9 Years!

Just thought it was worth mention that my station "Iron Range Country" - KEBS has, as of this July, been on the air for 9 years.

Same format, vintage country. Same transmitter, a Chezradio Procaster, that has been mounted to the side of an attic window frame at about 30 feet on the south side of the house. This means it bakes in the summer sun with outdoor temps easily in the 90's, not counting what the sun does heating up the internals, and temps down to easily -30 in the winter.  It has never failed me, nor needed any repair or attention. It just keeps on working perfectly. A couple times I did open it up and see if maybe the signal could be tweaked a bit - in case time and weather may have had some effect on tuning, but I could never get any more out of it, it remained rock solid. My coverage remains consistent, about 1.3 miles (remember I live in rural northern Minnesota, where we have a very low noise floor and basically no interference). I take field intensity readings a couple times a year and it has remained consistent.  I use no outboard processing with the transmitter, the built in processing just the job just fine.  It has proven to be an excellent transmitter.

I feed the transmitter with a iMac computer, which I bought used for the purpose 9 years ago, and it was a few  years old already when I bought it. I use Megaseg software, which h has no issues  scheduling thousands of songs and also making it very simple to change format for Christmas, and to schedule commercials, pre-recorded programs, as well as automatically downloading and playing the news from Feature Story News several times a day.  This computer also has never failed me. It is plugged into a UPS backup power supply (as is the transmitter). The computer has never crashed, just keeps on running - like most Macs tend to do.  I don't update the system, etc in it any longer as it is not used to surf the internet, etc so I don't have to worry about browser capabilities, etc. It's only internet use is for downloading the news.

The station continues to generate good revenue, and I still have the expenses of FSN and licensing music (I run this 100% completely legal, and do make money from it). I carry two syndicated programs, CD Tex Radio (country music from Texas) and Gospel Memories, and of course my own Oompah Hour which I started for my own station and is now carried on 28 stations around the country.

I easily cover my town, but it's only 1/4 mile long and 4 blocks wide! And the local cable TV system also carries the station as well, so even folks well outside of over the air range can listen.

Nine years went by fast. At the time I started my Part 15, I had 41 years experience in commercial broadcasting, as morning show host and chief engineer at many stations, which I continue to do. In February I will have been on the air 50 years. When I started 9 years ago I knew nothing about Part 15 radio.  This site was then a vibrant, fun, exciting, and educational place to be.  Sure, there was repetition when a newbie joined up, but still it was worth logging in every few days to see what was up. I learned everything I needed to get started here. The last couple years it's sort of turned into the "Oompah Hour Update Site" as my show updates can be the only posts for a month or more. I still post them because I might pick up a new station now and then, and it still gives the site some life. I don't know if it's because people who wanted to start stations don't exist any more, or if the last crop of newbies (like me 9 years ago) got things rolling and don't need help now, or quit all together.  I notice Bill's site is also pretty dead - he's the number one poster over there.

Anyway, one more year and my Part 15 will have 10 continuous years behind it!

TIB