Well, Travis, I looked into this (with a friend) for the Atlanta region
last year. Got a ton of good information.
First of all, there are limits on transmission power (and antenna length,
and. . .) before you need a license. Go above these limits and you break
the law. And the new "low powered licenses" are very, very hard to get,
and thus are very rare.
We discovered that a legal FM transmitter could send a signal less than 100
feet.
Now, the FCC would almost certainly not catch you. And if they did, they
_always_ send a warning letter first. And they have prosecuted very few
folks for this, mostly large pirate stations. But in Atlanta we decided
not to break the law.
As far as kits, they are plentiful on the internet, and relatively cheap,
too. As in $100-$200 (bare bones kits can be had for $30). And our tech
guy said that plugging the announcing system into the transmitter (instead
of a mic) was trivial. I know of the region that still transmits their
events - and I love this feature. I spoke to one of their people, and they
are FAR over legal limits.
We also looked into AM transmission. Same limits, but the signal SHOULD go
much further. SHOULD go 1/2 mile easy on legal limits. We found in
practice that this wasn't true. Plus, the AM airwaves are filled with
illegal broadcasts by churches Sunday mornings - hard to find an open slot
in Atlanta!
Chris Eckles
Atlanta
Blue 2000 M Coupe
>
I remember a discussion a while ago about some groups using a low
power FM transmitter as part of their site announcement system.
What kind of gear are you using?
Approximate cost?
Thanks in advance
-travis
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