FCCdata/fcc.today: Enhancements to "LMS only" FM facility records

With the conversion of FM broadcast application filing from CDBS to LMS on September 25, 2019, many issues with filing have arisen. Not only are there many bugs in the filing and processing (especially for LPFM), but there are also a lot of problems in the raw data.

Currently, when a new facility is created in LMS (such as for a new booster station), the facility information is not flowing back to CDBS (which would make assignments, transfers and STAs a huge challenge in the future until those functions are moved to LMS).  As a result, callsigns that are exclusive to LMS had not been viewable in FCCdata. 

LMS exclusive facilities will have facility IDs starting at 700,000 and up.

To address this issue, we have added a program on our back end to identify these facilities and to write a “skeleton” facility record in our CDBS database. This change will now permit these facilities to be able to be looked up.

This change is also allowing the community names of these facilities to be displayed in fcc.today.

We have also made some cosmetic changes to our display of exclusive LMS (video and FM) records to properly show as much information that is available in LMS. We do note that some of the information that was in CDBS for stations are currently not in the LMS raw data. Also, on LMS only records, the super-wide-screen issue on mobile devices has been cleared.

As of 4/19/2020, there are two FM authorized FM facilities that are exclusively LMS:
KXBN-FM2 Cedar City, UT
WLJW-FM1 Fife Lake, MI

Obviously, we are concerned that at a time when the FCC either opens a filing window or when the Auction 106 long form applications get filed, we will have a lot of issues unless these issues are resolved. (This may be one of the reasons why the windows may be delayed)

We do note that in LMS exclusive records, boosters will show up as their full-service station class instead of class “D”. We are aware of this issue.

On primary station records, there is no link in the translator section to the LMS only booster facilities. We may do a workaround on this.

The conversion to LMS is an ongoing issue here at REC.  Thank you for your patience!

Date: 
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Systems affected: 
FCCdata.org
FCC.today
Issue type: 
Enhancement