Topic: FM & Online Radio Station Fundraiser Campaign || Listen Online Now! - page 2. (Read 1777 times)

Really just a few solid investors and we'll be rocking out in no time! 

That would be correct as well as a website and such.

Sounds like an interesting project you are doing.  I would be glad to keep reading on the updates as they come along.  Which will be the main form of music you will be entertaining us all with??  Good luck.

Okay so I've updated the original post, so it would include hardware equipment along with dedicated server hosting with plenty of bandwidth traffic and will allow us to run the shoutcast server to allow DJ's to login.  The hardware is approx $1,100, the dedicated server is $600/yr and to get miscellaneous items for a taller mast and cabling I added another $300 for things such as lightening arrestors for the antenna and equipment and any other things I might of missed.

That is a very good idea!

Thanks for your input.  I welcome them all!

Something that might gain interest in your radio station is partnering with streamers on websites such as twitch.tv or other sites. Assuming you also have a counterpart online streaming service, and since the overhead costs of the radio station will be lower than "legit" radio stations, you can manage to run fewer ads, causing more people to utilize your service, in turn creating more advertising revenue.

I'm tired and just writing stuff at this point, so you should probably take it with a grain of salt. But if you see anything stick out, feel free to use it.

The 80 watt 2U transmitter





The inputs into transmitter





The 1/2 wavelength FM antenna

Yes that has already been brought up..  Just because it may be easier for most people, or "better" doesn't mean it's a horrible idea doing both at the same time.  Both FM and Online Streaming Radio.

Gives a lot more flexibility and more people, regardless of what you might think do listen to the radio when they're in their cars, driving.

Having a lot less advertisements then regular radio is good.  People want to listen to music.  Having advertisements every now and again for a brief period of time is much better than after every other song for ten minutes.

Sorry, but this human doesn't always choose the path of least resistance and go the easiest route...  I'll have a larger listener base faster with FM than online, guaranteed.  But with both, who knows!

Thanks for your input however.

much better and much easier is Online Radio

Target market is both FM and as well as online broadcasting.  I'm not looking to profit to make a living from this as much as I'm more doing this for a chance to fill a gap of horrible music in the area and the constant playing of the 'Top 10' non-stop.  There is a demand for EDM, House, 90's Alternative, Tech Talk, etc..

I'm looking at acquiring the additional equipment to be able to go FM and take the online presence and allow for streaming online and to allow DJ's among the community to have a chance and patch directly into the stream and also the FM station.  That being said, being an FM presence there needs to be radio appropriate talk.  I wouldn't mind lowering the price; again I'm not a professional who does this for a living so I'm giving prices off the cuff..

I know that getting a professional transmitter and the 1/2 wave antenna will cost ~$1,000 -- most of the other equipment I already have.  So I'm open to having lower price points and being flexible with advertising space for the people who want to donate either for advertising space or to advertise for the sake of the idea. 

I'm by no means an expert FM radio DJ, just have a lot of experience in the wireless technologies and have a lot of insight to the music industry around here since being close to the Michigan area scene there are a lot of good local artists that would love to have a chance to spotlight to a potential large listener base on the radio as well as online.  While also playing music that is professional and better or well known artists.

I hope that answers more of your questions!

What is your target market?  I am also not understanding whether or not you are going to be transmitting online in addition to general radio.  Depending on the people you will be reaching will determine whether or not you will be able to profit from national advertising campaigns.  Also, this is radio, not television, cut down the advertising clip time and lower your price.  I can spend $5 and get mentioned a local radio station for an entire week 5 times a day. 

Well, I was going through some metal at a friends house.  He actually has some mounting brackets for 2" OD piping.  He also has a 20' mast that would sit on top of a 20 foot tall structure allowing the base to sit 40' above the ground along with the antenna which adds an additional 7 or 8' in height.  Giving it close to 50'.  I've already picked those up and will begin installation of the mast and making sure it's level.

The cable that comes with this transmitter is 60 feet from the base of the antenna so that will give me enough extra cable to run it down and inside the building and into the transmitter.

I've also raided some other gear from friends on used mixers and microphones and such that would allow multiple inputs.

So now it's just a matter of getting the transmitter and the antenna for the radio station.  I should be able to get about 35-40 miles with that height and the open channel availability we have on the upper end spectrum and also the choice of lower end spectrum as well.

Even more interesting there are pine trees that are so tall that you cannot see the antenna  even at that height from the ground without trespassing on my property where the antenna would be located.  The antenna is very small its a 1/2 wave antenna so there's not much to see that is a crazy setup or tower to give it away.  The transmitters I'm looking at fall into the FCC part 15 compliance so it seems they're made of quality construction and not broadcasting outside of that spectrum that the transmitter and antenna are setup to transmit on.

It'd be really awesome to get this going.   I am really begging at this point for some help!  I found an 80 Watt w/ Antenna for ~$1,000 which currently is 2.75 BTC so with a few people and a setup for advertising platform or potential payback with donations I think there is a great opportunity here. 

Interested?  Why not join in with me/us and help fund us!  We will be sure to give you advertising rights or allow pre-recorded / live broadcasts to the community that I'd be broadcasting to which is about 150k people on top of the online presence using Shoutcast.

Let's get together and do this!

Anyone want to help with this project?  I'll definitely give shout outs and if the station makes income in BTC I'll be happy to pay people back too.  I'm very pumped about this idea, and I think it has a lot of potential!

I hope someone is interested in this project as much as I am.  Any donation amount helps, it all will collectively add up to getting even a 25 watt transmitter.  I'd really appreciate the donations and again, if you have a website or something I'd be very happy to advertise it.

Maybe I should setup a reference to perhaps how much in donations explains how often your advertisement would run?

Maybe I'll setup a template for FM & online radio streaming advertisements which will be the same programming except the online stream would be a few seconds to a maybe a minute behind the FM broadcast.

So perhaps something like this?

BTC 0.05 would give you a 30 second advertisement slot 4 times a day.
BTC 0.10 would give you a 30 second advertisement slot 6 times a day.
BTC 0.25 would give you a 30 second advertisement slot 8 times a day.
BTC 0.50 would give you a 30-45 second advertisement slot 10 times a day.
BTC 0.75 would give you a 30-45 second advertisement slot 12 times a day.
BTC 1.00 would give you a full 60-90 second advertisement once per hour.

This would be a beginning template for advertisement that would run for each month?

I'm not sure exactly, but I'd like to offer something in return to anyone who is interested in helping with the idea and project!

Once this is up, if you'd like to DJ for the station I'd definitely be interested in having people have time slots available.  You will simply be able to stream through the out of country server into the FM feed/online station for experience and you'd be able to advertise a link to your Bitcoin address or something to try and bring revenue in for yourself.

Music, Interviews, Podcasts, etc.. I'd like to experiment with the whole layout and design of the show to see what's successful and what's not.  But keep it Bitcoin or technology related for sure and possibly have an off-topic every now and again.

Open to ideas and suggestions!

Yeah, I'm not sure either.  I don't have the extra income with holiday seasons coming up to afford it along with other expenses to live... which is why I'm asking for donations with advertising for those who want to... But I'm definitely willing to give it a solid try and have been building up radio edit music so if FCC is listening there is a less of a chance of them getting upset.  That's what I've noticed from the other pirate radio station is that they keep it clean.

Just trying to think outside the box, do something proactive for Bitcoin at the same time do something I've always wanted to do which is operate an FM station as it is an interest of mine since I have a lot of experience in wireless technology along with building custom antennas for 2.4 GHz antennas, such as a biquad antennas, yagi, biquad yagi's, parabolic dish antennas, high gain omni-directional, etc.. etc..

The whole wireless technology I'm always interested in and the FM part has always been an interest/hobby I'd like to actually delve into a bit more.

Thanks for the hopes or whatever  

Interesting, but I'm not sure how effectively it would play out. I hope it works out for you though.

25 Watt - $320
50 Watt - $735
150 Watt - $1,276.00

Though, I'm not expecting help with a huge transmitter that cost that much.. but perhaps if I get some people interested in this in helping me get a 25 watt for $320 and it shows good promise, always expand later on down the road.

Any amount to help the cause helps!

Thanks everyone in advance.


EDIT: There is also another pirate station around here too, which I would not be impeding on, and he/she has been operating it for almost 5 years now.

Also $320 is the price needed to get the transmitter and antenna, unless I wanted to move to the 50 watt or 150 watt.  150 watt would be the most I'd be interested in doing since the antenna can go to 100 watt and wouldn't paint a huge bulls eye on my location by have this antenna mounted outside.

The power used for the radio is 72 watts, the netbook that will be running the operation will maybe put us up to a few hundred watts.  So the cost to run the operation will not be anything too much and the server to stream the radio station I can pay for by myself eventually.

So I'd be doing both FM and online streaming from a out of country server.  I could see this not working if you have a lot of congestion on the FM channels.   However, I know of some channels perfect for this and have the genre of music that would attract listeners.   There has been a demand for better rock music along with some house music.  It would be tailored to my audience from the feedback I have received from a lot of people in my area in general chit-chat that wouldn't expose myself.

I'm not a professional by ANY means but I have a good understanding of wireless technologies along with figuring out FM transmission.   There's a good chance I'll have to replace the coax that comes with this GP antenna however, it seems to be a decent antenna for the price point that is worth doing some simple modifications to minimize the loss and possibly increase the range a few more miles if possible.

I'm always open to suggestions in terms of FM transmission and even looking down the line possibly even having a stream from other DJ's here in the community that I can patch in from the internet into the feed so it's just not me and we all can take turns!

I just think Bitcoin needs a place to have constant good advertising to a good potential of a population of about 100-150k people (would have to take a drive after installation and really see how far it gets out) but with the open channels I always have a chance to make something of this. 

We started on a project like this years ago and ended up doing online radio.  It was just better and easier and had lower costs in the long run.