FM Transmitter Range

[drew10219]

How "legal" are they??

I have a cottage in a small town where nobody really cares about what people are doing
it would be nice to transmit on my 5 acre property. if it goes farther than that should I really be worried?

I've been looking at something like this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKKMTPBF/?c ... _lig_dp_it

and what would the sound quality be like?

[Ben Zonia]

How "legal" are they??

I have a cottage in a small town where nobody really cares about what people are doing
it would be nice to transmit on my 5 acre property. if it goes farther than that should I really be worried?

I've been looking at something like this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKKMTPBF/?c ... _lig_dp_it

and what would the sound quality be like?

I hope you are kidding. The FCC would soon be informed by local broadcasters of your operation. The FCC would come out and confiscate and destroy your transmitter, and you would likely get a huqe fine. Many broadcasters have field strength meters, which could track you down quickly. This has happened to licensed broadcasters when they do things in violation of that license. You wouldn't need anything nearly that powerful to reach 5 acres in the middle of nowhere, but you should be very worried if you persist. Frankly, if a transmitter gets out beyond your house, it is likely to be illegal.

[TC Talks]

Hey Ben,

Have you ever heard of all these horrible things happening? Quit lying to the guy...

I say go for it. The FCC has a very limited enforcement budget and there are bigger fish to fry than something like this. And don't worry about local broadcasters, they usually employ contract engineers, and aren't going to spend the money to try to find you. The trick will be building an antenna that really maximizes the 1000 watts.

Heck, you could run it on solar and connect to it Bluetooth. If you mounted to a tree on state land and connected wirelessly, it would be impossible to prove whose device it is. We used to run transmitters like this with solar all the time when I ran a community translator association out West.

[Deleted User 15905]

How "legal" are they??

I have a cottage in a small town where nobody really cares about what people are doing
it would be nice to transmit on my 5 acre property. if it goes farther than that should I really be worried?

I've been looking at something like this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKKMTPBF/?c ... _lig_dp_it

and what would the sound quality be like?

Take it from an ex-pirate broadcaster, that is a pirate radio broadcasters dream machine. Is that my Christmas gift? Thanks. (Don’t worry about gift wrapping it, I already know what I’m getting.)

[Ben Zonia]

Hey Ben,

Have you ever heard of all these horrible things happening? Quit lying to the guy...

I say go for it. The FCC has a very limited enforcement budget and there are bigger fish to fry than something like this. And don't worry about local broadcasters, they usually employ contract engineers, and aren't going to spend the money to try to find you. The trick will be building an antenna that really maximizes the 1000 watts.

Heck, you could run it on solar and connect to it Bluetooth. If you mounted to a tree on state land and connected wirelessly, it would be impossible to prove whose device it is. We used to run transmitters like this with solar all the time when I ran a community translator association out West.

I've heard of many cases where the FCC shut pirates down, confiscated the transmitter, and later destroyed it. There's enough selective enforcement to worry about it, even with minimal enforcement. They are more likely to shut it down if there are complaints from competing broadcasters. They are more likely to shut down commercial broadcasters who break the rules, investigated by other competing broadcasters. Also, you don't need a 1000 watt transmitter shown on Amazon to serve five acres. 100 milliwatts from a small tower or rooftop antenna can get out miles, but it's still illegal. The less powerful and the less people in an area, the less likely it is that anyone will notice. The bigger jerk you are personality wise, the more likely someone will turn you in. If you went around bragging to people you know or people in the industry about your "radio station", it is more likely you'll get turned in. If you're a friend of the FCC enforcement engineers, they might look the other way. An acquaintance of mine from Rochester Hills was a good friend of the late Irby Tallant at the FCC Farmington Hills Field Office, and he just told him to stop using the illegal transmitters. That said, many radio people had pirate stations when they were young. One current station owner from near Detroit reportedly had a pirate UHF TV station when he was working in Detroit radio as a DJ. But I don't recommend it.

The transmitters in those ads are restricted to export outside the US, and the ads will often state that specifically.

[Deleted User 15905]

Back in the 90’s there were 5 of us that had a pirate station out of Harper Woods. We never were stupid enough to get caught. It’s all on how and when to broadcast. We sounded professioal and never kept the same broadcast schedule. Of course it was different 30 years ago. Our station was known as Oldies 108 and it was 60’s and 70’s hits. One of my fellow pirates did know an FCC field agent out of Farmington at that time which eased the possibility of getting busted.

[TC Talks]

When is the last time the one and only FCC field officer in Michigan headed north? I mean excluding all of the various incidents pertaining to Roy Henderson? If it's convenient they will investigate.

I do agree there are two to five watt units much cheaper ($200) that will get a 5-acre property covered. I use the one I have when I go to music festivals. But I guarantee you that the seller of the thousand watt unit could care less if I lived in the United States. All of those rules are out the window because no one cares anymore.

[Deleted User 15905]

I do agree, no one cares anymore. The FM band is so congested with useless translators, that should’ve never been approved. A pirate in an area like Detroit could get away with broadcasting, the only problem is your signal would be trashed 3 city blocks away. If you’re going to spend a grand or two on something like that it would be a great waste of money today. Back in the 90’s there were a lot of open frequencies, but not today.

[Ben Zonia]

A 100 mW ERP transmitter at 10 meters HAAT puts a 60 dBu F(50,50) contour out about 1.4 miles, using the FCC Propagation Calculator.

The inverse field of a 100 mW ERP signal is 138 X SQRT 0.0001 = 1.38 mV/m at one mile, about 63 dBu. This is way above the Part 15 limit, 150 uV/m at 3 meters/10 feet, about 43 dBu.

[drew10219]

I do agree, no one cares anymore. The FM band is so congested with useless translators, that should’ve never been approved. A pirate in an area like Detroit could get away with broadcasting, the only problem is your signal would be trashed 3 city blocks away. If you’re going to spend a grand or two on something like that it would be a great waste of money today. Back in the 90’s there were a lot of open frequencies, but not today.

In Northern Michigan there is a ton of open frequencies, it's not as congested as the Detroit area by any means
I do agree this is going after a fly with a bazooka BUT my long term thought is to power it down most of the time I use it
in the event of some type of "incident" I would be able to serve my community as a local broadcaster

most of the comments support my theory, nobody really cares anymore and the local broadcasters such as Black Diamond do not have the resources like clear channel or whoever to search and report pirates.

[Deleted User 15905]

I do agree, no one cares anymore. The FM band is so congested with useless translators, that should’ve never been approved. A pirate in an area like Detroit could get away with broadcasting, the only problem is your signal would be trashed 3 city blocks away. If you’re going to spend a grand or two on something like that it would be a great waste of money today. Back in the 90’s there were a lot of open frequencies, but not today.

In Northern Michigan there is a ton of open frequencies, it's not as congested as the Detroit area by any means
I do agree this is going after a fly with a bazooka BUT my long term thought is to power it down most of the time I use it
in the event of some type of "incident" I would be able to serve my community as a local broadcaster

most of the comments support my theory, nobody really cares anymore and the local broadcasters such as Black Diamond do not have the resources like clear channel or whoever to search and report pirates.

I say go for it. (Does the hot girl come with the package?) At any rate being an ex-pirate, I would never have any hesitation starting a station again even in the Detroit area just for the fun of it. Just to see how far my coverage area is. You do have good intentions for broadcasting in the event of an emergency and I respect that. If you have the cash well then do it. You only live once, damn it enjoy it.

[Marcus]

What kind of coverage would that 1 KW output give you if it was over 900' high near Oil Springs, Ontario and you used a 12 bay antenna? I guessing about 30 miles or 50 km for a 60 dBu contour in most directions.

Note : I'm referring to an existing tower there near Bentpath Line and Oil Heritage Line. There is currently no FM transmitter at that location.

[Ben Zonia]

I would disagree that there are a ton of vacant frequencies in Northern Michigan, except that some are silent and some are on low power STA.

There are several reasons that the Detroit Area is jammed up. Windsor, Leamington, Chatham, and Sarnia squeezing in nearly every possible vacant second adjacent channel and some first adjacent translators, translators and LPFMs in the US on nearly every second adjacent channel, some with two or three cochannel stations in the area, and IBOC sidebands tearing up almost all the first adjacent channels to local signals. Add to that all the short spaced first adjacent and cochannel stations across Lake Erie.

[Deleted User 15905]

What kind of coverage would that 1 KW output give you if it was over 900' high near Oil Springs, Ontario and you used a 12 bay antenna? I guessing about 30 miles or 50 km for a 60 dBu contour in most directions.

Note : I'm referring to an existing tower there near Bentpath Line and Oil Heritage Line. There is currently no FM transmitter at that location.

You're probably close, at least 25 miles with 1kw @ 900 ft.

[TC Talks]

If you're talking 900 ft and 12 bay, you're more powerful than most of the throw away Jesus stations at the left side of the dial. And I wouldn't lose sleep about walking over those things.