While I don't doubt that with AM and the best transmitters an outdoor set up with grounds/radials, ground conductivity, is best for range but I have found that from indoors you can get decent coverage also and it shouldn't discourage anyone from AM thinking I don't have access or facilities for the outdoor install. I am now using a Procaster indoors from a basement...yes you heard right, and I posted my range with a Talking Sign in equipment reviews and this is not an exaggeration or false claims but actual testing. No external ground but electrical ground through the 3 terminal, earth grounded power supply. The Procaster is giving me the same range as the Talking Sign did. Without worrying about lightning, digging up the ground for radials, ground conductivity, getting audio and power from inside to outside through an access point somewhere for the cable, no vandalism worries. AM can be done from anywhere. The house wiring also can act like big radiating antenna.
Don't dismiss AM from indoors. The house I am in is typical. Concrete foundation, bricks, basement windows are a foot above ground.
I will give small review of Procaster in equipment reviews.
As you said, the configuration of your house wiring is probably acting as a large antenna. This scenario harkens back Gerry Guales NOUO years ago. His was stock Talking House that he installed indoors, antenna wire insode too, xmtr, simply plugged it in the wall. But his apartment was also in an eight story building, and that signal flew.. and you know the rest of the story.
This kind of relates to something I've pondered about. When you plug a TH in, isn't it also acting as a carrier-current station? No junction boxes involved or special connections (and vastly more power) like you need for carrier current instalations..
When operating a free-radiating Talking House arent you simultaneously feeding an audio signal to every room in that house? So isn't a talking house essentially both wireless AND a carrier-current station?
Well the transmitter is certified and intended to be operated with a wall plug in power supply. By the way I tried the Procaster with a regular 2 pin power supply and there was some hum but the meter peaked higher and more signal off the antenna! Go figure! But I am not using that. Grounded power supplies especially desktop ones work best as better filtering. I am going to try with a 12 volt battery or just as good unplug the UPS so the Procaster is operating off the grid and see what happens to the signal strength. Will report back.
There may be more to the story you recalled that we don't know about. Seems skeptical to me that from a legal part 15 transmitter that wouldn't output 100mW could cause an 8 story building to radiate to the extent implied. We can only believe half of what we read or hear in the news. But maybe Artisan would like to know this as he is in a ten story building I think and wonders how to get past the "faraday cage". to get any range at all from inside.
OK I unplugged the UPS so Procaster was in effect running from battery. Signal strength was not as good from antenna with hand held meter as operating from AC. Tuning meter was not peaking as high. Still very good but powering from wall AC adds to the performance noticeably.
And it was intended to be operated from wall adaptor from AC.
I can't comment on that other Part 15 AM story. But as Mark said, you need to have all the facts, and I've only heard bits.
What I do know is that from inside my concrete & rebar apartment, I can't even receive AM reliably, never mind transmit. I'm going to get the Talking Sign transmitter outside on the balcony, and do some testing, but weather has precluded that so far. We're just getting over massive rainfall and I really didn't want to be driving or walking around outside, never mind working.
"I can't comment on that other Part 15 AM story. But as Mark said, you need to have all the facts, and I've only heard bits."
@artisan-radio Here"s a glance back when it had occurred https://web.archive.org/web/20150313000637/http://www.part15.us/forum/part15-forums/regulations-law/rare-am-part-15-nouo-michigan-2014
That particular thread doesnt appear to be here in the part15.org archives from before the crash, so you might want to incorporate it while the Archive is still up and kicking!
I actually thought the story being referred to was the Jerry Gaulle saga. Supposedly, he had a Talking House mounted on an apartment balcony, with the wire antenna stretched to one end, and the power plug/ground stretched to the other. But I always felt there was more to the story than that to get a citation - that should be a legit installation for a Talking House.
I actually don't remember the particular story being referred to. I did think that that Artisan Radio guy in the thread (along with Rich Powers and the others) sounded reasonable.
But seriously, it's difficult to judge exactly what was going on, other than the station received the citation, and it was clearly operating outside the rules, particularly with the long ground wire. Really, the inspector had that to take the station down, even discounting the field strength.
And who knows why? Maybe the inspector was having a bad day. Maybe the station owner mouthed off to him. Maybe there was interference or a complaint. Ultimately, we'll never know.
That wasn't the Gerry Guale event? l must have pasted the wrong link, He was mentioned somewhere in that thread and I guess I presumed that was the thread I was thinking about.
Though you can say no one really knows what happened, it seems clear enough to me. But no, I don't know definitely, I just know what the big picture suggest...
At the time there was an active thread going on here and everyone was talking about it for pages, Bill Defelice was filling FOI request, everyone wondering where Guale was because no one had heard from him. Then one day after things began to calm down he shows up and posted a link to his recent show or something, and everyone jumps in with questions about what had occurred - But Gerry repeatedly side stepped the question replying with a "I'm sorry" several times but saying no more except to announce his programming that was a available. He ignored every question about the NOUO.. He was having none of it, he didn't want to talk about it in the forums and didnt.
Now keep in mind he's been part 15 probably longer than anyone else here, he's station has been in the papers a few times back when he was still doing carrier-current.
The only tme I ever saw him ever actually speak about the NOUO was at the antiqueradio forum when he said "I knew I shouldn't of done it but I did, and it's over, I'm sorry I did it" ( that's not verbatim, but that's what he said). And then no more.
So based solely on the circumstial evidence, it seems quite clear to me that with his well established experience running part 15 stations, he knew damn well that his Talking House ground plug was going to turn that particular 8 story building into a giant antenna, so he took the chance and lost.
That is my speculation of what really happened, based on what little a available 'evidence' there is.
Heres Gerry from 20 years ago: long before the NOUO with the talking House
