Hi all. New to the page as of today. I am wanting to setup a small radio station to cover some property that I own. People have told me that as long as I stay under a certain wattage, I can do so, as long as I am not broadcasting anything objectionable.
People have 'told' me a lot of things over the years, so I hit the web to get some answers.
What sort of equipment would be good for covering a radius of about 800'? I am assuming that I will need a source, transmitter, and antenna, but have no idea what to buy. Also, I need some idea of elevation and output levels.
Right now the plan is to output from a PC. I am hoping to use this to broadcast from the PC or home stereo out to the lake and lawn.
Any help or suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks
Welcome to the site!
Here are some online guides for starting a station:
"How to" from pcs-electronics.com
"How to" from hobbybroadcaster.net
Enjoy
Thank you for the welcome and the feedback.
Looks like a fairly straight-forward setup. It also looks like the cards from PCS may be the way to go, as I have several old PC's laying around.
Any suggestions on an antenna? Do I need some sort of isolator for it? I'd hate to fry a PC.
Or would I be better off with a stand-alone unit?
I have a two story house and am planning on mounting the antenna on the roof. Will this be high enough to cover the desired 1000'. I am sure that terrain will matter, but will it work in theory?
Thanks again!
I have a PCS PC based transmitter, and they work very well. The antenna connector is a F-connector which is mounted on the metal bracket that holds the transmitter card.
Veronica sells a dipole antenna that is reasonably priced. It's about $85.00 shipping included.
You don't have to worry about frying the PC. I ran my transmitter with no problems. The PC controls power on/off and output power. The audio is fed an 1/8" mini jack on the transmitter card. Audio quality is good, although I found the modulation to be low. Even with compression, the audio was lower than other stations on the band. You do have to think about locating the transmitter away from your studio gear so you don't get RF into your audio.
I prefer to have everything standalone, For the transmitter, EDM LCD is your best bet hands down, the FM DX 1/4wave tunable ground plane antenna will not stick out like a sore thumb on your roof, while delivering a signal that will more than cover 1000' with a portable radio.
Unless you own stock in the power company, you may want to entertain power consumption. The EDM is a very low power drain, compared to a PC based transmitter I have one set up which is operated as a satellite repeater, the setup consist of a EDM LCD transmitter, a Behringer 1425DSP audio processor, Yamaha MG10/2 mixer and a FTA satellite receiver. The power draw is so low, I can operate the station for over 18 hours with an inverter and a used car battery.
You can power down the EDM LCD, to cover just the area you need, or crank it up for those extended walks and share with the neighbors.
Pictures of the EDM LCD & FM DX antenna along with links are here:
www.radiobrandy.com/part15fm.html
Steve