[SBE] Staying on the Air (Was: "Unattended operation")

[Adrienne Abbott]

Great story Dan, thanks for sharing! I hope your station ran a lot of "Proof
of Performance" spots after that incident!

Getting back to the original question about shutting down an
out-of-tolerance transmitter, this is what the CFR has to say about it,
specifically, 73.1350(e)

If a broadcast station is operating in a manner that poses a threat to life
or property or that is likely to significantly disrupt the operation of
other stations, immediate corrective action is required. In such cases,
operation must be terminated within three minutes unless antenna input power
is reduced sufficiently to eliminate any excess radiation. Examples of
conditions that require immediate corrective action include the emission of
spurious signals that cause harmful interference, any mode of operation not
specified by the station license for the pertinent time of day, or operation
substantially at variance from the authorized radiation pattern.

You can split hairs with the FCC over what constitutes a threat to life or
property or a significant disruption to other stations, but the rules are
quite clear that you must have control over your transmitter and some way to
tell when it's out of compliance. 

As an ABIP Inspector, I can't believe the number of stations I find that
don't have working remote control systems. Lines like "These solid state
transmitters don't drift the old tube types" aren't enough when you don't
have logs or records to show that the transmitter doesn't "drift" or
anything else. Needless to say, these stations don't get certificates of
compliance but I also find it surprising that the managers of these stations
don't understand that they have a Problem.

Going to dinner now...
Adrienne