Indeed Part 15 can do some amazing things on its own. But the majority of time..to hear a Part 15 station at a considerable distance does require an elaborate receiver setup with an elaborate outdoor antenna system up on a 50 foot tower with inverted V dipoles or long wire or point those "MOONRAKER" beams at the source.
Isn't it great that these days we can DX the bands and not be plagued with the old electronic iron curtain of the old soviet union jamming up the spectrum!
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
RFB
Yep, remember the Russian woodpecker well. Along with their attempts at actually freq jamming 🙂 For most of my current LW/MW DXing I'm using home brewed loops in the 40 and 50 inch range. I've been quite pleased with these and have caught many a distant signal with them. Plenty of Mexican X stations as of late. I also use a 140' long-wire, and a former inverted V that suffered storm damage last summer. I might put it back up this summer, we'll see. I don't have much land and have had to pack these antennas up tight and close.
Brian
I used to listen to the Russian
Woodpecker.
Somebody told me it was some kind
of "Over The Horizon" radar.
Does that sound right?
Best Wishes,
Bruce, DOGRADIO STUDIO 2
All that just to transmit a BUZZ??? We coulda had world-wide Rocky & Bullwinkle audio!
Some of those arrays were Tesla based devices. You can see the coil at the top of some of the tower structures.
Tesla antenna...what better way to create extreme ERP than with a step up transformer antenna!
RFB
4829138 figure it out
Can we build a step up transformer antenna on top of a 10-foot stick?
Brian,
Several years ago I was running a Part15 on 1160 kHz, which regularly got out a couple of miles. I received a report at 4 miles out one winter afternoon. My mother picked it up once at about 7 miles west, on a rainy day. Her car had a great AM radio, incidentally.
In 2007 I began using a Rangemaster on 1610. It seldom was heard past a mile or so, but one cold January morning a few minutes after sunrise, I gave a live weather report. Someone in Crawfordville, Florida, that was familiar with my station, pucked it up, and that was around 22 miles. He reported that it was gone after a few minutes, though.
My Part 15 is temporarily down. I'm doing a major studio move to its own building and will probably file for an LPFM.
I still have the Rangemaster, and a Radio Systems TX-20 unit that needs a coupler for carrier current operation.
http://www.bigdcountry.com is the stream. The Part 15 was mostly a simulcast.
22 miies!!! That's great! More than
I have ever heard for a Part 15 AM,
but I do believe it. It correlates with
ssb experiments that people have done in
the 160 to 190 kHz Part 15 band.
Aside from that utterly fantastic distance
report, you have also been keeping the late
great WJJD alive. I heard that Chicago station
when I was a boy, as it signed off at sunset on
1160. A 50,000 watt daytimer. That's really
in the past now, too.
And I heard it where I still live, in Connecticut.
Bruce, DOGRADIO STUDIO 2
"Can we build a step up transformer antenna on top of a 10-foot stick?"
Why not. It's only impossible if not attempted.
As can be seen in some of those photos, there are indeed step up coils on top of those tower structures.
Sure those things were being fed by very high levels of RF energy and the coils stepped that up even more. But where does it say anywhere that the same concept cannot be applied to a 100mW or less RF signal.
Don't let the boogie man keep you from exploring and discovering. The boogie man is afraid of what you will find.
RFB
"Someone in Crawfordville, Florida, that was familiar with my station, picked it up, and that was around 22 miles. He reported that it was gone after a few minutes, though."
Although short in duration, it proves that in the real world, the calculations, charts and graphs from a NAD/CAD program can get a slap in the face with a "hey I am real and you are virtual".
And that can happen on ANY band, on ANY frequency, with ANY level of TX power.
One more for the record books.
RFB
Quote from a previously posted message:
"However, a ham radio friend showed me @ S8 on his General Communications Receiver more than 8 miles away! BUT, that's with a very expensive top-of-the-line Icom receiver with filters, frequency adjustable preamps, and a longwire rhombic antenna pointed generally my direction ... which just goes to show what a difference the receiver can make. I have never heard my station out there where he is."
He said it sounded great. Scary ... that's about, what, 25uV at the receiving antenna terminals? Longwire antennas rule! ... Umm ... heh-heh ... if you have the space 😉
"Longwire antennas rule! ... Umm ... heh-heh ... if you have the space ;)"
They sure do and yes if there is enough room for one...and no HOA/CCR or other silly nonsense.
RFB
Thanks for the kind words. I've always liked country music, but never worked that format in my *REAL* radio jobs. I always wanted to, so developing this station has been a lot of fun for me.
I happened to receive an email from the daughter of the late Roy Stingley (of the original WJJD)and she still had a few of her father's items, including a gold Wayne Newton record from 1972 that once was displayed in the lobby of Chicago's 'JJD. It just sort of grew from there.
Incidentally, I still do a live show on (most) weekdays from 10 am to 3 pm Eastern and am starting to dig into some of the deeper classic country I have. That show streams via Live 365 and Radio Terra and is beginning to catch on somewhat with country fans.
because I did start a nonprofit back in 2001, I am hoping to maybe morph this into an LPFM station. I believe Frank Hansche, who used to frequent the board quite a bit, was able to do so a few years back. I don't have a day job anymore so I need to make something work! And radio is my passion.