Part 15 FM is just about useless even for its originally intended purpose, due to the ridiculously low field strength permitted by FCC rules. A field strength of 50 microvolts at 50 feet is pretty worthless inside the average home. At the same time, there is a huge demand for low power community FM broadcasting, which is why every month you will find many FM band citations on the FCC Enforcement Bureau web site. Obviously this is something people want, but you can just forget about the FCC ever allowing any kind of power increase-- it would be fought tooth and nail by the broadcast cartel known as the NAB. Many other countries do permit low power FM broadcasting, and as far as I know their commercial broadcasters are still in business. But not here! The conglomerates that own all of the channels in your town would be afraid you'd take a handful of listeners away from them.
My advice is not to bother with FM at all. The FCC is quite happy to sock you with a huge fine if you step over the line-- and the local broadcasters have vigilante squads out looking for "pirates" too. They're pretty serious about this.
Want to go on the air with worldwide coverage? Put up an Internet audio stream. As soon as WiMax takes off, you'll be able to have mobile listeners anywhere in the world. Wonder how valuable those FM licenses will be then!
Thanks! Those are such
excellent points you have made!
