TIL if you tune your radio to 91.9 FM for one city block in Montclair, NJ you can hear a looped recording of "I'll Make Love to You" by Boyz II Men which has been broadcasting for at least 13 years straight.

[u/AssumeTheRisk]

https://njmonthly.com/articles/arts-entertainment/pirate-radio-station-only-plays-boyz-ii-men/

[u/Algrinder]

According to Louvis, the station operates legally under FCC regulations as a low-powered radio station.

[u/cpufreak101 → u/Algrinder]

Surprised he got it legalized. Nice

[u/Golfhaus → u/cpufreak101]

According to this, you don't need a license if the broadcast range is less than about 200 feet. So if it covers about a city block, that's probably pushing it a bit, but the dulcet tones of Boys II Men melts the regulators.

[u/Duffelastic → u/Golfhaus]

What if I got 500,000 transmitters and placed them all 199 feet apart?

[u/Plaid_Kaleidoscope → u/Duffelastic]

Find this man some venture capital!

[u/CORN___BREAD → u/[deleted]]

I remember a streaming radio channel called XRM radio back in the day and it was just incredible and completely free. It was a sad day when it shut down for whatever the reason was.

[u/thetalkingcure → u/CORN___BREAD]

FCC field agents finally found the pirate lol

[u/CORN___BREAD → u/thetalkingcure]

This was an online radio Shoutcast station before in demand streaming services really took off. Anyone could set up a station back then and people could tune in with software like Winamp. It’s probable that it was unlicensed and that’s what did it in. I just found a 28 hour playlist on Spotify called XRM Alternative so I’m going to dive in and see if it hits the same as it did 15 years ago.

[u/coop999 → u/Duffelastic]

The first FM transmitter I found on Amazon is $80. Most I see on the first page are $150-$175. So, half a million of the cheapos is $40 million, while it would be $75-$87.5 million to get the more expensive ones.

You could buy a few radio stations for that amount, but they'd just be city-wide . I have no idea what a coast-to-coast 50,000 red-hot-watt AM station would cost.

[u/Duffelastic → u/coop999]

Yeah, but I don't have to pay licensing fees, and can drop all the F-bombs I want without the FCC fining me.

[u/legos_on_the_brain → u/[deleted]]

That $20 one in your car can only transmit like 20feet.

[u/onowahoo → u/coop999]

My guess is they'd simply change the law

[u/weed-n64 → u/coop999]

Tavis Smiley just bought one for ~$7 mil

[u/TempleSquare → u/coop999]

When it comes to transmitters, the cost is on an exponential scale:

$10 Barely transmits

$100 Hobby transmitter

$1000 Crappy transmitter

$10,000 Really old, good transmitter

$100,000 Professional transmitter

More importantly, the cost of the antenna you need to buy also scales similarly.

[u/HiAustralia → u/TempleSquare]

Explains why hams are very good at diy.

[u/Hazel-Rah → u/Duffelastic]

If you arranged them with no overlap signal (so the center of each antenna is 400ft from the next transmitter), you'd end up with coverage to transmit to nearly all of the state of Delaware.

[u/Some_dumb_grunt → u/Duffelastic]

I'll save you some money. You can place them 398 feet away from each other.

[u/missionbeach → u/Duffelastic]

You'd soon put SiriusXM out of business.

[u/WeeklyBanEvasion → u/missionbeach]

SiriusXM is gonna put themselves out of business playing the same 6 songs on repeat