WXTZ 87.9 Norwich
 | |
| City | Norwich, Connecticut |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | New London, Connecticut |
| Branding | Z 87.9 |
| Frequency | 87.9 MHz |
| First air date | June 16, 2013 |
| Format | Various Genres |
| Class | Part 15 |
| Callsign meaning | Ecstasy |
| Owner | WXTZ-FM |
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WXTZ 87.9 Norwich was a non-profit, community-based Part 15 FM radio station located in Southeastern Connecticut and served the Norwich, Connecticut listening area. Originally called Z107.1 and located at 107.1 MHz on the FM broadcast band, it was displaced on August 15, 2014 to 87.9 MHz because of co-channel interference as it expanded into a radio network service. WXTZ 87.9 Norwich is currently a defunct radio station.
History[edit]
Because FCC licensing procedures for LPFM stations are a lengthy process, require a lot of protocols to be in place and a very limited open window period for applying for a construction permit, a part 15 hobbyist, came up with an idea for a part 15 unlicensed radio service.
The first choice was to try the FM broadcast band and purchase a part 15 FCC certified transmitter. An Decade MS100 FM transmitter, which was a favorite among part 15 hobbyists and recommended by most radio engineers, for its spectral cleanliness, well filtered output and legal RF power amplifier output.
This transmitter was placed within a large multi-level apartment building. Although the range was very limited using the supplied antenna, it still reached a few FM receivers within the structure. As the studio settings were constructed and studio processing equipment was being purchased, the group had to find a name for the station. Originally, the name "We're Your Utopia For Music Station" was chosen, but the name proved to be too long. One choice was "We're Your Ecstasy For Music", however, after a little consideration, XTZ was chosen, because the 'z' prefix had a ring to it. After checking the FCC data base for the call letters WXTZ, at the time, those call letters were unassigned to any broadcast station. Then again, the station was not attempting to claim, that it was licensed by the FCC with the call sign WXTZ.
Using the calls along with the moniker 107.1 Norwich, at the time, was believed to be a way of identifying the station without claim of being an FCC licensed radio station, licensed with the calls WXTZ.
After the studio was built, a mixing board and audio processing equipment was purchased and installed, the radio station began its FCC part 15 on-air operations as WXTZ 107.1 Norwich, on the morning of June 16, 2013, on 107.1 MHz as a single transmitter, part 15 FM radio station.
Listeners of this station also participated in the station's programming schedule and participated as the on-air talent. As time passed, the staff and a few interested parties, looked into the options available, to get the signal to cover a larger area without surpassing legal FCC Part 15 Rules.[1]
A group of 7 interested people, each agreed to buy at their cost an FCC Part 15 certified FM transmitter, if WXTZ 107.1 Norwich agreed to supply the programming for their transmitter to re-broadcast. The interested parties, which totaled 7 people, chose to purchase an MS100 FM transmitter, manufactured by the Decade transmitter company, which was the chosen transmitter already being used at the studio location. Then a method had to be found to get the audio feed, to each transmitter location, without requiring a license or STL (Studio to Transmitter Link) often used by licensed broadcast stations.
It was decided that using a VOIP technology called Audio over IP to stream the audio from the studio to the transmitter locations was the best way to go about doing this. The translators would then rebroadcast the audio stream over the FM band, covering a much larger market area in Southeastern Connecticut.[citation needed]
The station was carried on various volunteer-owned, part 15 transmitters, eventually totaling 8 transmitters at its peak. Each translator station was capable of providing its own locally produced programming if it desired to do so, by running it off of a locally owned computer. Most translators however, relied on the feed from the studio. This type of setup and operation is very similar to how cell phone communications towers are setup across a community to extend the service. This allowed the originating programming to reach more receivers across the local area. Although, not as well as a full powered licensed station, but it did allow more than a few listeners, uncommon with most legal single transmitter part 15 operations.
WXTZ 107.1 Norwich was a commercial-free, self-supporting radio station, that was offering the New London County market area with an over-the-air radio service that it currently lacked, which is a 'multi-genre' music station, that obtained 90% of it's music library from unknown artists and minor recording labels, or bands from the eastern hemisphere. It played music, seldom, to never played on most licensed radio stations. The range was very limited and subject to co-channel interference from a licensed station on 107.1 out of the New Bedford Massachusetts radio market WFHN.
As time passed, those that did participate with the station, lost all interest in being involved with it or being a translator participant. By November 1, 2014, the network was down to 2 translators, and then those two owners had also expressed their desire to no longer participate with the station. While planning a schedule for the Christmas holidays, the network made a final decision on November 12, 2014, to cancel all programming feeds and WXTZ 107.1 Norwich went silent, although, technically it was already off the air, because there were no longer any participating transmitters still in service.
After the station was no longer in operation, discussions about it pro and con came from those that had heard about it, had offered their opinions as to what would make it work if it was to be relaunched. Some suggestions made, were to use the AM broadcast band instead of FM. Most Part 15 hobbyists use the AM broadcast band for their hobby, because the FCC does not use Field Strength readings (like with FM) as their determining factor as to if a transmitter is operating in violation. A simple 100 milliwatts to the input of the final RF power transistor and 10 meter antenna is the requirement for legal operation.
The station also had to consider the existence of eight Decade MS-100 FM transmitters that were already purchased under the previous attempt to become a Part 15 FM station entertainment venue. Some of the original transmitter owners either re-sold their transmitter to another interested party, or agreed to try again.
Again, faced with co-channel interference from radio station WFHN on 107.1 MHz, a decision was made to change to another frequency, a decision the station made, that cost it it's existence.
The re-launch[edit]
Without extensive experience and understanding of FCC rules at the time, another FM channel had to be tried that was clear of interference, without trying to occupy an already locally assigned frequency. Unfortunately, channel 200 (87.9 MHz) was selected because it appeared to be the only channel the transmitters would tune to that was not already occupied by another licensed radio station and no one wanted to interfere with any of the currently licensed radio stations located in Southern New England or Long Island New York. Although some potential listeners expressed to the station that their radios were not capable of tuning to 87.9 and asked if WXTZ 107.1 Norwich had a public website stream available on services such as TuneIn. Because Music licensing fees would have been required to be paid by the non-commercial, self supporting station, this proved to be too costly for the station, and it would also have limited the number of songs that could be played per artist per a set number of program hours, which is often the case with licensed broadcast stations
The studio re-launched the audio stream again on December 15, 2014, at 6:00AM EST, just one week before Christmas Day and had several privately owned new translators on air, carrying the new stream, which primarily consisted of all Christmas music, operating on (channel 200) 87.9 Mhz. The station changed its name to WXTZ 87.9 Norwich. Again, it never claimed to be an FCC licensed radio station, or claimed it was assigned the call letters WXTZ by the FCC.
The daily programming schedule on this new station was mostly run by a computer-based automation program, that randomly picks songs from a play list of 3,002 songs. The evening schedule is often manned by a live DJ. The music played during these live shows, is mostly played from vinyl records. The station prides itself as being one of the few stations that play the whole album when a 331⁄3 RPM record or CD is played.[citation needed]
The music often heard on this station after the holidays were over, appeared to fall under the following genres: Techno, Rock, Heavy Metal, Southern Rock, Top 40, Oldies music from the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and the year 2000 to today; Country, Disco, Soul, Hip Hop, Trance as well as royalty-free music.
The station made it clear both on air and on social media sites, that "WXTZ-FM" and "WXTZ 87.9 Norwich" were simply branding names and were not to be considered or assumed to be call letters issued or licensed to the station by Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
False accusations surface[edit]
It appears that the station received recognition it wished not to receive. News started to surface that WXTZ 87.9 Norwich was being called and labeled a "Pirate radio" station, a strong word used by licensed radio operators for someone who is accused of broadcasting illegally. The station appeared to have caught the attention of a local licensed radio station also broadcasting in the same community as WXTZ.[citation needed]
Little is known about the complainant, except that it claimed it heard about the station from a few listeners who asked if they owned WXTZ. The unknown station owners then wanted to take legal action and have WXTZ 87.9 Norwich shut down. Alleged remarks surfaced that the station could be heard over a radius of several miles, along Connecticut's interstate highway 395. However, the person claiming this, did not clearly specify that it was indeed "WXTZ 87.9 Norwich" that they had heard, so it is purely speculation.[citation needed]
The owner of the part 15 related website falsely used that statement, without first asking for that person's permission to republish it and also failed to confirm with that person if they were in fact talking about the same station. As of April 17, 2015, the person that made that statement, was contacted and confirmed that he no way said it was a signal associated with WXTZ 87.9 Norwich. Therefore, the owner of that part 15 website falsely used that person's statement without first, obtaining that person's permission to do so and did not verify with that person, that they were in fact talking about the same radio station. That very same website also published and hosted copyrighted photos belonging to the radio station, without first obtaining prior written permission to use the photos. Clearly, if anyone is going stand behind one law, such as FCC part 15 rules and regulations, they should also stand by US Copyright laws. It is a US copyright violation to steal and use images from anyone else's Facebook accounts and to host on another person's website without proper consent.[2] It also posted other items from WXTZ's website making claim that the station was a pirate station. If the station was intentionally operating as a pirate radio station, the station would not have posted or broadcast, a legit listed telephone phone number, internal photos of its studio, external photos showing the studio's building as well as photos clearly showing its street location. It also broadcast 24 hours a day where most pirate radio stations try to hide their location and broadcast only a few hours late at night or weekends to avoid being caught. Therefore, the station itself did not operate in violation because it did not operate any transmitters at its studio location. Those that accused the station of violating any laws failed to include proof that the station only provided an audio stream on line and did not operate a transmitter of any type to feed the audio to the public. This was clearly posted on WXTZ 87.9 Norwich's Twitter account and Facebook pages as well as the IP address the stream was available on. The station never claimed itself as operating under the title of a law breaking "PIRATE" radio station and resents the claims being made against it.[citation needed]
Station participant Bruce LaFountane stated "The studio clearly broadcast a phone number, anyone could have called us and requested a tour, we would have welcomed anyone in right then and there, offered them a coffee and proved that there was no illegal transmitting equipment operating at our studio location and if there was anyone doing anything illegal with our audio feed on the FM band, we would have been more than happy to assist in tracking it down. But that is not how things were done. The station was accused and called a Pirate, not the transmitter operators".[citation needed]
The end of an era[edit]
The WXTZ 87.9 Norwich staff first became aware on March 10 of the slanderous remarks that were taking place and realized that it was about to be held accountable for the actions of those who were re-transmitting the WXTZ 87.9 Norwich signal with their personally owned transmitters. The station was also concerned about the condition of the other remaining translators, what their RF power outputs were, as those privately owned translators were not being monitored by the station and the station did not require any written authorization from the participants to re-broadcast the station's audio stream, therefore, the station could not confirm if anyone that was participating, was operating in violation of any federal or local laws.
Because of what was taking place, a final decision was made. On March 16, 2015, at 7:20 PM EST, WXTZ 87.9 Norwich, interrupted its Internet feed to announce it was canceling its program schedule effective immediately and advised any of its participating 87.9 MHz FM translators to cease broadcasting the station immediately. The Internet feed from the studio was suspended shortly thereafter and the alleged, last known translator, is said to have gone silent sometime on the morning of March 17, 2015.
Decisions have been made that there is no way to conduct such a service on the radio broadcast band without being subject to strict FCC rules and very limited signal range and complaints from other local licensed radio stations. What was thought to be a great idea, turned out to be a waste of time and money and there was too much legal liability at stake even though the station did not own or operate the transmitters that carried its signal on air.
WXTZ 87.9 Norwich was retired, the Facebook page and Twitter accounts were deleted thereafter. After doing so, Those that wanted WXTZ 87.9 Norwich shut down, accused the owners of those pages of attempting to hide and delete evidence that claimed the station participated in illegal pirate radio operations. The Facebook page and Twitter accounts were deleted because they no longer served a purpose. Bruce Edwards who was a voice on the radio station could not believe that such accusations were made when it was our right to delete what rightfully belonged to us and that in doing so, should not have caused anyone to accuse us of attempting to delete any evidence. We, in no way ever willfully or intentionally asked anyone to operate in violation of FCC rules. Why is the studio being held responsible by "these people" when we have repeatedly said the studios, which was the only part of the station we were legally responsible for, never used an on site transmitter, nor did we own or operate such broadcast equipment which involved needing any valid FCC authorization to operate. Unless the FCC tells us that we need an FCC license to operate a web based Internet stream, then I see no intentional and willful violations being committed by us. However our words continue to fall on deaf ears.
In April 2015, a decision was made to give Internet Radio a try, where there would be absolutely no permission granted to anyone to re-broadcast the station on any over-the-air radio broadcast bands, including the AM or FM broadcast bands. The Facebook page was saved hours before it was scheduled to be deleted and it was renamed with a temporary name that was intended to take it away from any further reference to the FM radio broadcast band. The station wished to save and include its already established Facebook fan base with the future re-launch on the Internet. The page is now geared toward being an Internet-based Radio Station page. Even though the station has signed off of the FM band with no intentions of ever returning to the radio broadcast airwaves, the station is still being harassed and stalked by the same group of people who claimed that the station intentionally and willfully operated in violation of FCC rules and intentionally and willfully operated as a "pirate radio station". "It is sad when you didn't break any rules, but people still place a criminal name on you because you're in the most vulnerable position, this is the case when you do not hide your identity, it is easier for them to blame you for the actions of what other people did or might have done"
In conclusion, although this station had good intentions with what it attempted to do with low powered Part 15 radio operations, it failed to fully research the use of the frequency 87.9 MHz. Although considered a part of the FM broadcast band as channel 200, it has been set aside as a guard band channel, between the radio broadcast band and television broadcast band and is used in very rare occasions for radio broadcasting. That one, big, mistake, is what put this part 15 radio station in the bad spotlight with licensed broadcast stations.
References[edit]
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