TX Radio: FCC Says Non-DA KFWR-FM Is

FCC says LKCM Radio Group’s country KFWR 95.5 FM The Ranch, Dallas bills itself as the “sound of Texas” but the sound of the booming nondirectional 100,000-watt Class C0 signal may be just too directional, so to speak, for the FCC.  

InsideRadio reports at the heart of the case, according to Audio Division chief Peter Doyle, is how far an FM antenna pattern can deviate from the ideal of a circular, perfectly non-directional pattern before it is considered to be directional.

The issue began when Lake Country Radio’s Lake Country KCKL 95.9 FM in Malakoff, TX lodged interference complaints, alleging its Class A signal has been stepped on after LKCM installed a directional antenna.  Malakoff is located Southeast of the D/FW metroplex, approximately 150 to 160 miles distant of KFWR's licensed city of Jacksboro, TX.

KFWR 95.9 FM (100 Kw) Red=60dBu Local Coverage Area

After a review, the FCC says it concluded KFWR isn’t operating within its licensed parameters, finding its pattern is “far from non-directional.”

KCKL 95.9 FM (6 Kw) Red=60dBu Local coverage Area

But LKCM has steadfastly denied it went directional.  And ERI president Thomas Silliman, whose company built the tower for KFWR, says that while the antenna “was mounted in a favorable direction,” it’s not been “directionalized and therefore is legal.”

The FCC isn’t buying it.  It says the mounting of the antenna on a tower support structure means that KFWR’s signal is distorted enough to require changes.

“The KFWR antenna pattern is for all intents and purposes directional, and must be licensed accordingly,” Doyle writes in the order, adding “There can be no question that the KFWR pattern distortion is intentional.”  So the FCC is now giving LKCM until April 22 to say why KFWR shouldn’t be classified as a directional FM and its transmitter output cut back.

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