From: Dane Ericksen

To:   Robert Gonsett

Date: March 17, 2006


The March 14 SBE letter is one of two items.  The other was a 
November 22, 2005, SBE Informal Objection to the three Clarity CARS 
applications for Trucker TV stations at Frazier Park, CA; North Salt 
Lake City, UT; and Ogden, UT.  That IO is also on the SBE web site, 
but it's a much bigger file.

Here's a summary of what's going on:


In March 2005 Clarity Broadcasting Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary 
of Flying J, which owns approximately 200 truck stops throughout the 
U.S., filed Part 78 CARS applications for "Trucker TV" base stations 
at Frazier Park, CA; North Salt Lake City, UT, and Ogden, UT.  As you 
might surmise, these applications had to request multiple rule 
waivers:  for eligibility and to allow fixed base stations at 2 GHz, 
for starters.

The proposed Trucker TV base stations would use 99% of the refarmed 
2,025-2,110 MHz TV BAS band, to re-broadcast DBS satellite channels 
to subscribers (truckers and RVs) parked at truck stops with Trucker 
TV base stations.  Given that there are now readily available low 
profile tracking DBS receiving antennas for trucks and RVs, this 
would be a duplicative system for which there is no need.

Clarity also applied for, and was granted, an experimental license, 
WD2XPK, for demonstration purposes at these three sites.  SBE 
representatives were invited to witness these tests (although with 
short notice, and with the demonstration dates already unilaterally 
set by Clarity).  The Frazier Park demonstration didn't go too well, 
because Clarity wouldn't let any broadcaster/SBE people even view its 
transmitters, let alone make or witness power measurements.

It turns out that the three Clarity CARS applications were dismissed 
in September 2005, but without prejudice to a re-filing, and solely 
because the Commission judged those applications as premature.  The 
dismissal letter said that Clarity could re-file, after first 
submitting its required WD2XPK report.  Since the CARS applications 
had never been assigned file numbers, and no public notice of their 
filing or dismissal had been given, SBE did not know about the 
dismissal when it filed its informal objection to those CARS 
applications in November 2005.

On January 4, 2006, Clarity filed its WD2XPK report; there were many 
statements in that report that SBE took issue with, and hence the 
March 14 SBE "rebuttal" filing.  That rebuttal filing included the 
November 22, 2005, Informal Objection as an attachment.


I hope that this explanation isn't too long.  An article about 
Trucker TV also appeared in my SBE Signal column, in the February 
2006 issue.

Regards,

Dane E. Ericksen, P.E., CSRTE, 8VSB, CBNT
Chairman, SBE FCC Liaison Committee
Chairman, ATSC TSG/S3 Specialist Group on Digital ENG
SBE Board of Directors
SBE Certification Committee
Secretary, SBE Chapter 40, San Francisco
c/o Hammett & Edison, Inc.
San Francisco
dericksen@h-e.com
707/996-5200 voice
707/996-5280 fax

Posted by Steve Blodgett
Earthsignals.com