[hakfoo]

I suspect part of the problem is that since there's no "off-the-shelf" solution, and with the entire category being more-or-less off-limits for the hobbyist, pirate-style radio is going to be done with random mispurposed or home-made gear that almost certainly ignores ALL the rules, not just the inconvenient ones.

Is there a "turnkey" solution for someone who wants a broadcast radius bigger than the "talking real estate sign" with a 100-metre radius, but smaller than the smallest commercial/non-profit products? I know there was a lot of talk about low-power FM a few years back, but I think that was still at a level of cost, complexity and licensing far above a lot of the potential audience.

If we had a few nationally allocated free-for-all spots on the FM and TV bands, I'd expect to see such products appear very quickly. Since they'd be made by legitimate manufacturers with the desire to stay in business, they'd generally be well-behaved and have controls limited to stay within bounds, but that would probably be enough to satisfy the niche of "I want to control what's on the radio." Yeah, the channels would be a complete noise mess, but we already did that with CB and the various bands we allocated for Wi-Fi.

[RF_Enthusiast]

Re: Turnkey Solution

Bluetooth Auracast still has a chance at becoming a thing, and is a one-to-many terrestrial broadcast solution that, if implemented by manufacturers, will be available on almost any mobile device. It allows for 4 watts EIRP and it's one-way (no pairing). I could imagine success in a pedestrian-heavy environment.

Re: "...a few nationally allocated free-for-all spots on the FM and TV bands"

The bandwidth unfortunately does not exist for a nation-wide channel in the USA.

[hakfoo]

It seems like we had no problems bumping broadcasters off of the higher UHF channels to open up space to sell to telecom companies, so how hard would it be to reallocate, say, channels 5 and 6 to public use?

I'd expect that a lot of broadcasters left VHF after the ATSC transition, because it seems like most modern TV antennas are UHF-centric designs, and channel 6 is already known for reaching into the bottom of the FM band, so it kills two birds with one stone.

The problem with anything new is that it's like the current appeal of ham radio products in general: the only community it reaches is people who already went out of their way to buy a compatible receiver. You can be relatively sure a "general" audience has standard FM and TV capabilities already.

[RF_Enthusiast]

Channel 5 and 6 LPTV stations are being given the opportunity to upgrade from secondary spectrum user (that could be forced off their frequency) to primary spectrum user (that can't be forced off their frequency). So the option to use channels 5 and 6 just closed, as those frequencies are now used in most markets.

I can't think of one major US market off hand that does not have a channel 5 or 6 station.

[hakfoo]

Phoenix has a nominal channel 5, but it's on RF 17. There's only two notable broadcasters on VHF, both above the FM band (8 and 10).

https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php?request=result&stu...

[RF_Enthusiast]

I checked another source just to be sure, but you're right! Phoenix has an empty lower-VHF dial!

Prescott (Ch 6), Yuma (Ch. 2) and Tucson (Ch 4) have the lower-VHF stations in that region.

[porkbeer]

There are plenty of quality turnkey sokutions, but the price and legal encumberances make them rare in the pirate space.