Ask Lancaster County Pa what ducting from DC area Digital Television has caused!
It also happened in Ocean County, NJ:
"PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU SEEKS COMMENT ON REQUEST FOR WAIVER FILED BY OCEAN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY TO MODIFY ITS PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM BY ADDING FREQUENCIES FROM THE UHF TELEVISION CHANNEL 15 BAND (476-482 MHz)
File Nos. 0003047481 and 0003047654
Comment Date: April 30, 2009
Reply Comment Date: May 11, 2009
The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau seeks comment on the above-captioned applications and waiver request, as amended, initially filed on May 31, 2007 by Ocean County, New Jersey (“Ocean County” or “the County”). Ocean County seeks waiver relief of Sections 90.303, 90.305, 90.307, 90.309, and 90.311 of the Commission’s rules, 47 C.F.R. §§ 90.303, 90.305, 90.307, 90.309, 90.311, pursuant to Section 337(c) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. § 337(c), to use, for public safety communications purposes, twelve frequency pairs from the UHF Television (TV) Channel 15 band (476-482 MHz). The applications seek to modify Ocean County’s licenses for public safety Stations WIL552 and WPXC650, which are authorized on frequencies in the TV Channel 20 band (506-512 MHz). In the alternative to Section 337(c) of the Act, Ocean County requests waiver relief pursuant to Section 1.925 of the Commission’s rules, 47 C.F.R. § 1.925.
Ocean County states that since it placed Stations WIL552 and WPXC650 in service, “it has received harmful interference from [TV Channel 20] station WTXX-TV in Waterbury, Connecticut.” The County states that it “has also experienced more severe interference from [digital TV (DTV) Channel 20] station WCVB-DTV in Boston, Massachusetts.” The County states, “[t]his interference has been sporadic in nature, occurring primarily during periods when ‘Atmospheric Ducting’ conditions exist.” Due to the digital nature of DTV Station WCVB’s transmissions, the County avers that “interference from WCVB-DTV has been severe enough that it has effectively rendered the County’s UHF-T band trunking system inaccessible to its users for hours at a time.” Ocean County provided documentation of ducting interference incidents since 2002 that adversely affected its public safety communications system.
The County reports that its 2000 population was 510,916 and, during the summer months, the population “increases by approximately 200,000 from its year-round population due to the influx of vacationers.” The County is home to two military installations, a nuclear power plant, and three major highways that traverse the County. “A large portion of the County borders the Atlantic Ocean,” subjecting the County to “hurricanes and other severe weather events that can place a strain on its public safety resources.” Ocean County notes that “it is critical that Ocean County and the communities within and around it have effective, interoperable public safety communications.”
The Commission’s rules provide that frequencies allocated in the 470-512 MHz band (TV Channels 14-20) are available for assignment to private land mobile radio service (PLMRS) stations, including public safety stations, on a geographically-shared basis with TV broadcast stations in eleven urbanized areas of the United States. The frequencies sought for use by Ocean County are part of TV Channel 15, which is available for PLMRS use in the New York, New York/Northeast New Jersey urbanized area. Section 90.305(a) requires that PLMRS base stations must be located within eighty kilometers (fifty miles) of the geographic centers of the urban areas listed in Section 90.303. Ocean County requests a waiver of these rules to permit it to operate certain base stations on TV Channel 15 frequencies at locations more than eighty kilometers from the geographic center of the New York urbanized area. It also requests a waiver of Section 90.307(d) to allow its proposed base stations to be short-spaced to adjacent-channel Class A TV Station WTSD-CA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, operating on TV Channel 14. Finally, Ocean County requests a waiver of Section 90.309 (Table D) to allow three of its proposed base stations to be short-spaced to a co-channel TV Station WLYH, Lancaster/Lebanon, Pennsylvania, operating on TV Channel 1"
73, n9zas
