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Formulas For Success

September 30, 2014, 5:39 pm
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Dear part 15 radio frends, it was Bruce MICRO1700 who opened the new season of forum topics and the harvest continues with "Formulas For Success."

Because we are desperate, each one of us is driven to contemplate methods and tricks for doing more with less; getting a sow to give an ear for a purse; building a dynasty from hobby toys; holding on to marriages while speaking to the air.

Then comes the fall season with cooler weather, and the brain wakes up and new schemes sprout in full bloom.

Let me tell you how to launch a nation-wide franchise of drive-in part 15 FM stations that will outdo StarBucks and Dominos Pizza.

Using the FCC's own guideline of "200-feet" as the expected range of a part 15 FM station in the Homeland (former U.S.), keep in mind that they mean 200-feet in all directions from the antenna... that's 400-feet east-to-west and 400-feet north-to-south.

In the center of a 400 X 400-foot parking lot, build a circular flower garden edged with wide stones on top of bricks, suitable for sitting and munching pizza.

In the center of the circular garden will be a radio tower built-to-scale by a metal sculptor, painted red and white to prevent bird accidents, atop of which will sit your certified FM transmitter, at a height suitable to reach over tops of cars parked in circular ever-widening-spirals facing the tower.

On the street along the outer edge of the lot mobile food vendors will be invited to set-up-shop, further enticed to participate by free spots on the station.

Like the drive-in-theaters of yester-year, people would bring their dates and their families to enjoy excellent radio within range of your "magic stick" FM antenna.

"What are we doing tonight, honey?"

"Oh, let's go to the Magic Stick Radio Drive In!"

The kid's chorus would say: "Ya dad! Can we? Can we?"

What Formula For Success might you have?

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Talking House ATU

October 6, 2014, 10:43 am
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I purchased a Talking House 5.0 transmitter along with its companion ATU a couple months ago.  I'm using a 102" steel antenna whip and 100 feet of RCA RG-6 coaxial cable, but I can't seem to get a reading on the ATU. 

I had it downstairs in the basement with the mast resting on a copper water pipe and got a slight reading, but not when it's mounted to my roof, about 15 feet above ground.  According to the instructions, Talking House supplied 100 feet of coax cable with the setup, and for the excess length, to coil it up, and not cut it. 

I tried to ground it to the lightning rod outside my house and to its mounting hardware, but still no reading and no signal.  What is it that I'm doing wrong here?

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How far do you keep your am transmitter from your fm transmitter?

October 7, 2014, 3:15 pm
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Does it matter? I run a Ramsey FM10C and a Ramsey AM1.  Please don't laugh I'm a newbie with limited funds.  As funds produce themselves I will upgrade, right now I'm getting a kick out of house/ yardcasting +.  Part 15 is freaking awesome.

 

Chance

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A Poor Man's NRSC Machine

October 8, 2014, 6:34 am
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SSTRAN AMT3K carrier current?

October 24, 2014, 12:49 pm
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Question Regarding Talking House AM transmitter

October 29, 2014, 12:33 pm
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Greetings everyone, I operate a micropower part 15 FM station in my apartment complex, but I have a great deal of interest in AM. I have a talking house transmitter that I bought two years ago and have played around with from time to time.

 

I live on the bottom floor of a Solid Brick Building, that is extremely well insulated, I dont even have to use much heat when its 20 degrees outside, I have a hard time getting my Signal to penetrate the walls, Especially on the FM side.

 

With AM, If i use the length of wire that the Talking House came with, I dont get very far at all with an Audible Signal, Many power lines and Interference in the Area. I have attatched wth Wire to a Small ground Rod before and my signal then goes out about a mile and a half in each direction around me during the daylight hours, the signal is fairly readable until you get to the fringes where the noise overwhelms the audio. 

My question is this, Is it legal to attach the Transmitter wire to a ground source, as long as the total length of the antenna and ground source dont exceed 3 meters.

The other question is this, At night my signal doesnt leave the parking lot in front of my residence, Is there anyway to improve nightime signal without breaking the rules.

Thanks.

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GOgroove FlexSMART

November 6, 2014, 5:50 am
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Has anyone used a GOgroove FlexSMART X2 for micro broadcasting? How does the range compare to a transmitter that puts out the maximum legal part 15 FM field strength?

I have a GOgroove FlexSMART X2 in my car. It has a very nice feature. If I remove power (unplug it), when I reapply power (plug it back in) it comes on and it remembers the frequency it was set to. (If the power button is on at the time it is unplugged.)

I was going to put a C Crane FM2 in a weather proof box up high on my house, but the C Crane needs to be turned on (have its power button pressed) after power is removed/restored.

It would be nice to have a switch inside so I don’t need to leave the transmitter on all the time. For what I have available, the GOgroove FlexSMART would be easier to put in a weather proof box and turn on and off remotely, but then the GOgroove FlexSMART’s Bluetooth capability would be wasted.

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WH2XDE 1750 kHz.

November 12, 2014, 9:35 pm
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Is an experimental station

granted by the FCC to test

digital AM BCB "voice" modes.  I have

more info but am having

computer problems.

You can google it or look at the

various monitoring blogs. 

Best Wishes,

Bruce

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NEED halp on the Ramsey FM100B

November 15, 2014, 9:09 am
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Hi to everyone

I bought one of the Ramsey FM100B which states it good from 5microwatts to

25mw. Anyways it leaves out the final transistor that would deliver 1 watt to the output.

Here my question.

U6 is the driver amp. 

U6 GAL5 has a .001uf capacitor going to the base of the final transistor MRF557

which is Q6.

The ouput of Q6 goes to your PI filter output network.

Ok Ramsey leaves out U6. This leaves the signal coming out of U6 the driver

chip still going to the base of a transistor Q6 that no longer in the circuit.

the lowpass filter is still hook to the collector of the Q6 transistor.

With this transistor out of the circuit how does the output of U6 get to

the ouput without the final transistor no longer in the circuit  ??

I see nothing in the book to jump the output of U6 chip to the output

of the transmitter.

This leaves all the RF signal coming out of U6 on the base of a transistor

that not legally allowed to be on a Part 15 transmitter.

Rmember Ramsey make the FM100B for US opperation and another

uppgraded model with the 1 watt output which has this Q6 transistor in it.

They use the same circuit board for both transmitters.

Anyways are you suppose to jump the output of U6 to the final

PI network. I cannot find anything in the book that say to do this.

Thanks

SKW40

 

 

 

 

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How to build an FM station in 15 ninutes video!

November 17, 2014, 6:29 am
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Small Tracking Transmitter Cause I can't Find Things

December 5, 2014, 12:54 pm
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So in the stuff called life, I lost

my wallet.  I lose things all the time.

So I tried to make a tracking transmitter

with things that I have sitting around here

because there is zero dollars.

I have a weather station transmitter that sends

out a digital pulse once a minute on 434.92 Mhz.

It has some things going for it.  It runs for more

than a year without running down the 2 AAA batteries

that are in it.  I can hear the pulse on in ICOM IC-R2

pocket sized scanner/receiver.  But the pulse is very brief.

I can live with that.  But the signal is digital and is spread

out over a MHz or so.  Really really hard to track.  Still fun

to experiment with.  At least the batteries don't run down

for a long time.

So I looked around the junk pile that I still have here -

and found a 49 MHz walkie talkie.  I put a rechargable

"9 volt" battery on it, took the mic/speaker off, and shorted

the transmit switch and shorted the switch that makes an

audio tone.  This was really good.  With a 2 inch antenna

on it - it went about 10 or 20 feet.  Perfect in a house. 

You just walk around until you hear it, and when the signal

strength indicator gets up to pin, you have it.  It's about

the size of a pack of cigarettes, but that doesn't matter.

BUT, the thing only runs for about 10 hours.

So - what I was thinking - was - find the minimum voltage

the thing runs on - and it won't be drawing much current -

hopefully.  Then try that and see how long it goes.

If that works, make a battery pack with MORE voltage,

and put it on a circuit like a regulator or something and

it will run longer (will it?) as the battery voltage slowly

drops down from the max value to the minumum operating

voltage value.  Maybe it will go a week or so, which I

can live with.  Maybe it will go longer.  Who knows?

So if you guys have any ideas about this or any other

ideas let me know.

This is for a purpose, but it's for fun, too.

By the way - I found my wallet - but only

after I had replaced most of the stuff in it.

Bruce

 

 

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Canakit UX-100 FM transmitter

December 16, 2014, 4:49 pm
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http://www.canakit.com/direct-access-synthesized-pll-stereo-fm-transmitt...

Anyone use this transmitter? I think it's been around for some time. Made in Canada. The only other Canadian company making transmitters.

Maybe Artisan is familiar with this? Seems to be the "forgotten" one!, it's never mentioned.

Called and was told it operates at low power....probably at Canadian "legal" limits but isn't certified because it's 10s of thousands of dollars to have it certified and then each unit would have to be at that exact power and would be much more expensive to have the meter to check all units.

Like to get Canadian if I can and it looks good but need an opinion on how it works if anyone has used. More affordable than MS-100.

Thanks

Mark

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Capacitance Coupling Ground or Antenna?

January 18, 2015, 6:39 am
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So, I was cleaning in the basement this weekend and happened upon an old CB mag mount antenna stuck on the side of a refridgerator. I got to thinking --

When you use a magmount CB or ham radio antenna, there is no direct connection between the ground side of the antenna and the car body -- there's a plastic layer on the mag mount and several layers of paint and primer. Yet the car becomes the ground plane for the antenna through capacitance coupling.  Or so I've read.  I never really thought about it before.

Additionally, I recall years ago in the days of the big ol' cell "bag phones" -- you know, those big three watt jobs from Motorola in the leather carrying cases -- that we had external antennas mounted on a window of the vehicle that stuck on the outside, and a matching coupler that stuck on the glass on the inside of the car -- the signal would pass through the glass to the antenna, again, referred to as a capacitive coupling, I believe.

Naturally this brought the questions to mind.  Why wouldn't this concept work for Part 15? Would it work at all, and would it be legal?

Example. Get a base magnet from an old mag mount antenna, connect to your transmitter ground, make sure the layer of plastic is still in place on the bottom of the mount, get a matching size disc of metal, stick it on the bottom of the magnet, run a lead from that to your chosen ground. In my case, an elevated installation, this would give me a way to ground my transmitter with no direct connection between the transmitter and ground lead.  Clearly, running a plain ol' ground lead would clearly be a violation as a "long ground lead".  But if you could demonstrate with an ohmeter that there was NO connection between the transmmitter ground and the ground lead, would it be legal?

Further, say you had the standard 3 meter antenna, as I do, as provided by Procaster.  If I were to put a plastic sleeve over, say, the top 3 feet of that antenna, and then slid another 10 foot section over that would it in effect create a longer, more effective antenna that would be legal, since it was not actually connected to the legal antenna?  Again, an ohmeter test would show the extended section was not connected to the actual legal antenna.

Perhaps this has all been discussed before. But see what finding junk in the basement leads to?  Answers to the effectiveness and legality need to be investigated!  Now, I don't do ANY sort of experimenting with my installation, as quite simply, it's been on the air for 18 months, I actually have listeners, and I have what I like to refer to as a "blatantly legal" installation.  So, I don't want to screw with it while it's on the air and negatively impact my listenership.  But it DOES make me think about purchasing another transmitter simply to experiment with.  I have the equipment necessary to take actual field strength readings at, say, 30 meters.  And can readily deterine if any of these schemes actually work.  Hmmm.

Tim in Bovey

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Wanna Guess Who Makes This?

January 28, 2015, 6:28 am
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What a Kit Is

February 14, 2015, 9:32 am
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I still see misinformed claims that transmitter kits are not allowed under the part 15 rules. Consider the facts.

A kit consists of parts and instructions for building a transmitter.

The part 15 rules allow individuals to build homemade transmitters.

What is a home made transmitter? It is a set of instructions, written by you or anyone else, describing how to build a transmitter from parts.

The kit makers provide the instructions and parts for building a homemade transmitter.

Case closed.

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Decade MS100(mono) transmitter

February 17, 2015, 5:18 pm
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Just received the Decade MS100 transmitter I purchased from Artisan on ebay and I'm really impressed! Even though this one has a plastic case it is durable and the case has a conductive coating so the case acts as a ground plane. Hand made in Canada and sounds fantastic...hi fi means hi fi and no hum or background noise. What Artisan has always said about these is true. Probably the best FM transmitter there is. I understand why it's expensive.

 

Mark

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Station Setup

February 26, 2015, 3:34 am
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I got a Exciter and modulation monitors

March 3, 2015, 6:05 am
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AttachmentSize
Belar Modulation Monitors167.86 KB
more modulation monitors156.65 KB
Harris MS-15 Exciter289.53 KB

I got a Harris MS-15 Exciter and Some Complete Belar FM Modulation Monitor Sets.

 

I'm going to pull the PA Deck and pad the modulated oscillator and throw it on my frequency along with the belar modulation set.

 

the harris MS-15 is 1980 vintage and was harris first attempt at PLL and integrated audio processing and stereo generation.

 

it was with the right cards even capable of quadraphonic transmission.

 

here is a pic of the MS/MX-15 from MW Persons

http://www.mwpersons.com/tech-tips/FM/harris_mx-15.htm

 

it's a beast. it along with the mod monitors is going to take up another rack in my studio. it will be heavily padded down to legal field strength in addiotn to the pulling / bypassing of the PA stage.

 

 

Some may be available for sale and/or trade. i also got a Belar RFA-1 for my set and a RCA off air amp based on the RFA-1 would be available with another set if i go the route of selling/trading some of them.

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P15 AM skip

March 4, 2015, 12:13 am
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This question came to mind, something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere I've read.

Do Part 15 AM stations skip, meaning are they ever heard well outside of their usual coverage areas at night? That goes for 100 mW, or even carrier current stations, like schools use. I'd think schools would be good dx targets as known stations that would operate every night.

As it starts to get dark, I can hear fading effects on even local stations at the high end of the band inside the red circle on radio-locator, so why not .1 watt?

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Sainsonic AX-05B Vs Decade CM-10 or FailSafe CZH-05B

March 19, 2015, 6:46 pm
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If this post ends up double I'm sorry I am visually impaired and didn't see my reply to an older post talking about the CZH-05B which that one didn't have 75uS pe emphasis. I tried to reply to:

I have seen the SainSonic AX-05B's image of the circuit board compared to the Decade CM-10 which costs twice as much.  If the SainSonic too is certified part 15 as well as the Decade then I suppose that means that the SainSonic AX-05B is not a dirty transmitter that causes harmonic spurs am I Correct in that assumption? if correct then here is the thing. I did ask SainSonic by phone if they sell theirs with 75 uS pre emphasis and they told me that their transmitter uses 75uS pre emphasis instead of 50uS.

My setup is gonna be like this for my Album Rock (Progressive Rock, Deep Tracks), Classic Rock station http://thelegacy.shorturl.com which with the software NextKast which has a nice Audio processor with it that compaires with Breakaway Broadcast along side Radio automation.  It has a prevision for a FM Transmitter which does allow for the second USB sound card to receive the same audio that I'll use for the Internet stream encoder. I'll pipe this into the transmitter using the 3.5 mm audio cable.  All in all I hope this will work for me as I also looked at the Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0 but I think that one is made cheap.  What is your teke? I know it might go a little past part 15 without the Attenuation as posted when ever anyone talks about this transmitter but again reports say it only went 61 meters on low power (Sometimes even high). Something to consider on youtube a man was advertising the Whole House FM transmitter 3.0 on the 50 yard line at MSU football field received on a analog Radio (Not Digital) so with a Digital Radio that range will double if not triple on something like a Rotel, Yamaha, Sony Elite. Part 15 can be useful just wish we could get field strength meters for more accurate detection.

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