Like I said easy does it.....you don't want to make mistakes.
The round thing with the hole in the middle at the right side in pic is a speaker to make a big beep(annoying) when you push any button on front. You can always omit this if it's too loud.
Can't tell if any mistakes from pic as I don't have values and where they're supposed to be in front of me but before you turn on check carefully...polarity of caps etc.
Mark
The main circuit card went together very easily with only small stumbles.
I thought the front panel card would be a piece of cake because it has only a few parts, but WHAM! Or maye those are somebody's call letters. Let's say this... WAM!
First there was an instruction something like "Do it the same way we did with R1."
R1? I never encountered R1. What do I do now?
So, I read ahead, and on the NEXT page was "Now install R1." Alright, they printed the instructions out of order. I can deal with that.
But then some language came up that seemed to contradict itself and seemed to mean the exact oposite of what it was saying.
O.K., shut her down. Take the night off.
See everybody tomorrow!
Great stuff!
Brooce, WLP
Agreed. I'm enjoying Carl's adventures in kit building.
I like to see how one is put together too.
Love the pics. I enjoy building things and riding along with Carl is almost like I am doing it myself.
One nice tool to have is a solder sucker. This little gizmo is designed to remove solder from things. I remember in our lab someone asked "Has anyone seen the solder sucker?". The answer, from across the room, was "He went to lunch".
Neil
Glad to see that your kit build went so well Carl.
Can't waint to hear how well that transmitter does for you.
Good morning fellow pea shooters.
Neil reminds me that once I bought a solder sucker because some instructions at the time recommended having one, but it has never been used. I ended up using a solder wick a few times, could have used the solder sucker.
Last night an hour spent first studying the instructions for finishing the front panel of the FM30B then tinkering with the parts to get a good mental picture of how they fit together.
It got late, the desire to start building again was strong, but I told myself that a nap would be good, which turned out to be all night.
Get ready, this is it, the final stretch.
Here we have the completed Front Panel Card as we build a Ramsey FM30B Transmitter.
The next step will be attaching it to the Main Board and I guess putting it in the metal case.
In the background you can see the fan that was added at the request of Mark, saving my brain from being further damaged.
The obstacles Carl is dealing with reminds me to tell him to be careful.
The older Ramsey FM100 transmitter kit was distributed with a major circuit design error that it appears, no one else caught. The errors was the LEFT and RIGHT audio ops amps LF347, MAX291 and other audio related circuitry was traced to the opposite audio inputs of the BA1404 Stereo Generator IC.
The transmitted stereo audio was therefore reversed on a stereo FM receiver, right channel was left channel and left channel was right channel.
I had to cut the traces at the chip and jumper those circuits to their correct inputs of the BA1404 IC chip Ramesy had no idea that mistake existed in that kit, but it was there, no doubt about that.
It was the circuit board that was traced (etched) wrong, not the instruction manual wording it wrong.
Carl, I am curious what type of solder you are using to build this kit, please provide the ratio and brand.
Bruce.
Ever since the recent report that too much processed meat may cause cancer, I stocked up on just enough processed meat for today's lunch without having "too much."
Hi MrBruce, I have the roll of solder right here, let me read the labels...
Kester Solder manufactured by Litton, "44" Rosin Core.
It has worked well on many projects and is holding up for years, unlike some people.
The main circuit card and the front panel card are now joined together and slid into the lower half of the metal case, there was more difficulty reaching this last stage than simply building the main card, and later today I'll do an in depth report.
The only part left out right now is the green LED power light, and I'll explain why that got stalled and not installed.
What we'll do now is put the top on the case, attach the telescoping antenna, and turn it on to check-out the front panel controls and look for a carrier.
If this goes up in a ball of fire please tell my step-family that I never told them how I really feel.
The Ramsey FM30B Transmitter is ON THE AIR at a frequency of 89.9 MHz.
The front panel controls were easy to figure out. When I first looked at "Frequency" it was set at 101.9. I keyed down to my chosen frequency.
Set "Mode" to MONO.
Set Audio level to 0 (Zero), there is no audio in the corner by the workbench.
Before changing anything the "Power" was set on about midway, which 20-feet away on the spectrum analyzer showed 52 dBu.
The telescoping antenna, capable of 30" length was layed horizontally and measured 21", due to space limitation on the bench.
Just for comparison, the C.Crane FM1, located 10'10" from the spectrum analyzer is reading 43 dBu.
Cranking power to MAX we read 55 dBu, knowing that fully extending the antenna would be higher and using an optimized antenna up in the air would exceed the Wattage of this website.
Trying MIN power we observed 28 dBu, where it will stay during the testing phase.
Let's see, what'll we do next? Gosh, I wonder if there's any more of that processed meat.
I am betting that it will sound better than your Ccrane.
Great job Carl. Let us know if the audio does sound better. I wonder if it truly is 75 uS EQ?
The Ramsey FM30B devotes a section of the instructions to explaining how to wire it for 75 uS U.S. or 50 uS European, and of course I am here in THIS Homeland and not the Original Homeland over in Europe.
The quality seems the same as the C.Crane, which has a fully professional FM circuit and does not suffer from audio problems.
However, so far as I can tell, the Ramsey has no over-modulation indicator like the flashing red LED on the C.Crane. I have set the level about the same as a public station on a nearby channel.
The 30B is now placed on top of the computer set at MIN power and driving my wall mounted End-Fed L Antenna. The spectrum analyzer 10'10" away reads 40db, as compared to 44 dB for the C.Crane Certified power level.
The front panel allowed me to SAVE all the settings.