Here's a receiver that can tune 2 FM bands - the U.S. & Canadian one, and the international one - here, the international band is the domain of wireless microphones & whitespace devices.
The link is to the Canadian Amazon site, but it is also available under US$10 on amazon.com (here in Canada we have to pay the difference in the two dollars, plus shipping).
Still, at under C$20, it's a great deal, as you also get the AM broadcast band, including the upper portion, plus multiple shortwave bands.
I was thinking of getting one just to see what the actual activity is in my area below 88Mhz.
I also wonder whatever happened to the grand plans both in Canada and the U.S. for use of whitespace devices. There was supposed to be a database, per area, of users, frequencies and power utilization. There were also supposed to be certified devices that would check that database, and allow unlicensed use on frequencies that were clear. Whether that use included broadcasting was never clear.
Be interesting to see what is there if anything from 64-88 mHz.
Was a few of TV stations 2-6 I know for sure.
When TV was still analog I tuned to 87.5 and listened to TV sound on the car radio and listened to the soap operas while doing deliveries.
I managed to find my Sony ICF-2003, which does receive those lower FM frequencies, and the results were interesting.
I found several stations playing music, on 77.9 and 76.3 (the latter in French). The one on 77.9 was in actuality, broadcasting on 99.3. I don't know if this was a harmonic, or studio to studio/transmitter link. Probably 76.3 was the same sort of thing. Otherwise, I heard nothing.
99.3 is actually CFOX in Vancouver. Assume that's where you are so it wouldn't be any other. Strange they have a satellite station on 77.9 Don't think commercial stations put out anything unintentional like harmonics.
@mark That's why I was thinking it was some sort of STL - studio to transmitter link. The broadcast station is LOUD, this signal is relatively weak. You're allowed up to 1 watt in the whitespace frequencies, which could certainly travel several miles.
The key point is that if they're allowed to have a broadcast signal there, why not us? You don't have to be licensed to operate there, as long as you respect the actual licensed signals.
Talking about 'outside the band' I think of the C.Crane FM3 Transmitter which is U.S. Certified for operation at 87.5, 87.7 & 87.9 MHz, despite the fact that to our best knowledge those channels have never been approved for use within 15.239. Oddly, none of the usual self-appointed frequency police have raised a fuss about it and according to C. Crane the product continues to gain a growing user base.
Some more thoughts off the top of the head about the space below the FM band...
This geography belonged once to the lower analog VHF TV spectrum, starting with channel 2 around 52 MHz, part of the old FM band from the days of Edwin Armstrong. A block of space between TV channels 4 and 5 belonged to some public utilities, and as I discovered the audio for TV 5 and 6 could be heard by detuning an FM radio. Channels 7 upward were placed somewhere above the FM band.
More recently as the FCC established so-called white spaces, I do believe that equipment for such use had to be capable of automatically logging into an FCC database to determine availability of usable channels of operation. I never spotted any such equipment so I had no idea whether it was adaptable to our kind of hobby application. I scouted wireless mic information but never found anything that operated below the FM band, although it existed potentially according to FCC notices, and yes, there was a specified 1-Watt allowance.