Picot Chery denies operating an unauthorized radio station on 90.5 MHz in Spring Valley NY, a town to the northwest of New York City. However, he was aware that the station was operating alongside one of Chery’s businesses, and he was able to give FCC field agents a tour of the station’s facilities.
The FCC was investigating the station in late October 2009 in response to a complaint, and traced the station’s signal to a building housing a pair of businesses – P.C. Taxi Services and P.C. Auto Repair. A dispatcher identified Chery as the owner of the taxi business and summoned him to the location.
Chery showed the agents a “radio station in operation” in a room adjacent to the taxi business, followed by a transmitter tucked away out of plain sight in the attic and an antenna located on the building’s roof. He shut down the transmitter immediately and promised to remove the antenna, and the FCC reported no further unauthorized broadcast on the frequency.
Chery said it was not his station, however, informing the agents that he was allowing a friend to use the space to operate it. To date he has not identified the friend.
So the FCC is hitting Chery with standard $10K fine.
RBR-TVBR observation: Let it herewith be known, that we are not able to be so generous in offering protection to individuals wanted by agents of the FCC. If any among you feel inclined to operate a facility which requires an FCC license without our knowledge on our property, please be prepared to be thrown under the bus with all due haste.
