scwis rant - Facts versus Fiction

and the next bit : I just talked to my local FCC guy out of Livermore, CA. I told him what I was doing, why I was doing it, etc.

He asked what my intent was - I said I was providing programming to the local community, who had no local radio, and that I would turn over the station to the authorities during time of disaster/emergency.

He suggested I contact a local community org who had recieved a CP and never used it for LPFM. How cool is that? He seemed happy that I wanted to give him all my info so "if someone complained, he could call me instead of going on a witchhunt".

VERY nice guy.

I get a little tired of people claiming the FCC are inherently evil. Show me ANY group that is perfectly amiable all the time, I'll show you a graveyard. These guys are really just trying to do a job, are under budgeted, and appreciate when people try to make thier lives easier.

As a side note - theres two fcc agents that live in my town. I have been running legal for a year now, and not had anyone knocking on my door (so I must be doing it legally 😉 )

Amen about the FCC. The admin side of the house may have grown, but the field engineering side has steadily shrunk, at least to my knowledge. There are a number of FCC HF monitoring stations around the country, all of which used to be manned (I was lucky enough to get an impromptu tour of the Grand Island station over 10 years ago). Those stations are now completely automated except the one in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which now controls all the others. Frankly, I'm disappointed that the commissioners and senior staff seem to want to get away from this mundane business of technical radio regulation, and it's been that way for a while.

Surprisingly enough, there are a lot of commercial stations running on less than modern equipment. While I doubt there are many Gates Yard consoles running today (if any), there's sure to be a lot of old consoles and transmitters still cranking out a good signal. Which brings me to the topic.

A lot of today's lesser expensive equipment is better than a lot of yesteryear's 'pro' equipment. So one can start a station on a very modest budget and sound as good or better than the pros. And today's automation programs beat the stuffings out of yesterday's automation systems. The standard version of DRS2006 has more functionality than a roomful of older automation and is almost nothing in cost!

Being a "newbie" Part 15'er I have spent many hours researching Part 15 AM transmitters. The end result in my mind was 100mw is 100mw...Plain and simple. I decided on the SStran AMT-3000. What a great transmitter. Following the instructions on their website for constructing a load coil vertical antenna, I am getting out a solid 1/2 mile and thats with the antenna indoors! Phil Bolyn at SStran has a great product at about 1/4 of the cost of the Rangemaster. Not to mention excellent technical support and patience! Thanks Phil!!! I'm sure Rangemaster owners are pleased with it's performance as well but the SStran was within my budget and again, isn't 100mw a 100mw???

Owning a Rangemaster, I can say that they're an excellent piece of equipment. But, I had a small windfall, and that's how I could afford it. Otherwise, I'd still have my Metzo as primary as opposed to being a backup transmitter.

I remember a webpage put up by a fellow who was broadcasting with a transistor, an inductor, a couple of capacitors and a battery, and he was having the time of his life 😀

His site's gone now, but still on the archive at

http://web.archive.org/web/20030803112511/gearloose.freeyellow.com/amxt.htm

(His last host had a lot of pop-ups, and those were archived, too - grrrrr)

It's so great to get news items and see forum posts from folks who ignore all the negative stuff and just try it, any way they can.

Funny thing, I don't recall anyone who tried it who *didn't* like it 😆

I'll capture this website you linked to - I think it should be preserved (sans pop-ups).