Based on Tim in Bovey's 7100 feet, this is what I came up with. Very impressive, especially being able to cover an entire town. Not knowing his actual location I threw a dart in the middle of town.
I'm half a block north of the center of town! So pretty close! You can see we cover all of Bovey and Coleraine. Remember these are SMALL towns. Main street through Bovey is maybe 1/4 mile long give or take a few feet. And the whole town is about 4 blocks wide!
It's an advantage of being in a small community and far away from any city and it's inherrent RF and electrical noise. The lake to the south there has a nice public landing and beach right there on the north shore and it's popular for swimming and fishing. The lake to the north is actually the Canisteo Mine pit, which of course has long been out of operation and has filled with water. You don't see a lot of recreation there, an occasional small boat.
Thanks for making up the great coverage map!
Tim in Bovey
Good for hobby radio. Far away from a large city means the only radio station around is you. No one interferes with you and you don't interfere with anyone else and you're all there is to tune in.
I have to get to a place like that.
Mark
Antarctica has no FCC nor zoning regulations. Free for all!
Well, I'm not the only game in town -- I work at a 5000 watt AM 8 miles away -- been the morning guy and chief engineer there for 26 years, and there's a 10,000 watt station up in Hibbing about 30 miles away. Lots of FM stations, including the 100,000 watt I am also the engineer for. But yeah, on the AM band it's pretty wide open up here. I do get clobbered at night with interference and skip -- coverage is pretty much City of Bovey only at night!
Tim in Bovey
Not completely correct Carl. The respective sectors are governed the governments associated with the sectors. Amateur radio licenses in the U.S. sector are issued by the FCC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_call_signs_of_Antarctica
Yes, John WDCX, but the US Sector is melting and there will be HAMs in life rafts.
Check out the New Zealand Sector and claim squatter's rights on a good frequency!
as we know.
If somebody made a pirate NTSC TV station
in our town, I'm sure NOBODY would ever see it.
I get worried about doing something like that.
The "transmiiter's" ouput spectrum could be dirty,
therefore not safe - maybe.
Near our town is a 1000 watt NTSC station on
channel 48. NOBODY knows it's there except for
me (because I'm a DXer) and one poor old lady
that I meant in a Dunkin Doughnuts (sp?) one day.
I don't know how we got on the subject, but this NTSC channel 48
was the only channel she could get. There was simply nobody
available to help her get any other TV signal. This channel 48
had a cool network with old movies and TV shows. I did watch it.
Now it's just transmitting religious programming. I guess that's all the owner could do to keep it on the air.
How many elderly people are out there with no TV to watch since
NTSC went off?
Perhaps a few.
Bruce
I was supposed to be on the thread
about little TV transmitters!
OOOOps!
I don't know how to change it.
Sorry about that.
Bruce
Hi Tim. Do you have a description of your installation, i.e., ground plane, radials, elevated, etc.?
Considering that this question has been asked a few times I am guessing...well you get the point. 🙂
The problem is ... without any sort of reference information about the installation, stating just a range is rather meaningless.
My installation is exactly to the letter as prescribed in the manual that came with my Procaster.
It stated to install according to instructions to insure certified status, so that's what I did.
I didn't think my coverage was all that amazing, although good. Virtually every certified AM Part 15 transmitter brags of coverage of 1.5 - 2 miles. I come about 1.3. And that's in a small rural town with no large buildings, no industry and virtually no stray RF or electrical interference.
Tim in Bovey
Not to belabor the point, but your static free range IS really greater than the norm. What the manufacturers claim and what can actually be achieved in most real world situations are two different things. I think if you do a search here and elsewhere, you'll find that most achieve a useable range on Part 15 AM WITH static of at most a mile, usually less than that. And that's to a sensitive car radio.
That's why I asked the question. What did you do to get that kind of range? Do you have radials? What type of ground plane (what is the soil conductivity)? Is the transmitter elevated? Etc.
I really just want to know so that I (and others) can potentially duplicate it. I've never achieved that range, or even close to it, static free. With a Rangemaster, ProCaster or anything else. And that was also in rural areas (several of them, in fact).