The thing is, when does hobby radio end and professional radio begin?
If you're talking 1/4 to 1/2 mile to a typical radio (i.e., portable) in a typical environment, that's well past the hobbyist stage, in my opinion, and probably the opinion of most licensed stations. At that point, you can certainly take away listeners and advertising revenue from the latter, and you're also talking about fairly big power compared to the nanowatts we have today.
But you know what? Instead of throwing around opinions, it would be a good idea to get out there in the radio marketplace and survey radio stations to see what they actually think, rather than put words in their mouths. Opinions from others don't really matter.
wdcx's suggestions are pretty good ones. Canada has a licensed (from Industry Canada but not the CRTC, which is the tough one to get and the most expensive) service similar to what is being suggested, i.e., RSS123. It is intended for broadcasting within performance venues. Despite what the guys over at Hobbybroadcaster were throwing around, there is NO U.S. equivalent in Part 15, i.e., Part 15 does not allow you to have a certain field strength at your property boundary. I read that thread, and I think they were saying it would be nice to have, not that it was possible today.
prior to 1989 on fm you could have 50uV/m @ 100m (iirc) from the antenna or from the boundary of an educational campus. then post 89 they specified 250uV/m @ 3m from antenna and dropped the college campus fm rules.
How is 1/4-1/2 mile considered professional? Semi, maybe, but pro? Pro stations put out thousands of watts, not NANOwatts.
I don't know about a lot of you out there and what portion of the FM band is usable for part 15 use. But here the FM band is FULL beyond words, all the money in the world is not going to buy you an open FM broadcast band channel and NO ONE is going to sell you an FM station that any one of us could afford in our life time. Only the BIG corporations can afford to aquire an FM channel in my area of Connecticut.
Now, as far as anyone asking for more power or using more power on FM, realistically, some may have to step over that gray area just to use their devices at all.
If the FCC opened up a few channels strictly for part 15 use ONLY and blocked any licensed stations from using those channels, people might be more inclined to stay legal or accept a slight increase in field strength. However, as long as part 15 and licensed stations SHARE the SAME channel, people are going try to gain some usable ground by stepping over that gray area.
Part 15 should at the very least, be allowed a set of protected channels, that do not allow any licensed stations with an ERP of 10 watts or more to operate on them.
I DO REALIZE, part 15 has NO RIGHTS when it comes to interference free opertation against a licensed station, however, I think the issue with pirate stations, which operate at higher then legal RF power, might be less of an issue if the FCC set forth an allocation of legal FM channels that only part 15 devices can use without competition from powerful licensed FM radio stations.
I know when my station used 87.9MHz, although that was an unauthorized channel for such use, our Decade MS100 transmitters did quite well on that channel, unlike any other FM channel above 88.1MHz or below 108.0MHz (107.9) because we had no high powered station killing our signal within 200 feet of the transmitter.
At times, I have to admit, when we were on the normal FM band, 88.1 to 107.9MHz, it was VERY tempting to raise the RF output a little bit just to overcome the interference, which is why I think a lot of people take the risk and operate in non-compliance.
Bruce.
What you said Bruce makes the most sence. And with 87.7 and 87.9 Mhz open to this type of operation will stop any jamming issues. I can be certain there will be nay sayers, but now that TV went Digitael i believe this is the best solution. Radio hobbyists are surely not going away. The jennie ids out.
macdev, it's certainly not hobbyist anymore with that kind of range (and a lot more to more sensitive receiving apparatus - if you're getting 1/2 mile to a portable, you're probably looking at several miles to a car radio). And you have the capability of creating a business out of that kind of coverage.
Hobbyist radio is what we have today. Part 15 and BETS-1. The intention of the FCC and Industry Canada is to limit range to a few hundred feet (the FCC says 200 feet, Industry Canada, even with more allowed field strength, says 100 feet). I don't think that's going to change very much, if at all (you might be able to convince the FCC to bring Part 15 FM up to BETS-1 levels but that's not going to give you much more than you have today). I think that the regulatory bodies feel that if hobbyists are throttled to that degree, they have very little chance of generating interference, and thus don't require regulation.
If you are going to get substantial range (1/4 to 1/2 mile or more), then I believe the only way to do that is to create a licensed, regulated service for neighbourhood broadcasting, something like what New Zealand has. Regulated in the sense that there may have to be station inspections before they go on the air, and the possibility of inspections after that. Regulated also in the sense that perhaps they can have a few channels all to themselves - I don't know if it would be 87.7 or .9, as those seem to be already spoken for, but perhaps somewhere else. The license could even be free, or almost free - but I think that it would be necessary to give both the FCC and other licensed stations the comfort level that this isn't an invitation for these stations to enter into the wild west of broadcasting. That the owners of these stations are known, and are committing to follow the rules (unlike, it seems some days, hobbyist radio). Hopefully the reporting requirements, EAS requirements, etc. would be a lot less than licensed stations, otherwise that would likely kill it, as these stations are going to be one man (or woman) shows for the most part.
Anyway, my 2 cents (and probably worth what I'm charging for it).
I guess there is a doubl. Standard type feeling with the part 15 community feeling I need to deal with before i can make the FM initiative fly. AM can go 2 miles and IS considered Hobby Radio and has no issues neighborhood casting. Try it with FM and your looked at badly. Really? Has this country downgraded to this illogical and unethical thinking? Or is it that most Radio listeners could not give AM a second chance? ,i get in some locations FM wont work just as some locations AM wont. But this IS WHY I am pushing for FM reeducation. The reason some NPR stations were jammed by knowledgeable consummers was the fault of both the transmitter manufacturer's and the FCC itself. Manufacturer's have a responsibility to let consumers know there should be a blank channel above and below your intended frequency as well as a database link. The FCC should have allowed as soon as TV went digital 87.7 and 87.9 for neighborhood casting.
^^ This.
So. Much. This.
Too many people are complacent with "hobby FM" going a block or two (or three on a good day), but AM can go two miles. Why aren't people complaining more about this?
So my next question would be - what's the point of doing radio as a hobby if nobody can hear you? I'm a practical person. If I'm going to drop $ on something, I need to feel like I'm getting that back. People are happy with "broadcasting" to their backyard with all this gear when you can do the whole thing with wifi and your smartphone. It makes no sense to me.
Maybe it's my attitude towards radio. I always felt that radio should be broadcast to the people, be it a small community or a large area, but not your driveway.
And this goes back to the first question I always had - **WHY** is the limit of Part 15 Fm 250 uV @3m and not something higher? Nobody's been able to answer that. Nobody's answered the question about why there's a large gap between Part 15 and LPFM. There's also a major inconsistency between the state of FM and what people are willing to do with it.
Fill in that gap. Let the FCC give small community liceneses out to people. It may also curb the pirates if you make them legal.
The reason Part 15 is throttled is obviously to prevent hordes of unregulated (i.e., unlicensed) broadcasters who have varying degrees of skill and knowledge clogging up the airwaves and generating interference to existing, regulated and licensed services (who also pay pay for the right to broadcast).
FM is of particular concern because of the crowded nature of the band.
In my opinion, after giving this a lot of thought, the ONLY way to get more range is to create that extra class of service - neighbourhood or community broadcasting (or whatever you want to call it). License it (even if the license fee is minimal) and regulate it, as they do in New Zealand.
With the state of the FM band today (and it's even going to get worse in the future), I can't see it being there unless additional frequencies are allocated, reserved for this class of service. I could see it for the AM band; I'm not even convinced the FCC or Industry Canada cares about that band, as the FCC's solution to revitalize it is to allow those stations to effectively move to FM.
Artisan said:
"I'm not even convinced the FCC or Industry Canada cares about that band, as the FCC's solution to revitalize it is to allow those stations to effectively move to FM."
I've said this on past rants about the demise of the AM band. The FCC and Industry Canada don't care because people don't care. Do you think the FCC and IC get complaints that people can't listen to AM in their homes because of the electrical interference?
I also agree with Macdev....what's the point of a hobby station if no one can hear you....Paying good money for a decent transmitter, a compressor to have it sound good, putting a realistic sounding station on the air which takes some work, to just play to the backyard(if you have one) and entertain the birds? or as Thelegacy said "the flies on the wall".
I know here in Toronto Canada that if I were to go on AM, even if I could go a decent distance there would be no chance anyone would listen. What would be the point of buying a Procaster for $695 and up(ouch!) to entertain empty space? Even after the elaborate set up you need.
I support New Zealand's way of regulating it so any Tom, Dick and Harry can't just abuse it to fool around and cause interference....An affordable fee and being registered in return for more signal strength that could match Canada's or even more. A separate few frequencies would be good but people's radios have to be able to get it or it's no good.
Being on AM would be good prior to 1978 when the majority of people listened to AM and you would get listeners and the reception was interference free.
By the way Artisan, I emailed Resound and am waiting for a reply.
Mark
From my research and recollection, FCC §15.209 and FCC §15.239 originally were expected by the FCC to provide about equal usefulness for unlicensed, intentionally-radiating systems using the AM and FM broadcast bands -- which by physics could not be expected to exceed several hundred feet to a consumer-level, indoor receive system (let alone 1/2 mile or more).
Later on the FCC added §15.219, hoping to simplify compliance with the fields permitted by §15.209 without the need for an expensive meter to measure/prove compliance.
Still later, some "Part 15" AM transmitter proponents supported the use of added, radiating conductors, which improved the radiation efficiency of antenna systems they claimed to be compliant with §15.219 when using only a ~ 3-meter "antenna" and a very short "ground lead" - and all of which they defined as still meeting §15.219(b).
But as predicted by physics and shown by FCC NOUOs issued to operators of such AM systems, that is not the case.
However it probably does explain the origin for the belief (of some) that the FCC permits greater coverage for unlicensed AM systems than it does for unlicensed FM systems.
Rich brought up a good point.
The AM range wasn't really intended to be more than FM! Never realized that!
The only reason it is..is because the addition of radials and loading coils that people devised while still keeping the antenna and ground length was a way to get around the range restriction....a loophole you could say!
I think the reason it's allowed is going back to the subject of this thread....no one cares, rightly or wrongly.
Mark
It's a Catch 22 with Part 15 FM.
Music does sound better on FM, so most people, if they listen to the radio, listen to FM. However, that means that radio stations that play music all want to be on FM, causing congestion on the band, and no place for Part 15 operation (plus little likelihood of increasing the range, as that would increase the probability of interference).
A good AM transmitter still has reasonable sound. And perhaps if there was something worth listening to on the AM band in some locales, it would attract listeners. Unfortunately, even when it comes to FM, crap that sounds good is still crap.
There are AM stations that are successful and have loads of listeners. They are the ones that are giving people what they want. I used to listen to AM radio all the time, as there was a Victoria area radio station that played interesting alternative music. The lack of FM sound quality didn't bother me at all, as there was nowhere else I could get that kind of programming. Unfortunately, that station is now gone, but if something else showed up in its place, I would give it a try.
And I hate to break it to a lot of people, but Part 15 stations generally don't get that many listeners (over-the-air) period, as the range is too limited. Even with AM and a good (legal, ground mounted) installation with a Rangemaster and an Inovonics 222, my noise free range to a portable receiver was a lot less than 1/4 mile - I could hear my station over the noise at up to a mile with a sensitive car receiver, but most wouldn't listen to that quality of signal for long. That was in a suburban area, with a relatively high noise floor, and as Tim has shown us, the noise floor means a great deal when it comes to range.
I really have my doubts about the possibilities of getting more power on the FM band, unless you can somehow convince the FCC that another licensed and regulated service is needed. So what can be lost by attempting to better utilize the AM band with Part 15? I don't think most Part 15'ers will lose many listeners, and if you really can get up to, say, 1/2 mile range to a portable receiver located inside a home, you stand to gain a lot.
Now that would be true AM revitalization.
That isn't entirely correct according to a field inspector I spoke with at the Los Angeles office. He said 15.219 was designed for, as he put it, "parking lot" broadcasting so that churches, drive-ins and malls could broadcast in their lots without a license. Yes, the signal is supposed to die out after a short distance but no field strength is given to allow for the flexibility of covering different sized areas. If a entity needed to cover more area, a second transmitter could be used.
Again, if you look at the FCC inspector training manuals (redacted copies are available on Hobbycaster.net) it clearly acknowledges that 15.219 has no field strength requirements.
my little fm goes about 600ft to a car radio. about 250ft to a portable all band. i am in an apartment on the first floor.
i have my building plus 3 others in close proximinty each building has about 30 units.
that is a lot of potential listeners.
i have a blowtorch less than a 1/4 mile away spitting out ihash so my am does not do so well.
tried carrier current with poor results.
great in and close to building but even with neutral it won't jump transformers and go to other buildings.
i am working on a solar power remote site to put another part 15 fm (possibly an AM as well) linked via 900 mhz near the clubhouse/office/pool area.