Address to the Nation by Acting Lord Carl Blare
Tomorrow is bright for AM broadcasting. A seachange is already underway all around us heading toward a great future for listeners and broadcasters.
The era of high power technically massive radio stations is passing away as the dial goes through a blight and dinosaur stations leave the air.
Meanwhile, a grassroots movement is growing into the vacant space and building a Nation of individually controlled Part 15 energy efficient radio stations.
From now on the private individual owns the airways. A personal radio station at home allows freedom of choice over program content, available by a wide assortment of audio feeds on the internet.
Only one or at the most two high power AM stations will be needed for regional service, and these types of stations are already being crafted under the name "Traveler's Information Stations," which eventually will transmit continuous health, safety and essential area information.
Every other type of programming will compete for affiliation with the millions of privately owned Part 15 home radio stations, where the listener is the gatekeeper, no longer at the mercy of budget-strapped, un-inspired, license holders.
Visionary pioneers have arrived to serve the one for all small radio movement, including part15.us, the A.L.P.B., transmitter manufacturers such as PhilB and others we have come to know, and at the high power end we have I.S.S. (Information Station Specialists).
You are to be congratulated for being one of the startups in the revolution of radio already taking place.
Well said Carl, as I said in an earlier post that since the big majority of stations don't want to be on AM and there's so much unoccupied space the AM band should be opened to hobby broadcasting, licence free, or at most a small amount the anyone can afford so people can broadcast from home to a local area. I think though, the allowable power should be increased to say 500MW to 1 WATT DC into the final RF because the majority of people don't have their own backyard or place where they can set up a loading coil and outdoor antenna with radials.There's also the chance of getting it stolen or vandalized. That increase in the legal power would allow someone to get to the neighbourhood with an indoor 3 meter wire and indoor ground. And there would be very few pirates because the law would then be more reasonable and better obeyed. And with some community standards rules you should be able to have programming of your choice.
Mark
I think though, the allowable power should be increased to say 500MW to 1 WATT DC into the final RF because the majority of people don't have their own backyard or place where they can set up a loading coil and outdoor antenna with radials
The change I would make here is OUTPUT rather than INPUT. The FCC changed that for most services years ago. 1 watt output with an unmodulated carrier. Modulated at or near 100% would yield about 4 watts PEP.
Yes, Absolutely right!, Output rather than input makes more sense and is easier to understand and measure.
Mark
The d-c input power to the output element of the final, active, r-f amplifier of a transmitter is much easier/cheaper to measure accurately than the r-f output power of that amplifier.
Measuring that d-c input power can be done using a simple, cheap meter one can buy from Radio Shack or other sources for maybe $10 (or less) using the sample points that many "Part 15 AM" transmitters provide to make those measurements.
Accurately measuring r-f output power requires a meter costing many hundreds of dollars, and needing a specified load impedance for the transmitter (which load impedance is unknown to almost all Part 15 AM operators).
Probably this is the reason why, for Part 15 AM, FCC §15.219(a) specifies input power rather than output power.
See next post...
Having worked in big size radio I am wild about seeing meters for everything in the transmitter.
If possible, I want to install permanent meters in Part 15 transmitters with a knob to fine-tune for 100mW. But is that possible, or am I still dreaming?
... I want to install permanent meters in Part 15 transmitters with a knob to fine-tune for 100mW. But is that possible ...
Could be, but this might need some engineering documentation showing proof of the accuracy needed for acceptance by the FCC.
Such added, permanent meters also might affect any FCC certification such transmitters had been issued previously, if they were not included in the hardware that was tested when the product was certified.
If it's for a Christian station would it be exempt?