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Prometheus radio can probably offer some good advice on getting an LPFM together, if you have any open channels.

What other info do you need?

Mixers, computers, software, other equipment, connectors, cables, microphones, etc... I can offer free advice on those things, but aside from advice that's about all I can offer at this time. Please provide an approximate budget for your station. You can get by with a surprisingly small list of equipment. Ebay might be your friend to put everything together.

I can tell you that I am putting together my list with prices for building the antena on the SStran web site for use with their AMT3000 AM transmitter. I hope to have that list done this week after a trip to Home Depot. I would offer to help build the transmitter kit, and parts of the antenna, but I just don't seem to have the time at the moment. I might be able to make time for the transmitter kit, since that should only take an hour or two for me to build.

I have most of the studio equipment. CPU and I even have a copy of BSI automation. I will need to look at a board and a few items. The biggest help I need is with the engineering of the transmitters. What knid of price are you getting on the Rangemasters. I have contacted Prometheus for help. With the locations for transmitters I think I can make this work. I also did a search on recnet for frequency on non-com FMs. It says there may be one availible near me. Looks like it could only be a 2kw or less but could be an option.

I can only groan at the thought of installing more BSI software and getting it to work. I'm on attempt number 5 on a new computer. It always seems to take me 4 or 5 attempts before I find the magic combination to make the software work correctly. If you are using a real Intel processor, then it might be different, but with the computers I'm stuck with it isn't a fun job.

The best price I could get on the Rangemaster was around listed price. You should check with Keith about how you actually sync two or more transmitters. He uses an RS-485 serial connection to get them in sync, but I don't really know much more than that.

I also priced out the SStrans AMT3000 and all the parts to build the antenna. Total was under $400 including 500 feet of Belden 1502R cable to run up to the top of our tower. The cable was $170, the transmitter is $90, the rest is the antenna parts (most from Homedepot). You shouldn't be concerned about building the antenna, it's mostly like doing simple plumbing. Winding the coil may be the hardest part, and at that not very difficult. You can buy the AMT3000 fully assembled for around $150 from a link on the SStran web site. You can also buy the antenna, but I didn't think the price was justified. If you buy the AMT3000 and antenna all "assembled" then the price was very near the price of the Rangemaster, and does not have an FCC ID applied to it. The FCC ID might be worth the extra money for you if you end up with multiple transmitters.

From what I read, mounting the Rangmaster and it's antenna is about as easy as it can get! The antenna is just a CB radio whip that screws on to the top of the Rangemaster transmitter. The rest is just running the cable and bolting the box to your tower. Normally there is an ad on this forum that links to the Rangemaster site, or just google "Hamilton Rangemaster" and that should get you there.

What kind of problems are you having with Simain. I worked with it for about 5 years the biggest problem is with * problem. We replaced it at my last staion with imedia touch, No that's great software. Have you ever tried Raduga . It is great if you are not going to voice track. I want to get the best prices on a transmitter to begin with, I want to do a lot of research on the diffrent tower locatins. If I can get this to work, I can make it a success in this community. I am getting a few more people involved here but I am very careful who I bring in. I was involved in a legal problem that a friend brought me into with a LPFM and I never want that to happen again. The only thing it did was prove to me about what the FCC thinks of the LPFM stations.

I was incorrect, the AMT3000 transmitter can be bought fully assembled from here:

http://www.ontheair3.com/index1.html

Also the "fully" assembled price was a little wrong. Antenna guy (link on SStran website) lists the antenna at about $400, plus the $160 for the transmitter. So only about half the price of the Rangemaster.

Becuase I like building things like this, the SStran is the product for me (at least for now).

http://antenna18431.tripod.com/antenna.htm
http://www.sstran.com/
http://www.am1000rangemaster.com/
https://www.tselectronic.com/belden/1502r.html?tse_Session=f80b3fd691f12d0d2b436dbe4535a4ae

The rest of the info for making the antenna for the AMT3000 is on the SStran web site.

The biggest problems I have with Simian is getting it to install correctly. Once I get that fixed, it works well. We have our air computer running Simian 1.6.x and an ASI 4346 audio card for the main outputs, and a Turtle Beach SantaClaus card for the cue and VT outputs. But we just bought another full version of Simian, plus a year of support so that I could upgrade our current Simian, plus ASI 6044 and ASI 6012 audio cards, plus Skimmer Plus and an ASI 5001 card. Or about $6000 worth of stuff. For the life of me I can not get the newer Simian and 60xx cards to work right. Either it loads the decks too slowly, or it freezes and crashes. The computer is identical to the computer I use in the air studio (except for the audio cards). I'm going to try a different computer (still the same specs) on Monday and see if there was just "something" wrong with the original computer. Support has been less than helpful with the Simian issues, and the issue I had with SkimmerPlus. I ended up fixing SkimmerPlus's short comings myself, which is less than ideal for the $1000 I spent on it. I need to talk to Chris Kehoe again and see what they will do for me. Unfortunately, the money used to buy this was a federal grant, and there is no sending things back for exchange or refund. They approve the grant for specific things, and they do check to make sure you are using what they bought. The up side to all this checking is that we can often buy lots of good things, and our studios are pretty nice! Now if only I could get our IT department to help us get on the web... but that's another story.... All I need is the path built through the network to the internet, all the rest of the gear is running (shoutcast with Orban's OpticodecPE and OptimodPC). All in all we spent about $8000 on the radio station this fall and it is now "basically" complete. Next year we will look into some IP-audio devices so that we can send people on the "road" for sports coverage. I'm sure IT will be thrilled with having to open another set of ports for this too....

I'm not sure of the total expense for our station, but throughout the years it must be close to $70,000. We have AudioArts analog consols, plus the automation computers. Denon "DJ proof" cart style CD players, Aphex audio Processing (Being replaced with the OptimodPC during winter break), misc. minidisk, DAT, microphones. An on air room, production room, plus a "studio" room between the other two.
All this is used in our courses to teach the next generation of DJs, and other station personel. We also have TV production facilities (studio) and portable video equipment with linear and non-linear video editing (Avid and Final Cut Pro). Plus 4 other radio style production rooms and a classroom full of non-linear based audio editing computers (Adobe Audition and Acid Pro). And just me to take care of it all. You can probably see where my time crunch is.

Here is the crumby web page that cost us way too much:
http://www.sunyocc.edu/department.aspx?title=2869&id=1051&feature=4108

Hey if you can give me hand on this project, I would be willing to help you with your crummy web site 🙂

If only it was that easy.

Why is it not easy?

Because the people involved like to make things difficult??? All I know is that they have a web designer on contract that seems to be very slow at doing anything. And from looking at the source code, can't be bothered to make the pages from the newer standards like XHTML or even a more strict HTML4. Those pages should be written in XHTML strict, or better yet mobile DTD, and they should incorporate CSS including screen, mobile, and one other type that I can't remember. It is a college, so all the pages really should be available to people with visual difficulties using a screen reader. And with mobile web only just starting to come into play in this country, it really should meet those needs too. Nokia has done a lot of work to push the mobile web specifications.

Basically everything we do is overly complex, right down to how we have to buy equipment. I choose what I want, and find a vendor to sell it to me, and then make a requisition and send that to purchasing. Purchasing then looks for that product at every vendor they can think of to get the lowest price (they don't care about after sales service which may factor in to my prefered vendor). Then they send a PO to that vendor to buy it. And sometimes the stuff has to come from the vendor that has the state contract to supply certain items. Those often take the longest to arrive. Slow and wastefull often applies. Things like the website are even more difficult because each department has to has their say, plus the marketing department, plus about 5 other votes, and then wait for the web designer to get things together. If you follow all the trails, you'lfind that our department has at least two completely different pages that supply the exact same infomation, so why not link to one common page?

The only real solid answer is Politics. It gets in the way of a lot of things, including getting our stream onto the web.

Any way, if you decide to go with the SStran to save a few dollars for your first rig, I'd probably be able to find time around Thanksgiving or Christmas/New Years to make the coil for you for right around cost plus shipping. All the rest is just plumbing and hoping that your stores carry all the pieces that you need. Mine does not, so I will have to make a couple of changes just to get all the pieces to fit. Alternately you can buy a lot of the PVC pieces from http://www.usplastic.com the price is a little higher, but you would be able to get what you need to fit with the metal parts that you can find.

I understnad , hey it's a school. If i can help you out in any way let me know. I have a good source of talent if you every need any imaging done. I want to go inexpensive to begin with as I start my research into range and all that. If i can get it up on the air thne I can go to the council and the school system anf get some funding from them. I just wisha LPFM was fesible, I have a real good friend that has done that and just got a non-come FM in Cincinatti and is doing Classic Rock and he just got a big contract from one of the high schools.

When it comes to paying the BMI, RIAA, etc. fees, you might want the school to deal with that. I'm not sure if the rates are cheaper for a school or an individual. Take a look at my thread about IBS. And agian, if you need me to build some of the more complex parts, let me know and I'll see if I can find the time. Once I get this second Simian system going, I'm hoping that things slow down a little. That would let me take the time to get some photos together incase our web designer ever gets caught up and finishes updating the web site. I've seen a few of the new pages, and they are much better, though still in HTML sloppy (transitional).

Have sent two emails to address did you get them

I saw one that arrived, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. The boss and I were dealing with our lack of new computers (and yelling at BSI). The old machines are now about 4 years old and not really keeping up with our demands.