getting FM licence in Canada

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cohiba
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getting FM licence in Canada

Post by cohiba »

I would like to get a non-profit station setup that can be heard anywhere in my city, which is 15 miles in diameter.

I know you cannot have anything greater than 1 watt without a license, so how exactly do I obtain a license to operate a non-profit FM radio station within my Canadian city and what are the costs to obtain this license?
gbakay
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Location: Canada

Post by gbakay »

Hi! I am also from canada and considered purchasing the PCI Max 2004 card. The CRTC rules are strict! You need to apply for a license if your running a FM Transmitter more than 100 mw. It has to be on a frequency that nobody else owns and also depends on the content that you broadcast. For example if you what to broadcast a community radio event, that's maybe OK but if it's rap, oldies, current hits no way will they issue a license.
Sir Nigel
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Post by Sir Nigel »

I'm at a loss as to why people think 1 watt is the unlicensed limit. When it isn't.

Unfortunately, it seems that both the US and Canada are very strict about low power broadcasters.
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energy108
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radio station in canada

Post by energy108 »

I'm in Canada - I've been running a pirate station for a long time. I wanted to get licensing but it's almost impossible unless you're one of those huge media corporations. I play techno and dance music. Would like to do some political talk shows but I know that'll bring about the end and we need good music on air as all the commercial stations only play commercials, and their playlist consists of the top40 songs for the month.

edit: covered city of about a million
energy105
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Radio in Canada

Post by energy105 »

Hey there. looks like your doing just about what I'm doing. I am in Canada and I play Energy Dance Hits on the radio from Home at 50 watts on 105.5 fm With a tower of 70 feet now with a comet antenna. Image Range is not bad. About 25-30 kms. It was not always Pirate. Here in town we had a local station called Energy. I was the PD there. And we played dance hits all the time and it was licensed. Now I had all the voice tracking and software and station ids and sweepers at my finger tips. What happend is the owner sold the station and now its crap mix music. I had a copy of our old format so I started up my own. It works really well. I'm on the air when I feel like it. When I want to drive around and listen to some good tunes. I take my Internet Feed. I have a net station im testing out. Check out my site at www.eurodance.ca :D

Now for people that want to broadcast in Canada without taking a change of breaking the law I wrote a little guide. Here it is.


How do I get into radio broadcasting in Canada without becoming a pirate?

Here in Canada, we have a wonderful broadcasting law called RSS-210. If you are operating under this law, you can "experiment" within certain conditions.

The reason I used the word experiment is because there are 2 laws that overlap each other. Basically, Industry Canada says that to be license exempt, the transmitter cannot produce a field strength of more than 100 microvolt per metre (ìV/m), or about 0.001 watts of ERP. With an ideal setup, this can get you an outdoor range of about 2 miles.
But beware of the trap. The CRTC says that you must have a license issued by them, regardless of power, if you will use your low power transmitter for broadcasting purposes (duh!).

My recommendation depends on your location. Are you in a populated area or not? If you live in a town out in the boonies and operate 24/7, they will find out its there. The wonderful age monitoring is making it harder to hide. But Industry Canada is not going to go all the way there to shut down a station that is working under RSS-210 unless the CRTC tells them to. It's not like another 10 radio stations are going to gang up and tell the CRTC on you.

If you live in a fairly large city, choose a frequency far from the others. Operate only on weekends or some other varied schedule. As soon as a station notices that you’re on 24/7 they consider it competition, and you can guess the rest. The biggest radio station owners are the biggest babies. Don't be surprise if they stretch out the story to get the CRTC on your ass. An example is “Oh my god, this guy doesn't have a license and you can hear his radio station everywhere in town. He’s drowning out my licensed broadcast. He’s interfering with us. We’re loosing money, etc”. Remember that your signal can only go a maximum of 2 miles max - hmmmm the whole city?

Thats about it for the guide.
Here are some of my radio testing logs:


Location: Timmins Ontario
Frequency: 105.5 FM
Hight above average ground: 60 Feet
Power: 2 Watts
Range: Most of the town (aprox 6 kms)


Location: Cochrane Ontario
Frequency:98.1 FM
Hight above average ground: 60 Feet
Power: 0.001 Watts
Range: Downtown (aprox 1.5 kms)

Location: Cochrane Ontario
Frequency:105.5 FM
Hight above average ground: 30 Feet
Power: 2 Watts
Range: The town (aprox 5 kms)

Location: Iroquois Falls Ontario
Frequency: 105.5 FM
Hight above average ground: 60 Feet
Power: 0.001 Watts
Range: Downtown (aprox 3kms) (6dbi Omni Antenna)

Location: Iroquois Falls Ontario
Frequency: 750 AM
Hight above average ground: 2 Feet
Power: 1 Watt
Range: (aprox 15kms)

Location: Near Monteith Ontario (backroad)
Frequency: 100.9
Hight above average ground: 80 Feet
Power: 1000 Watts
Range: Iroquois Falls, Monteith, Matheson, South Porcupine (aprox 40kms)

Location: Near Ramore Ontario ( Cell site Hill)
Frequency: 100.9
Hight above average ground: 500 Feet
Power: 500 Watts
Range: Kirkland lake to Timmins and all in between (aprox 80kms)

Location: Sudbury Ontario ( Hotel Room)
Frequency: 94.3
Hight above average ground: 25 Feet
Power: 25 Watts
Range: Downtown Core (aprox 8 kms)

Location: Sault Ste. Marie ( Hill)
Frequency: 105.5
Hight above average ground: 5 Feet
Power: 25 Watts
Range: The Town (aprox 10kms)

Location: Elliot Lake ( Look Out Hill)
Frequency: 105.5
Hight above average ground: 1000 Feet
Power: 0.5 Watts
Range: (aprox 25kms)

Location: Toronto Ontario ( Hotel Room)
Frequency: N/A (Been a while)
Hight above average ground: 25 Feet
Power: 25 Watts
Range: Downtown Block (aprox 5kms, lots of intermod)


I can be emailed at hitsfm@hotmail.com That's Also my msn.
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