HB adds SStran 5000 review

That review, or hatchet job as I call it, has been around a while.  I wonder why it's been revived?

Oh I'm an idiot, I saw it come up in the recent comments list and thought it was new. Its was posted in 2015! Apparently someone had revived the topc today.

That was embarrassing 

That was no review, anyway, and it should have been left to wither away.  The document was an attempt to cover up the flaws in the original AM Transmitter test surrounding the AMT5000, while continuing to attack and bury a manufacturer that refused to supply free transmitters to them for evaluation.

It would have been far more useful if the reviewer had attempted to find out the true capabilities of the transmitter with a decent ground and proper tuning.  But that seemed to be beyond their scope.

I have to admit I'm curious, I see there's new post on the SStran thread there every day this week. I'm just curious if it's just trash talk or a legitimate discussion about the 5000 model.

Incidentally, I know you've heard me talk about those early 1970s Info-Sysyems part 15 transmitters they were using at Yellowstone and on highways which is what incited the whole abloshish 15.219 proposal. Those transmitter were all like the SSran 5000, in that they were class E design. The Info Sytems and the SStran 5000bare the only part 15 transmitter I'm aware of that were class E. 

I dont really comprehend what the difference is, only know that their supposed to be much more efficient and thus capable of higher range. Every other part 15 transmitter thats ever been manufactured has been class D .

Here's a range check by someone in Canada with a sstran 3000 with outdoor set up..

The 3000 was a simper, Class D type device, similar to the Talking Sign & the Talking House, and with a manual antenna tuner.  You could build it so you could use a 50 ohm external antenna.

The 5000 was a much more sophisticated transmitter, and Class E as Richard noted.   It's not surprising that the testers ran into problems attempting to tune it - tuning can be difficult for a Class E device, and the tuning method in the documentation is rather simplistic and makes a number of assumptions (including that you have a good ground).

If you google 'Class E Transmitter tuning' you can find a number of websites and articles that talk about Class E tuning in a general sense.

The difficulty with the so-called 'review' is that it didn't actually review the product, but merely rehashed the results of the AM Transmitter Challenge, and attempted to justify their eventual approach (i.e., not really understanding what they were doing, and giving up).

The fact that a Class E transmitter is difficult to tune is good information, and they proved it.  It's also good information that the documentation may be inadequate in some tuning situations.  You would think, however, that for a review, of all things, the tester would attempt to find out what was really happening, properly tune the device, and see what it was really capable of.

Nonsense! None of this namby-pamby scientific stuff for them!  Particularly for a manufacturer that refused to give them freebies and that they didn't like anyway.

I still don't see how the AMT5000 could have been included in the AM Transmitter Challenge in the first place.  It was a kit, obtained from private sources, with an unknown provenance and build quality, and a totally different beast overall.  The biggest flaw was assuming that the test conditions that worked for the other transmitters would work for it.  Those assumptions will get you every time.

In one of those Class E websites, there was a section describing how to build a tuneless Class E amplifier.  That would have been the way to go with the AMT5000, I think, at the expense of some efficiency (60% rather than 80+%).  Normal class D operation is 40-50%.

I remember seeing that video like 15 years ago! Note that the install appears to be in a very open area, no obstruction or anything. I wonder what the ground conductivity is around there.

I dont see any SStran 5000 videos except for one and that's the Hobbybroadcaster SSTran 5000 review. It is quite an indepth review, it shows a receiver playing the audio. No shot of the transmitter at all. Its 36 seconds long. 

The Transmitter Challenge was held in 2014, the 'review' published in 2015. Don't know about the video, I tend to focus on non video material.

I saw a post about them holding another Challenge next year.  The fact that they're willing to put the time and effort into this type of thing is positive.  It's just too bad that they seem to do these things in a vacuum and don't take input from other sources that could potentially make it better, or at the very least more scientific and unbiased.  Probably due to their paranoid nature; they're afraid that others will steal their ideas.

Hey, I'm all for giving credit where credit is due.  I'm also not afraid to criticize where I feel it's warranted.  And somewhere, out of both, you learn and get the truth.

I had actually corresponded with the manufacturer of the 1970s Info Systems Class E transmitters about 7 or 8 years ago, he said he was going to send me some material (old brochures as and stuff), I told him it would be fine to just send me some scans instead, but then I lost all contact with him and wasnt able to regain contact. I probably should try again. Yellowstone park  documentations vaguely describe the Info-Sytem transmitters range as "about a mile". When I look at the ground conductivity map it shows that area as having a ground conductivity of only a 2 - so to get "about a mile" in range is impressive. Those transmitters at the time (1971) cost $1,000 ,each for the stand-alone units, and over $1200 each for "zone" use units. The "zone" referring to use of multiple sycronized transmitter installs, only they called it "Phase coherent", Those were the ones the hwy dept used along the California freeway.

@Artisian You kept saying "they". It wasn't/isn't "they". Its one person making these reviews. HB is not an organization, it one man. When you say "they" it implies a staff of individuals are working together at maintaing and managing the site and providing reviews. But that's not the case at all. HB is a one man operation that has done a great deal for part 15 AM promotion. Its forum, however, tends to be unintentionally damaging with it's off kilter management. The criticisms you see directed at this and other forums also comes from one man. In all my years over there, it was rare, if at all that I ever saw one of his member chime in to agree with Bill criticisms. HB is an excellent resource, the problem has never been his members.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the AM Challenge in question was conducted by that one man, and at least one other.  My understanding is that it was his friend/business acquaintance who was also a distributor for the 'winning' transmitter.  Not the greatest optics.

As for members on his site, I generally agree.  I personally don't understand how they put up with the antics, and to that extent, they're also culpable.

Although I guess in the end it's a matter of balance - perhaps the good outweighs the crap (at least until you can't stand it any more).