§74.792. Low power TV and TV translator station protected contour. — Inbound Citations

(a) An application for a new low power TV or TV translator station or for a change in the facilities of such an authorized station will not be granted when it is apparent that interference will be caused. Except where there is a written agreement between the affected parties to accept interference, or where it can be shown that interference will not occur due to terrain shielding and/or Longley-Rice terrain dependent propagation methods, the licensee of a new low power TV or TV translator station shall protect existing low power TV and TV translator stations from interference within the protected contour defined in § 74.792 and shall protect existing Class A TV stations within the protected contours defined in § 73.6010 of this chapter. Such written agreement shall accompany the application. Copies of OET Bulletin No. 69 are available for inspection through the Federal Communications Commission's Reference Information Center. This document is also available on the FCC homepage at https://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/documents/bulletins/#69.

(b) For purposes of compliance with this section, a LPTV station's “authorized facility” is the facility authorized for the station in a license or construction permit for non-DTS, single-transmitter-location operation. An LPTV station's “authorized service area” is defined as the area within its protected contour (described by § 74.792) as determined using the authorized facility.

(i) An LPTV or TV translator station's protected contour (see § 74.792) must overlap with at least a portion of its community of license.

(A) For purposes of determining whether a community of license's boundary overlaps with a station's protected service contour, an applicant shall use the boundary of the community as may be recognized by any federal, state, local, or tribal governmental entity.

(B) In the event that no such community exists under paragraph (a)(1)(i)(A), the station may use Longley-Rice to demonstrate a level of service equivalent to the value in § 74.792 is present in the requested community.

(7) FM6 LPTV stations may make minor modifications to their technical facilities, as otherwise permitted under part 73 of this chapter or this part, so long as the station's proposed modified “protected contour,” as defined in § 74.792, does not exceed its protected contour as it was authorized on July 20, 2023, or where the station can demonstrate that such change is being made due to an engineering necessity such as the loss of a tower site or change in equipment due to malfunction and where the station can also demonstrate that the modification will not cause any interference to other licensed users.

(h) Protection to the authorized facilities of low power TV and TV translator stations shall be based on not causing predicted interference to the population within the service area defined and described in § 74.792, except that a low power TV or TV translator station must not cause a loss of service to 2.0 percent or more of the population predicted to receive service from the authorized low power TV or TV translator station.

(5) The FM6 LPTV station's FM6 service contour must be contained within and may not exceed the protected contour of the FM6 LPTV station's synchronized video/audio programming stream. These contours shall be determined using established methodologies in § 73.313 of this chapter (FM radio) and § 74.792 (LPTV).

(v) predicted, protected contour (see § 74.792(a) of this chapter).