Free Radio Olympia 98.5 FM Direct Action Broadcasting Since 2001!

How do I start my own free radio station?

Basic Equipment List:
Power Supply (usually 12 volts DC and must supply enough current (amps) for your power level)
DC cables for each DC component
Exciter
Amplifier
SWR meter
coaxial jumpers (50 ohms)
coaxial feedline (50 ohms)
antenna
PLUS your AUDIO source(s)and audio cables.

Handy test gear includes:
wattmeter (appropriate to your power level and frequency)
MFJ 259 or 269 SWR Analyzer and Frequency Counter
dummy load (appropriate to power and freq.)
multimeter (reads volts, amps, and ohms, and detects electrical continuity
extra coaxial jumpers
and an FM radio receiver!!!

Download this First Steps PDF (by Justin Disruption) that will walk you through starting a station. It features information from the 'zine Three Meter Revolt (by Radio Free Cascadia) along with other information you made need. (To download PDF's you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

Check out this dated Introduction to Pirate Radio. The people who started Free Radio Olympia used this guide.

Tweaking and Tuning: Be sure to read this in-depth document discussing the tuning of amplifiers and the construction of low-pass filters, also by Radio Free Cascadia.

Stephen Dunifer (Free Radio Berkeley) wrote the first and lengthiest How-To for microradio:
Micropower Broadcasting - A Technical Primer

Be warned: these guides recommend many places to get equipment. We recommend:

Broadcast Warehouse
Veronica
ProgressiveConcepts, and
Comet Antennas, especially the CFM-95SL 88-108MHz Tunable Antenna for FM broadcast.
All these sources offer cheap and pre-built equipment but will require some assembly.

We started the station for around $700, and through benefit shows we eventually got all of our money back.

We also DARED TO COMPARE KITS! Only for the daring! We figured out our whole setup thru this site. Very cool!

We got this Broadcast Warehouse 1-watt LCD exciter, and we still use it four years later.

After reading these guides, here's some more recommendations:

Crow: If you're new to building electronics and soldering, do not build your own kit. Buy your stuff. I actually managed to get shit for buying pre-built stuff, but it's not worth the hassle of fucking up your shit. I would learn about electronics however. Early on we had many problems with equipment interfering with other equipment(improper shielding). If we had more advanced electronics knowledge we would have spared ourselves A LOT of headaches.

Megawatti: Actually, if you can afford to make mistakes and you want to learn about electronics, I encourage you to build your own kit. First read some basic electronics theory. You must know the difference between a capacitor, and inductor, a resistor, and a transistor! Learn Watt's Law (volts x current [amperes] = power [watts]) and Ohm's Law (current [amperes] x resistance [ohms] = voltage [volts]). Once you can make sense of that, practice soldering before you actually solder your kit. Once you can read a schematic and instructions well enough to try it, then build a kit and see how it works! For a first kit, the Veronica 1-watt is highly recommended, because the simple circuit-board layout is widely spaced instead of crammed. I also highly recommend building your own antenna and experimenting with it. The ARRL Antenna Book is the source for all information antenna, though you will find some designs for 3 meters (the FM broadcast band) in the First Steps PDF. Remember antennas, like microphones, can be directional (aiming a signal beam toward your audience from the edge of town), or ominidirectional (radiating equally in a circle around the antenna.) A good and easy directional antenna is the Yagi, and the simplest omnidirectional antenna is the Dipole.

If you're still confused, here's more great links from Diymedia.net.