Friday, March 02, 2012

Frequency Coordination Committee Formed for Summer Political Conventions

Frequency coordination is a beautiful thing.

Broadcast engineers have formed a Frequency Coordination Committee, PolComm 2012, to coordinate spectrum use at the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer.

Members formed the committee in an effort to head off radio and TV personnel who may show up at the conventions and then try to use their wireless mics and two-way radios without first going through the frequency coordination process, according to Ray Benedict, a member of the group. Benedict is also director of spectrum management for CBS.

Broadcast engineering consultant Louis Libin is the PolComm 2012 chairman.

Libin has chaired frequency coordination committees for past seven national political conventions.

The committee has asked the FCC to designate PolComm 2012 as the official frequency coordinator for this summer's political conventions as is allowed per 74.24 (g) (2) of the Communications Act.

The GOP convention is Aug. 27–30 in Tampa, Fla. and the Democratic convention is Sept. 3–6 in Charlotte, N.C.

The committee will seek a temporary rules waiver to allow TV Channels 14, 16 and 17 to be used as communication channels in Tampa and TV Channels 14, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 in Charlotte, N.C.

Coordination requests for 12.5 kHz channels within these TV channels will be accepted.

Request coordination forms at Rfrequest@Broad-Comm.com. The completed forms may be submitted to the same email address.