Limit on broadcasting.

[RevJSorrells]

I am still new to the site because I have posted only a couple of times. So hello to everyone and thank you in advance for the wisdom you have. I love this site and I am so blessed to have found it.

My question is this:
Is it against the law to broadcast a couple of miles on an unused FM signal?

The background:
I found a FM broadcaster for a decent price that can broadcast a mile and a half (doubt it with the retractable antenna) and a larger mountable antenna can be purchased as well to add a mile or two. I emailed the FCC a couple of years ago and got no real response. I would like to broadcast either from my home or from our church to the community. I know that I can not broadcast music from CD's and such because of copyright, but I would like to broadcast Sunday school teaching and sermons.

Thank you all for any help you can offer. God bless you all.

Rev. James Sorrells

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by RevJSorrells

My question is this:
Is it against the law to broadcast a couple of miles on an unused FM signal?

The background:
I found a FM broadcaster for a decent price that can broadcast a mile and a half (doubt it with the retractable antenna) and a larger mountable antenna can be purchased as well to add a mile or two. I emailed the FCC a couple of years ago and got no real response. I would like to broadcast either from my home or from our church to the community. I know that I can not broadcast music from CD's and such because of copyright, but I would like to broadcast Sunday school teaching and sermons.

By "a FM broadcaster" do you mean a licensed broadcaster like an existing radio station, someone with a FM transmitter or simply the physical FM transmitter itself?

The restrictions for FM broadcasting are based on the actual radiated energy at a defined distance rather than on output power or range. If what you are referencing is a licensed broadcaster operating withing the applicable restrictions I don't see a problem. Otherwise, there seems to be two legal options.

It is possible to have an unlicensed low power broadcast transmission as a Part 15 device, however the allowed radiation from a certified Part 15 devices usually equates to around an 200' effective range. Using a non-certified transmitter, a modified transmitter or even a certified transmitter with an antenna other than that used for the certification in order to achieve a 2-3 mile broadcast range would likely be a pretty serious violation of the Part 15 regulations and you could be looking at not only confiscation of the equipment but potentially also up to something like an $11,000 fine (likely smaller but you never know).

There are limited use Low Power FM Radio Broadcast Station licenses available to non-profit organizations, see http://transition.fcc.gov/lpfm/ and http://www.lpfm.com/. The second link in particular seems to address this option into less technical language and explains that this is not as simple as simply purchasing the equipment and starting broadcasting. Along with first having to wait for an application window and being awarded a license, there apparently is also some initial engineering involved to show that the operation would not interfere with existing licensed broadcasters and some restrictions on operation such as broadcasting a minimum of 36 hours a week and incorporating CAP/EAS decoding (for public emergency announcements). Also notice the comment in the second link that you cannot sell the license, so while you could apparently buy a transmitter and antenna from someone who is licensed, you could not then operate under their license as the license is tied to a person or group rather than to the equipment.

[waynehoskins]

Basically, if you want to have an FM radio station, get a license. Either LPFM (which is new to me and sounds really neat) or the conventional higher-power non-commercial license.

A friend of mine put up a non-commercial station in the early '90s, and it was a fun experience. It had an old refurb Gates 10K throttled down to its license class, which I believe was 7K.

The 100-watt LPFM class looks really nice. That power level is reasonably well-behaved (things can get nasty at a KW and up since usually those transmitters are big tube-type rigs running several KV in the plate circuit). 100 watts is easy to do solid-state, no-tune.

Backing away from the engineering front, let me ask a fundamental question. Is the driving goal the content or the station? If it's making the content available to the community, a better way to accomplish that might be with leasing airtime on an existing station that your desired market area might already be listening to. That way, you don't have to deal with the engineering side or come up with the required minimum airtime content.

Putting a station on the air is enjoyable and rewarding, but it's also a lot of work. You would really want someone with a radio engineering background working with you on the project, even at low power. All of us involved with the non-commercial station in the '90s were radio people, virtually all hams, some also broadcast engineers. Even with that, and a well-engineered station, there's nothing like getting the call that the station has fallen off the air, the electricity is out and the transmitter building is full of smoke. That made for an exciting couple of weeks.

Backing off tangent. If you really want to put up a station, get an appropriate license. Otherwise, lease the airtime from an existing station.

[MustangNazMedia]

FCC will crack down and you would have to pay big fines.
But the other option would be to broadcast it on wifi. You do not need to have a license if you are using just the regular wifi equipment. And it would be just like setting up a home network.

Radio Station Control Software-Free of charge.
http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/ Requires a linux machine.

I would suggest a router where you can attach external antennas to it, a small wifi booster. Your range is not going to be miles on end but if you have your antenna up high enough around 100 feet. It should go the mile. Power is nice but height is somethings better. Just make it an open access wifi network.

The other option you could do is stream to the internet with the adobe flash encoder-which is free.

Thanks
Paul Wood