response 26 of 39:

Feb 24 15:36 UTC 1999

Thayrone works one floor above me. (One floor and a couple of cubicles over,
actually.)

response 28 of 39:

Feb 24 22:39 UTC 1999

The most interesting example of a "community" (non-commercial, non-NPR) 
radio station that played classical music was WVCA in Gloucester, Mass. 
Gloucester is located on a peninsula called Cape Ann, and the call letters
stand for "the Voice of Cape Ann". 

The station was set up many years ago, back before FM radio frequencies in
metro areas were thought of as hot properties.  The owner, manager, and
sole on-air personality was an old curmudgeon who ran the station out of
his apartment, playing all kinds of classical music.  Sometimes, if he
didn't time it right, there was an interval of dead air when he ran to get
a roast out of the oven or use the bathroom.

I don't remember the curmudgeon's name, but in interviews he said he
*hated* Gloucester.  There's only two things you can do here, he said
gloomily, work or have sex; "I don't have a sex partner, so I work."

Some commercial radio group tried to get his license taken away, on the
ground that he didn't have news or weather or all the usual kinds of radio
blab.  The Gloucester community rallied in support of the curmudgeon, and
the FCC renewed WVCA's license.

However, about five or ten years ago, the old curmudgeon retired and sold
the thing, so it's presumably some random Boston-area FM station now.

response 30 of 39:

Feb 25 23:27 UTC 1999

At one time, stations did have minimum requirements for news coverage. In the
last couple of years, they have either cut way back on those requirements or
eliminated them altogether.

response 32 of 39:

Feb 26 04:44 UTC 1999

Re #31:  I believe you can transmit anything you want in the FM band,
as long as you aren't interfering with another service and you stay
below 100 milliwatts (that's one tenth of a watt) output power.
 
The law doesn't say "one mile".  It couldn't; the distance you can be
heard depends too much on the receiver and the terrain, so who could
say you were legal or not?  Measuring power is something you can define.
 
Doing a few quick numbers...  I seem to recall a received power of
something like -80 dBm (that's 80 dB below a milliwatt) to get a good
received signal.  Let's assume that's -70 dBm for a stereo FM signal.
If we assume that the receiver's antenna can get the energy from an
area a half-meter square, this means we need -64 dBm/m^2 wherever we
are.  Transmitted power can be up to +20 dBm, and the antenna probably
adds 3 dB in effective power (a doubling).  A fancy antenna would add
a lot more, but let's stick with that.  Our path loss allows us 87 dB
of dissipation, which allows the signal to cover a sphere of about
500 million square meters of area.  By A = 4 * pi * r^2, that sphere
has a radius of 6300 meters, or about 4 miles.  That's line-of-sight.
A good antenna which throws all your power at the horizon instead of
up or down could double that range; any kind of blockage between
could cut it by a factor of ten.  Four miles LOS seems reasonable.
 
So yeah, if you wanted to run your amateur classical station, and your
house was up on a hill, you could probably be heard over a big part
of Ann Arbor.  Just pick a locally vacant FM channel and go for it.
You could even transmit on different channels in different parts of
town, and get coverage all over.  Keeping several transmitters doing
the same thing at the same time could be fun; I suggest looking into
a bunch of Diamond Rio MP3 players and siting at friendly ISP's.

response 34 of 39:

Feb 26 17:01 UTC 1999

        Bad Erik!  To the pit with you!

response 36 of 39:

Mar 5 18:57 UTC 1999

The FCC is considering adding a Low Power FM group of licences.
It is currently in the public comment portion of their rulemaking
process I belive.  Expect lots of opposition from the NAB (National
Association of Broadcasters)

response 38 of 39:

Mar 28 21:07 UTC 2000

<sigh>