Hey What's the Difference? (in a nutshell)

Basically licensed and unlicensed, but before we jump in, check the regs yourself;

Part 73 - http://www.fcc.gov/guides/low-power-broadcast-radio-stations#PROHIBITED
- and ... http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/amfmrule.html
Part 15 - http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title47/47cfr15_main_02.tpl

... you'll see that there are literally thousands of RF devices which fall under Part 15, but IIRC one of the original intentions was for listening to records in another room. Companies like Zenith made record players with small single tube AM transmitters. All you had to do was put a radio in the desired room and tune in to the record player's transmitter frequency.

Today virtually all small wireless devices fall under some section(s) of Part 15, thousands of different types ... from cell phones to WiFi networks to medical gear to family walkie-talkies, the list is very long.

Ken is right, and many of us started with those "phono oscillators" he talked about. Back in the 50s there were so-called Knight Kits that were basically low power tube transmitters that could be hooked to a record player to hear disks on AM radios in within a few hundred feet.

Clever minds quickly realized they could turn these mini-transmitters into radio stations and start tweaking the range in various ways.

In Part 73 there are also a few low power transmitters covered, but they are the ones used by licensed stations, for example, to have radio communications for their own staff at remote baseball games or concerts, and have a little more power than part 15 allows.

You can learn a lot just by browsing those rules Ken linked.

I appreciate it, guys. I've heard about part 73 use this and part 15 use that and never really heard them interchanged until I was reading an fcc nou and read the history where a guy that had been busted had contacted the director of the fcc in his area and asked to change his status from part 15 to part 73, so I then thought it might be something worth looking in to. Doesn't look like that would serve my purposes anyway...looks like no usable "broadcast" spectrum for part 73 anyway, just curious, thanks again!

Dave VQX

And you'll pour a ton of money into a "licensed" operation just to obtain the license.

Between engineering costs to research and apply for the license and proving financial capability to operate a station, the cost is out of reach for the average person.

How did Mom and Pop stations do it? Must have been a simpler time...

How much for a license? That's nuts!!! A frequency coordinator? That's even more nuts!!! Then, if you're denied, no guarantee of a refund? Who does business like that? We would probably be prosecuted BY the Federal Government if we pulled something like that! I think I'll just go back to humbly tinkering...later (and thanks!)

Around 1960 the FM Broadcast Band was "wide open" and with the introduction of stereo FM several new stations were built and on the air. At the time I lived west of Dayton, Ohio in a small town where most people either worked for heavy industry in Dayton or were local farmers. This was primarily a rural area and in Eaton Ohio, about 25 miles west of Dayton, a group of three partners established a small local FM station called WCTM which provided music and local news with almost no commercials. One of the owners was a gentlemen named Stan Coning and I had occasion to meet him and tour the station in my official capacity of being the High School Yearbook Photographer. He purchased an ad in the yearbook and I was there to take pictures for it.

For whatever reason the station was sold in the early '70s but Mr. Coning's love for broadcasting prevailed and he started an AM station built on an abandoned drive-in theater site. The site was located on farm land between Eaton and West Alexandria near an intersection of a state route and a country road which the locals called Dadsville.

Scott Fybush has turned his hobby of visiting radio stations throughout the country into a business and Mr. Coning's new AM station was one of the stations he visited and posted on his website. The writeup and pictures from his website give some idea of the difficulty Mr. Coning had starting a new relatively low power AM station. This was around 1980 and I drove by the site many times and watched the towers being erected.

I offer this here as an example of one man's story about starting and running small broadcast stations and I doubt that this has become easier to do in the present.

Neil

I wouldn't mind having
250 watts day only.

The photographs were great, too!

Bruce, SLUG 88.3

"what's the difference between Part 15 and Part 73 operation?"

One is licensed to violate, while the other is non-licensed to adhere to the law.

One is expensive, while the other can be expensive too, it does not have to be.

One allows more power (and blatant interference), while the other disallows ANY kind of REAL power OR interference.

One attempts to serve a public interest, while the other demonstrates public service by doing.

One blames everything else for their troubles, while the other overcomes, learns and adapts.

RFB