Prior to the current CDBS system, the FCC used a system called BAPS (Broadcast Application Processing System) which included the information from the paper FCC forms of the time. Around 1985, the FCC started to make copies of the engineering database available to the general public through their FTP site and then eventually on their website starting around 1995.
Unlike the CDBS data provided today, the BAPS downloads only contained current engineering data at the time of the release of the file. Today's CDBS data also includes archived data during the CDBS era only. None of the BAPS era archive data was maintained. Instead, CDBS will show an application record with no engineering data included.
One of the other aspects of the REC Radio History Project is to recover FCC BAPS download files from as many different dates as possible in order to fill in as many of these gaps in CDBS as well as discover applications that were eventually dismissed or otherwise cancelled and never found their way into CDBS at the time of conversion.
Please dig through your collection of CD ROMS and floppies to see if you have any of these files. If you do, please contact REC through the Contact link on this page so we can arrange for a file transfer.
Thank you again for your support of the preservation of our history.
Here is a BAPS download from June 29, 1997
Database files:
amdata.dat.gz (1.3M) - AM Engineering Data Base Release Tape
ameng.dat.gz (833K) - Primary AM Engineering Data Base
amengaug.dat.gz (165K) - Augmentation parameters for the AM Engineering Data Base
amengcom.dat.gz (27K) - Comments for the AM Engineering Data Base
amengtow.dat.gz (304K) - Tower parameters for the AM Engineering Data Base
fmfxda.dat.gz (125K) - Directional Antenna Tabulations in the FCC FM Engineering Data Base
fmfxeng.dat.gz (1.6M) - FM Engineering Data Base
fmfxengcmnts.dat.gz (373K) - Comments for the FM Engineering Data Base
tvdadb.dat.gz (291K) - TV Directional Antenna Data Base
tvdb.dat.gz (951K) - TV Engineering Data Base
Documentation:
amdiction.txt (160K) - AM Engineering Data Base Release Tape
amtext.txt (74K) - AM Engineering Data Base for Public Release
fmdiction.txt (71K) - FM Engineering Data Base Release Tape
tvdadiction.txt (23K) - TV Directional Antenna Data Base
tvdiction.txt (32K) - TV Engineering Data Base
