I'm sure I've posted a few of these thoughts here over the past few months but I've sort of gathered them together.
Coverage vs. Listenership
I see on the forums on a somewhat regular basis conversations about increasing coverage of a Part 15 radio station. Different antennas, transmitters, processing, multiple transmitters, even those who want to petition the FCC for a new class of radio station or changes to the Part 15 rules to increase power. But I always wonder.... What have you done to insure you have all the listeners you can with the signal you have?
If you're a Part 15 broadcaster who is running your station for your own enjoyment, broadcasting to yourself, or just doing it because you can and don't really care about listenership you don't really need to read any further. Or if you're one of those “flying under the radar” and are for some reason afeared of letting people know you're on the air, or you're just paranoid, move on, there's nothing to see here.
But if you ARE trying to gain listenership what have you done lately to advance this goal? Obviously what you can or should do relies greatly upon where you are located as the plan might be different for someone in a city location as opposed to one like myself, operating in a very small town where my Part 15 AM easily covers the entire community. But trying to increase coverage is silly if you haven't already gleaned all the listeners you can with the signal you have.
If you haven't, determine your range. I do not mean how far you can hear your station on your car radio. That doesn't count unless you think people will actually go out to their cars, or park in your coverage area to listen. Get out there with a variety of radios and see where you can hear your station will enough to actually enjoy listening. Within any coverage area you're going to find spots where you can get out of your car, take a handheld portable radio and listen. Around the corner of a building out of direct sight of your transmitter, at a friends house, etc. In your town or neighborhood I'm sure you know people. Pop in and tell them you're testing your station reception. If they don't already know about it you've already taken a step to spread the word. Once you've done the best you can to determine your actual coverage area you can go to work. (I have another article about determining coverage if you're interested)
Look and see what's in your coverage. Stores, churches, clubs, meeting halls, offices, homes, etc. Take a day and stop in at these public locations. Stop in the stores, make up a flyer to give them that tells who you are, what you broadcast, where to listen, a schedule if you have one, etc. Encourage them to give you any public service or community announcements they'd like broadcast, for free of course. The big 100,000 watt station downtown is NOT going to broadcast a notice for a church bake sale in a neighborhood in a suburb 27 miles away. They are not going to broadcast the days and times for the neighborhood rummage sales. YOUR big ADVANTAGE here is you are IN the community and you CARE. The big stations don't CARE. The couldn't possibly announce all the little events going on in neighborhoods around a city, and in rural areas the stations in town nearby don't get to focus on YOUR area. You get the unique opportunity to focus 100% on YOUR small town or neighborhood. Get out there and think community service. Make contact with your potential listeners. Don't harass them or hard sell them into listening. Just let 'em know you're on, and invite them to give it a try. Clearly depending on your format you may want to target your crowd a bit. If you're playing death metal you may not want to talk to daycare operators or try to win over the local church goers. But if you have a family friendly format, by all means do so. Offer to broadcast the churches service. I've worked with Ministers who have recorded a service during the week, burned it on a CD and have brought it to me to play each week on sundays. I had one Minister record a simple 5 minute message weekly that we broadcast on Sunday mornings. The trick is they have to prepare it and get it to you, but you'll broadcast it for free. Know what happens? The church may mention you in the bulletin. Or the Sunday announcements. This means the hundreds of church goers will hear about your station, know you are community oriented, and supportive of the area.
I have always offered commercials for free to any business that can actually listen to me on the air. Stop in at the businesses, let them know you're in the area and they can have free ads. Go in with a digital recorder in your hand to record THEM doing the ads. They all secretly love to do it, and they WILL get feedback from anyone who hears them on the air. Don't worry if they're not pros. They'll feel special about it, they'll get some feedback, and they'll tell their family and friends they're on the radio. I SELL commercials (at thirty cents each) to any business who wants to be on the air that is NOT in my listening area. A hundred spots for $30 is a heck of a deal compared to any deal from any commercial station. Most stations in a larger city $30 won't even buy ONE ad! Offer to send them an mp3 of their commercial that they can play for their friends. If you're handy in the studio (and you should be) fix up their spot with some editing, add some appropriate background music (NOTHING from a commercial CD lest you encounter copyright issues. Get some production music.) make 'em sound great! This adds local focus to your station, spreads goodwill and generates a lot of talk and word of mouth.
Now, there are ways to promote that aren't free but are very cheap. Buy some business cards. Go online to a place like Vistaprint where you can get 500 cards for about 15 bucks (don't pay for the fast shipping, it doesn't really make much difference). Pass them out at all the businesses and everywhere else you stop. Leave some extras. Here in my small town I have a stack at the post office, library, city hall, and community bulletin boards. Cheap Cheap advertising.
See if your local newspaper finds you interesting enough to do a story. Now, I know a lot of people send up the red flag “Oh my God, publicity – I'll surely get harassed by the FCC” You shouldn't be worried if you're legal. I have gone out of my way to be blatantly legal. There are plenty of stories of stations that got in the paper, etc and got busted. Umm, you wouldn't get busted if you're legal.
Get involved with local clubs and groups. Garden club? Model airplane club? Seek them out and tell them they can announce their upcoming meetings on the air. If there's a school in your area perhaps there's a student group that would like to produce a weekly “News of the Maple Street Elementary School” program that you would air free of course. It makes a great classroom project. Talk to some teachers, etc. In todays computer world they should have no problem recording a program on a PC and saving an mp3 you can use. If the teacher sends a note home with the kids that says “The fourth grade class will be doing their news program on XYZ Radio Tuesday at 4 PM, you can bet any parents withing range will be tuning in!
Build a website. You don't need anything fancy. You can do it free. There are plenty of freehosting sites with easy templates. Spend a few bucks and buy a domain name. Then you wind up with an easy to say and remember website address. And don't get all cutsey with it. Like “greatradio4u.com” is stupid. It means you have to explain it. You have to tell people “that's greatradio, the number 4 and the letter u dot com”. Keep it simple and straightforward so you cal tell people. I use both the station slogan/name “ironrangecountry.com” and the call letters “kebsradio.com” both point to the same home page. You probably won't be able to use just call letters or numbers, because most number combinations are taken, like “1620am” or any three or 4 letter combination. Some cat bought up all the 2, 3, 4, letter combination domains years ago and if you want one you have to buy from him at a substantial premium. So, keep it simple and easy to tell people. You don't need a big fancy web page. But a good landing page with some contact information, programming info, email, phone if you have one, etc. By the way, keep the email simple and related too. Don't go with some cutesy name here either like “[email protected]. Just use your station name or call, etc. Make it easy and simple to tell and remember.
Do you HAVE a station phone? Not that you have to, but if you'd like to have a number that's NOT your home phone I discovered there are some very cheap cell services. I got a free phone from Puretalk.com with service at $5 a month. Now, that's only for an hour of service and texting each month but that's probably all you'll ever need. You can call people back on your home phone. But it lets you have a station number without having your home phone ring all hours of the day and night.
Now, I have done a few things that are somewhat extravagant by Part 15 standards. We have a nice local, small town newspaper. They did a wonderful two page article on my station when we launched complete with huge color photo above the fold on the front page. I signed up to have a small display ad in their paper every week (it's only a weekly paper). It's in color. It cost me $20 a month. But everyone in town who reads the paper sees my logo and a one line plug in every edition, and I let them put it wherever it fits each week so it winds up on different pages. Again, in the paper means near all the other business ads, local stories, community news and notes, and makes you part of the whole pie. If you're in a larger city you're still in a neighborhood. You may have a local shopper. Focus on what's in YOUR area and utilize it.
How about bumper stickers? Stickermonkey.com is about the cheapest I've found. I have a stack for free taking at the post office, library and local coffee shop and antique mall. Pass 'em out when you go in businesses. Even if people never stick them on their car, they have them laying around and will see them and be AWARE of you and your station.
Matchbooks. Imprinted. Cheap. Bring cases to the local bars and places where smokers hang out.
Imprinted guitar picks. Cheap in bulk. Pass 'em out.
My biggest splurge was a storefront office on main street right in the center of downtown (downtown here is two blocks long). I bought a bright real neon sign with a vintage look with the call letters and frequency that hangs in the front display window. Everyone who drives buy can't miss it, especially at night – and during the winter up here night starts at about 4:30 in the afternoon and goes till 8 AM for a few months! I also put a large logo decal on the front door. We update the window display for the seasons and events., and make sure it lights up so it attracts attention. I rarely use the office in reality. It's clean and clearly visible inside from the sidewalk. Three large artist posters, a bookcase displaying old radios, a big desk mic, and an equipment rack with a full width two row LED VU meter monitors the studio so when people look inside there's some activity. I'm in a town of 800 people. An 8x10 office front that includes the front door and window display size window is quite reasonable.
Put up some tasteful flyers on community bulletin boards. If there're located in businesses be sure to touch base with the folks in the shop, tell them about your station, that you're putting a flyer on the bulletin board, and let them know you're non-commercial and they can run free ads.
Now, you may not be strictly non-commercial. I'm not. But for my people, my listeners ads are free and I do all I can to take up the cause for whatever they want to promote. I'm able to use the funds I generate from my out of town ads to pay for my operation and have plenty left to support local causes. Once a year the town has their Farmers Day Festival. I'm a poster sponsor. My logo is on all the posters that go up in town and for miles around. This festival has gone on for well over 100 years. It's quite popular. I do free ads for it on the air as well, of course. The local high school puts out sports schedule posters for fall, winter, and spring sports. I have an ad on the border with my logo. Every other business that sponsors the poster sees my ad, as well as the parents and high school sports fans. This leads to out of area ad sales and more awareness from local potential listeners.
Look specifically for civic minded events and activities that you can support with your station. That's the whole idea behind radio anyway – to serve the public interest. And in doing so the public notices your station, and that's a good thing.
So, unless you're broadcasting to yourself or just for fun, or you're “flying under the radar” and don't really WANT people to know about you, here are just a few ideas. I'm sure you can think of many more.
Tim in Bovey
I use Google Voice which is FREE. Just head to http://google.com/voice you'll get a choice of local phone numbers. You pick one and give that out. How it works is you can forward it to your home or cell phone and when you don't want calls you can turn off the forwarding so you don't get calls at all hours. I really have not had any issue with that though.
All good ideas, Tim. They work well when you have some sort of signal to listen to. But when you literally can't get down the block to a typical radio, then they don't make much sense (unless, of course, you focus on your Internet streaming). However, there is something special about over the air broadcasting.
In the U.S., that's the case with Part 15 FM. In Canada, we have a special class of unlicensed broadcasting - BETS - that addresses that and you can at least cover a neighbourhood or small community. I believe that some sort of similar unlicensed class in the U.S. makes a lot of sense - it at least brings up FM closer to the range you can get with Part 15 AM.
In a lot of cases, particularly in urban areas, Part 15 AM isn't a great alternative to FM. There's lots of noise, and the AM signals can't penetrate into a lot of concrete buildings. Even 50,000 watt stations can't be received! Plus, depending on your programming, sometimes AM isn't the best choice (for a lot of types of music, as an example).
You also need some real estate to install Part 15 AM stations, and many just don't have it (or are restricted as to the antennas they can erect).
Anyway, that's the rationale, at least for me, in looking at potentially increasing the range of Part 15 FM. Once you actually have some meaningful range wtih FM, then you can focus on increasing your listeners within your coverage area.
The only way to Legally get listeners for Now on FM is to park in diferent places with a Laptop computer and a power inverter for your ride. While your wife shops you can sit in the car, van, truck and broadcast on a blank frequency. You could put a sign on your window and run your show. You could even get the public in on the more Power For FM movement. Run a promo every so often call it the Pro part 15 FM promo. Post on Factbook the day and times you are going to run your show on FM. If you live near a library or restaurants you could run your show outside the restaurant while you eat if you record your show before hand. NextKast allows for voice tracking so this would get your station known at the restaurant if you talk to the owner and see if they will tune into your station on the restaurants Radio.
Remember it was stated that people are posting on Amazon that they are turning the Whole House FM Transmitter to High Power. Their not getting NOUO's the reason I'm mentioning this is that at that power level if there was going to be interference and there is not we have a case to fight the Anti FM's with. Since people have been doing it and no issue with planes falling from the sky, Pro broadcasters still exists we have a case of why not make it legal at that power level so we can have certified harmonic and spur free transmitters on the air. That along with only allowing the .1 .3 .5 .7 .9 after the decimal and mandatory scanning the frequency's prior to transmitting will solve any issues. Most people don't live near businesses and I don't know if all are willing to travel from parking lot to parking lot to do a show and get noticed on the puny little power we are allowed. We really need to think of expanding the range and our case is right smack dab in front of us.
Tim posted an excellent essay on making the maximum use of the Part 15 power limits AS THEY ARE, before seeking an increase in power.
This is a good place to attach a reference to one of those Part 15 rules most of us tend to skim past without reading...
15.15 General Technical Requirements (excerpt) (c.) ...the parties responsible for equipment compliance are encouraged to employ the minimum field strength necessary for communications...
That's exactly what I do here at KDX Worldround Radio!
But of course I am one of those people described by Tim in a category who listens to his own station. If I can receive it, no more power is needed because I am not trying to "serve" the neighbors.
KDX AM 1670 transmits with 36 mW to the final RF stage! That's the lowest setting for the AMT5000, which can be set at 100 mW and even up to 368 mW. With my Sangean U1 Yard Radio I can receive KDX all over the yard! Yet when I drive out, the signal doesn't get very far because it doesn't need to.
KDX-FM is even closer to home, used indoors only for audio editing and studio transmitter link, the Part 15.239 level is worthless for yardcasting.
(FOR THE RECORD: I support an increase of 15.239 to match Canadian BETS levels, not for my own benefit, but because it would reasonably improve circumstances for FM broadcasters that I feel are insulted by 15.239, which surely must be an FCC joke.)
in the center of town.
In Connecticut a guy did this every
Saturday for at least a couple of
years.
He had something like a Rangemaster.
It was fed by a computer I'm thinking.
He must have had a power inverter.
He drove his truck in, set up the transmitter
and antenna on the back of the truck, and put
down a ground system. Also the truck was part
of the ground system, too.
The programming was recorded in his studio
during the week.
Radio Collinsville on 1620.
At sunset he took it down
and left - but he would come
back early the next Saturday
to do it all over again. And he
had listeners - because people
read his station name and frequency
on his truck and then they tuned in.
Genius.
Brooce, DOGRADIO
P.S. If you google it you can see a picture.
If you have any trouble doing that let me
know on this thread.
Brooce, I was thinking of doing something like that with my ProCaster, as I'm not allowed external antennas where I live now. Throw it in the car, attach a whip to the back of the car and instant radio station. To top it off, you can drive to where you want your coverage area to be. The only down side is that you can't stream, but I guess you could run a parallel stream on your computer at home - there's latency on any stream anyway.
And yes, Carl, I do think that Tim has written a great guide to getting listeners. In the U.S., it would work well with AM, and in Canada with FM as well - I did do a lot of the things he recommended, but I had a different business model (sponsorship-based, as opposed to commercials). I do like the idea of commercials if I ever decide to attempt to make a business out of radio again.
Thanks Tim.
I hope even if we get more power on FM that there is lower power modes for when you want to krrp the range close for example computer to home theater system across the room. You dont need 500mW for that.
Judging from the photos it appears that Radio Collinsville would be violating the long ground lead rule. If we assume his antenna is 10 feet, hard to tell in the photo. But still there are several feet between his transmitter and his "ground plane". But I like his chutzpah.
Tim in Bovey
The ALPB meetings are the best and safest place to share your story without fear of the Anti FM trolls. Oh well Tomorrow may be dooms day for some part 15 AM stations and you can hear the crying from the Anti FM folks as we get to say "I told you so."
I like his radials.
Great info Tim. I guess I fall into the category of the tinkerer who really doesn't care who's listening. I just like to tinker and see what I can do to make it work better (read more range legally.) Although I will say it's quite a thrill when someone lets you know they heard your station.
I've been using the Talking House with ATU for several years. It's always done a fair job but to do it right you'd have to tune the antenna system every time the weather changes. Putting radials under the antenna helped stabilize it somewhat but the range is still very changeable with weather swings.
The furthest I've heard the Talking House is about 1.5 miles, very weak on a car radio.
I've decided to concentrate on carrier current operation for a while and so far it's been very successful. I'm using neutral injection at 5 watts. Oh for an FIM to know for sure what the field strength is.
The signal is fairly consistant once I'm a couple hundred feet from my house. And, it does seem to follow the power lines as it should. There is the concern that maybe it's more "free radiate" than carrier current but when I'm away from the power lines it will fade.
The furthest I've heard my signal so far is about 3 miles on a car radio. And although weak, very usable.
I have to read them all a bunch of times.
On the ground lead thing for the AM Part 15
in the truck, yeah, it guess it ran long - but -
I don't think anybody was thinking about that
sort of thing then. I have reason to believe
he has been off for many years. I do know he
was an extremely enthusiastic Part 15 dude.
I heard him talk about it on the local 50,000 watt AM
station. It was a long time ago.
What a great thing he did!
Now I've got to go back and go
through all of your comments before
this computer starts fighting me too hard.
Very best wishes to all
Brooce, DOGRADIO
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