Prior to the PIRATE act of 2020, running a pirate FM station was effectively legal until the second time you were busted. Prior to 2020, if you shut the station down after getting your NOUO, there wasn't any real penalty. Teenage me loved this, and my buddies and I had a little irregularly-broadcasting pirate radio station, using a cheap CZH-7C transmitter purchased on eBay. One time we went on air from our high school's cafeteria during a study hall, and surprisingly, nobody questioned anything! We did have Microsoft Sam narrate our broadcast so that we weren't making a ton of noise.
We never did get our NOUO; instead, we ran into the much bigger reality, which was that none of us had anything of interest to say. After the novelty of hearing our voices on the radio wore off, the transmitter ended up in a closet, where it probably still sits today. Good times!
If this is completely non-commercial and you have an amateur license you could probably use AREDN as a backhaul instead of HaLow. We've gotten wifi going from a panel in Elysian up to Wilson on AREDN.
100w from the Verdugos should be pretty substantial. I regularly make 70cm FM contacts on 446.500 from Elysian Park down to San Diego at 5w.
We need a studio to be able to do live radio shows. Currently our hosts have to pre-record and submit through an online dashboard. The goal is to have a live studio in Shadow Hills where hosts can do their shows, bring on guests, take calls, etc.
Also I am /much/ more interested in terrestrial radio but the reality is that the vast majority of listeners are online and not using a radio. : (
Almost immediately (like within the first week or so) everyone involved demanded an internet stream and now that station has two internet streams lol.
I've been thinking about setting up another part 15 station at my house as a personal project but for something like KPBJ the goal is to be a community resource. Terrestrial broadcast is super important to me and helps cement the station's place in our local community but we also want to be accessible to those who are not in this immediate area or who don't know how to use a radio (yes in 2026 that is an issue!).
Fun fact, the Go Gopher drawn by Renee French was originally drawn for a WFMU tee shirt given out at a fun raiser they hosted.
The technical side, while interesting, is relatively clear to me. The legal side, including cost, is something I have no idea about.
In our case we created the non-profit in anticipation of applying for this license. We got really lucky and no one else applied for the license and it was awarded to us.
At the moment we are only airing a few new shows per day and filling the rest of our airtime with content from archive.org and other free sources (chosen by all our hosts), but over time more of the schedule will fill with original content.