[WXBH-Discuss] Full power application: Data on competitors is up. Investigation needed.

[John Hicks]

The race to get a full power non-commercial radio station for Metro 
Louisville and Southern Indiana is heating up. It looks like there are 
several other applications whose coverage area would overlap ours. 
(These are refered to as MX, or mutually exclusive, applications.)

Yesterday and today the FCC and recnet.com have made the full power 
applications and much related data available online. We have to hustle 
to study it and ascertain how we stand with regard to our competition 
and whether we should proceed with our application. We must make a 
command decision by Monday afternoon in time to place a $500 legal 
notice in the Courier Journal. (And, along the way, we must raise that 
$500 and another $1500 in short order for three more legal ads in the 
following days.)

Here are the links to the relevant data:

Our application is for Marysville, Indiana. (That's the closest we could 
get to Louisville and is about 24 miles north of here.)
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/nce07.php?party=BRYCC%20HOUSE%20INC.

A list of nearby applicants for the same or adjacent frequencies. The 
ones we need to be most concerned about are the eight in a different color:
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/nce07overlap.php?appid=1213876

The eight other applications in our (apparent) MX (mutually exclusive) 
group:
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=171572
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=171723
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=171723
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=171941
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=172661
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=173629
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=176834
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=176986
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?facid=174031

A master list of all the Indiana applications with links to the actual 
applications and cross links show all the applications filed by a given 
applicant:
http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/nce07.php?state=IN

Your mission, should you decide to accept it:

Investigate each applicant. Is it:
- a genuine local grassroots media organization
- an out of town organization with a (possibly religious) ideology 
and/or agenda.
- a local front for the latter

Do any of the applicants currently operate another full-power station? 
(Applicants with the fewest or no other stations have an advantage over 
others. Low power doesn't count, thank goodness.)

Are any of the applicants located more than 25 miles from the community 
of license? (Local applicants [under 25 miles] trump out-of-town ones.)

Dig into their actual applications (accessible from that last link 
above) to see what the population of their coverage area is projected to 
be. (Higher population counts trump lower ones.)

(Yes, I will be trying to do this myself, but I'm on my way to the 
studio right now to do several other things, so since time is of the 
essence, I figure it's best for some of you to get to work on it right 
away.)

Thanks,

John Hicks