Sweet
Many multimeters now have a "battery test" function.
"Many multimeters now have a "battery test" function."
not my 4 function meter 🙁
I get off at 4 am thurs and fri I will do more transmitter tests (4 am is a good time to lurk around my transmitter site). I will report back.Any suggestions for said transmitter test?
I am curating my music now. Sorting through about 400 tunes. I want to make play lists for different dayparts. I want to automate that process, A simple rotation where I dont sit and drag and drop all day. something simple ie pull a tune from folder A then 2 from folder B then drop in a sweeper then song from folder C, etc. I would have maybe 6 dayparts each with a rotation. I then want to record those rotations in real time with audacity through automation software into one long mp3.
Make sense? I still haven't figured out how to make this happen.
Other topics.... marketing, making a website for station. All suggestions, comments, ideas, and criticisms are solicited.
Quick update
Battery seetms to be my big issue now. Transmitter runs about 2 days on heavy duty aaa's (not even alkaline), it is prettry low drain, the mp3 player on the other hand seems to be a power hog. I hope to convert an mp3 player to run on one aa instead of one aaa battery.
I ordered cheap aaa rechargeable batteries on ebay, bad idea. of the 8 I ordered only two or three seem to be recognized by my enloop charger.
I have 8 good aa's that I can use that's why I want to power the mp3 player with a aa
As far as antennas go this is my current set up I describe it in this post
http://www.part15.us/forum/part15-forums/antennas/best-wire-use-antenna
Let me know what ya think
If the antenna is working for what you want then it's ok
Convrting the MP3 to an AA alkaline will give you a couple of days run time....you can also convert to a C battery and get over a week runtime with alkaline.
You can do it simply by getting a AA or C battery holder and with alligator clip leads connect from battery holder to the + and - of the MP3 player.
Mark
Here is an update.
I am using the stiff single copper wire antenna and it is working well for what I needed
The broadcast has been running pretty much continusly for almost a week, until today. A sunny Memorial Day Weekend Saturday with a crowd at the pool but my broadcast was absent. My guess is batteries ran down. I have a battery question at the end of this post.
Other updates. No one ever asked about format but here it is.... Electronic music including Ambient, Chill, Dub, and Electronic Dance Music.
I picked this cause no one else in town does it and I got plenty of legit free music to download.
This is my first marketing effort....
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2ZX89ySUcu3RkpnamIwSm1rRURDeFR2YnoxNThCRDU0eTdV/preview
I put these up all over the complex
Now my battery question.....
If my MP3 player uses 1 AAA battery, what will happen if I add a battery holder with a AA battery in paralell with the AAA battery?
I'm looking for longer times between battery changes.
If you parallel a aa battery with the existing aaa, i would expect approx 4 times more run time.
To find out properly you would need to know the existing aaa a/h capacity, then add to it the new aa a/h capacity.
I would estimate the added aa battery would have approx 3+ times more capacity than the existing aaa ?
Some years ago i used to use some large 1.5v flag batteries, large cylinder type, with 2 brass connections on top, i bet that would power your mp3 player for a very long time !
Paul.
So nothing blows up and I get more mp3 time, sweet
Like I mentioned before I coverted my MP3 to work on 3 AAs instead of the internal li-ion rechargeable(3.8 volts) and get a little less than a week run time.
Used to have an MP3 player like yours that worked on 1 AAA and converted it to work with 1 AA and got about 3 days continuous run time....with an Energizer battery.
You could parallel a C alkaline battery to the AAA battery compartment and get at least a week run time or more.
Mark
I would be happy with 72 hours
I did like you suggested I clipped out a bad lithium ion battery from a generic mp3 player and replaced it with 3 aa batteries. The mp3 player powers up and when connected to the pc it shows the mp3 player charging but the computer won't recognize it
Remove batteries before computer connection....you are trying to charge the alkalines. This shouldn't really have any effect on computer recognition. It powered up and played back...right? You're just using another battery to power it. In some rechargable players there are 3 connections, not just + and -....that is a little trickier....maybe that was your problem with the computer recognizing it.
Admit that the player I have(Sandisk sansa) has a micro SD card slot and I do everything separately on the SD card so I don't ever connect the player directly to the computer.
Mark
The MP3 player original li-ion battery only had two wires to the board. The aa batteries in it now are rechargeable so that shouldn't be an issue.
The MP3 player had 2 songs on it, I guess demos added at the factory. Those mp3's show they play.
I may try an older veresion of windows to establish computer to mp3 player connection. I only tried on windows 8.1 and a linux machine.
Did anyone try to scan my QR code from my previous post?
Any comments on format?
There must be some other reason the computer won't recognize it. Don't know what it is.
Don't know what a QR code is but tried to click on something from a few posts back but was denied access.
No comments on format, that's a personal choice. Usually, we all program what we like, but I think it's good to do what other commercial stations aren't doing.
Mark
Summer is almost half over, time to update my projec info
Basics: $10 Sosche (sp) FM transmitter and mp3 player intended to provide coverage for an apartment complex, pool, and dog park plus a small college next door.
I call the rig "Pool FM 90.9" I play electronic dance music, chill, and ambient because I could get as much as I needed free, no one else in town plays it, and it seems appropriate for the young apartment dwellers at the pool and the students at the college next door.
Transmitter modifications: 2 sets of 3 AAA batteries wired in parallel total 3.6 volts replace 2 aaa batteries giving 4 + days continuous operation. For the antenna, I have a quick disconnect from the negative battery spring to a solid copper wire about 16 guage I believe. The antenna stays in place and it has to support it's own weight and stand up straight thats why I chose solid copper wire. I can quickly disconnect the transmitter from the antenna for battery changes and the antenna stays in it's stealthy hideaway. The antenna with quick disconnect is about 29inches long. The other part of the antenna is an earphone extension cable about 2 feet long going between transmitter and mp3 player. The total length of this leg is approx 31 inches including mp3 player. If I am right this acts as a 1/2 wave dipole of sorts. The stealth location for my setup requires the wire antenna to be mounted verticle (good), and the earphone extenstion cable must run horizontal (not so good). This forms an L shape antenna. Thats all I did to the transmitter.
The mp3 player I modded with an adapter that turns 3 AAA batteries into a D cell. This delivers the 1.2 volts the mp3 player needs but ups the Mah considerably giving me about 4+ days continuous play.
The whole rig is in a super secret location overlooking the pool about 8 or 9 feet up.
Now the fun part, range.
I get what you would expect for a little transmitter. I can get a good strong signal out to about 400 ft before it quickly fades, but here is the fun part, that is on the FM receiver chip in a smart phone with earbuds as the antenna. 300+ feet to such a crappy reciever is pretty good in my book. I wish I had a better quality hand held radio to use to measure my range.
With a car stereo I blanket out to about 600 ft with a good loud signal, and a pretty good signal out to 1000ft in most directions and up to 1500 ft in a couple spots.
My apartment is 391 ft from the transmitter. I can pick up the transmitter with a good clear stereo signal inside my apartment and the corner of another building blocks the line of site from my apartment to the transmitter.
What's inside my coverage area? The pool and dog park are within a 100 ft circle of the transmitter and so is the apartment complex mailboxes.
In the 250 ft circle, about 1/3 of the apartments and the associated parking lots are within this circle. Also within that circle is about half the parking lots for the college next door.
The 500 ft circle has 3/4 of my complex apartments, associated parking, and baketball and tennis courts. The 500 ft circle also includes the remainder of the college campus and about 1/4 of a larger complex above me.
1000 ft my entire complex, almost the entire larger complex, a pool for a third complex, 3 or 4 businesses, and a little portion of Interstate 40/75 that runs through Knoxville. This stretch of interstate carries a tremendous amount of traffic as it is a main east west route AND north south route.
So within my coverage area I have a goodly amount of people available to listen. Do they, I dunno. I have put a few fliers up around the complex to advertise my broadcast. That's been the extent of my marketing effort.
The most expensive thing, batteries. It takes 9 AA batteries to power the entire rig, thats alot of eneloops.
I have another sosche transmitter, a belkin tunecast, a broadcast vision FM transmitter and a talking house AM transmitter to play with, I guess I got some sort of bug. The AM is my next project.
Thanks for reading my update.
I welcome any and all comments, suggestions, criticisims, praise, scolding, observations, or whatever you may want to ad to the conversation.