You probably know this webpage, It was a hot topic off and on for years in the forums. Attached is a PDF copy of that 1998 webpage that I found in my files, it didn't layout correctly in PDF form, the advertisements and text are a little jumbled, but it's got all it's images. I copied the text below so it's easier to read. If anyone knows the Internet archive link to this page, please post it.
This took place in California 1998, I never did know who this guy was that drove around taking field strength readings of all these Billboards, but at the time the part 15 AM billboards were big business around the country. The guy that started it (I forget his name at the moment) began by being a re-seller of talking house units to restaurants and gas stations etc. and eventually decided to manufacture a new part 15 AM transmitter himself with better audio quality, amongst his first customers was Atlantic Records, which had gone on to launch a whole slew of Atlantic Record Part 15 ventures over the next 5 or 6 years. But the primary use was for Billboard Radio, and that guy went from being a seller and leaser of Talking Houses to becoming a multi-million air leasing part 15 AM billboards across the entire country.
Anyway, those billboards seemed to have kind of pissed off this ham operator who got in his car driving to all the billboards in his area taking readings of those signals. I just thought it interesting to look back..
"Id like to relate some information about a local low power station in the Stockton,Ca area. This low power station is run by a car dealer! It's a low power am transmitter in a box with a 10 foot whip antenna high atop a billboard sign along the local freeway (hi-way 99) the station runs on AM 1610Khz. It's a low power am transmitter in a box with a 10 foot whip antenna high atop a billboard sign along the local freeway, the station runs on AM 1610 Khz and covers up and down the road about 3 to 10 miles! (This is no 100 MW transmitter, more like 2 or 5 watts) the 95 saturn stock radio picks it up all the way across town.
About a mile from the transmitter billboard is a 2'nd billboard that tells you to tune into 1610 AM for road info! When you tune into 1610 there is no road info from caltrans, no Local Wx, only a 10 minute endless loop tape playing advertisements for a local car lot. Over and over the broadcast tells you to "pull off the highway at the next exit
and drive into the car lot. (Much like 25% of the programming on on our local AMFM stations car spots, YUCK!!!)
The FCC was made aware of this commercial pirate station operating on the traveler information frequency of (1610 AM), the FCC tried to take RF readings and apparently decided that this station is legit!
It's obvious that if you have $2000 a month to spend on billboard space with
'3M' says it's okay to broadcast your commercial message, But if your trying to
run a community orientated low power station without corporate backing the FCC will run you off the band.
I have documented this bill board station on my web page 'Transmitter sites from hell ...' @ ... http://www.netfeed.com/~jhill
the billboard station pics are on the sub-page... http://www.netfeed.com/~jhill/1610.htm
Please add a LINK to this page , low power broadcasters need to know about this loophole !
Maybe some one can use this loophole to run a community orientated low power station ?
Put it in black and white .... DRAFT !!!!
this is a log of FIM reading taken on this billboard station by a real Radio Engineer
Signal Reading from a few miles north of site to 12.7 miles south of site.. (yes 12 freaking miles, that more then most LPFM's could hope for) all readings are on 10-14-1998 with real F.I.M.
11:24am hwy 26 and hwy-99 110 uv (micro-volts) = .011 mili volts.
11:45am Netherton Rd. & 99 190 uv
11:50am 3100 Carpenter Rd. & 3600 Hiway 99 S. Frountage Rd. This is near the very large TUNE TO 1610 AM billboard showing .35 milavolt / 350 microvolts.....
11:57am Boeing Rd. & S. hiway 99 .3 Miles North of Transmitter... 1.75 milivolts/meter 1750 microVolts (lots of audio)...
12:01 pm At the 1610 AM Pirate transmitter Billboard next to 'The Bedroom' store at Arch Rd. & hiway 99!! 2 VOLTS/METER!!!! (thats alot!)
12:05pm one half mile south of Transmitter 1.1 mv (milavolt), this level of about 1 Milavolt is like that of a clear channel AM station at night. Most car radio's can pick up a station at this signal level and bring it to volume with out static or noise (except for powerlines)
12:03pm One Mile South of Pirate transmitter Billboard 610 uv (microvolt) = 0.61 miliVolt... 1/2 a milivolt is a week night time signal from a clear channel AM station such as KFI 640Kc from say 700 miles out.
12:12pm 1.5 Miles South @ Stockton Airport runway & Hiway99 390 uv micro..
12:15pm 2 Miles South/Onramp to 99South .. 290 uv microvolts
12:28pm 8.2 miles south @ Tradeway Car Lot 35 uv MicroVolt....
12:33pm 12.7 Miles South @ Jacktone Rd. & Hwy99 2.5 uv Microvolt.. ..very week
After the heavy rain on 10-24-98 I could then hear (thats receive only) this 1610 pirate at my home (Salida,Ca.) on my
kenwood ham radio.! Thats like 15 miles or more, twice the range of a LPFM !
yep 😉
Side note, the voice of this station lives in Turlock , and is getting a LPFM for church
Well, I don't know the circumstances of these particular installations, but here are a few comments.
Just because the radio policeman was a ham radio operator doesn't mean that he knows anything. That's evident because there are no field strength or range restrictions in the rules.
If the FCC investigated, then they probably found the transmitters at 100 milliwatts and the antenna 3 meters. The extended range was likely due to grounding on the long metal mast, and back then, it was often allowed.
It was only when people like Richard Fry started kicking up a fuss that that situation changed.
The possible operating power of the transmitters appears to be a guess only, and most amateur radio operators will tell you that it's impossible to guess. The antenna (and ground) are by far the most overriding factor in any transmitter installation.
@artisan-radio Well yeah, I agree the fact that he's a ham doesn't equate that he knows anything about part 15 broadcast, it fact it's clear he didn't, this is evidenced in his comments: "..pirate station operating on the traveler information frequency of (1610 AM).. ..When you tune into 1610 there is no road info from caltrans, no Local Wx, only a 10 minute endless loop tape playing advertisements for a local car lot...."
This is a bit off topic, but Richard Fry was a great resource to the Part 15 community. Too bad his personality got in the way.
The Part 15 rules are not cast in concrete. They're open to interpretation, and over the years, various FCC agents have indeed interpreted them in many different ways. Richard never seemed to be able to comprehend that single fact. He wanted to boil everything down to physics, but the rules were words on a piece of paper, likely written by bureaucrats, and not equations.
During the billboard era, grounding to a 50 foot mast wasn't often considered extending the ground lead. Politics aside, the fact that this was accepted by the FCC indicates that this configuration was, at that time, considered legal.
Richard Fry's definition of a ground lead was based on his opinions, but that was only his interpretation, and flew in the face of years of enforcement.
Even today, an FCC agent will sometimes pass what would be considered a long ground lead by Richard; sometimes not.
@artisan-radio Oh I hated him for years! - well, hate isn't the word, I never "hated" him, but I found him extremely annoying and wished he would but out of the forums and also quit emailing me about my installation. I was even more frustrated when they let him back into the forums (he got completely banned from all the forums for a few months then eventually all forums except for HB let him back in). But eventually, with time, I began to respect him a great deal. All his information was clearly accurate and he never once got nasty to anyone, he simply expressed the facts as they undisputably were, engineering was his passion and life expertise, and now he was retired seeking a way to make use of his knowledge.
The Radio Billboard era is the only era when the ground lead was not a issue with the FCC (between 1956 and now). I can only speculate it was because of the massive Talking House popularity during the 1990s in the realty market, the NAB apparently had no objections, it was common place, and without complaints the FCC basically lets thing slide. With part 15 AM so predominate on TV news, newspapers and magazines during that time period plus lack of complaints made it a prime time to start the AM billboard business without any friction of the rules -- that's the best I can explain it.
@artisan-radio Well it depends on what an agent defines a ground lead. Some may think it is the length of wire from the transmitter to something in the earth and another may see it as a violation if the connection is to a metal pole and that pole goes into the ground. You would have a defence I guess, I can't have it on the ground as it will be buried in the snow, or I have to keep it away from someone tampering/vandalizing with it on the ground. But you could mount it on a wooden pole. Then it could depend on who and why the complaint was made and how badly the agent was under pressure to find something wrong.
That's my point entirely, @mark. The rules are open to interpretation. Basically, whatever the FCC wants them to be.
Richard never could comprehend that. Or refused to, at any rate.
The ground lead is what they can focus on in the event of a complaint. It's what they can use to shut you down. The FCC doesn't go out with their measuring tapes ready, nor do they go out searching your station out. Something has got to alert them. It even says as much it in at least one of their public notices.
I think it's pretty obvious that the majority of installations both now and in the past, don't meet the specifications of the rule. So it's probably not uncommon for FCC agent to turn there heads unless there's a specific reason not to, or maybe they just don't like you.