The FCC has set up a filing window from February 19 through February 26, 2010. This has been rescheduled from this December.
This window is restricted to locations that are on the Table of Allotments that have been reserved as non-commercial educational.
In 2003, the FCC opened a window to permit proponents to petition that a certain vacant non-reserved band allotment should be moved from commercial to non-commercial use.
In order to reserve a channel as non-commercial, the proponent must make a showing that there are no reserved band (88-92) channels could be used without interference to foreign broadcast stations or TV channel 6 stations.
There is also a third test where an allotment would be possible if the allotment would provide the first or second non-commercial educational (NCE) radio service to at least 10% of the population within the 60 dBu service contour of the proposed allotment and that population is at least 2,000 persons.
There are a few things you need to know about this window: