Possible Equipment

Hey guys. Not exhaustive but here are my recommendations for gear. I've been getting advice from a dude from Nelson's CJLY that does a lot of their low power stuff so don't think I'm as clever as this:
Antenna
There were four antennas I got quotes on from the two companies that service Western Canada. Antennas can be designed to send out waves in various directions. The recommended type is omnidirectional and circular for our location as we are so central. Because it provides the richest range of signal is comes at the cost of radiated power. An antenna that just broadcasts a signal that comes out vertically (the waves go up and down but not side to side) and directional (the signal is stringer one way) would have more gain (be more powerful) but antennas that were positioned flat (some home stereos) would not be able to hear the signal very well.
As we are going to broadcast in the center of town and aren't too concerned about power right now the omnidirectional circular system works best.
The model that works best for our application is:
Telecom TFC2K-1 (one bay) - $1055
The other models ranged from $600 to $900 but seemed tricker to install or didn't provide the omni-directional circular signal. This is the same model we used for the station last summer. We lose half the power you put in so you need to put in 10 watts to get out 5 watts. If you add more bays you can increase the gain (be more powerful). It would be new so we would have a warranty.
Transmitter
The transmitter is what generates the signal for the antenna to send out. I looked at stereo (mono would only come out of one speaker) with built in limiters (they stop the unit from exploding or sending out deafening feedback which may explode people's stereos when someone screws up at the station).
The Kamloops station has a used 10 watt SBS exciter (transmitter) with built in stereo and limiter. They are willing to part with it for $1200. It is a fairly simple device to run but my buddy at CJLY doesn't like it as it is hard to set up and verify that it is working effectively. This summer we used a cool Lex 30 which took about 5 seconds to set up and has easy to read display panel showing what is going on in terms of antenna feed back, frequency and a bunch of other important stats. The SBS exciter has no display but is pretty fool proof I hear once you get it running.
Here is what Brant the station manager in Kamloops says about the model.
Either of these antenna systems should be fine. Our first unit was circularly polarized, which deals with the issues with either vertical or horizontal polarization by covering both. There are some minor issues with circular polarization, such as I believe a slight loss of efficiency, but if you go with either vertical or horizontal polarization, some listeners may not receive you as well. Basically, you want to send the signal with the kind of polarization that will properly reach the most receivers. Having said that, our new three-bay system is horizontally polarized, as per the advice of our engineer, so there you go. Whichever antenna you purchase, the factory will tune it to 94.5 FM.To change the frequency in the SBS exciter, it's just a matter of removing the case and adjusting a number of settings. We did the new unit, and it was a 20-second job that is well explained in the manual. We have the original manual for the 10-watter, by the way. I guarantee the ability to change the unit's frequency setting from 92.5 to 94.5...in fact, it should be only a matter of changing the "2" to a "4" inside the box. Cheers!
The SBS 10 watt exciter has no warranty but has been used for several years with no fault. As I said it is priced at $1200 used. This model can really only be used for low power applications unless you boost the power with another piece of equipment. With the antenna I'm recommending it would broadcast at a maximum of 5 watts. If you are looking for a long term unit to use we need to get a more powerful transmitter. Otherwise we sell this equipment on to another station setting up a developmental station.
A similar set up (stereo and limiter) with more power are running new:
Lex 30 watt transmitter - $2795Lex 50 watt transmitter - $3010Lex 100 watt transmitter - $3895
These blow the budget but would be under warranty and offer an ease of use and display panel the SBS 10 watt doesn't have. Plus the units could be used to broadcast at higher power quite easily.
Cheers, Cam