For many years I've been trying to have a good idea, this may be it.

Ok, so you want to have a successful Part 15 business of some kind. Try this:

Order and build an AMT5000 from sstran.com, the most efficient Part 15 AM transmitter ever designed.

Step 2 contract with a a qualified engineering firm to conduct certification measurements for application to the FCC.

Step 3, as a Certified AMT5000 Builder, seek orders from people who want ready-built versions of the AMT5000.

Step 4, use the in-rush of profits to fund your Part 15 radio station.

Step 5, live happily ever after.

What could go wrong?

I was wondering if anyone has or had these intercoms and could you tell me if they were true FM or actually just great sounding AM? Would be an easy hack to add audio to one of these for an in-house broadcast on the longwave band. Which brings me to another question I guess, are all of the older radio shack intercoms in the longwave band? Or did i just imagine all this? Hmm ...Barry of Blue Bucket Radio 1520 AM

I DO NOT want nor intend to start the ground lead discussion (again)

However, I KNEW I had this laying around someplace.

Back when I was first shopping for a trasmitter and carefully scrutinizing all the websites of various makers, I saved and printed most of the info I found for later extensive analasys.

At the time, not knowing diddly about the long ground lead issue.  Procaster had this as their opening page on their website:

http://www.ironrangecountry.com/originalprocaster.jpg

Clearly showing what is an illegal in the USA ground lead. Now, I know things are different in Canada and it's probably fine up there.  But as a Part 15 newbie back then I would have installed my transmitter exactly like this (it's also covered in the installation manual). I would imagine that thousands of innocent newbies who just searched, found, bought, installed, without researching and reading a bunch of forums would have never suspected possible trouble. 

In face my installation looks exactly like the one pictured, except my transmitter is outside mounted to a wooden outside attic window frame, and I don't have any ground lead at all. 

I see they've changed their website since then, nearly 2 1/5 years ago.

TIB

I have been involved in a discussion on the Part 15 AM & FM Facebook group which was comparing the Rangemaster to the ProCaster.  During this discussion, several individuals were claiming what seems to me to be exorbitant ranges for stock ProCaster transmitters (over 3 miles), supposedly installed 'close to' the ground.

Also recently Station8 is claiming over 4 miles range with a new antenna design.

Now, range is always directly proportional to the field strength generated by a transmitter/antenna combination.  We are lucky in that Part 15.219 does not specify a maximum field strength (unlike FM, which is governed by 15.239), but instead places restrictions on the antenna system (no more than 3 meters in length, including feedline and ground wire) and no more than 100mw input to the final stage of the transmitter.

So there are things you can do to increase your field strrength within those guidelines, and therefore your range.  You can improve the efficiency of the final stage of the transmitter (as SSTran claims with the AMT5000).  Or you can improve your antenna system, as Station8 claims he has done.

That got me thinking as to what could be the maximum possible range for a Part 15 AM system.

I know that Rich has in the past calculated the field strength for a strictly legal ground installed transmitter using a monopole antenna with the NEC software.  And I know that he also calculated that field strength with an elevated install and a long ground wire (I can't remember the exact length).

But do you think that I could find them?  The search function on the website doesn't appear to be functioning at all (at least for me).  So I was wondering if anyone (including Rich) has those graphs generated by NEC 4.2 handy.

I'm not going to get into it with those who are claiming huge range - there's really no point to that.  I just want this information for my own musings.

We also have been told that the Station8 antenna is end fed and high gain.  To get that kind of distance I suspect that it has to be directional (and I'm going to ask him that).  Unfortunately, until we know more about the antenna, there is no way that it can be modelled.

Again, I know this has been covered before, but I can't find it.

What is the typical noise floor in terms of uv/m for both urban and rural environments?

I know that it takes a certain field strength n*x to induce a signal strength of x into the input of a receiver.  I recall that n=2.5 to 3 for the FM band.  Would that factor remain the same for the AM broadcast band at around 1.7Mhz?

Those two sets of facts, along with the graph produced by Rich in the other thread should give anyone a good idea of what kind of range to expect for a good Part 15 AM installation with a monopole antenna.

Greetings my friends of electromagnatic and electrostatic radiation!

I purchase a lot of BH 1417 and 1415 chip based transmitters for personal learning experiences in hopes that I may someday, through my carefully documented experiments provide enrichment to the science of radio technology.

Over the years I have had many of these transmitters that worked perfectly, however three of them would not transmit stereo.

These transmitters would light the stereo indicator light on a receiver but the left and right channels were combined so there was no separation.  (Yes, the audio source was two separate channels)

Two of the transmitters were “factory built”. On those transmitters I traced back from the audio input jack all the way to the chip (with audio source) to make sure there was no connection between the channels before the audio got to the chip. That all checked out so then I replaced the chip, that didn’t change anything the audio was still mono on the receiver. (Analog tuned) Then I replaced some parts leading from pin 8 (BH 1417f I think its pin 8, if not it’s the pin on the IC which sends the composite signal to the oscillator.Doing that didn’t change anything either, the output was still mono.  I never changed the varactor diode but that is about the only thing I didn’t change. I did change the crystal and that didn’t make any difference either. I checked the frequency to make sure the transmitter was right on and it was.

Ok so I gave up on those two transmitters, I sent them back to China and never heard back from anyone so the transmitters are gone forever.

Then recently I bought a kit transmitter that I had to assemble. This transmitter works great but to my HORROR, it has just about the same issue as those transmitters above. The only exception is that there is a bit of stereo separation but a far cry from what it should be.

For trouble shooting, I did all of the above to this transmitter, including tracing the audio from the input jack.  I also ended up replacing the BH 1417F chip and some related parts but still no separation. Just to note, when I put an audio signal into lets say the right channel the same audio is transmitted from both channels. This is the same as from the left channel.

For now I gave up on this one also, too bad because I had spent the evening making a nice case for it. I decided to order a second kit and will try that one to see if it works properly or not.

I understand that a person can tap off of pin 8 (I think its pin 8 on the 1417F) the composite signal and run it through a different oscillator to see if I get a good stereo signal that way, but for now I have better things to do.

Does anyone have any idea what is causing this problem of no stereo seperation?  Like there are only a few external parts to this circuit, and I did replace the chip so that doesn’t leave much to go wrong. Once again I tested to make sure the audio channels were not being combined prior to getting to the input on the chip.

I hate to admit RADIO JOE is stumped. It is very hard for me to accept that I dont know the answer to this problem!

Just thought I'd toss this out there.

I recently went to take a field strength reading at my 7100 foot test spot (a parking lot off the side of the highway).

I had also brought along some radios to test actual reception.

I can report my station was loud and clear on a GE Super Radio (same as the Radio Shack or RCA Super Radio), also loud and clear on the radio in my SUV, a 2010 Ford Escape.  As well as loud and clear on a Grundig S350DL radio (a pretty decent communications receiver) and also clear as day on a really cheap 1970's vintage Panasonic little transistor radio (you know, the ones with the 9V battery that you used to listen to the baseball game or Steppenwolf songs on top 40 radio back when you were a teenager).  But then I fired up the little Tecsun PL-310 specifically because I was asked to get a dBu reading at this spot, and it picked up so much static and noise that my station was unlistenable!

Demonstrating the HUGE differences in "range testing" with different radios.  Also makes me wonder what is so different about the Tecsun that I would have easily considered myself out of range if I were relying on it exclusively!

TIB

Recently purchased this one and is actually an updated version of the Waio....in fact Waio and Broadcast Vision are the same company. Larger than it looks in pictures and plastic case yes but very durable. A bit more expensive but like the Decades is professional grade and made to last with very good sound quality. Comes with 5 year warranty.

This is FCC and IC certified with numbers on label. Works very well and range is like the Decade MS-100  and the Wholehouse 3.

Has indicators for low signal, input at correct levels and overmodulating...like the Ramsey that Carl built.

Has on board compression/limiting that actually works and is hard to cause distortion....still use with my compressor though and nicely gets to the volume of other stations. Stereo separation is great, listening in car.

These transmitters are sold for fitness centers etc

Only drawback is no on-off switch....on-off is plugging in adaptor plug but I could install a on-off switch and wire it in and mount to outside but I don't know what this will do to warranty so I will leave for now.

Get humming with the adaptor that they send  so I just use my own and perfect.

Half the price of the MS-100 new and in my opinion just as good.

Mark

As you may or may not know after my Wife had survived cancer and had a few other severe medical issues I lost all my nice electronics equipment. Back in the day I could have bought a FIM 71 field strength meter for FM and one of the field strength meters for AM. Plus I'd have one of the best AM Transmitters with built in processing. That said its now just a laptop, NextKast as my Radio automation software with built in audio processing that was built for FM transmitters and Internet Radio. Having an internet station I can't screw with the processing to make AM sound good as it would kill my Internet stream. Remembering how I still wanted surround sound when watching movies I was able to get a JVC headphone surround sound adapter FREE from free cycle here in Elizabeth City, NC. I loved it for listening to movies in Dolby Pro Logic II surround sound. The side effect of the adapter was it added some low end. Well I thought since the Talking House 5.0 has a horrible sound as compared to FM how can I force a better more pleasant sound on a poor man's budget. Then it hit me. AM being mono does not care if your pumping mono into it or Stereo and as to how wide it is. What happens if I connect the JVC surround sound headphone adapter between my external sound card adapter and the AM transmitter. So I found some double AA batteries and plugged the built in cord to audio out of the card. Then I plugged the 1/8 in patch cord into the phones jack of the surround sound adapter and the other end into the Talking house 5.0. Fired it up and It helped. That shrill AM crap sound was now more sweeter sounding. There is a slight echo as the Dolby Pro logic virtual surround sound is creating just a slight echo. It reminds me of WABC AM years ago. WLS also had a slight sound like this. Only bad thing is that this adapter is battery operated. I'll have to invest in a battery charger and some NiMH batteries and charge them every night to allow me to run everyday from noon to 4 AM. I may try a graphic equalizer if I can get one cheap along with a stereo 1/8 jack to RCA jacks. Maybe a 5-10 band EQ eill do. AM doesn't really have any frequencies above 2K. Adjusting the lower end could help. Or maybe an electric version of the JVC surround sound headphone adapter could be a cheap way to make AM listenable to an Album Rocker. Some songs seem to need just a bit of tweaking, but at least now I can stand to listen to my own station as AM really did suck before for a poor man's Radio station.

Ok so I am looking for a good range FM transmitter that is legal. The goal is for car radios to pick it up. I now have a Talking House AM but at night or in bad wether conditions it does not go far at all. I have looked into getting the Whole House 3.0 but I have read some fishy things about the company and I have heard the range is not far. C. Crane FM2 and it is at a cheap price but I havent seen much testing done on it for me to go for it. If any of you guys have thease transmitter what range do you get with them and how good is the sound quality?

My setup plan is to have it placed next to my AM transmitter near my open window. When the window is open my AM can be picked up about a mile away (with allot of noise). It will also be on the 2nd floor so it will be high up. I also will like to get this before Christmas because I would love to do a 24/7 christmas station and mabey make some lights dance. 

Thanks :)

Bob (ZL1RS) has just set up a pair of phased beverages on his farm near Aukland and has been monitoring QRSS signals on 13.55 Mhz. from the U.S. for the past day or so. He has already resolved 4 or 5 U.S. hifer signals and we are quite surprised at the level and quality of the transmissions. Both Bob and I (Jim Sorenson - W3BH, Saxonburg, PA) have been monitoring amateur High Altitude Balloons on 30 and 20 meters over the past year using WSPR and WSJT and have been receiving decoded reports from as distant as 11,000 miles with the balloon beacon transmitter only running in the neighborhood of 30 - 50 Milliwatts.  

If you have equipment to produce a QRSS signal on the 13.55 Mhz hifer band, put it on the air and see if Bob can hear you. He will email you back the results and he can also receive in WSPR if you want to give that a try as a beacon.

If you are looking for a good reasonably priced beacon transmitter kit, go to Hans Summers' QRPlabs - https://shop.qrp-labs.com/ for his $29 Ultimate 3 QRSS/WSPR kit. I've built three of them so far and they work great and support a number of other popular digital modes as well. I have no financial interest in QRPlabs, BTW. It's just good kit, as they say. 

If you want to see what others are doing with WSPR, go to WSPRnet.org where you will find hams and SWLs from around the world sending in WSPR reports for posting on maps and tables. It's a great propagation study tool. 

To see what Bob is doing at the ZL end for receiving and whom he has heard on 13.55 over the the past 24 hours go here: 

http://www.qsl.net/zl1rs/bev.html

We can always use more balloon monitors when they fly. Go to Habhub (http://habhub.org/) for more info about that. 

Regards to all, 

Jim 

Jim SorensonSaxonburg, PA

Been planning on buying a sailboat for some time and finally have.. now time to determine how to go about installing the Rangemaster on it..

My initial thoughts is to mount it in the cockpit in the back near where the outboard engine is so I can run the ground out one of the two little holes are which are there to allow any water to drain out if it should happen to enter the area.. and simply make the water the ground(?)

I don't have any pics on hand, but here are a couple from the same model boat that I found on the internet to illustrate what I mean..

Inside cockpit:

from the outside:

I know it looks like water would be coming in that hole, but two weeks ago traveled 80 miles over a day and a half, and not once did any water enter the cockpit.. however the ocean was calm down the intracoastal waterway during my trip.

Now the engine will be hanging in the transom, but I don't see how that would be making any difference. at least I don't think it makes any difference unless it's running.

Now the engine is a Honda 9.9 and it's manual, so it's not even connected to the battery at all except for a removable cord for charging the battery if it's running. the battery is simply used to power my running lights and interior lights. So the transmitter will be powered by 12v DC.

I'm probally going to elimate all my hardware proccessing gear and to doing it all on the laptop with software proccessing. - I haven't really figured it all out yet.

I've thought about having the transmitter grounded to one of the keel bolts inside, with the transmitter still mounted outside by the companionway door, but that would mean several feet run of ground lead.

Any advice any one? Particuarly Ken Norris, cause i think you have experience with the same situation.

If any one is interested I put a video up of the trip. but we didn't sail, none of us knew how to, so we motored the entire way! But I'll be learning to sail soon enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVp2D9p5vug

Just put a Chez Procaster on the air to replace a 3 year old iA.M. Talking House with UTC.  HUGE improvement.  Excellent signal for about a mile--fringe at 1.5 and barely noticeable at 2.75 miles.

Even at .8 miles the signal was almost as strong as a 5KW about 7 miles away.

I have 32' of copper rods in the ground connected with #2 gauge copper wire (as big as I could get).

The iA.M. was only good for 1/2 mile at best with the same ground system.  Still a little tweaking to do, but so far I'm very happy with it.  Gerry, at Chez Radio, was extremely helpful and took the time to give me tips through the process. 

i gave this a try. i could not pound an 8ft (live in apt's) rod in the ground but was able to get about a 2ft rod in ground.

signal did not travel more than 25ft from building and did not jump to other buildings.

very strong, sounding great in and around building but not much beyond building.

used a TCU-30 and one of those greek rack mount AM's 20W (80W PEP)

Never have really seemed to have any good luck with Carrier Current, always seem to wind up in a bad area for it.

This possibly true story is being shared by our companion website at The ALPB:

WITNESS SPIGOT

What are the uses of remote controlled flying drones for part 15 radio stations?

DRONES SIMULCAST FROM THE ALPB SPIGOT

Ok so I am wondering is it safe to use this for a radio station. I have read online that this transmitter has a much more stronger feild of strength than the part 15 requirements. I also saw somewhere on thease forums the same thing. So my question is, is it safe to use? I dont want anyone from the FCC commeing to my door saying im a pirate. I will be useing the frequency 90.9FM. 

Thanks :)

So today I was just messing around in my RTL SDR trying to see what I can find out there and when I began to go into the 70's MHz area I began to hear music like .2 or .3 mhz apart. I then relised my AM station plays that same music. I tuned my clock to 1670AM and bam same music was playing. Is my talking house going to interfear with other things or is it just my SDR messing up. The transmitter and computer are in the same room. Can someone explain whats going on with this :P

Thanks :)

Ok so today my C Crane transmitter came in and I am a bit confused. The transmitter ofcorse had troubles without the mod and I did the mod and it worked great :D. However if I power off the unit and power it back on it is as if its not transmitting because all I get is static. Ive moved it around and still static. Then if I power it off again and power it back it may start working again. It happens at random intervolves. Can someone explain why it does this behavor? 

Thanks :)

how about a PLL or DDS (tuneable in selectable 1hz/1khz/5khz steps) 1 watt (Class E? / 50 ohm output) lowfer tx (or Tranceiver) that does CW/AM/SSB?

it would be neat to have for CW or Voice Comms on longwave.

maybe some of the geniuses on here can get together and cook up a project like this.

i realize it would be a complex circuit, but it would go a long way to bring the longwave band to life.