Somewhere around 1200 new Low Power FM stations have been approved by the FCC. A Low Power FM station must be owned by a non-profit entity. It can have a maximum range of 5 miles at a power of 100 watts. That’s enough to cover a medium sized city while not causing interference to distant commercial stations. LPFM stations can pop up anywhere on the FM band, not just the 88-92 MHz non-commercial band, which is part of why the FCC and the NAB thwarted the will of Congress for over 10 years.
Well, they’re finally here – getting the license is only the first step – buying a transmitter, creating a studio and finding people to run the thing takes time, and some portion will fail and turn the license back in.
The variety of folks and their motivation for wanting a radio station covers a lot of ground.
While looking for web sites, I came to WHIV-LPFM in New Orleans (“nawlens”), which has been licensed by the “NEW ORLEANS SOCIETY FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES AWARENESS”. Now that’s a mouthful.
It turns out they do have a web site, and if you are looking for a job in radio, they have an opening.
Interesting. And this is a new idea for radio in Nawleans?
I can’t think of a better place for it. Last night, I was considering creating a new radio format, but haven’t decided on an appropriate name.
‘TRANSmitters’
Trannys?
For quite some time I’ve had a category for “former transmitters”, back from when I added Canadian stations to the database, but then realized many of the stations in the database no longer existed. Outside of the major cities, most AM stations in Canada have been turned off because they kill polar bears.
“Former transmitters” for an HIV awareness radio station works perfectly