Carl is a nice man.
There it is. The 3rd and final installment of the FM25B Manual just got sent to Barry & Stephanie, to join their Ramsey FM25B Transmitter in Kentucky.
I've been planning to order an FM25B transmitter for a couple weeks, maybe today is the day.
It's a good transmitter, probably better in many ways than the rather puny stock of "certified" transmitters, except possibly for super expensive ones like the better Decade and one or two others.
Out of fairness I add that the C.Crane FM Transmitter2 might be the best buy in fairly priced certified transmitters, it's a beloved part of the KDX family of transmitters.
The remainder of today will be spent being nice.
Carl,
I checked my email about an hour ago and I received all three parts of the manual, much appreciated too.
Now i need to read it over and see if there is something i am missing here or perhaps there is something wrong with transmitter.
It seems fine other wise, transmits close to 1000 feet on full power and about 500 feet give or take at just about 2 mW of power to a power meter. I don't have the meter handy right now but the position of the variable resistor has been marked on the circuit board in case I forget where to set this thing to remain legal.
I think it's safe to say there is probably going to be some loss of power since i am feeding the signal through 100 feet of RG-6 coax which is on purpose. Even if i was to operate at the full 18 mW the coax would leak some of the RF before it reaches the antenna. The 2 mW setting insures that the transmitter stays fairly close to compliance.
The dipole antenna is about 7 feet in the air and on our front porch in the horizontal position, the terrain here is so dramatic that my signal is stuck on my road and spills out a little bit at the only way in and out of this valley. I am basically on a one lane road with no outlet, you drive to the end of the road, turn around and come back lol.
A screen shot of Google Earth shows my neighborhood, you can get a sense of what i mean on the photo's page of the stations website http://bluebucketradio.com/photos.html
I am going to mess around with the FM 25 B after I read this manual a bit.
Thanks again Carl.
Barry and Stephanie
Blue Bucket Radio 89.7 FM
The Little Things Radio Show
FWIW: The Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0 puts out 2 mW into a rubber duck and that over powered transmitter got certified. Its overpowered yes but too more than 75% of the population running FM Transmiters for Part 15 broadcasting aka Christmas Light Shows use them daily. Keep in mind though gray area if your away from a metro area and don't lifve in a police state like Connecticut, New York, Washington DC, NJ, Mass your are probably set. Otherwise your better off running something like a Scoche for FM and save your money for a lot o these FM transmitters are over the limit. My SainSonic goes a little 1,000 feet to a car Radio. But when the ground is Wet it goes further. There is another transmitter you can set to 1 mW into a rubber duck and claims 150-200 Feet to a portable Radio. Its the Signstek CZE-T200 though not certified if you keep it at 1mW you are under the Certified Overpowered transmitter running 2mW and places like Frankinmuth, Michigan runs that 24/7 365 for more than 12 yrs of my knowledge. No NOUO was issued. I could hear the signal ¼ mile 5 by 5. I can almost safely claim few part 15 FM Transmitters are 100% at spec.
The low pass filtering insures this puppy stays clean, without a scope I resorted to using a Bearcat scanner by Uniden, A Grundig G3 and several fm radio's to check for interference or spurious emissions.
The G3 has the aircraft band so does the Bearcat so there are ways to check for interference across several public safety bands.
So far the Ramsey has behaved itself.
I am posting this while cooking supper so i will keep this short.