Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Quay County UHF Association users in Tucumcari waiting for Amarillo television stations to come back on the air may wait a while longer.
A nonprofit group that runs a UHF signal-booster on Tucumcari Mountain for area television-antenna users received a cease-and-desist order from T-Mobile USA in early October. Amarillo stations have been off the airwaves in Quay County since.
“T-Mobile took over our channels, and we’re waiting for the FCC to create more channels for us,” association President Mike Whitesides said in summarizing the dilemma with the Federal Communications Commission in Washington.
The Oct. 2 cease-and-desist letter from Mark Bishop, senior manager of T-Mobile Spectrum engineering, states: “The FCC has set the thresholds at which the predicted field strength from low power TV and translator stations creates a sufficient interference risk to wireless facilities. T-Mobile has determined that your station exceeds those thresholds and is an interference risk to its wireless operations.”
A phone message left to the FCC’s media-relations department in Washington was not returned.
The affected channels from Amarillo are NBC affiliate KAMR, ABC affiliate KVII, CBS affiliate KFDA and Fox affiliate KCIT.
Albuquerque stations picked up by Tucumcari-area antennas are on a different signal booster and are not affected.
The Quay County UHF Association stated Oct. 12 on its Facebook page: “The Quay County UHF Association is not broadcasting right now. We are under an FCC cease and desist to operate on the 600 mHz band width. Please know that the stations in Amarillo have applied to the FCC for new channel numbers and bandwidth, hopefully the issue is resolved soon, but no promises. This is a federal application for change. Please be patient. We are trying.”
Whitesides says he’s hopeful for a relatively quick resolution, but doesn’t expect it, either.
“This is the FCC’s smallest problem, I would assume,” he said.
Whitesides said the Quay County UHF Association has about 100 customers who pay $40 annual dues, although many more use the service without paying. The number of dues-paying clients has declined in recent years.
The association originally was formed in 1964. Its signals could be picked up in many parts of Quay County and several neighboring counties with an antenna or rabbit ears.