You are lucky... to not have the FCC in your way.
Well, that's true enough. At one time they had a noble purpose (but by 1947 they had been pretty well corrupted by cooperate greed).
From: Radio Fidelity's:
The history of FM radio: The search for sensational sound
So, when did FM radio start gaining popularity? Not until years after its original creation. When Armstrong came up with the FM radio frequency, AM broadcasts were big business for companies all over the world.
In 1933,
Edwin Armstrong successfully received four patents for his FM technology and began to appeal to the RCA for support with his new system. The Radio Corporation of America was responsible for determining which radio innovations were permitted at the time.
Although the engineers within the company were impressed by the potential of frequency modulation, the legal and sales departments saw FM radio frequency as a threat.
The head of the RCA at the time, David Sarnoff decided that there wasn’t enough of a market for FM radio, particularly as he was beginning to promote television more aggressively.
Though Armstrong earned some support for his invention from companies like Zenith and General Electric, he was forced to continue developing his technology on his own.
Most of his experimentation was paid for out-of-pocket, while he gradually earned the attention of broadcasters and engineers.
Finally, in 1940, the FCC caved in and began authorizing commercial FM broadcasting, allocation a tiny region of 42 MHz to 50 MHz to channels in the FM spectrum. By the end of 1941, almost 400,000 FM radio sets had been sold.
There were many organizations that wanted to keep things the same. The founder of the RCA, David Sarnoff, was one of the men happy to let FM radio die out. Sarnoff was responsible for controlling many of the technical aspects of radio’s growth.
He was also responsible for the development of the ABC and NBC television networks.
When Armstrong went to Sarnoff for support with his FM radio frequency, Sarnoff was currently pushing the growth of television. He’s actually the man responsible for developing the NTSC standard for TV – a standard we still recognise today.
Seeing FM as a threat, Sarnoff’s company lobbied with the FCC to have the spectrum removed entirely from Armstrong’s frequencies, and into the ones that we use today (88 to 108MHz).
At the time, the move rendered Armstrong’s network of FM radio stations completely obsolete. It also meant that the radio sets Armstrong had poured his own money into became useless.
The ruling delivered by the
FCC announced that the 40MHz band that FM radio had previously relied on would now be given to television broadcasts. At the time, the RCA had a substantial stake on those channels.
Additionally, the RCA also had allies everywhere. Even AT&T actively supported the move in frequencies, because the loss of the radio stations for FM companies forced networks to purchase links from AT&T.
The issue grew even worse when Armstrong ended up in another patent battle with NBC and the RCA, who were trying to use FM technology, though they weren’t paying royalties. It wasn’t until after Armstrong’s tragic death that radio’s emerging golden years began.
So yes, you are luck to not have the FCC in your way.