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Stations have few options if bumped from air by Canadian broadcast

Thursday, March 9, 2000

By BILL VIRGIN Mail Author
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Listeners from Sequim to Granite Falls who tuned in to 91.3 to hear KBCS-FM's mix of jazz, folk and world music a few weeks ago instead got an earful of something they hadn't expected -- Canadian country music.

Same experience for those Bellingham-area listeners who were expecting to hear jazz on a translator operated by KPLU-FM.

What happened to those stations and their listeners illustrates an interesting piece of Canadian-U.S. relations that, while not as high-profile as fishing rights or lumber exports, can cause just as much grief, at least among those whose favorite station is suddenly elbowed off the dial.

Stations south of the border have heard from listeners before about crossing signals with Canadian stations, but the latest tussle occurred when a new station signed on in Victoria at 91.3. "Within 15 minutes we were getting calls from Port Townsend" that KBCS's signal had been bumped, says Harriet Baskas, the Bellevue station's general manager.

KPLU also ran into trouble in a roundabout way. Its translator in the Bellingham area operates at 88.7; no interference there. But the signal it picks up to retransmit is from a KPLU translator in the Skagit Valley at, you guessed it, 91.3.

KPLU solved its problem two ways. One was to shift the Skagit Valley translator to a different frequency, 91.1. The other was to work out an agreement with AT&T Cable Services, which operates an antenna facility on a hill near Bellingham; that facility will pick up the signal from KPLU's home frequency of 88.5, and ship the signal to a translator that operates at 88.7.

For KBCS and its cut-off listeners, the solutions aren't so easy. The station is asking listeners to ask local cable companies to add KBCS to their audio services. Some may be able to adjust the direction of their antenna to pick up the signal, and KBCS has instructions at its Web site (www.kbcs-fm.org) on how to do that. KBCS also broadcasts via its Web site.

Baskas said the station has also applied to operate a translator of its own, that would be just north of Seattle and broadcast at 91.7.

So why isn't there someone policing these cross-border squabbles?

In fact, there are treaty agreements between the Federal Communications Commission and the Canadian Radio and Television Committee to allocate space on the band, KPLU says. But the agreement says full-service radio stations get priority over, and can interfere with, a translator.

In KBCS's case, its official signal map or "contour" extends in an arc to Lynnwood and Bainbridge Island. For listeners outside that arc, it's their good fortune when they can pick up the signal, but also their tough luck when a Canadian station steps on it.

In other radio notes:

  • For those of you who have been missing "Music and the Spoken Word" featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, it's back on the air in Seattle as of this weekend. KITZ-AM (1400) will carry two half-hour programs, the current and the previous week's, starting at 8 a.m. Sunday.

  • The weekly series of health programs on KUOW-FM (94.9) looks at aging, at 7:30 p.m. today.

  • KUOW-FM offers a two-part dramatization of "Gulliver's Travels" at 9:30 p.m. today and tomorrow.

  • Jim French interviews Nancy Rosanoff, author of "Making Money Through Intuition," at 6 a.m. Saturday on KIRO-AM (710).

  • The Metropolitan Opera performs Rossini's "Le Cenerentola" at 10:30 a.m. on KING-FM (98.1).

  • On "Music With Moskowitz" at noon Saturday on KSER-FM (90.7) it's songs for St. Patrick's Day.

  • Bruce Cockburn is among the guests on "Mountain Stage" at 5 p.m. Saturday on KBCS-FM.

  • Alien Crime Syndicate performs on "Audioasis" at 6 p.m. Saturday on KCMU-FM (90.3).

  • Wolf Colonel performs on "The Live Room" at 8 p.m. Saturday on KCMU-FM.

  • Ford Thaxton plays music from movies of Shakespeare plays on "Soundtrack Cinema" at 10 p.m. Saturday on KING-FM.

  • Ichabod Caine interviews Tracy Byrd on "Honky Tonk Sundays" at 7 a.m. Sunday on KMPS-FM (94.1).

  • Smashing Pumpkins performs on the "End Sessions" at 8:30 p.m. Sunday on KNDD-FM (107.7).

  • The Sunday edition of Jim French's "Pemco Imagination Theatre," which airs Saturdays and Sundays at 9 p.m. on KNWX-AM (770), includes a new drama in which a mild-mannered bank employee finds his hands and mind under the control of a dead bank robber.

  • Radio dramas continue next week on KUOW-FM with H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" at 9:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.

  • Guests on "Live By George" Monday include cellist Rebecca Evans at 8 p.m., performers from the Civic Light Opera at 8:30 p.m. and pianist Mark Salman at 9 p.m.

  • "Radio Labor Journal," a monthly program produced by the Snohomish County Labor Council, looks at the SPEEA strike at Boeing from the strikers' perspective at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday on KSER-FM.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattle-pi.com

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