I've talked about Radio Beaverlodge before, which was an unlicensed Canadian AM station that had received considerable media attention during the late 1950s, but I'm bringing it up again to emphasize that there were also other stations in Canada just like his, (the only specific one mentioned in the article was one in the town of Gunner 6 miles away, and possibly another in Edmudton) and they knew of each others stations and interchanged/shared reel-to-reel tapes to each other for rebroadcast on their own respective stations. As to why they opted to also air bootleg copies of taped Australian CBC broadcast I don't know, but when the CBC had found out about it they began sending tapes to those unlicensed stations directly.
Presumably (I guess) - these were carrier-current stations that utilizing power lines to achieve their approximate 1 mile of range with their 2&half watts on 660 AM, and occasionally the Canadian Department of Transportation had complained...
But it never actually says anything about these stations being illegal, only that they were unlicensed. So I can't help but suspect they operated under some form of Canadian Part 15 rules, yet from what little I've been able to determine there had been no such type rules in Canada until 1983... But is that really likely?? It just doesn't seem to add up..
I don't think there is a specific time when unlicensed broadcasting started in Canada or the USA for that matter. I guess in the USA it was when Part 15 was written which can be traced to a date and time but in Canada? Nothing like that here. I couldn't find anything about when RSS-210 was written, or issue 1. But BETS was originated in 1996 I believe was the first issue and it hasn't changed yet.
I don't think there is a specific time when unlicensed broadcasting started in Canada ..
It's very clear that in the USA "part 15 broadcasting" officially began in December of 1938 when the rules for it had been written - which is what made the very popular wireless phono-ocsilators that people had already been using legal.
For Canada documentations point to 1983 as the beginning of RSS-210 (aka part 15).
But Canadian College campus carrier-current stations go back to at least the 1950s, however, unlike in the USA, carrier-current stations in Canada always required licenses and I think still do. The FCC played with the idea of licencing campus stations in the US during the 1940s and 50s but it never came to pass.
But what? Didn't Canadians use any wireless phono-ocsilators which were so extremely popular back then in the 1930s-1950s? - or were they flat out illegal in Canada.
And what of the individual own stations like Radio Beaverlodge getting media attention which clearly had no license? -- I don't know, maybe it got shut down after the Associate Press had done those stories about it in 1959.. I was unable to find anything more
@richpowers This from issue 11 RSS-210 about carrier current or "leaky coax" Same idea?
Annex B: Devices operating in frequency bands for any application
This annex provides the technical requirements for devices operating in various frequency bands for any application, except for section B.11, which is specific to radar and other mobile devices.
B.2 Band 510-1705 kHz
Devices in this band shall comply with the following requirements:
- The following limits apply inside the band:
- the total input power to the final radio frequency stage (exclusive of filament or heater power) shall not exceed 100 mW. The total length of the transmission line, antenna and ground lead (if used) shall not exceed 3 m; or
- the field strength shall not exceed 15 µV/m, as measured at a distance of 47715/(frequency in kHz) m (equivalent to wavelength/2π) from the coaxial cable, if the transmitter employs a leaky coaxial cable as a radiating antenna.
- Emissions outside of this band shall be attenuated at least 20 dB below the level of the unmodulated carrier or to the general field strength limits listed in RSS-Gen, whichever is less stringent.
As for the origin of RSS-210 I cannot find issue 1 at all which would be the official start of Canada's "part 15" and BETS-1 for license free broadcasting started in 1996.
There may have been something before 1983 as you say as when I was a kid...1960s... there was Heathkit which I remember made some type of transmitter that let you be DJ around the house.
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Heathkit_Catalogs.htm
@mark Sounds almost dentical to part 15! But Canada’s initial framework for unlicensed broadcasting appears to have begun in 1983 with this document which appears to be the first time when they began including provisions for exempting certain devices from licensing requirements.