Ken Norris

Temporary outage … I’ll be shutting down my station tonite @ 6:00pm PDT and remain off air until (hopefully) 9:30am Saturday October 1.

Temporary outage … I’ll be shutting down my station tonite @ 6:00pm PDT and remain off air until (hopefully) 9:30am Saturday October 1.

I’m having full knee replacement surgery tomorrow on the mainland (Island Hospital, Anacortes, WA), back on island to Life Care Convalescent Center for recovery and therapy for another 3 weeks or so. With a little help, I’ll hopefully be back on air on Saturday, operating remotely from Life Care.

I’ve looked over the rules for AM band CC broadcasting. The inference from some here have made it look like CC broadcasting is only for education campuses, but, in fact, there are no such stipulations in the FCC regulations governing CC Broadcasting.

Therefore, I’m going to go ahead and start working towards the goal of establishing a CC broadcast station, which will hopefully help solve the problem of getting my programming into buildings in downtown Friday Harbor. It will be at the low end of the band of course, right around 610kHz, which is very far from the 1650kHz used for the stick antenna, and should pose no problems for interference with each other, and so they need not be sync’d.

I can use some help, other than the LPB manuals, which are great, but a long ways from describing what I’ll need to do in, say, a 4- or 5- block square area without o many cable runs. I’m … hoping RF Burns can continue the blog started back in March.

I know of no significant progress with KSJU 91.9 since they were issued a CP 2.5 years ago. Brian, the current pres of the local HAM club looked over the stats at the FCC (as did I a couple years ago), and says it doesn’t look like they can legally do what they expected to do, plus they lost their original antenna site for which the engineering data was calculated and sent in for their CP.

It will NOT be easy, but there ARE solutions to the coverage-without-interference (to currently active commercial FM stations on the same freq within 20 miles) dilemma, which will involve using a re-engineered directional main antenna plus license-free Part 15 microwave repeaters, and possibly even a second station.

So … here’s the gist of my ideas:

If KSJU fails to comply within the time limits and loses their CP, I can, with a couple friends, very likely apply for and get a CP when the next window opens sometime in early 2012 (best guess … no one knows for sure yet AFAIK).

Until then, I’m thinking seriously about investing in the Professional-grade Decade FM transmitter, which can operate under Part 15, but which can also be used as an Exciter for a more powerful linear amp:

http://www.decade.ca/en/products.php?prd=777560932
http://www.decade.ca/en/products.php?prd=1991104954

… This way we can operate under Part 15 during the early stages of engineering to apply for the CP, but, if and when we get it, easily connect the the amp to boost and test the signal to whatever ERP we determine will work under the regs. ITMT, we still have a professional platform to run experiments and collect data for the CP application, as well as collect programming materials and raise public awareness and enthusiasm.

Of course, when the time comes, we’ll be keeping ours ears, eyes, and hearts open to local community participation, and in close contact with Prometheus … However, for any of you who have waded through this type of process, I want to know if this sounds like a doable game plan …

TIA,

All the best,
Ken N.
http://fhtinyradio.com/
kenn@fhtinyradio.com
KF7PLC

Check it out …

After taking (and BTW passing :)) an Amateur Radio test this morning, one of the three test admins said he would try to get my station on the South end of the island … that’s 11 miles away!!

After taking (and BTW passing :)) an Amateur Radio test this morning, one of the three test admins said he would try to get my station on the South end of the island … that’s 11 miles away!!

He called me late afternoon, about 4:30pm PDT, to tell me he heard my station. I was so much in shock I almost fell off the dock!! I happened to have my little $2 (rummage sale) multiband radio with me (not sure why, I just sometimes carry it around to check if the STL computer is still running the stream), and sure enough, he was indeed hearing my station. Nothing you’d want to listen to for very long, but he punched in a filter and it got even better.

Here’s why: He has a triple conversion all-band very high-end ICOM communications receiver in his shack hooked up outside to a longwire Rhombic antenna pointed in my general direction.

Just goes to show … great reception gear makes a lot of difference when it comes down to it. Still, 11 miles is a long ways for puny 100mw into final …