoring almost all of the inquiries.”
