Frequency Coordination Data

[seligman]

When the FCC "outsources" frequency coordination to another organization, is that organization required to disclose any of their records to the public?

 

[jerk]

When the FCC "outsources" frequency coordination to another organization, is that organization required to disclose any of their records to the public?

Don't know, probably not. However, it is a matter of public record if you look on the FCC license search engine under Coordinators, and you'll see a list of applications and what's going on and the "new" frequencies before FCC approval.

It's helpful if you know what coordinator, but the two biggies are APCO for police and IMSA for fire.

 

[SkipSanders]

FCC Licenses as issued are public record, available on the web. Internal documents like coordination planning, especially since they are proprietary info of private companies, are not always, though some may be available.

 

[zz0468]

As an FCC licensee, you can contact your coordinator for details of another system to aid in planning your own system, but as a member of the general public, I don' know of a single coordinator that will provide access to their databases. Since a coordination is not an authorization to operate (in MOST, but not all cases), it is the FCC authorization that becomes the permanent public record.

The only people that would have a legitimate NEED to know the status of a pending coordination would be the co-channel and adjacent channel licensees who's systems would be effected by whatever new coordination is being proposed, and they are notified, as required by law.

 

[N9JIG]

When the FCC "outsources" frequency coordination to another organization, is that organization required to disclose any of their records to the public?

Some of the coordination documents are published on the FCC website, so you can dig around and find interesting tidbits but this is after the application has been forwarded to the FCC. As for the internal files of APCO, IMSA and the other coordination organizations I don't think that they release this info to the public and they are not subject to FOIA requests.

 

[LEH]

Having worked in data acquisition for several years, I'd say it would depend on a couple of things.

First, it depends on how the contract is worded. If there are no data deliverables explicitly spelled out in the contract, then the answer is no.

Second, only information that is normally a matter of public record would be required to be delivered. Internal documents that are prepared in the course of preparing the public records typically are not accessible by the public.

Third, is the outsource representing the FCC (i.e., doing their work) or are they providing a service to the FCC of corrdinating a specific project. If they are doing the former, then everything the FCC provides they must provide. The latter, we're back to number 1.

 

[seligman]

I've noticed that in some FCC Applications (searchable on the FCC website) there are Attachments in PDF format that occasionally contain valuable information that isn't part of the license data.

I've only stumbled across these files by accident, but they do exist. Sometimes they outline frequency coordination data or other interesting tidbits.

I wish there was a way to search the Attachment files for certain keywords.