Changelog

eLMS now supports the 5 new site assurance questions asked on FM engineering forms (for LPFM and NCE).  

FCCdata will now show the answers to the questions on the Application Details screen of engineering records.

Only 1 LPFM application was filed since the  new questions came to the form.  That application was manually updated.

The LPFM Renewal Page (/renewal) has been updated to reflect the changes to §73.3580 that went into effect on October 30, 2020.

Reactivated the NCE Channel Search Tool with new warnings about how availability is calculated in this tool using the point to point method.  We have advised users that because of the shape of some contours, a channel may show as available but it may not be actually available and that a full contour study would need to be done.

Fixed issue in an internal table used for FM records where international class was not properly populated.  This resulted in false-positive results in LPFM searches in both the Canadian and Mexican border areas.

Prior to the recent enhancements, in the event that FCCdata did not have a service contour on file for a particular FM application, it would first go to the legacy FCC HAAT system to obtain heights above average terrain for 360 different directions and then using the in-house curves calculator, determine the distance from the transmitter to the service contour.   

Recently, REC converted these types of maps to call out to the FCC Contours API instead of the legacy HAAT system and internal calculations of contours. 

REPORTED PROBLEM

Renewal request in REC EZforms was resulting in an SQL error message and would not allow a user to continue to go back.

REPLICATION

As the call sign of the station experiencing the problem was provided, we were able to replicate the problem and verify the bug in code.

ROOT CAUSE

On Sep 26~27, 2020, REC made a significant number of minor changes to various systems.  This is to convert or at least prepare systems for the eLMS enviornment. We also made fixes to some known problems.  Remember, please contact us with your bug reports.  Thank you for your support.

Fixed FCCdata bug that was causing subsequent CDBS applications from being displayed correctly in FCCdata.

Every morning (Monday~Sunday) at 8AM ET, the REC Data Store for US (FCC) broadcasting, performs an update.  This includes the deletion and rewriting of CDBS and LMS raw data files, one table at a time, and then several supporting programs run.  This update has been nortoriously slow at times and depending on what is being updated during the process, most information is still available through the tool. 

To speed up the update process, we have frozen the following CDBS database tables:

ISSUE:

Contour maps not displaying on FM records that were originated in CDBS and are archived (not currently protected) records.  In the past, these would go to the REC contour map generator which involved obtaining HAAT data from the legacy FCC HAAT tool and then using the internal field strength measuring tool. 

ROOT CAUSE:

Overlooked in the streamlining of FCC FM facility handling in FCCdata.  

RESOLUTION:

ISSUE

Loss of navigation using the sidebar on mobile.

ROOT CAUSE

Minor coding issue.

FIX

Fixed coding issue.  

ISSUE:

External reports that on FCC Low Power TV (LPTV) records, the Application History section displays a SQL error.

ROOT CAUSE:

Current coding overlooked LPTV service codes.

FIX:

Modify code to assume records are television unless modified by an AM (AM, AD), HF (AX) or FM (FM, FB, FL, FX, FS, FA) service code.

Code change was made live in test and production.

ISSUE:

The FCC.today website was observed displaying FCC actions twice.  There was a large amount of action activity as it was a renewal grant day.

ROOT CAUSE:

REC Networks has released CDBSBOT version 3.  This is a process used internally by REC.  It provides the real time updates that you see on FCCdata.org.  In this change, we added new support to update the eLMS Application Lists.  No engineering or other detailed information is carried over in this application.  

The only new engineering applications coming through CDBS is FM STAs, all AM applications and digital notifications (all currently not supported by eLMS on an engineering level).

LMSBOT is REC's backend system that follows the FCC applications and activity on the FCC's Licensing Management System (LMS) and writes it into the CDBSBOT database (CDBSBOT was the original tracking program for the CDBS filing system.  CDBSBOT is still in service).   

LMSBOT is what drives the data you see on FCC.today.  

We have done a complete rewrite of the code and released LMSBOT v3.   Internally, the code is cleaner and easier to adapt to changes made by the FCC.  It also has direct interaction with eLMS.