Today - I am going to test my Procaster, Hamilton AM1000, and Talking House. My goal is to compare apples to apples to apples. I want to hear the best signal I can from these fcc certified transmitters. I want to use them in a way that complies with the FCC rules, and without any of the controversial stuff (Talking House ATU is not being used, I am not using ground radials per se, no long grounding, and no synchronizing hamiltons).
My test is purely practical. No test gear other than the stock radio in my 2013 jeep compass.
I have the dirtiest airwaves of anywhere I think, given that I do live in an area saturated with the standard AM Broadcast, a huge concentration of Amatuer radio enthusiasts, the companies that are testing various wireless technologies (I am in Sunnyvale, CA). The cleanest LEGAL band I can find is 1630 AM - 1710 would be cleaner, but I do not know how to attenuate 20db below blah.. so I am not gonna try it.
The testing ground is simple:
MAST: I dug a 3 foot by 10 inch hole in the ground, dropped a 4 foot pole into it, and filled it with quickcrete.
MOUNTING: The transmitters will be mounted to the resulting 1 foot pole, hanging out about 7 inches over the bare ground.
ANTENNA: The antennas are the one that comes with the Procaster, a 102" stainless whip for the rangemaster, and an almost 10 foot 3/4" copper pipe for the Talking House.
GROUND: Just outside of the quickcrete blob is an 8 foot grounding rod. I will use the shortest bit of 18awg copper wire I can to attach the grounding to the rod.
AUDIO: Behringer 2222 mixer using a computer and Airtime as the music source, mic and cd players will be present, but we will see if I have time to play with all that mess.
PROCESSING: I do not have a ton of processing gear, so I am still trying to figure out what Ill use. If I do not have adequite gear for the hamilton and talking house, ill decouple the onboard processing from the procaster to make it as fair as i can.
I'll post results as they happen.
I love it. Anxious to hear the results.
I have noted my predictions but won't share them. We'll see.
I *might* suggest doing the Procaster with it's built in processing and no outboard processing at all, and go ahead and use the outboard processing on the others. As one of the main features (and one of the reasons I chose the Procaster) was because of the conveinence of it's built in processing.
The only issue I see with this test is not knowing how well you're modulating the various units. Odds are the same audio level fed to each will give varying modulation levels, and the level of modulation is key in coverage and sound quality. There's really no way to know without a modulation monitor. I know where I could "borrow" one for a few days 🙂
Tim in Bovey
I will use the onboard processing for the Procaster, and the offboard processing for the Hamilton and Talking House.
My processing is not fancy: A CRL SPF300 and a standard Alesis Compressor/Limiter.
As for "modulation levels" - I am tuning these transmitters for the absolute best sound/range I can get them to go. Thety are not being tested as flat-same-across-the-board, thats not what I am after. I am trying to see what the best sound is that we can get using no professional lab test gear..
Ok - so the procaster sounds good. I'm getting some solid sound closeby, now to work on the hamilton..
Edit: Hamilton powersupply is bunk. gotta run to the store to get another.
I get it totally. But if range is part of the test, knowing you at 100% modulation (or 125% is you can process assymetrically so your negative moduladion is cuf off before 100%) can be critical, as modulation has a big effect on range. Or you can do what I did, just go as far as you can till you hear distortion and back it off 🙂 Very scientific LOL. Even though I have access to a calibrated Belar mod monitor I've never bothered to use it on my own transmitter!
Tim in Bovey
I am sitting by watching the game, and excited to hear your results, MLR.
Sometimes when I do down-and-dirty modulation setting I tune to an adjacent channel and see how much splash-over I'm getting on the high-end (sibilance, tingly-bells, cymbals), and back off the modulation for just a tad of splash.
I have the audio band-width cut at 10kHz, so there is some splash-over.
Tha Dood in West Virginia uses the VU meter built into an AM boombox to make his audio level match a hot commercial station.
Be back later.
Tim: The idea was to be "some guy in smalltown USA with zero radio knowlege but gosh i really want to run a radio station and im too honest to be a pirate so i bought this thing from the internet and followed instructions."
Here it is: The rangemaster beat the procaster in pure range. The procaster beats the rangemaster in audio quality. The talking house... is the talking house....
Why did the rangemaster beat the procaster in range? NFC. But it did. Listenable range is about 3/4 of a mile. At 1 mile it was still pretty listenable, at 1.2miles - fuggetaboutit. I suspect that if I added the big ground plane and a copper pipe antenna to the talking house, it would have gotten slightly better range.
Why did the procaster beat the rangemaster in audio quality? Because I am not an audio engineer, and tweaked my two processors by ear. I think if I had someone at the transmitter, someone in a car, and someone in the studio, it would have been a lot better.
Talking house audio: oh my god. just don't. This is a great entry level unit, fantastic for apartment dwellers, but really.. who does QA on these things? The audio sounded awful. Tinny at one end, muddy at the other. Also: due to the fact that the grounding is in the power supply, i personally question its legality so far from the power source.
Talking house range: Ok, so not too shabby. I got about 1/4 mile SOLID (i you like tinny) sound, no static, no evil. Other than the afore mentioned static. At 1/2 mile - it starts going downhill and just keeps on going down.
My issue with the TH is I tried 3 different units, all three had dramatically different sound. There is no consistancy.
Keep in mind - I live in a horribly RF dirty area. Your (heh) mileable may vary. This test was conducted strictly as a novice following directions. Thats it.