Sirius Satellite Radio's application for repeater towers in Hawaii and Alaska has brought on the ire of the NAB, and yet the WCS Coalition (who traditionally opposed anything regarding satellite radio repeater towers) is not opposing it.
Sirius' application for repeaters in Hawaii and Alaska are currently in a comment period where other organizations have the right to oppose or support the FCC special temporary authority application.
Traditionally, we've seen the WCS Coalition oppose these STAs, yet they've delivered a shocker and stated that they would not oppose Sirius' request for the Alaska/Hawaii repeaters - nor would they oppose 15 other repeaters. Even more crazy, the WCS Coalition will in fact no longer oppose any repeaters below 2,000 EIRP.
Yet the NAB has filed a petition opposing the repeaters. Why? Not because of any interference concerns. Nope. Their reasoning is that the original 1997 DARS license intended the repeaters to "re-transmit the information from the satellite to overcome the effects of signal blockage and multipath interference" - and that's bad. See, the NAB doesn't mind if the repeaters are used to improve satellite signal, but they don't like it if it extends the signal.
Sounds reasonable right? I didn't think so.
It's good to see that the NAB is always looking out for the public interest.
They claim that Sirius hasn't documented any subscribers in Alaska or Hawaii. In Juneau there are several audio/video stores that advertise Sirius Satellite Radio with large banners over their storefronts. That doesn't sound like 'incidental' coverage to me.