Folks in and around the San Diego waterfront, airport, Petco Park and parts of Coronado will soon be able to listen to a new radio signal at 101.1 on the FM dial, a station airing “positive lifestyle” programming.
Meanwhile, listeners in nearby El Cajon to the northeast will hear health education via another new station, also airing on that frequency.
These two stations are part of the ongoing national expansion of the low-power FM radio service. Nationally there are 982 such stations licensed, with another 1,589 open construction permits in the Federal Communications Commission database.
The organization Positive Hope Inc. received a permit from the FCC to build its station near the San Diego waterfront. It seeks to educate the community about positive life-style changes, healthy living and career development; it told the FCC it plans to air public affairs programming about art, environment, current affairs, science and media education, among other things. (See its projected signal footprint on the site of consultancy REC Networks.)
La Meaestra Family Clinic will have the signal in El Cajon. It will promote health education to 23 ethnic populations “in a culturally and language appropriate manner.” (Here is the signal footprint.)
Positive Hope changed its proposed tower location to help resolve this “mutually exclusive” situation. Similar processes have been playing out around the country in cities and towns where the FCC’s recent application window produced conflicting applications.
Interference waivers have been a big reason that the commission has fit more signals onto the FM band in populous areas. For instance, these stations had to obtain a second-adjacent waiver regarding neighboring stations KFMB and KGB.
Several other organizations had also sought this San Diego FM slot.
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