The Broadcasters' Desktop Resource

Greetings from your broadcast friends out on the Desert…
This is BDR Newsletter 838, Volume 17, #5 for September 3, 2025

FCC DEADLINES
The new MEP EAS code goes into effect on September 8th. If you are using a sage EAS endec, you need to upgrade it. Fortunately, this time there is no charge. Download from the sage alerting site.

Payment of the 2025 fiscal year regulatory fees is due this month. Fees will change slightly from this past year, but not by much. Payment must be electronic, collected prior to October 1st so we can expect an exact deadline announcement soon. However, please be reminded that these payments must be submitted electronically on the FCC�s CORES2 website, so it is best not left to the last day/week. (Hat tip to Cary Tepper)

BEAUTIFYING THE FCC SITE?
Those that use the FCC’s website – similar that of many government websites – often complain of the difficulty of navigating through a mess of acronyms such as PSIX-ESIX, EDOCS, FRN, ECFS, ETRS, DIRS, and ULS. Even simple pages are often impossible to see until the user downloads the files in one of three formats and then opens them. In order to ensure a great user experience President Trump now has issued instructions for government web sites to project a level of excellence – designed beautifully on modern software. We can all hope for a positive result.

DO YOU LISTEN TO YOUR TRANSMITTER?
In the old days, transmitter failures often were accompanied by loud noises, bangs, smoke, etc. Today’s transmitters are normally not  as noisy. Now, when working on a transmitter it is not uncommon to hear an engineer talking to it. But, on the other hand, do we *really* listen to what the transmitter is saying back to us?

It is the first Thursday of the month, and once again Jeff Welton has kindly arranged to spend time with us, with some very useful tips and tricks, as well as more serious thoughts on making sure our transmitters are running at the peak of their capabilities.

 Jeff always has something new to share.

As usual, we meet at 2 PM Eastern (11 AM Pacific) on Thursday. Link requests are easily found at www.theBDR.net/TLG/ Our videos are also shown on the youtube.com/thebdrnet channel.