Mississippi station hit with fine

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Michael H. Glass’s WMER-AM Meridian MS provided a case study of the need to follow the terms of your license. Or even to have a license. For starters, the station had nonfunctional EAS equipment. It was also failing to reduce power at night down to 101 watts, instead blasting away at a much more robust 2.1 kW. Finally, it was using a studio to transmitter link without any license at all. The tab for this laundry list of infractions was $16K. Glass asked for reduction or cancellation based on a history of compliance with FCC rules, coupled with an inability to pay the fine. He had a clean-enough record, and an empty-enough bank account (based on the station’s gross revenues) to receive a reduction to $1.5K.