Since mounting a 3 meter stick with a ground plane is out of the question in my situation, i believe the best solution for covering more territory is AM CC.
Since mounting a 3 meter stick with a ground plane is out of the question in my situation, i believe the best solution for covering more territory is AM CC.
I will be using the induction method by wrapping wire around an extension cord. The grounding will come from the extra cable outlet in the living room since it is not being used for cable tv.
Just to be clear, am i correct in assuming that wrapping a 10 foot or more piece of wire around coaxial cable and then connecting the coax to the extra cable outlet would not yield any usable signal??? (not to mention the cable company would probably frown on it)
The short piece of household wiring would not be big enough to attach a coil to it. I measured that wire and it came out to 8 1/4 inches.
The transmitter i will be using is the SStran AMT3k though i may attempt to use the ext antenna feature on the Talking House just to see how well it does.
Any thoughts, comments or last rites?? lol I am always open to suggestions. Thanks
Technique
Wrap the antenna wire around the extension cord, plug into an outlet.
Tie TX ground to a cold water pipe or earth ground of the utility service drop or your own isolated earth ground.
Should cover the entire park.
RFB
Worth a Try
The AMT-3000 is a bit picky about having the proper tuning. You may have to use the internal inductors so don’t give up if it doesn’t work the first try.
Neil
Going Down
While i am gathering everything i need for this project, i was thinking about how the power is distributed throughout the park.
There is 900 feet of power line, cable tv and phone coming in from the road adjacent to the park entrance. The utilities stop in front of my house some 50 feet or so. The conduit drops down the pole and into the ground. There are other drops as well, those are in front of the 4 other roads. I am pretty sure the apartment complex is the same way.
I wonder how much attenuation is imposed on a CC signal when utilities run underground?
Is there a certain amount of the power from a CC transmitter that dissipates or is somehow dampened or maybe the word i am looking for is reduced?
The target audience is 150 mobile home units and around 12 apartment units. Lots of potential here.
get an extension cord. strip
get an extension cord. strip (cut off) away all wires but the neutral (leave neutral jacked) wire. wire nut or tape up the end to cap the end of wire. now take the amt 3k or 5k or hamilton or other similar tx that loads up a 3 meter wire and tape that wire parallel to the neutral wire. plug that extension in to outlet. ground the other end to the cable tv shield. get a 3 prong grounded 12v 1a dc wall wart. linksys has them and can probably be found on ebay. put a neon bulb hooked a coil pickup near the antenna wires. peak the antenna for maximum glow on that bulb.
go take a portable radio and walk around and see where it goes.
i have no scientific evidence that shows this works. it’s just one of my redneck quick and dirty idea’s i’ve been toying with in my head.
let me know how it works
Disclaimer: i’m not responsible if you fry your arse
Others Intact
May want to leave the other two wires in the extension cord intact (black/green) and simply wrap the antenna wire around the whole. This will help in coupling to both the neutral and hot wires safely and might help in obtaining clear coverage throughout the park.
While some of the signal does get attenuated from grid lines running underground, it won’t be enough to affect the direct path for the signal to receiver route for radios sitting near a power socket or plugged into it. Through the air reception may be a little scratchy but if there are lines running underground to every humble home then the system should also act like a “leaky coax” system and allow portables to pick up the signal ok.
RFB
Back Flow
I think doing it that way will also open the path for back-flow of heavy 60-Hz AC hum into the transmitter’s final stage.
There is a way of winding a transformer onto a toroid ring that can null the AC hum and keep it from getting back into the transmitter, but the matching becomes hard to control as AC line-loads change each time people turn appliances off and on, so you’d need to keep readjusting the transformer in some way to keep it nulled. That is what makes the coupler such an expensive device.
I also am speaking from very little experience, but I also want to be a carrier current station, so everything you are doing and everything you learn is of great interest.
One Way Or Another
“but the matching becomes hard to control as AC line-loads change each time people turn appliances off and on, so you’d need to keep readjusting the transformer in some way to keep it nulled.”
Sometimes turning on a light can null out return AC hum. Placing a second extension cord with the first, but plugged into a circuit on the other leg of the mains can be an effective AC hum null technique.
It also helps couple to both mains hots and neutral so you have symmetrical coupling.
RFB
Hum Rejection
Perhaps if you can use a 220 V cord and wrap this with the wire it would be of benefit for two reasons. First, it will couple to both sides of the hot feed and second the hum induced by one hot side will be canceled by the other since they are 180 degrees out of phase.
Neil
220V Cord
Exactly the same as using two extension cords, one plugged into one side and the other plugged into the other side of the 220V and place the extension cords side by side and wrapped together with the single antenna wire.
But if you have a spare 220V outlet, just plug up there and wrap the antenna wire around that cord.
Either way can create effective AC hum rejection.
RFB
If You See a Fire Ball
Seeing a fire ball is a bad sign and you should start over.
Whole New Meaning
“Seeing a fire ball is a bad sign and you should start over.”
Would give a new meaning to “flamethrower” eh!
RFB
Fireball lights up London Skies as
a strong signal crackles to life on the airwaves coming from an unknown location.
Authorities say a 44 year old male allegedly tapped into the power grid to broadcast on the medium wave but something went terribly wrong.
A neighbor said:
There was a loud bang as the sky was lit by an enormous fireball and a man yelling “unplug it, unplug the cord!!! For the love of god…Unplug it!!!”
The radio enthusiast is reported to be in fair condition but had to be sedated as he kept mumbling “is the transmitter okay?” “did it work?”
Film at eleven
A bit of irony, maybe?
Ok so my post above
“Fireball lights up London Skies”
was made pretty late and well i was pretty much loopy from lack of sleep…kids do that to you sometimes.
But today the lights really did go out but as far as i know there was no fireball involved and no i didn’t let the streams cross lol
An accident on the highway behind me involving a motorist and a power pole turned the lights out on the entire south side of London,Ky this evening.
At sunset the power coming into our home blinked a few times then browned out for about 20 minutes before going off completely. Most of the South end of London was without power for about 2 hours and 40 minutes. Before i could find the only radio in the house that was battery operated it was too dark to see and getting cold in the house.
Instead of listening to an am/fm radio we turned to our Uniden BC72XLT scanner for information about our sudden power outage.
Apparently someone slammed into a power pole taking out power for several blocks.Law enforcement and ambulance services were dispatched rather quickly. We were impressed with how fast the police dispatched crews to provide lighting to the accident seen and to busy intersections that were without traffic lights.
Not only that, the police and sheriffs dept. were sent out to patrol the various stores,restaurants and residential areas that were in the dark in order to insure that looting and home invasion would not happen under the cover of darkness.
I am impressed with the fast response of our public safety teams and law enforcement teams.
And all of us at Part15.us can breath a little easier knowing that if i ever turn into a crazy mad “radio” scientist that the city of London,Ky will be safe from fireballs and the my failed engineering attempts at the ultimate low power radio station to end all low power stations….lol
Incredible Fire Ball Incident
Radio 105.3 it is astounding that your outage followed our blog about radio fireballs. It’s no coincidence.
That same thing happened near here when some teenagers with a van made too fast a turn and plowed into a power pole causing the transformer to snap loose and drop, causing a serious pop followed by zero voltage.
Whenever we are subjected to a disaster, survival is a good cause for light hearted humor.
Power Glitches
There was a 30 second power outage here last night. Not sure what the cause was, but I suspect it probably was just a switch-over on the HV grid feed.
Then again…some folk around here…even though they have lived here all their lives..do not know how to slow down on roads covered with black ice and snow.
Go figure!
Turn on the car…turn on the cell…turn off the brain. “TURN RIGHT HERE!”…..SCCRRRREEEECCCCCHHHH…BAM-BOOM!
Woops!
“Are you alright Johnny?”….”Ugghh…my head had a violent encounter with the dash board”
I recall watching a video..think it was World’s Wildest Police Chases show and some idiot speeding along in a corvette is hauling arse down the highway, over 130mph and takes an off ramp without slowing down, tries to navigate the sharp curve at the end of the off ramp..and slams right into one of those very tall metal light poles that had a very large light array at the top. Well the pole survived and stayed upright…but the massive light array at the top….came tumbling down right on top of that car..smashed it into a pancake…not to mention the driver too.
He did not live to tell how good the pancake tasted.
Moral here is to keep one hand in the pocket while working around dangerous power grid lines and breaker boxes and outlets. Risk is part of the game if we want to sit in the big chair..but senseless risks are only attempted by fools.
Now..where is my blowtorch microphone!
RFB
Unknown Causes
Well boys and girls the cause of the outage is still unknown at this point.
Though not my favorite t.v. station here is a brief and very un-informative new cast about the power outage.
http://www.wtvq.com/mostpopular/story/Power-Restored-in-London/zTOAXPPiWUyrGTCAlsCL9Q.cspx
About 20 mins before the outage, a local fast food chain burns to the ground right up the road from me. Odd huh?
The world is falling apart while chicken little is crying the sky is falling…up!
I blame Mayhem…lol