A letter from the FCC to Activist San Diego dated June 24, 2021 orders the licensee of KUMI (FM) 89.9 MHz Romona to explain why it filed a License to Cover its construction but apparently never built the station.

That letter is in response to one filed with the FCC in October 2020 from John Fox, General Manager of KPRI (FM) 91.3 MHz Pala in which Mr. Fox complains that:

• Activist San Diego was never given permission to enter the reservation land it lists as the transmitter location
• The location licensed has not been disturbed in any way
• Documents supporting the license application for KUMI contain false statements
• The station had not operated on the designated frequency (89.9 MHz) anywhere in the region for the 16 months prior to the letter being written to the FCC.

KUMI’s license specifies a transmitter location on Los Coyotes Band of Cupeño and Cahuilla Indians land on Hot Springs Mountain near Warner Springs.

The FCC is requiring Activist San Diego to explain the discrepancies within 30 days or face “adverse actions jeopardizing both the Station’s license and call letters.”

Activist San Diego also operates KNSJ (FM) 89.1 Descanso, transmitting from Monument Peak with 330 watts horizontal and 290 watts vertical. The political organization is based in North Park, San Diego.

The National Periodic Test, not conducted last year during the heat of the pandemic, is scheduled for Wednesday, August 11, 2021. The transmission will be through the network of PEP (Primary Entry Point) stations—not through the IPAWS network.

San Diego County Stations can validate the NPT using their normally assigned LP sources, like LP-1 KOGO 600 kHz and LP-2 KLSD 1360 kHz. Additionally, KPBS 89.5 MHz is considered a PEP station by virtue of its affiliation with NPR. SiriusXM Radio has also been authorized as a PEP source. But you don’t need to reconfigure your system to confirm the National Periodic Test if it’s working for normal RWTs and RMTs.

When FEMA issues an IPAWS test or alert, it includes a “signature certificate.” This operates similar to a password for accessing different sites or files on a computer. In the case of a message from FEMA, a message without a correct signature the EAS device should ignore the message.

On April 26, 2021, the Required Weekly Test (RWT) from IPAWS was transmitted with an incorrect signature. The test messages had a mismatch between the digest inside the message, and the digest computed by receivers. This is a part of the validation for an alert, and checking it is required by FCC Rule 11.56(c): “EAS Participants shall configure their systems to reject all CAP-formatted EAS messages that include an invalid digital signature.”

We learned last week that the owner and CEO of DVEO in Ranch Bernardo, Laszlo “Les” Zoltan, died of complications of COVID-19 on January 30 this year.

According to his San Diego Union obituary, he was born in Hungary to Holocaust survivors, but they escaped to Canada when he was nine years old. Les graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in Electrical Engineering. After working at Tektronix for two years, he obtained a Master’s in Business Administration Degree from McGill University. In the U.S., he created Computer Modules, Inc. in 1982, selling industrial boards for PCs. Later under the name of DVEO, he sold video processors, converters, and streaming devices, as well as satellite receivers.

Les and DVEO supported SBE Chapter 36 as a sponsor and he was a part of the local broadcast community.

We just learned that broadcast engineer Kenyon “Ken” Crabtree of Vista died January 19, 2021 due to the COVID-19 virus.

Ken had worked for ViaSat in Carlsbad as a satellite systems engineer from 2012 until 2020.

Previously, he had been part of the Qualcomm team responsible for the rollout of MediaFLO.

Before 2007, he had worked for local broadcasters as a contract engineer with such clients as Finest City Broadcasting (XETRA, XHITZ, XHRM), and International Communications Network (K61GH, now KSDY), and KPRI (FM). He worked with Robert Gonsett to move KKOS (now KSSX) 95.7 to Mt. Soledad.

He was an experienced skydiver. He is survived by his wife Tricia, as well as daughters Taylor Proulx and Rhiannon Kohler and two grandchildren.

Thank you for the tip, Robert Gonsett.