I talked to Brian of Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0 and told him the Association of Low Power Broadcasters attempt to petition the FCC for increased field strength. However I told Brian that I want to make it mandatory that the extended part 15 transmitters scan before allowing a user to transmit on their intended frequency of choice. Brian said that he would have no issue with that but his concern was it would cost the company an unnecessary expense if I were to make it mandatory for the current part 15 service so that all transmitters have this fail safe built in. Then I said how about having two categories of transmitters? He was more willing to look into that and said he'd have to read all about what we are proposing before they jump on and support us. I gave him this site and the ALPB site and facebook page. He said he'd meet with the other members and discuss this. Next I asked him why some transmitters are putting out more range than others and rather or not they even try and go for the max on each transmitter? Well JUST AS I SUSPECTED they go UNDER the max in case at the mass production line one is over. I asked him if somehow we could get a transmitter that is 250 uV/m to test for range before asking for more because full legal power may already get us a mile. He said one would hafe to be manually tuned and he would have to get extra permission from the rest of the company and the equipment to fine tune the unit to that limit. And yes the output to the final of these units are JUST UNDER 100mW (you read right). So is 100mW legal into a rubber duck? Well as Brian and I talked and I mentioned that a Rubber Duck is no more than a leaky dummy load he laughed and said there is not much these antennas put out. Hence why it takes near 100mW to get the field strength. When they tune the transmitter they shot for close to 200 feet (even though legal field strength can go 800 feet or more). So is the Sainsonic legal? May be now that I found that this transmitter was near 100mW. I also talked about the 87.9 issue and he did say they had to stop allowing their transmitters to go down to 87.9 Mhz because it is not part 15.
I'm so happy I talked with him about this and got some answers. Now we know these transmitters are not 100% 250 uV/M. So we really need to get one that is and see what range we get. Also he did confirm that in an open field you'll get twice the range and height does matter. He was a very nice guy to talk with and it just goes to show that if you present yourself in a professional matter you'll get the answers you need. Now we have a little more data not just theories.