I have one and I for grins are going to ground mount it a few inches abave the soil, use about 16 twelve foot radials, tune for legal power and with my trusty Ten-Tec Argonaut V w/S Meter connected to a car radio antenna and do my own analysis. I will publish the results here. So take that!!!!
Excellelent WDCX.
While you are at it I hope you can try a few other transmitters with the same setup.
The more people doing this kind of analysis the merrier - that's all that I am saying. A singular set of results with some unexpected measurements is definitely not the final answer.
Unless the testers have over 10,573 (or so) combined years of claimed broadcast engineering experience and claim that they know everything and don't have to listen to anyone else (except, of course, those that agree with them).
I have over 40 years of combined experience.
I also have had experience at many things. I have eaten in restaurants, driven cars and trucks, flown in planes, kissed my share of women, had pets, moved from place to place, heard music, worn a military costume, built transmitter kits, founded a radio dynasty, and applied to be on the no-fly-list.
Carl Blare has had over 450,000 experiences.
But wdcx, in your defence, I've never seen or heard you claim that you are THE expert, then raise the drawbridge and refuse to listen to others.
I respect your experience, as I do others here that have questions and some doubts about the Challenge results. THEY aren't resting on their experiences, whatever they may be (personally, I have over 40 years in the computer industry, mostly problem solving, and have been actually running a Part 15 radio station - unlike, I believe, some of those testers - for over 8 years).
Reminds me of the old saying, which I try to live by - the older you get, and the more experience you have, the more you realize how little (in the grand scheme of things) you actually know. But then, I've also read others, cut from the same cloth as the Challenge testers, that have claimed that in 20 years (or so), we'll literally know everything there is to know and there will be nothing new to learn.
Sure, I believe that.
Seriously though...I am going see what kind of results I can get with the Rangemaster mounted at ground level.
@Carl: Have you ever answered to door to FCC Agents naked?
The world's religions will tell you that knowledge is unecessary if you simply believe everything they say.
To "cherry pick" means "to pick only facts useful to advancing an argument and to disregard all other facts." There's been a lot of cherry picking taken from entries here in this thread about the so-called "challenge," but it's all taking place on another discussion forum.
If you think that this picky discussion must be going on over at the originating website where the "challenge" was posted, you'd be wrong. It's happening on a third forum but includes the participation of the webmaster from the "challenge" site, who has left home so as to continue bashing the AMT5000 on neutral ground.
And the nit-picking includes a fellow registered both here and the challenge site, so you'd think it would be polite to face one or the other directly, and not slink elsewhere, but house training is not required uner part 15 rules.
The central remarks made about the long forgotten challenge belabor the issue of the capacitors C7 & C8 on the Q1 drain which provide fine-tuning for Class-E operation of the AMT5000.
A few weeks ago one of the pickers claimed that the AMT5000 Manual gave no instructions at all about setting C7 & 8, but I came on here and showed in detail that the manual fully covers the subject on several pages.
Now, on their newest lashing, the pickers all at once know the pages, thanks to having read my posting, but find a way of discounting the manual as saying "not enough."
The pickers take yet another opportunity to discredit SSTran for not responding to the "peace branch" inviting input which would clear everything up. But offering a peace branch during a time-out from character detraction gives every reason to ban such "peace offerings" and ignore the stalkers who send them.
Unmade disclosures (the cherry not picked) would have explained why the AMT5000 is the target of derision: one of the challenge engineers is a Rangemaster and Chez Transmitter dealer, and the AMT5000 is steering away business for the over-priced high-end transmitters which have been handicapped by the FCC's pointless certification requirement.
Instead of making a scapegoat out of the AMT5000 it would make more sense to petition the FCC to drop the certification requirement thus bringing the pre-built transmitters into a more agreeable price point.
Real men join the ALPB.
Hey Carl, for that to be effective Canada would have to drop theirs. Then there is the problem of the pesky FM transmitters that have 2nd and 3rd harmonics as strong as the fundamental. Not saying I disagree, just saying that broad picture would have to be considered.
Also, truth be known, if the transmitter is properly designed with a lot of in-house testing, meaning power, spurs, 2nd harmonic, much of which can be easily done, the certification process is not that expensive as many would lead you to believe.
Point well taken WDCX John, my remarks about dropping certification were made regarding the AM transmitters, and I stand by that much of it, but I had blinders on and was not thinking about the FM problem.
Thus, there is good reason to keep certification for pre-built FM transmitters, since many users won't have a technical clue about all the out-of-band issues.
But AM doesn't need certification. That is, shouldn't need it. Let it be gone.
WDCX is a Member in Good Standing of the ALPB
That so-called neutral site is a joke as well.
I attempted to register to join in the discussion. Not that it would have made any difference to the posters, but I believe that my points about the issues with the AMT5000 are valid.
However, my registration was rejected - I was considered a spammer! The web page said to use 'Contact Us' if that was an error, but that link doesn't work (it's greyed out). Apparently, you can't contact them if you are considered a spammer, for whatever reason.
I didn't realize that Part 15 was such a closed community outside of this Forum. I guess these guys are just afraid of discussion with anyone other than their close friends and buddies and other like minded individuals.
This Forum is a breath of fresh air.
They let a stinkin' 'ol hillbilly that tunes coils with beer cans post here. What more do ya want?
Does courtesy require responsponding to un-solicited e-mail?
Consider these remarks collected from around the net:
"This particular manufacturer chose to ignore both email and postal mail communications in spite of my extending the olive branch and requesting their participation."
"Various manufacturers were contacted in an effort to secure short-term evaluation samples of their products. Rangemaster, in addition to kit manufacturers Ramsey and SSTran neither expressed any desire to participate in the testing nor were courteous enough to reply to multiple queries."
Correct answer: No. In fact everyone ignores much of the e-mail that comes in everyday offering get rich schemes and grand oppurtunities.
If unanswered e-mail hurts your feelings and seems like personal discourtesy, a good therapist could be helpful.
My guess is that he feels he is a much bigger deal than the manufacturers felt. Perhaps it was a case of, who is this guy?
It is also quite possible that the manufacturers were concerned, like others, about how the testing was going to be conducted.