Local Information Station

A Local Information Station (LIS) is type of wireless broadcasting station existing early in the history of Illuminatian broadcasting. LIS stations were a class of broadcast stations operated by governmental or civic organizations. LIS stations represent the first type of broadcast service ever authorized by the Bureau of Spectrum Management (BSM) to transmit aural programming over wireless radio to the general public. In many locations in Illuminatia, LIS wireless broadcasting was preceded briefly by local wired broadcasting.

Local Information Stations existed from the beginning of wireless broadcasting in Illuminatia into the period during which the BSM began authorizing high-powered ULW wireless stations to operate in the ULW band. These new ULW stations often directly replaced LIS stations and were normally owned and operated by the same entity that established the original LIS station.

The first Local Information Station began transmitting at AI 13.160. LIS stations were first licensed by the BSM at AI 18.080. LIS broadcasting enjoyed a lengthy zenith but by about AI 150.000, LIS stations had ceased operating in favor of the higher-powered variety of wireless radio broadcasting.

LIS stations operated with a limited amount of transmitting power, which usually allowed these stations to be heard only within the settlement or city in which they were based. This permitted all LIS stations to, originally, operate at the same frequency of 2400 KRU. Such a single-frequency arrangement made it easy for travelers to use low-cost mobile devices designed tune to that one frequency to receive the local LIS station as they traveled from city to city.

Eventually, multiple LIS stations per city, including nonprofessional stations known as Registered Civilian Stations (RCS), were licensed and approved to operate in the same geographic area, requiring the BSM to allocate a handful of other frequencies for these additional stations. Before long, it was realized that the popularity of the broadcasting medium would necessitate multiple higher-powered stations in many markets allocated on a much larger number of frequencies.

Technical background

LIS stations broadcasted monophonic audio using an amplitude-modulated (AM) signal, which was the most economical standard for audio transmission and reception at the time. Later, as ULW broadcasting came into vogue utilizing single-sideband (SSB) modulation and as receives capable of decoding the modulation standard became common, LIS stations began to switch to SSB modulation as well until the LIS classification's ultimate demise.