Michigan upgrade application sets off chain reaction

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Broadcast TowerRoy E. Henderson would like to add some power to his WCUZ-FM Bear Lake MI, improving the station’s coverage in the Traverse City area. To do so will require a change at an unused allotment in Custer MI and downgraded status for WUGN-FM Midland MI.


The downgrade would cause no change in WUGN – rather, it would make its undersized antenna altitude permanent.

Bear Lake is south of Traverse City. Currently a Class A on 100.1 MHz with 2.05 kW @ 564’, Henderson would like to move it to 100.7 MHz and upgrade the power to 8 kW at the same HAAT.
The unused Class A allotment at Custer, to the south of Bear Lake, would move from 100.5 MHz to 99.9 MHz.

That leaves Class C WUGN-FM and its 100 kW on 99.7. It poses no problem as it is currently configured, but its 997’ HAAT antenna is below par for a full Class C. Henderson would like its current parameters to be set in regulatory stone by reclassifying it as a Class C0, preventing an eventual upgrade to the 1,480’ antenna to which it is entitled.

WUGN is licensed to Family Life Broadcasting System. As currently licensed, it serves Midland and the other two main communities named in its Arbitron market designation, Saginaw-Midland-Bay City.

The FCC has determined that Henderson’s proposal would be in the public interest and has therefore ordered Family Life to show cause why its facility should not be downgraded to C0. It can agree to allowing the change by doing nothing – in other words, Family Life’s silence will be taken as acquiescence by the FCC.

On the other hand, if it wishes to contest the downgrade, it has 180 days to file a CP to take the antenna up to at least 1,480’.