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required that silence be for reasons beyond the operator's control, such as total equipment failure or loss of programming, and asked for plans to return the station to air. The commission has since started to grant silent STAs for financial reasons. Stations that are silent can also apply for an operational STA to resume broadcasting from a temporary facility, to avoid losing its license after one continuous year of silence. The one-year limit was written into the
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This silent/operational STA process presents a loophole in that it can be used to work around the
Telecommunications Act indefinitely, and such STAs are normally granted with little oversight. In January 2018, the FCC initiated a crackdown on stations that exploit the loophole. The first high-profile
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A station may go silent entirely for up to ten days without notifying the FCC at all, and up to thirty days with only a letter of notification. A station that is or will be silent for longer than thirty days must apply for a "silent STA", which can be granted for up to six months. The FCC typically
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A common reason to apply for STA is an equipment failure. In case a station cannot use its licensed antenna or transmission system, it can immediately continue operations using any available antenna or operating parts of existing system, as long as an STA is filed for within 24 hours. An AM station
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if necessary. AM stations operating directionally are limited to 25 percent of their licensed power if their directional array fails and they must operate non-directionally under STA. If a station is evicted from its transmitter site or must move for another reason, it may also continue operating
226:, however this is rare. A market has developed around proprietary devices that provide live audio or video to attendees of a conference or sporting event; these devices receive a signal from a low-powered television station operating under a temporary STA in VHF
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from a temporary site under the same rules, as long as it does not change or increase its coverage area or plan to permanently broadcast from that site. These rules allow stations to resume broadcasting quickly in case of a
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162:(CDBS), broadcast STA applications have a prefix of BSTA (general), BLSTA (legal), BESTA (engineering), or BLESTA (both). STAs can also be issued for other
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288:"FCC's Silent Station Crackdown Targets Virginia AMs"
306:"STA Washington, DC Facility Data [example]"
270:"Steps to Take When A Broadcast Station Goes Silent"
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