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Show HN: I'm launching a LPFM radio station

https://www.kpbj.fm/
25•solomonb•1h ago
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

polarbearballs•1h ago
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.
solomonb•56m ago
Thanks! We haven't been using the mailing list much, I'm afraid of coming off spammy, but I appreciate the support and hope you enjoy the station!
raffael_de•1h ago
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.
solomonb•31m ago
To be clear this is an FCC licensed LPFM station.

Also I am /much/ more interested in terrestrial radio but the reality is that the vast majority of listeners are online and not using a radio. : (

raffael_de•5m ago
I'm probably looking at this a little naive, no doubt. It's just that (in my fantasy) a pure good ole radio could be a great medium for enthusiasts and odd balls (#cyberpunk). But as soon as there is an internet stream then the actual radio is going to be a gimmick. The whole experience changes if you actually _have_ to use a radio to listen. Of course, your audience is limited by design ... so, realistically there just might not be a sustainable audience in your FM radius. Anyway, cool project!
edoceo•24m ago
How does licensing work for the music you play?
solomonb•12m ago
For terrestrial broadcast or online? You go through a handful of music industry organizations such as ASCAP and BMI. For terrestrial broadcast the costs are scaled to approximate listenership.
josefritzishere•12m ago
They just pay into ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. The royalty groups disburse on estimated airplay. Non-coms pay a reduced rate. I can go mch deeper if you want. I used to work in that field.
abetusk•22m ago
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.

solomonb•17m ago
You essentially have to be in the right place at the right time. The FCC releases LPFM channels every year all over over the country. If you have a 501c3 non-profit within the designated broadcast area you can apply for the channel. They tend to award the channels to more established non-profits. There are no filing fees.

In our case we created the non-profit in anticipation of applying for this license. We got really lucky and no one else applied for the license and it was awarded to us.

mkprc•18m ago
Do you have a direct link to the audio stream? I'd probably add it to my go-to list of stations.
solomonb•15m ago
https://stream.kpbj.fm

At the moment we are only airing a few new shows per day and filling the rest of our airtime with content from archive.org and other free sources (chosen by all our hosts), but over time more of the schedule will fill with original content.

alrs•5m ago
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.

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