KDX Radio was started in 2007 when I retired from a career in radio and recording and remembered how fun it was in the 1950s to broadcast using a Knight Kit tube transmitter. KDX came on the air with an AMT3000 from SSTran and provided the companionship of hearing my selectly chosen radio programs from all over the internet, far better than the limited programming on local licensed stations. As part15.org is welcomed back it is thrilling to rejoin the Original and Premier Forum Site for legal low power radio.
The next thing that happened was the exciting introduction by SSTran of the AMT5000 Transmitter, and several of us from here at part15.org were the first to build the kit and go on the air with the higher efficiency design based on what I think is called a 'Type E Circuit?' Memory is foggy, but someone will know the type of output circuit that made the AMT5000 one of the best transmitter kits ever produced. It is sad to say that the SSTran Line of Kits were taken off the market and are no longer available, for reasons never disclosed, thus it's a mystery that I hope someday gets explained. It may have something to do with another website which went on a very personal ad hominem attack against the SSTran products and the professional engineer who owned the company. In the next installment of the KDX Story we'll talk about the other low power transmitters we use in our daily broadcast schedule.
@carl-blare One thing we have to keep in mind is the transmitter business is not a living and the makers of these like the Decade, Procaster, Rangmaster, Grain Industries, and most likely SStran also have day jobs and this is a side venture. Decade and Procaster as I know from contact with both here in Canada are home businesses and the Decade is hand assembled at his home. Procaster has the boards made for him along with the cabinets as per his design. I assume Rangemaster and also the SStran you talk about are home ventures on the side and it's a very small market.
All of them will be gone at some point as they retire, among other reasons, and they can't be around forever. Decade, Procaster, etc will all be closing shop sooner or later and that's what could have happened with SStran. Maybe something else happened who knows, I am keeping tabs on the two Canadian ones and plan to get extras if the time comes when they no longer will make them. The Procaster is the only AM one approved for Canada and the Decade is the only, so far, BETS-1 certified for broadcasting transmitter with the greater range and that is as the saying goes "priceless". Only two people are making these in Canada and only a couple more in the USA and this business is really a hobby venture on the side.
Excellent points about low power radio transmitters, Mark, and something we should have clearly in mind as time goes by. In another chapter of the Story of KDX I will tell about why I got a Procaster, and why I hope to eventually also have a Range Master and the often neglected transmitter from Grain Industries. I have tried to learn the true reasons why SSTran folded, and no one seems to know. Somewhere there is somebody who knows the truth.