I wish they would open ch 5 and 6 of the FM band for part 15 broadcast like 250w and antenna 250ft. They FCC could have this ready to go in less than a yr even if they only allowed 60w and 120ft would be fine with me
I must be easy. I'd be happy with 10 watts at 30 feet.
The signal pattern for 1-Watt shown on Dade's photobucket pic is exactly what I experienced in the 1970s when an engineer buddy built me a 3-transistor 1-Watt FM transmitter and some friends a few blocks away tuned in every Friday night while we hung on the phone, drank, and shared comedy material no one else knew about.
Their reception was excellent, from the low-band VHF antenna up in my attic.
That was before 88.1 was in use by a licensed station, and there was normally nothing there.
Peaking the slug-coils between stages using a VTVM was part of the thrill.
Brave old world.
So awesome.
I would be thrilled to have a whole watt AM *or* FM...
This discussion has helped answer a
question I have had since about 1971.
Before that (approximate) time, anybody
could go out and buy a powerful FM
wireless mike that went 1/2 mile or
1 mile to a good FM receiving set-up.
The same kind of FM transmitter
(on the second floor of a house) could
go maybe 1000 to 2000 feet to a typical
FM radio inside another house.
Some short time after that, I went to
Radio Shack to buy a new FM mike.
The guy who worked there told me
not to buy it. He said that the FCC
had clamped down, and as a result FM wireless
mikes could only go a couple of hundred feet
at the very most to a good FM radio. (About 1972.)
All these years I thought that the Part 15
rules had been changed then. Now I
realize that all of the previously made
mikes were in violation of the existing
Part 15 rules of the time. There must
have been complaints to the commission.
My discointinued 1971 Rado Shack FM-90 could easily
silence a West Hartford non-com station on
a radio seeral hundred feet away, and I was
IN West Hartford! What did I know? Nothing.
I was 16 years old and new nothing about how
radio worked. I could have been busted by
the FCC. If I was caught and fined, they would
have had to put me in jail instead, because I
didn't have any money. (Neither did my parents.)
What fun that would have been. I'm glad it
was many many decades ago. I had bought
an illegal radio transmitter. Buyer beware.
Later on, I became a ham. My first transmitter
ran 120 watts DC in to the final amp.
I didn't know how to properly ground it.
My desk light got BRIGHTER when I put
on the carrier. My parent's stereo made
mooing and farm animal sounds from
overload (seriously,) and a lady in
a house on the street behind mine -
well - her AM kitchen radio made all sorts
of crackling noises when my rig went on.
(My long wire transmitting antenna ended
not too far from the back end of her yard.
You have to be careful with this kind of
power. If Part 15 went to a legal FM power
of 15 or 10, or maybe even 1 watt -
there could be interference issues in your
neighborhood with devices other than
radio. Heck, my 80 meter 10 watt transmitter
made a touch lamp in the other end of our
house go on and off with the keying of the
carrier. And then one day, the touch lamp
didn't work anymore.
I suppose if Part 15 was made legal for
that kind of power, the transmitter would
have to be in a remote area. Then there
is the problem of interference to other
services. A spur could knock out an
airport or plane or nav beacon transsmission in
the 108 to 136 MHz band. They would be
knocking down your front door pretty hard
at that point.
I guess the long and the short of it is,
I would love to see the Part 15 FM transmitter
signal strengh be increased by some amount.
But not so much that it would cause awful
problems. What fun would that be?
It would be great if 87.9 and 87.7 MHz
could be for Part 15 FM, with some kind
of reasonable signal strength. I don't
include 87.5, because a lot of digital
radios don't tune there.
I like the rules from our friend in
New Zealand. But even then, you
would have to be careful.
Bruce, DOGRADIO
The problem is, of course, that all this radio DOES sell advertising and maintain itself.
Every morning I get up at 3 AM, gather news and head to a real commercial AM broadcast station where I do the morning show. I've done it here for 25 years this year, and I've been on commercial radio for 40 years. I do indeed come in every morning, and say "HI this is Tim (my actual real name) and here's a record I found" I've been collecting records since I was 4 (that's 51 years ago) and I have over 20,000 in my collection. Our station format is oldies -- with a song list of nearly 4,000 tunes. I play a ton of weird, vintage, scratchy vinyl on my show (although last week I played new stuff, but stuff no one ever heard of). Our station is HEAVY on locally produced news, a TON of local sports, public affairs interviews, and shows on fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, etc all produced by local people. We are a locally owned, successful full time, directional at night AM commercial station. We are successful because the station has been here since 1948 and every one of us is well entrenched into our community. It's rare, but good, honest, local radio DOES exist. We're not screaming DJ's, hell sometimes we don't even sound all that slick and professional, but we are who we are, and we're honestly who and what we are on the air.
I have a Part 15 station at home simply because the market shows no one is playing vintage country music, and some people don't like all the talk and just want nice and interesting music. My playlist on part 15 is over 2000 songs (and growing) 1939 to somewhere in the early 70's (no, waht I call "Stadium Country"). I have no need to make any sort of personal statement or provide my personal views on my 15er, as I do that all on my commercial show with 500 watts, with very little restrictions by the station owner. but my 15er covers ALL of my town and the adjacent town with solid signal. My town is 600 people, is a half mile long and about 4 blocks wide. My central location and Procaster mounted on an attic window 3 stories high covers the town just fine, as well as the town next door of about 1100 people. I'm good with that. But I CAN provide music that's no where (including satellite) for the mostly older population here, most of whom do not even have computers. And I'm putting together a very unique and wonderful of music for the holidays, and have contacted several Priests to get church programs for Serbian Christmas -- those of the Eastern Orthodox Faith, who celebrate Christmas on January 7th. the commercial station used to do Serbian Christmas programming but quit several years ago when they lost sponsorship. I'm working on a Polka show for Saturday nights (many years ago I worked for a polka station in St. Paul and have quite a record collection) and a gospel show for Sunday mornings. I already have a new country syndicated show on Saturday afternoons (all texas music, very little "hit" material).
So, there IS some good, real radio out there, it's just hard to find. If you want, we do podcast and upload mp3's of edited versions of my morning show every day. You can download a weeks worth at http://kozyradio.com/mess.html
And by the way, my morning show has been "The Morning Mess" since before most of the guys using that name today were even BORN. I did trademark it years ago, but just don't have the time or desire to stop people from using it. There's also a link on the front page of the station site to listen to our live stream, however don't bother on the weekends as we do run a computer on the weekends (still designed to sound very live and local, we really try to do that) and we run a LOT of sports that can't be streamed so odd audio get switched in, or we're silent, simply because the sports teams do not allyw streaming (pro and college) however we stream all our local sports and hav a LOT of stream listeners for it!
As for your FM STL idea -- a good yagi on the receiving end only can make a HUGE difference, as well as a stabil fixed frequency receiver.
Please ignore all typos and apparent made up words.
Tim in Bovey
Iron Range Country Radio