Totally New Newbie--Intro
Hi folks--my interest in a Part 15 radio station was sparked by the situation with KAMP, emergencies in general, and a personal experience with an ice storm that took down the powerlines for a whole month and which took out all local radio stations for the first fiew days.
I'm otherwise a ham operator who is also otherwise an emergency responder, and in any scenario where none of the local big boys are on the air, I want to be the first on with a battery-powered Part 15, if only just for my neighbors. The first kneejerk idea that crossed my mind was to just get a wireless kareoki microphone that comes across the FM dial, but perhaps I should give things more careful consideration and see just what's what out in the Part 15 world first.
I'll probably lurk for the most part; never travelled down this road before. 😉
Check out the AM option. You will get more range.
I'm otherwise a ham operator who is also otherwise an emergency responder
Absolutely wonderful to have a Ham on board!
We'll probably ask you as many questions as you ask us 😀
The idea of a Part 15 operation to support emergency activities is fascinating.
Ham operators communicating with each other, then broadcasting info to your neighbors over part 15 - hmmm...
That might have made a big difference in the Big Easy!
Excellent idea!!! I have been trying to sell my local ARES group with the same idea for a couple of years. Don't give up on it, the public will greatly benefit from it! Just a laptop looping a prerecord message would be better than nothing! A low power AM transmitter would give you more range. A SStran AMT3000 with a quick and dirty loading coil roughly 1/8 wave of your desired frequecy and a 102 inch steel whip and at least 8 - 20 foot long ground radials running across the ground will get your signal out at least 1/2 mile strong. I've heard remnants of a signal from such a station 5 miles away. The more detail you put into your loading coil, antenna and ground radials and it's placement will further help your installation. The AM1000 RangeMaster has alot of the above engineered into it's design, except for the ground radials. You have a couple of options. Go for it!
Thanks for the replies; I've been paging thru some old Amateur Handbooks to see what I might homebrew, actually.
As a SKYWARN type ham, I've found the ARES bunch a little too hoity-exclusive for my tastes so I'm not surprised ya can't sell 'em on any ideas but their own, really.
I managed to acquire a Part 15 fm sound feeder, which I discovered covers just to the next door neighbors. Yup, AM certainly propagates better given the imposed rules and all. I already have an LM 3901 I plan to rig as a mike booster and hook that into the sound feeder for now; seems the quickest way to get a station going, tho coverage may leave a lot to be desired.
You got it--I'd rather homebrew than buy. I'm a whizbang with the smoldering iron--watch out when I pack a loaded soldering gun. 😉
whiz bang eh? You got my attention 🙂
Do any freelance type contract stuff for poor people?
I do odd jobs here n there for the neighbors, often gratis. My last job was jury-rigging an FRG7 to get around a failed power switch...the same FRG7 I earlier cleaned up for a guy who took it off of years of mothballs with minor problems due to crud buildup and wear. And this was after I cleaned up an ICOM for him (also a shortwave receiver). I don't try to mess wiith other people's things with serious problems without a schematic and/or drawings available. I was called on to fix a 2-deck tape unit (no drawing, no schematic) but it had so many interlocking failsafes on it that I had to turn that one down.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot--my last job was NOT the FRG7, it was some li'l portable whose whip got detatched from the wire connecting it to the circuit board, and it was attatched via a crimp-on. That sounds like a simple repair but when the wire's too short and the crimp-on's broken, there's a little mechanical sweet-talking involved. 😉
i dig the hhgttg thingie there.. the good old one too. not the new shiney one. nice 🙂
I still play the infocom version of the game on one of the servers at work. Great time killer, lots of fun too.
We need a zcode interpreter on part15.us... hmmmm.....
You actually have a Commodore 64 SERVER at work, ey? 😯 😯 😯 8)
I used to have an IBM converted copy of that program but the disk it was on shot craps.
So you actually know about pocket lint and that thing your aunt gave you but you don't know what it is. Cool.
Zcode interpreter? Babelfish.
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Ya know what, come to think of it, somewhere in my 2DD disk collection I think I actually do have a Zylog simulator or something....
I have the original boxed version of the game for the atari 800 (I was an atari guy, not a commie guy), but you can run the game on Linux under the zcode emu.
The box contains: 1 DSDD Disk with game, Pocket Fluff, Peril Sensetive Sunglasses, a thing your aunt gave you which you dont know what it is, a button that in large friendly letters says "Dont Panic!", and a microscopic space fleet (I carry the space fleet with me everywhere I go)
BTW: Did you notice in the new movie that standing in line was the original marvin from the series?
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if you click the little underlined thing, you will be able to play the old hitchikers game - just lke in the 80's.
I just got a blank page and my browser window indicated it was done loading. If that was the actual game, it should have said--
[b:90e05934a7]It is dark.[/b:90e05934a7]
The only underlined thingie on that page returns one to the Part15.us home page.
Clara - it takes a while to load. After the browser (I am using IE 6.0 on an XP Pro machine with Java 2 v 1.4.1 enabled on IE) says "done," you should see a java Icon while it is still loading. The bottom left of my browser says "Applet russotto/zplet/Zplet started."
It also says (after the intro, with copyright dates, release number, etc.)
It is pitch black.
Mlr - thank you for finding this classic timewaster.... Hope I can keep my job...