outdoor mounting of a talking house?

Seems a plastic 5 gallon bucket would work (pickle or paint), but might want to try to find the same one as the I.AM enclosers... They had to come from somewhere...

http://sales.talkinghouse.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=46

As most of you know, I have a Talking House and two Rangemasters. Here in cloudy Florida the teperatures in the shade can reach 95 routinly.  I have serious doubs about exposing a Talking House in a box in direct sunlight. There is no comparison between the Talking House circuit board and the Rangemaster's circuit board.

Yeah - if I were in 95F for a good period of time, I would not put it outside either..

I like this part of the description: "When installed properly, this unit will get you the maximum coverage allowed by law."

And I like the idea of finding something like that.. I might need more waterproof than resistant 🙂

Hi,

This is my first post, and I apologize if it's in the wrong place, but this thread seems fitting.

Does anyone here have the I.Am enclosure, or pictures of one?

I am specifically interested in the power connecter.

The instructions that come with the TH say to plug the power supply into the wall first, and then power the unit on by plugging the power cord into the TH unit.

So regarding the enclosure..

Have they placed an additional power connector (or jumper) inside of the enclosure, allowing the power supply to be connected to the unit from the outside of the enclosure? Maybe going as far as to place a switch on the outside of the enclosure to power the unit on/off?

That feature would likely come in very handy for anyone using the unit.

If not... Would such modification void the part 15 certification?

Which leads to yet another question...

Would extending the cord of the power supply and installing an on/off switch inline (on the DC side of the wall wart) void the unit's part 15 certification?

I would like to put one these units upon a mast inside of a waterproof enclosure, and use the existing wire antenna in conjunction with it's autotuner.

 The issue of excessive heat is another thing that I am racking my brain over.
  

It would seem that an outdoor enclousure for the TH would need to be well ventilated, yet remain waterproof somehow...

To more specifically address the original post.

I have placed a TH on top a mobile home in dry weather. No extension cord. The cord from the wall wart barely made the climb up top from the exterrior outlet.

Hoisted some poly twine over a tree branch and attached the wire antenna to the twine. Result was far from vertical, but not horizontal...more along the line of 45 deg.

The results using a Factory DELCO car stereo was around 1/10 to 1/2 mile solid range (though directional) and a mile or so of fringe range with plenty of dropouts.

This was using the wire antenna included with the TH unit (and allowing it to autotune) under a less than optimal setup. I simply allowed the factory recorded message to repeat during range testing. Have no idea how a line in may affect the TH under the same setup.

Jim Dee wrote "The issue of excessive heat is another thing that I am racking my brain over. "

Here I have a home brew AM transmitter which consumes 1 watt with 86 mW going out to the antenna leaving .914 W dissipated as heat by the other components in the transmitter. This unit is mounted outside in a 6" x 6" PVC weather tight outdoor electrical box with only the power/audio and antenna/ground lines penetrating the box. These are sealed at the box with duct sealing compound so it is water and air tight.

This has been installed and operating for two years and there have been no problems with heat even with ambient temps. in the 90s but this transmitter is located in the shade.

The TH may differ in that it might have higher power dissipation but I don't think heat will be a problem if this is enclosed in a weather proof box. The best way to tell is to put it in such a box and monitor the temperature inside with perhaps a thermistor sensor. As to what maximum temperature is OK, this depends on what is happening inside the TH unit. Unless there are some components which operate hot at room temperature ambient (hot meaning around 120 degrees F or so) there probably won't be a heat problem.

Neil

IF a transmitter is mounted in the sun, and in the case where the operator is concerned about heat-build-up, perhaps a custom-made non-conductive awning or umbrella could be placed so as to shade the sun. Then you'd have made "artificial shade" and be in the same situation Radio8Z has.

As long as the sun is there, stick up a solar panel at the top of the tower and grab some volts.

The IAM Radio/Talking House transmitter is now sold in an outdoor enclosure for just that purpose.  They have apparently eliminated the ATU and simply mount the standard 102" whip antenna to the enclosure and let the internal auto-tuner do its thing.

I'm sure you could duplicate this setup if you can find the right size enclosure.  Visit the I AM Radio site and take a look at what they've done.

Have they placed an additional power connector (or jumper) inside of the enclosure, allowing the power supply to be connected to the unit from the outside of the enclosure? Maybe going as far as to place a switch on the outside of the enclosure to power the unit on/off?

That feature would likely come in very handy for anyone using the unit.

If not... Would such modification void the part 15 certification?

No.

I have had a few good days to play around with the TH, both indoors and outdoors.

 Outdoor operation improves it range in a serious way.

 In an earlier comment I had spoken about using the TH on top of a mobile home. Yesterday I lowered the unit to almost ground level and checked the range again.

 Again with only a DELCO car stereo and my ears to serve as a measuring device...

 Notable differences are that the signal seems to be stronger and more solid where noise from electrical lines would interfere with it before. Close weak spots become solid, while distant weak spots become much too weak.

 So lowering the TH seems to have improved the range, and although it has overall decreased range, the signal is more usable over a greater area.
( if that makes sense ? )

While I don't understand how lowering the Talking House would cause the signal to be more usable; there is no doubt to me that simply lowering the unit has doubled the number of potential listeners.

This seems to be opposite of everything ( I thought ) I have learned about radio over the years.