A university will have to pay a fine for operating an FM translator for several years after the license had expired. The school did however convince the FCC to reduce the amount.
Carolina University is licensee of the translator on 94.7 MHz in Chattanooga, Tenn., which is associated with AM station WDYN in Rossville, Ga., just across the state line.
The school should have applied to renew by April 1, 2020, but did not, so the license automatically expired four months later.
The university eventually filed for renewal in February of this year. It told the FCC it had intended to file it along with the renewals for the AM and the second translator, but the filing was omitted. The school said the error was discovered by FCC Media Bureau staff working on its pending application for transfer of control to WDYN Inc.
The university requested a waiver of the original deadline but did not ask for special temporary authority to operate.
In July the FCC issued a notice of apparent liability, saying the base fine would normally be $13,000 but reducing it to $6,500 because of the circumstances and because a translator is a secondary service.
The school didn’t dispute the violation but asked for a further reduction; it said the mistake was inadvertent and that it had a history of compliance with FCC rules.
The commission said the fact that a mistake is inadvertent is irrelevant, but it knocked more off the penalty because of the university’s compliance history. It now has affirmed a forfeiture of $4,875.
