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I'm launching a LPFM radio station

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I've been working on creating a Low Power FM radio station for the east San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. We are not yet on the broadcast band but our channel will be 95.9FM and our range can been seen on the homepage of our site.KPBJ is a freeform community radio station. Anyone in the area is encouraged to get a timeslot and become a host. We make no curatorial decisions. Its sort of like public access or a college station in that way.This month we launched our internet stream and on-boarded about 60 shows. They are mostly music but there are a few talk shows. We are restricting all shows to monthly time slots for now but this will change in the near future as everyone gets more familiar with the systems involved.All shows are pre-recorded until we can raise the money to get a studio.We have a site secured for our transmitter but we need to fundraise to cover the equipment and build out costs. We will be broadcasting with 100W ERP from a ridgeline in the Verdugos at about 1500ft elevation. The site will need to be off grid so we will need to install a solar system with battery backup. We are planning to sync the station to the transmit site with 802.11ah.I've built all of our web infrastructure using Haskell, NixOS, Terraform, and HTMX: https://github.com/solomon-b/kpbj.fmThis is a pretty substantial project involving a bunch of social and technical challenges and a shoe string budget. I'm feel pretty confident we will pull it off and make it a high impact local radio station.The station is managed by a 501c3 non-profit we created. We are actively seeking fundraising, especially to get our transmit site up and running. If you live in the area or want to contribute in any way then please reach out!

HN · launched Feb 17, 2026 · 113 upvotes (top 10%) · 0 views

Niche: software-defined radio tools · 30 launches, 3 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Media & entertainment
  • B2C
  • Not AI
  • Commercial product

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

No Launching a Low Power FM (LPFM) radio station requires strict FCC licensing, legal compliance, RF engineering, broadcast transmitter hardware, and tower site infrastructure.

What it would actually take: Operating an LPFM station requires obtaining an FCC construction permit and broadcast license, requiring legal and frequency-coordination engineering studies to avoid inter-station interference. Physical infrastructure involves an antenna mast, tuned broadcast FM transmitter, stereo generator, emergency alert system (EAS) hardware, and an automation playout server (e.g. Rivendell). These requirements fundamentally center on physical RF engineering, regulatory compliance, and broadcast electronics that cannot be built by writing software.

Discussion

20 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: AREDN (Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network), Internet radio stations, Commercial/state broadcasters, Podcasts

Concerns raised: Encryption not allowed on AREDN, AM/medium wave technically and legally difficult for micro broadcasters, Large solar panel field required for 100w transmitter, FCC liability for content broadcast, High royalty rates for music content

Feature requests: Allow remote/autonomous broadcasters without studio presence, Support encrypted communications, Simplify AM/medium wave broadcasting setup

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 148 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #13 of 149 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 109 days after the earliest competitor.

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