Campus/Community Broadcasting in Canada

If you have to be non profit how come you have to show a business plan?

Could this be used for your current project you want to do where you are now?

Wonder how much the license is. Probably still a minimum signal strength at the boundaries of your target area?

Still interested what you found out about getting RSS-123.

Mark

7 Watts WILL get you a nice 2.3 mile covrage with your ground plane about 6-8 feet above ground.  About 1/4 wave to a good car Radio  This is going through about 26 feet of the thin coax .  To a small town that is like 4 miles and you're in the center of it your station will cover a good chunk.  The ERP would not be that great with that coax because of the quality of the shielding.

But this service does seem to have a imitation to LPFM in the USA feel to it as you need to be a part of a large legal organization.  This seems to squeeze out the Hobby Broadcaster as an individual and that in and of itself is not quite fair.  I'll give the article a good read when things quiet down here.

Mark, if Industry Canada and the CRTC are giving a campus/community station valuable spectrum (even if it is unprotected), then they want to ensure that the station will be able to survive financially.  You obviously would not require as much funding or as detailed a financial plan as a commercial licensed station, but they still want to ensure that you will be operating a few years from now.

There are NO boundary conditions.  The rules are, you can have 5 watts AM, or 5 watts ERP FM.  There are obviously range limitations built into those power maximums (it's just physics), but you can still cover a reasonably sized community or campus at those levels.  And you would be responsible for not interfering with the protected signal of any other radio station.

Community radio can be licensed anywhere, as long as there is available spectrum and you satisfy the other requirements.  So yes, I could do it here in Pitt Meadows.  You could even do it in Toronto if you can find an open frequency.  I could see it in communities such as Parkdale, the Beaches, the Island, University of Toronto, etc. (anywhere where there are self-contained communities).

I've been reluctant to contact Industry Canada re RSS123, as I haven't been able to come up with a suitable argument, at least in my own mind, that justifies broadcasting across property boundaries.  This community broadcasting license appears to me to be a far more viable alternative, and with fewer technical and programming restrictions.

TheLegacy, yes, you need to be a non profit organization to get this license.  They don't want the radio station to be a potential fly by night operation, and dependent on the financial health of one individual.  They also want to ensure that programming is local and oriented towards either a campus or a community (and not based on the likes or dislikes of one person), so they want multiple voices from that campus or community as programming directors.

It would be a very difficult sell to convince the FCC to give this kind of power (5 watts) to individual hobby broadcasters without some controls in place.  I've read multiple posts of people bemoaning the fact that there is nothing less than an LPFM that is available in the U.S. (other than Part 15) and even that is almost impossible to obtain. This could be one solution.  It's definitely a compromise from what you want, but it does give easier access to the airwaves for many more people, while ensuring true community radio.

As I stated, this Canadian service could be used as a template to get something similar in the U.S.

I get that they would not want a station to go off the air in a few months after start.  But to get your organization a recognized Legal organization is not an easy task.  I do know that many individuals faked organizations when they applied for an LPFM license.  I can think of one right near Deltaville.  There is the DJ, His Wife, and his kids that run the entire setup and they said that a club in Florida built the actual Radio Station.  Florida is NOT Virginia.

So with that in mind I could have Faked an organization called The Album Rock Preservation society and maybe even get a few bands to sign onto it.  Get them to donate and wham I'm on air and doing what I do now.  It just means one fakes a bunch of crap to convience the FCC and that is not what it should be but truly happens and I know this first hand. 

Maybe just to pan against Rap maybe it should be called Rockers Against Pop and get it recognized world wide.  Then simply move to Canada and live in a rural area or island find me a blank frequency and its off to the races.

So my point is it won't stop a Hobby Broadcaster who Really has connections in the music Industry or maybe goes to Shortwave conventions and talks and deals with the First Licensed Radio Pirate for I'm sure he would give all the secrets to how to get your station on air and not worry about getting busted for your actually legal in the FCC book.  Morally?  Well probably not so much.  Just a proof of concept here so anyone who tries this your on your own but just proof that that philosophy is not so iron clad as one may think to get Hobby Broadcasters off the dial.  Nice concept though but just showing some holes in that phan.

So wouldn't it just be better to try the same templete but modify it a bit?  Yea I sure think so.  You have to hand it to the government sometimes.  If it makes too much common sense it just won't happen.

It really doesn't take all that much to form a non-profit.  You need a board of directors (in this case, rooted in the community or school) and ideally a lawyer on that board to do the work gratis.

I have nothing against Part 15 and hobby broadcasters.  I am one.  But this kind of service is a cut above that - you're forming a real, licensed and regulated, somewhat professional radio station.  It's going to take more than a single person broadcasting out of their home to get that license.

Sometimes, if you want more, then you have to give something back in return.  You'll need a real studio location, equipped with capable audio equipment, and a suitable antenna location.  Plus the appropriate staffing (probably mostly volunteer) to be able to broadcast 24/7.  Never mind the right test equipment to ensure that you are meeting all technical requirements.

Again, I can't see those things being all that difficult if you get the community involved, particularly local government.  There is usually space available in various public buildings (offices, rec centers or schools) - you don't need much more than an overgrown closet for a studio.

It costs money to run a real radio station.  You'll need some source of initial funding, whether it donations, community grants, or even corporate sponsorship, whatever.  Having a board that has influential community members on it goes a long way towards that.  Plus, you'll have to get out there in the community to promote the station and sell advertising so that you can meet ongoing costs.

You're right, though.  This is not hobby broadcasting.  It's not meant to be.  But given the fact that it's highly unlikely that the FCC (or even Industry Canada) is going to change the rules for hobby/Part 15/BETS broadcasting, this is something is at least attainable by motivated individuals, and results in what we all profess to want - community (local) radio.

You cannot fake your way to a LPFM license. I had to provide supporting documentaion from the State of Florida to prove that we were who we said we were.

"I have nothing against Part 15 and hobby broadcasters.  I am one.  But this kind of service is a cut above that - you're forming a real, licensed and regulated, somewhat professional radio station.  It's going to take more than a single person broadcasting out of their home to get that license."

But you are one person and not a "not for profit business" so how would you get to meet the terms for this license?

Don't know how it could be done but BETS-1 could work for you if you could get one or two more Decade MS-100(s) and install them in one or two other locations around Osprey Village and get your feed from your place to the other transmitters somehow besides the one in your place. But how to do that is the issue.

Decade does the paperwork for RSS-123 and other classifications for you and maybe you can call him and see what he says about what you want to do.

Mark

An individual cannot get a Community Radio license.  I would have to inspire local interest and get community leaders to agree to serve on the board of the non profit organization that we would have to create.

I just don't think that either BETS or RSS123 is going to do what I want to do.  I will contact Decade and see what they think about RSS123.  But the more I think about it, the more interested I get in attempting to create a real radio station.

I guess maybr Mark was right, the RSS210 debate is dead horse beating. I honestly didn't realize it was one of those circular discussions. 

Wait a sec.. the horse is... Where the hell  that expression come from? Beating a dead horse? Was it to tenderize?

Anyway, came across this and it seemed relevant to current discussions so I bumped back from temp limbo.

Don't know why these old posts/threads say anonymous instead of the poster.
Bottom line anything that requires a licence of some kind is so hard to get with so much "red tape" that if you are told that you need a license it is virtually impossible.
And what does a nonprofit organization mean? What kind of organization? What is an "organization"?
Does that mean a single person can't do this?

The RSS-210 debate is about broadcasting vs nonbroadcasting and using a Procaster in Canada, this older thread was about low power community licenses, like part 73 in the US.
My opinion is there would be a lot less "pirates" if when you are told you need a license that the license was at least a faint possibility to get, not that I am condoning breaking the law.
Artisan could do what he wants on Bowen Island/Pitt Meadows if he had a way of several Decade MS-100s around the area and a way to get the audio and power to them and also where to put them. Is that possible with transmitters that need to be wired physically for power and audio?

Whatever we have, it's human nature to want a bit more. I have friends in the UK who are surprised that in Canada and the US, we are even allowed 100mW DC input to a 3 meter antenna on the AM band with no license requirement. It IS pretty neat but, like probably many others here, I catch myself wanting just a bit more. 1 watt to a 10 meter antenna would be grand. Heck, I'd settle for the same power of 100mW DC input if all antenna restrictions were lifted! 1 watt on the FM band, like they have in NZ would be dead spiffy, though from an engineering standpoint, I don't find the FM band to be as interesting.

But of course, not likely to happen. There's just not the political will. We are a tiny group, with no political influence.

I occasionally wish I were a lot more outgoing. With the help of a friend, I did organize a group of volunteers to fund and run a small pirate station I ran in the UK 40 years ago. That was an outlier incident though. In my older years, I have had to accept that fact that I am not a group-oriented person at all. I am a happy loner, which is why I'm wishing us individual hobbyists could have just a little more power and slightly bigger antennas.

@rugster  Agreed that we humans tend to want more than we have. At the same time I believe it would be perfectly reasonable for the FCC in the U.S. to grant more access to airwaves than we currently have. But again, you are right about our not having the influence it would take to move the FCC to bother with such small potatoes. My opinion is that the FCC is prompted to respond to money and political pressure. Small people are of no interest to them.

@mark  Mark, I believe I know why some past forum entries are attributed to 'Anonymous'. I suspect it was a parting gesture by a former webmaster or moderator who disliked certain members, including me, and stopped short of erasing the entries entirely because it would have ruined the overall continuity of a thread. He (they) did a similar thing at the old ALPB Forum, shading me out by re-naming me as 'Deleted Member'.

Mark, This may help you with the info you were looking for elsewhere. https://recnet.com/unlicensed for most countries including Canada