I got an mp3 player from ebay for 7 bucks. Great minds.
I could mount my antenna vericaly if I modified the transmitter with a simple antenna.
I would also love to have a small AA battery pack to power both the transmitter and mp3 player. Because of the stealth nature of my station, I would like the ability to let it run up to 72 or so hours without a recharge.
3000MAH nimh AA's from ebay and a few 2x AA battery holders parralelled 3 of them paralelled will get you 9k MAH dpending on the draw of your gear it could last 72 HRS (or longer)
Some of those cheap low cost MP3 players
are very hard to use.
Also, I guess if anybody finds it, I guess
it should be VERY CLEAR that it is a teeny little
music broadcasting radio station.
Brooce, Outlandish goofy projects, AM and FM
Would that be enough volts
The mp3 player i got is an older rca, pretty easy to use powered by 1 aaa
received the Scosche FMT4 transmitter today.
What happens if part of my antenna is horizontal and part is vertical?
I am stil interested in aa battery power packs that could power both transmitter and mp3 player for long periods. The transmitter uses 2 aaa and the mp3 uses 1 aaa.
Desktopgrass asked: "What happens if part of my antenna is horizontal and part is vertical?"
I have experimented with that idea and I will describe my findings.
The simplest version I call "An End Fed L", which is a length of wire that is vertical from the transmitter up to the middle of the wire, then makes a right-angle and the remainder of the wire is horizontal. This version worked poorly and reduced my overall field strength in all directions.
The next version I call a "Mid Fed L" because the L-shaped length of wire is fed by the transmitter at mid-point, which is the "elbow" of the L. This version provided a solid and reliable coverage of the same area that was reached by a vertical alone, but was less prone to reflections from people moving around and other multi-path interference.
If you experiment with these two methods let us know your results.
The Shively 6812B antenna used at our LPFM facility is as you described, both horizontal and vertical.
Imagine taking a horizontal dipole and bending it nearly into a horizontal square with a short section at one end bent up, the other end bent down.
That's basically what the Shively 6812B antenna looks like.
Now that I have the xmitter and mp3 player and antenna ideas to experiment with (keep em coming), I want to gather ideas about marketing the station, specifically a website.
First question, should I start a new thread on another part of this forum to address marketing and web sites?
Just a thought.. Instead of using a mp3 player to feed audio, you could install Zara on your computer inside with your playlist, and pull in weather announcements, time announcements, scheduled sweepers, psa's etc, and then feed the automation from Zara to your transmiter outside using a $2.00 receiver connected to your transmitter
You would still have a stealth setup but a better presentation due to the feature capabilities of ZaraRadio. It would sound more like a radio station than just a mp3 playlist, and your only additional expense would be $2.00!.. Howver, it can sometimes take up to 3 weeks to receive an item from Hong Kong or China, but then again, I've also received in less than a week.
And in case your computer doesn't have built in bluetooth capabilities, then a usb burtooth dongle is only a couple bucks
That is some very interesting info about antennas Carl and mram. Im learning a great deal here.
The only reason i ask about vertical and horizontal is the nature of where the xmitter rig must go.
The fmt4 uses the ground side of the audio cable as an antenna connected to an mp3 player that might be 7 1/2 inches total. That antenna will have to be horizontal to accomidate my space.
I understand from reading about the Scosche fmt4 that a short piece of wire on the negative battery spring will extend this antenna.That piece of wire i can mount verticle, i guess this emulates the mid fed L that Carl had success with. Am I correct?
I also read that the audio in cord to the transmitter can be eliminated as the antenna and an antenna can be soldered to the board. I dont know what has to be unsoldered and i have no soldering experience, but that modification would allow almost the entire length of the antenna could be mounted vertically. Any thoughts?
Sorry duplicate post
Rich, excellent idea. I may do that as a future upgrade. People are at the pool right now so I want to broadcast soon.
My plan includes automation software to make a timed rotation that includes music, id's, sweepers, turn before you burn announcements, apatment complex news, hopefully some content generated by others in the complex.
This rotation i will play through the automation software and record as an mp3 for the mp3 player.
I can update the mp3 every couple days to keep the broadcast fresh.
I think i can get about 7 or more hours of programming on my 4 gig mp3 player that will repeat for a couple of days. Not fresh out of the oven but no worse than day old bread.
I am looking for ideas on this and other programming ideas. Come on, play pd. I have chosen electronic music as my poolside format.