A potential LPFM (Low Power FM) filing window may be opening up as soon October/November. There is nothing official from the FCC about the date, however, several insiders have suggested that this is on the fast track and it may happen sooner rather than later.
This will likely be the last chance for community radio operators to get a LPFM license, as after this filing window, every available scrap of spectrum will have a translator shoe horned into it. Therefore, now is the time to do some research and get prepared.
To that end, there are two good LPFM channel finders that can be used to determine if a LPFM station can be put on the air. The first is the FCC’s official LPFM channel finder. For this tool, one will need to know the latitude and longitude of the proposed transmitter site. That information can be obtained from itouchmap.com, with which one can find the lat/long of any point on the face of the earth.
The second LPFM channel finder is from REC networks. This tool is a much more flexible. For finding possible transmitter location, a street address, zip code, or lat/long can be used. It also has much more information as it has a provision to use the proposed 250 watt station class and shows every available channel as well as possible available second adjacent channels.
Prometheus radio has a simpler zip code check, which does not give any technical information, it simply states that LPFM channels are available at the zip code which was entered. Prometheus has good primers on how to start and operate a LPFM station.
If you are a member of a group considering starting a community radio station, now is the time to get going.
