I have been wanting to create a public radio station, or a radio
station for my school. Im not wanting a station that reaches hundreds
of miles, just like within the city, about 20 or 30 mile range. I also
need any FCC info about this, the rules and regulations. What kind of
equitment will i need? Thanks

--Jim Miller

Dear cybercom8-ga;

Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question. It is a VERY cool idea indeed!

Creating a radio station is a fairly complicated matter. I will try to
give you some sources that touch on the highlights pertaining to what
is required and so forth, assuming (as you said) that it doesn?t
matter that the station?s reach and consumer base is small.

First off, the easiest, most affordable, and most problem-free means
of creating your own radio station is an internet radio station. This
way you will be within broadcast range of anyone in the world who
happens to tune into your station without the hassle of the FCC
licenses and all the misery and cost associated with that. All it
takes is a little software and a bit of quickly obtainable
proficiency. Here are some options but there are many others:

SHOUTCAST
http://www.shoutcast.com/

LIVE365
http://www.live365.com/index.live

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN INTERNET RADIO STATION
http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa013003c.htm

Small conventional radio stations are known as ?micro broadcasting? or
?low power? stations. Here are a couple of a quick technical primers
on how to create a micro station for a couple thousand dollars (as
opposed to the tens of thousands it costs to put up a far reaching,
commercial radio station)

RADIO 4 ALL
http://www.radio4all.org/how-to.html


There are also workshops for someone like you to attend so you can ask
experts the (thousands) of questions you will need answered before you
can begin:

FREE RADIO
http://www.freeradio.org/
http://www.freeradio.org/index.php?pagename=buildit.html

Finally, if you are really determined to do it the hard way and you
can make sense of this, the FCC has a website up for folks like you
who are interested in low power broadcasting. You will find a
multitude of articles, documents and instruction on the subject here:

FCC
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/

I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad ? Google Answers Researcher


OTHER INFORMATION SOURCES

Defined above


SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINES USED:

Google ://www.google.com




SEARCH TERMS USED:

MICRO BROADCASTING RADIO

MICROBROADCAST

STATION

LOW POWER RADIO

LOW POWER FM RADIO

I sure expected more.

The easiest thing to do would be to buy a programmable 2 way radio,
$400-500. Then program an FM Radio frequency in it. Find one that
nothing is broadcast on in your area. Hook it to your computer and
start broadcasting MP3's. You can probably get 6-7 Miles out of it.
You could buy an inline amp and crank it up to around 20 Miles for
less than $1000. We did this in our school once. I think its perfectly
fine if your amp isn't tooo strong.

Hattmall-ga,   OR anyone else,
Won't you get in trouble broadcasting copywrited music ?

I don't see where the advice mentioned broadcasting copyright music to
which he doesn't hold the copyright.  These MP3s might be spoken
words, or the school band or old recordings with expired copyright.

bozo00-ga,
Of course, but copywrited stuff could be slip in, currrently popular music.
Maybe if it is a non-profit school activity, that does not matter, but
if it does, it is a point to be considered.
Myoarin

If you are seriously considering a student radio station a few quick
pointers. First of all getting an FCC license for educational purposes
is time consuming and expensive, in part because the application will
also have to include a privately contracted engineer to conduct a
feasibility report on the frequencies in your area and a possible
maximum output for your station. (Also licenses are often not
available in many areas due to frequency competition.) However with
that cost comes a great reward, with many school districts that are
anxious to fund a legitimate radio station at one of their schools.
Also by holding a educational license, part of the fee you pay
actually goes to allowing your station to play copyrighted songs,
which of course for sheer "listen-ability" makes your station much
more enjoyable to its audience as well as "profitable" in terms of
sponsorship (educational stations can not advertise.) Also no school
would be affiliated with an unlicensed station and for that reason I
would recommend against any form of pirate radio which is illegal and
if you were to interfere with other broadcasts you could be facing
both substantial criminal and civil penalties. So the easy way out is
a web cast but if you have the time and money and want to do it right
go to your school board or PTA and start sowing the seeds of
educational radio, remembering of course not many people are going to
bring desktops to listen to your homecoming game.