alt Hacker NewsShow HN: I'm launching a LPFM radio station
I've been working on creating a Low Power FM radio station for the east San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. We are not yet on the broadcast band but our channel will be 95.9FM and our range can been seen on the homepage of our site.
KPBJ is a freeform community radio station. Anyone in the area is encouraged to get a timeslot and become a host. We make no curatorial decisions. Its sort of like public access or a college station in that way.
This month we launched our internet stream and on-boarded about 60 shows. They are mostly music but there are a few talk shows. We are restricting all shows to monthly time slots for now but this will change in the near future as everyone gets more familiar with the systems involved.
All shows are pre-recorded until we can raise the money to get a studio.
We have a site secured for our transmitter but we need to fundraise to cover the equipment and build out costs. We will be broadcasting with 100W ERP from a ridgeline in the Verdugos at about 1500ft elevation. The site will need to be off grid so we will need to install a solar system with battery backup. We are planning to sync the station to the transmit site with 802.11ah.
I've built all of our web infrastructure using Haskell, NixOS, Terraform, and HTMX: https://github.com/solomon-b/kpbj.fm
This is a pretty substantial project involving a bunch of social and technical challenges and a shoe string budget. I'm feel pretty confident we will pull it off and make it a high impact local radio station.
The station is managed by a 501c3 non-profit we created. We are actively seeking fundraising, especially to get our transmit site up and running. If you live in the area or want to contribute in any way then please reach out!
Comments
Why do you need a studio?
If this is completely non-commercial and you have an amateur license you could probably use AREDN as a backhaul instead of HaLow. We've gotten wifi going from a panel in Elysian up to Wilson on AREDN.
100w from the Verdugos should be pretty substantial. I regularly make 70cm FM contacts on 446.500 from Elysian Park down to San Diego at 5w.
Congrats on this! As a born and raised valley kid, I wish this was around when I was living there as a teen.
Clandestine radio stations would make for a nice counter culture. Judging by the website style I think I receive an appreciation for keeping it simple. In that spirit I'd say ditch the internet stream. Stick to FM.
Thats awesome. I'm a huge fan of KEXP and WFMU. I love radio stations like this. I just signed up for your newsletter. I have it on my listen list and will stay tuned here on the East Coast.
Can you talk about the process of getting an FCC license and other legal logistics to broadcast?
The technical side, while interesting, is relatively clear to me. The legal side, including cost, is something I have no idea about.
Do you have a direct link to the audio stream? I'd probably add it to my go-to list of stations.
It's pretty cool to see a licensed, authorized LPFM station being set up by hobbyists!
Prior to the PIRATE act of 2020, running a pirate FM station was effectively legal until the second time you were busted. Prior to 2020, if you shut the station down after getting your NOUO, there wasn't any real penalty. Teenage me loved this, and my buddies and I had a little irregularly-broadcasting pirate radio station, using a cheap CZH-7C transmitter purchased on eBay. One time we went on air from our high school's cafeteria during a study hall, and surprisingly, nobody questioned anything! We did have Microsoft Sam narrate our broadcast so that we weren't making a ton of noise.
We never did get our NOUO; instead, we ran into the much bigger reality, which was that none of us had anything of interest to say. After the novelty of hearing our voices on the radio wore off, the transmitter ended up in a closet, where it probably still sits today. Good times!