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Drive-in church

It's not a bad idea, but I have concerns about so many people putting FM transmitters on the air. Many people around here are using the same frequencies that they have always used for Christmas light shows and front-yard Halloween displays, even though there are now licensed LPFM stations on those channels.
Probably would be little harm if they were all 100 mW output units, but I wonder how many are running those high-powered imports from Amazon and e-Bay. They might check the channel with a pocket radio and think it's unoccupied, but when they fire up with 15 or 75 watts, they can cause serious interference with the legal stations far away.
 
There is a church in Jackson, TN that normally meets in a local school until they get their new building that is doing something similar in the school's parking lot.

The church I attend was already using You Tube to carry worship services and they are asking everyone to watch the service that way. We also had the Sunday School class I'm in set up on a Zoom conference call.
 
kenglish said:
It's not a bad idea, but I have concerns about so many people putting FM transmitters on the air. Many people around here are using the same frequencies that they have always used for Christmas light shows and front-yard Halloween displays, even though there are now licensed LPFM stations on those channels.
Probably would be little harm if they were all 100 mW output units, but I wonder how many are running those high-powered imports from Amazon and e-Bay. They might check the channel with a pocket radio and think it's unoccupied, but when they fire up with 15 or 75 watts, they can cause serious interference with the legal stations far away.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for the hour or so the church service may be happening. And it would also be dependent on the church transmitter's set up and location. Not all FM transmission antennas get out terrific. I think most parishioners are going the online, video stream route. It was happening to a certain extent even before the coronavirus hit.
 
anotherguy said:
There is a church in Jackson, TN that normally meets in a local school until they get their new building that is doing something similar in the school's parking lot.

The church I attend was already using You Tube to carry worship services and they are asking everyone to watch the service that way. We also had the Sunday School class I'm in set up on a Zoom conference call.
Click to expand...

The church in Jackson had another drive-in service yesterday and has plans for 3 Easter drive-in services. Tennessee has exempted churches from the stay at home orders, but to my knowledge most churches in my area are doing things like this or online services.
 
Saw a piece from WMUR about a Baptist Church in Hudson, NH that is doing services on 91.7.
They are in the fringe area of WUML, a public station on 91.5. I wonder how people are choosing their frequencies?
Maybe the FCC could issue an advisory, and ask the Churches to pass it along.
There's a pirate in SLC that is covering about 20 miles radius with a solid signal on 95.7.
I'd recommend people use something like:

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/l...ocid=62595&is_lic=Y&is_fx=Y&is_fb=Y&sort=freq
 
Did a bit of looking....
Sounds like "FM Church Transmitter" is a hot Google Search topic.
Forget toilet paper. Merchants are running out of transmitters!
 
kenglish said:
Probably would be little harm if they were all 100 mW output units, but I wonder how many are running those high-powered imports from Amazon and e-Bay. They might check the channel with a pocket radio and think it's unoccupied, but when they fire up with 15 or 75 watts, they can cause serious interference with the legal stations far away.
Click to expand...

Even 100 mW output is several orders of magnitude above Part 15 limits for unlicensed FM broadcasting. The field strength limit is 250 uV/m at 3 meters, which calculates to about 11 nanowatts (0.011 uW) into a dipole or vertical cut for the frequency. As low as that looks, it'll give you a radius of about 30-50 feet.

The FCC won't come after you as long as you're not interfering with licensed stations and/or nobody has complained about you, even if you run a bit more power. But not too much power; don't push your luck. OET Bulletin #63 says that they prefer to limit the range of an unlicensed broadcaster on either band to about 200 feet. One milliwatt ERP should easily cover that range outside, even though it's technically illegal.

The medium-powered transmitters that are available from Amazon run too much power out to be legal. They would require an attenuator installed between the transmitter output and the antenna, or that the whole thing be placed inside a metal enclosure that shields almost the entire signal, with just enough leaking into the air to cover the parking lot.
 
Some of the churches that are using FM transmitters probably don't know about the regulations for what they're allowed to do legally and could set things up in violation of what is allowed without meaning to. But then some of the ones whose "leaders" are anti-government probably don't care.
 
anotherguy said:
Some of the churches that are using FM transmitters probably don't know about the regulations for what they're allowed to do legally and could set things up in violation of what is allowed without meaning to. But then some of the ones whose "leaders" are anti-government probably don't care.
Click to expand...

In these unusual times, and provided the church doesn't cause harmful interference to a local station, who really cares?
 
Problem here is, there are no channels available in the SLC market. Every channel is occupied by a licensed station, or is a first adjacent. Also, some might just leave the transmitter on 24/7....even the licensed full-power stations, with no operators and no one monitoring, are famous for that.
Some groups are contemplating doing FM broadcasts from now on.
Maybe the FCC should allocate a few channels strictly for very short-range "neighborhood" broadcasting.
 
kenglish said:
Problem here is, there are no channels available in the SLC market. Every channel is occupied by a licensed station, or is a first adjacent. Also, some might just leave the transmitter on 24/7....even the licensed full-power stations, with no operators and no one monitoring, are famous for that.
Some groups are contemplating doing FM broadcasts from now on.
Maybe the FCC should allocate a few channels strictly for very short-range "neighborhood" broadcasting.
Click to expand...

87.7 and 87.9 would work well for short-range "neighborhood" broadcasting in most areas.
 
anotherguy said:
Some of the churches that are using FM transmitters probably don't know about the regulations for what they're allowed to do legally and could set things up in violation of what is allowed without meaning to. But then some of the ones whose "leaders" are anti-government probably don't care.
Click to expand...

I've tried, repeatedly, to post a comment to ksl.com to make people aware of the rules and how to do things properly. They always block my comment.
It seems that ksl.com doesn't care about over-the-air broadcasting. They are a separate entity from the radio and TV stations.

During last week's LDS conference, it seemed that no one wanted to admit that it would be broadcast on AM radio, even though thousands of people have relied on it for nearly 100 years. All they promoted was FM and internet streaming.
 
frankberry said:


87.7 and 87.9 would work well for short-range "neighborhood" broadcasting in most areas.
Click to expand...

TV channels 5 and 6 are still used in many places. Here in SLC, though, I'm hearing some sort of strong data on them.
 
Low band VHF doesn't work well for digital television. There aren't many low band TV stations anymore.
 
There are plenty of DTV stations, including full-power, operating in the VHF bands. Even the low-band has a couple of dozen, often in mid to major markets. In the western states, there are lots of Class-A and LPTV, and lots of both digital and even analog translators.
The broadband folks would love to re-pack again, and force OTA all down in to VHF.
 
frankberry said:


87.7 and 87.9 would work well for short-range "neighborhood" broadcasting in most areas.
Click to expand...

I thought Part 15 FM broadcasters were limited to 200 kHz channels centered on 88.1 to 107.9 MHz.
 
KeithE4 said:
I thought Part 15 FM broadcasters were limited to 200 kHz channels centered on 88.1 to 107.9 MHz.
Click to expand...

I wasn't writing about Part 15 broadcasting (it wouldn't cover enough area anyway). I was writing about a new class of very low power neighborhood broadcasting. Something perhaps, limited to one watt with an antenna height no greater than ten feet, designed to cover a few blocks at most.
 
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