Equipment and Supplies
| (1) | Buildings
and Modifications to Buildings. (a) Eligible: Small equipment
shelters that are part of satellite earth stations, translators, microwave
interconnection facilities, and similar facilities. (b) Ineligible:
Purchase or lease of buildings and modifications to buildings, including
the renovation of space for studios intended to house eligible equipment;
costs associated with removing old equipment. |
| (2) | Land and Land
Improvements. (a) Eligible: Site preparation necessary
to construct towers and guy anchors for transmission and interconnection
equipment. (b) Ineligible: Purchase or lease of land. |
| (3) | Moving Costs.
(a) Eligible: Shipping and delivery charges for equipment acquired
within the award. (b) Ineligible: Moving costs required by relocation
of any facilities. |
| (4) | Reception
Equipment. (a) Eligible: Fixed frequency demodulator, as
required by good engineering practice for monitoring the off-air transmission
of signals; subcarrier demodulator; telemetry transmitters and receivers;
satellite receivers; and subcarrier decoders for the handicapped.
(b) Ineligible: Consumer-type TV sets and FM receivers. |
| (5) | Tower Modifications.
(a) Eligible: Strengthening or modifying a commercial entity's
tower to accommodate a public broadcasting entity (structural modifications
on towers and/or antenna changes must meet EIA (Electronic Industries
Association) and any required local standards). (b) Ineligible: Modifying
or strengthening the applicant's tower to accommodate a commercial
entity. |
| (6) | Production
and Control Room Equipment. (a) Eligible: Standard production
studio and control room equipment for TV or radio program production.
(b) Ineligible: Consumer-type mixers, tape recorders, turntables,
CD players, etc; ancillary production devices such as stopwatches
and stop-clocks, building lights, sound effects, scenery and props,
cycloramas, sound insulation devices and materials, draperies and
related equipment for production use, film and still photography processing,
film sound synchronization editing. |
| (7) | Video Equipment.
(a) Eligible: Videotape editing and processing equipment that
conforms to broadcast-standard quality equipment for field recording
and production editing, as well as computer editing equipment and associated
storage devices, including applicable system software. (b) Ineligible: Consumer level videotape recording
formats not accepted in the industry as broadcast-standard quality. |
| (8) | Furniture
and Office Equipment. (a) Eligible: Consoles required to
mount equipment such as audio consoles and video switchers. (b) Ineligible:
Such items as office furniture, office equipment, studio clocks and
systems, blackboards, office intercoms, equipment inventory labels
and label-makers, word processors, telephone systems, and printing
and duplication equipment. |
| (9) | Expendable
Items and Spare Parts. (a) Eligible: A transmitter spare
parts kit and one set of final and driver tubes for a transmitter
awarded in the grant; a spare parts kit for video tape recorders awarded
in the grant. (b) Ineligible: Spare lenses, spare circuit components,
spare parts kits for studio equipment, except as noted above; recording
tape, flash memory cards, flash ram, memory sticks, PCMICA cards or other similar
expendable solid state storage devices, film, reels, cartridge tapes, records, compact discs, and record
or tape cleaning equipment; art and graphics supplies; maintenance
supplies, including replacement final and driver tubes normally considered
in the industry as normal maintenance-budget-provided items and similar
items. |
| (10) | Backup Equipment.
(a) Eligible: (1) Hot standby or backup microwave for the main studio-to-transmitter link only;
a backup or spare exciter for a radio or television transmitter, as required by good engineering practice.
(2) Standby power generators and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) when justified as specified
at the beginning of the list of supportable costs for radio and television equipment. (b) Ineligible: Redundant equipment, such as spare transmitter, or costs associated with them, as well as backup microwave equipment (except as noted above).
|
| (11) | Electric Power.
(a) Eligible: Generally, all primary power costs from the output
of the main power meter panel; regulators and surge protectors, as
required by good engineering practice, to stabilize transmitter RF
output. Where primary power is not available or is unusable for broadcast,
then PTFP may provide funding for those devices needed to power the
facility if the need for that equipment is fully documented in the
application. (b) Ineligible: Costs of installing primary power to
the facilities main meter panel, including transformers, power lines, and related equipment. |
| (12) | Test and Maintenance
Equipment. (a) Eligible: Required test equipment, as indicated
by good engineering practice for the maintenance of the project equipment.
(b) Ineligible: Maintenance equipment such as hand and power tools,
storage cabinets, and maintenance services. |
| (13) | Air Conditioning
and Ventilation. (a) Eligible: The costs to provide ventilation
of eligible project equipment, such as ducting for transmitters and
transmitter air conditioning, and control room equipment needed to keep the facility
on-air, as required by good engineering practice.
(b) Ineligible: Unless exceptionally well-documented, air conditioning
for other operational rooms and offices. |
| (14) | Remote Vans.
(a) Eligible: Items to equip a remote van for audio/video production.
(b) Ineligible: All vehicles. |
| (15) | Licensing fees. (a) Eligible: Licensing fees required by a manufacturer for the initial purchase and installation of equipment. (b) Ineligible: Ongoing licensing for fees for broadcast-specific technology, such as fees related to the use of HD Radio technology or for software, are considered operational costs. |
Other Costs
| (1) | Construction Applications: NTIA generally will not fund salary
expenses, including staff installation costs, and pre-application
legal and engineering fees. Certain "pre-operational expenses" are
eligible for funding. (See 15 CFR §2301.2.) Despite this provision,
NTIA regards its primary mandate to be funding the acquisition of
equipment and only secondarily funding of salaries. A discussion of
this issue appears in the PTFP Final Rules under the heading Support
for Salary Expenses in the introductory section of the document. |
| (2) | Planning Applications. (a) Eligible: Salaries are
eligible expenses for all planning grant applications, but should
be fully described and justified within the application. Planning
grant applicants may lease office equipment, furniture and space,
and may purchase expendable supplies under the terms of 47 U.S.C.
§392 (c). (b) Ineligible: Planning grant applications cannot include
the cost of constructing or operating a telecommunications facility. |
| (3) | Audit Costs. Audits shall be performed in accordance with
audit requirements contained in Office of Management and Budget Circular
A-133, Audits of States, Local Governments, and Non-Profit Organizations,
revised June 30, 1997. OMB Circular A-133 requires that non-profit
organizations, government agencies, Indian tribes and educational
institutions expending $300,000 or more in federal funds during a
one-year period conduct a single audit in accordance with guidelines
outlined in the circular. Applicants are reminded that other audits
may be conducted by the Office of Inspector General. |
NTIA recognizes that most of its grant recipients are divisions of state and local governments or are public broadcasting facilities, all of which routinely conduct annual audits. In order to make the maximum amount of monies available for equipment purchases and planning activities, NTIA will, therefore, fund audit costs only in exceptional circumstances.
