Or is that an Internet station that happens to broadcast on AM 1260. Ok, so its not related to my part 15, or is it? I retransmitted the stream via the new SSTRAN at home for my personal listening pleasure. For those that are curious, KYA 1260.
Regardless, It is a neat station from my viewpoint. Plays oldies. Had a Beatles show on yesterday morning. And it even plays some old advertisments. I even heard an advert for the "new" 1972 VW. I realized that I was not annoyed so much by the presentation of those adverts as I am now days when I listen to the "busy" almost ADHD driven stuff. Odd thing is, that I listened to KYA for several hours and am not sure I heard a current advertisment. I wonder how they pay the bills?
I changed the A/C unit in my office yesterday, that is where I program my part 15 station currently. Today I am enjoying the cool air blowing across my face while changing some of the shows and music for the day. Oh, and doing things that actually make me money.
Rich said: "Just a heads up -- such signal peaks also will occur for systems that exceed the limits of Part 15 AM, and which might result in an FCC citation (NOUO)."
I said: "If you had closely scrutinized my comments you would have understood that I was referring to finding the "sweet spot" on the antenna coil. I was not referring to a "functionally compliant" system."
I ordered a MFJ 1977 telescoping antenna to couple with the loading coil setup. Its portable, and fully adjustable from about 27" to 12'. Obviously, it would be out of compliance when fully extended, but it should offer a good range with the loading coil to peak max output.
It arrived today, and looks pretty good. For those of you not familiar with MFJ, they have a lot of neat stuff, some of it has to be worked upon receiving, some of it is ok.
I am not sure how well it would be in a long term install outside. It will serve as a dual purpose for some of my portable ham activities after I get thru with the part 15 test.
I setup icecast on a computer today to see how it works. I can currently stream on my intranet. I will continue to learn this product until I am confortable with it and then move it to a DMZ portion of my network on a dedicated PC.
As I progress, I will begin streaming outside my LAN, but it depends on if I decide if I am going to license via Stream Licensing or just BMI with a web endorsement.
Setting up IceCast on Windows 8.X wasn't terrible. I think it would be better on linux, but, I live in a Windows world these days, and I have to consider that most of the people around me are stuck there. In the old days, when I used to do IT stuff, I lived in Linux and had lots of fun doing things with it. These days, not so much. I want this to be supportable by someone other than me.
I will probably use a separate computer for the streaming once I formalize it. That will allow for the equalizer to handle the mixing from the various sources. It will also allow me to shut down Radio DJ for maintenance. It has been running now non-stop for about 2 weeks. No problems thus far. I keep Zara Radio on an old XP laptop beside it for quick switch over.
Spent some time this morning installing the AMT3000 in place of the TH5. As posted above, I had already built a coil, and was using it with improved range for the TH5 (definately helped).
I retuned for the AMT3000, (still not 100% satisfied, but close). I didn't immediately head home, since I was working on the stream server and cutting some station ID's and promos.
On my short drive home, I noticed range is definately increased. Easy listen here at home in the vehicle 1/2 mile away (thats straight line). Less fade outs while getting here too. No reception in the house yet... but
I am listening to my station over stream from my server. Sorry, not open to the public yet, (not that you want to hear it).
I will start on community promotion soon, and then open up the streaming once it is licensed. The handful of people I have spoke with here are all for it.
craigf, maybe tomorrow I'll go through a list of things I remember from building and tuning a loading coil for my AMT3000, just in case I hit on something that helps what you are doing.
Meanwhile, I have several hours of good old summer lethargy until tonight's ALPB meeting, so I'll mention something I did last week with the AMT5000.
The on-screen peaks for the AMT3000 and AMT5000 are right next to each other on the spectrum analyzer, so they can be easily compared. They are both carrying the same audio but I noticed that everytime the AMT3000 signal modulated upward, the AMT5000 jumped downward. Also, the AMT3000 sounded louder and sharper on the radio.
From previous experience I knew that the two audio feeds were not modulating with the same polarity, and quickly found where the polarity was being flipped...
The audio for the AMT5000 is being sent 35-feet from a Ramsey FM30b, and received on a Panasonic Model RE-7680 Stereo Tuner, the left and right output lines feeding the L+R input mixer on the AMT5000. Because it is a "low-end" (low priced) tuner, the audio lines were inverted in the tuner, while no doubt Panasonic's higher priced tuners keep their audio polarity unchanged for better sound.
The AMT5000 AM Transmitter has a little publicized feature that made the solution very easy... in addition to the L+R unbalanced audio line inputs, it has a balanced differential mono input chip! By re-wiring the audio input section I was able to flip the audio polarity at the balanced input and now the two transmitters sound and look (on the spectrum analyzer) exactly the same!
I am going to build a second coil with larger wire. For first one I used some bell wire I have had for years. First time I have used any of the big spool of single strand wire I found in an old warehouse in Raleigh years ago. It actually seems to work pretty good, but I like to tinker, so I will try some 16ga enameled and see if it works different/better.
I need to install Teamspeak and check in on the ALPB meetings. I am usually out to dinner with my wife on Saturday nights, but I was back last nite in time, but didn't have the software installed. Ironically, I have dedicated my best laptops and PCs for the Part 15, I use the junk one at the house for browsing the web and the hamshack.
I cut a 30 second promo for Tims Oompah hour and loaded his latest show for airing at 8:00 my time. I am promoting diversity here, and Polka is fairly diverse for me.
Every today is yesterday's tomorrow, and it's time for a review of converting the AMT3000 from using the internal (lossy) inductors to the more serious method of building a loading coil for use with an external antenna.
The AMT3000 Manual only mentions one step in modifying the transmitter for loadingcoil/antenna... p.19, Jumper Plug S7: Jumper in ON position, shorting across R14.
From here on we need to print out the document Modifying the AMT3000 for Driving the Base-Loaded Vertical Antenna, available at the website:
We will find additional modifications...
C23 needs to be changed... remove 820 pF capacitor, replace with 560 pF 50 VDC ceramic capacitor.
R18 (820 ohms) should be removed. Leave the component location empty.
Set all four switches of the S5 DIP Switch Pack to ON. This bypasses the onboard small inductors which are not needed.
Ignore the tuning instructions in the manual and only use the tuning instructions in this supplemental document. ...Important that you study this part of the instruction carefully, as I'm skipping past some of the details of building the coil and antenna...
Once the coil and antenna are built and standing in place according to the instructions
Note: GROUNDING is very important to your antenna! The document covers this subject, be sure to design a grounding system that matches the description given.
When nearly complete attach probes from analog or digital voltmeter into two holes on the transmitter circuit board... T1 = Positive T2 = Negative.
At your chosen frequency (between 1500 - 1700 kHz) fine tune as instructed, including setting trimmer capacitor C5 for 13 VDC.
The 13 VDC reading is very important. If you see a lower voltage you have a less than perfect resonance, if it is over 13 VDC there will be distortion in the audio. 13 VDC = a perfect match!
In my installation I was only able to achieve 13 VDC once I had connected to a good ground system.
I know you may already have covered all these points, but if any of this information helps that will be great!
I had intended to go up on the roof and "verify compliance" again concerning my AMT3000 install. My latest ventures do have me covering much of the town while driving. It is noisy in places depending on the terrain and surround structures/foliage.
I am now torn between an AMT5000 (which I really don't want to build), or just springing for a Rangemaster and putting it on a pole at about 35 ft. I lean towards the Rangemaster because it appears that the FCC is more lenient concerning their installation at altitude and the corresponding "ground" situation.
What I did do.... added some programming to the database. Actually created a 30 minute show with some "comedic tunes/recordings". I am gaining listeners, they are giving me reports of range now. Kind of makes me nervous! I am running as a non-commercial, with a spot or two regarding funding "depending on listeners like you." I did it mostly because it sounded cool, and eventually, I hope to transition to licensed LPFM. We will see!
There are a few Rangemasters on eBay going for $350 each. At only slighty over $100 more than the AMT5000 I think it would be a good deal if you don't want to hassle building a kit.
It looks like it's in rough shape. No crystal. You would have to purchase a module from Keith as he no longer stocks crystals.
I have looked at the one on ebay several times. It is less than pristine, but probably works ok.
I still would lean towards a new one. My mindset on that particular product is buy direct, make contact, and if I have problems make contact again with the designer/distributor and hope for resolution.
Keith is wonderful to work with. I think if you contact him direct, tell him what you are trying to do, he will reward you with a price break. He respnds to email and you can also contact him on the twisted pair. Great service.
I have spent numerous hours compiling music/programming onto a drive. Even solicited the help of one my best friends who has an extensive album collection. Today, I discovered the drive we had compiled the music/programming for the station was crap. Yes, we do have it backed up, but it inconveniences me as I was adding programming to the station today and now I can not.
Randomness was interjected into my computer by faulty hardware.
And as a side note, in my my 3 decades of being involved with computers, I have had more hard disk failures in the last 3 years than in my whole career, and that time includes the primitive hard disks that we thought were monsters in the IBM PC days...<10meg.... Tis all crap, I say.