A holler for those not in the know, is a valley in the country usually surrounded by hills or even mountains. And is what most people in the south call a valley. With that being said, i have moved to a holler. I am surrounded by hills here. The road to my house is for the most part a one lane road. Some cars can pass each other without too much trouble and if you know the person drinks coffee perhaps close enough to pass them a coffee or a high five.
Some places you just pull off to the shoulder and let them pass, if there is a shoulder lol.
I drive a Jeep with 4 Wheel Drive so most of the time it is no trouble for me.
Any way i have been testing the new frequency on 102.7 Mhz in both stereo and mono.
The dipole is 15 feet off of the ground but the signal follows the road in both directions before it is absorbed by rocks and trees on either side of the road.
I already had a suspicion that FM would not work here, the signal is confined to the 5 houses on my road and possibly more on top of a couple ridges.
So since FM is already limited to 250 -300 feet and i don’t want to press my luck by raising my antenna up on a tower or hehe the top of a ridge then would AM really make any difference in the valley er i mean holler?
Would i really benefit from buying a professional grade transmitter like the procaster or the Talking House and External ATU? I finally have a place to bury ground radials which is something i couldnt do at the mobile home park. Would the rock and trees around me just suck up or reflect the AM signal?
Previous Experience
Maybe I can offer hope, rock85seven, because I have learned how to make AM signals go uphill.
Brief history… I am in the middle of of bowl, surrounded in every direction by uphill, kind of like Switzerland surrounded by the Alps.
My back yard is straight uphill, and I could never get my AM signal to come in up there.
So one day I ran a single buried ground “radial” wire straight up to the top of my yard, over 75-feet, and now the AM signal is as loud up there as it is in the house.
But that’s not all. That hill keeps getting higher for another block and a half, and on a car radio my AM signal follows the hill to the very top and keeps going for another several blocks on the other side!
1/4 mile on fm indoor antenna
The antenna for Busy-Fm on 102.7 Mhz is roughly 15 feet off of the ground in the second story bedroom where i have the studio and transmitter. The transmitter is a Ramsey FM 25B, the same one i have been using for 6 years now. It does roughly 18 mW.
The dipole is basically a piece of 75 ohm with two wires attached to it and of course connected to the transmitter and tacked to the wall in my bedroom/studio.
I tried mono and stereo as well as horizontal and vertical polarizations.
1/4 mile is about all the Ramsey can muster which is fine with me , i really didn’t expect much more than that given the terrain.
AM seems to be what everyone i have spoken to has suggested. Now that i know that i have a ground rod to tap into and plenty of room to place ground radials and a 3 meter stick all that is left is deciding where to put it. Since i don’t know exactly where the water lines run under our yard i decided it was best to sort of use Carl Blare’s idea of stretching a ground wire from the ground rod to the area i will be mounting the antenna and transmitter.
Then placing ground radials underneath the antenna and fan them out like spokes on a wheel. Everything will be buried of course but no more than a few inches under the grass.
I don’t want to worry about running anything over when i start mowing the grass in the Spring. So now i just need to get my butt in gear and start my project soon, down here in Eastern Ky snow fall comes in a big way as in 3 ” or much more and the roads here can get pretty nasty.
I plan on using my station to report road and weather conditions, school closings and the like. At least that is the plan any way.
A partial view of the ridge in front of our house.
Nice Holler
What a good view up the scene. Bet you have some interesting wildlife that comes and goes.
The Ramsey 25b is a great transmitter, I loaned mine to a neighbor and she never brought it back.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Which may be true but i think a video might be helpful too.
I think i will shoot a video of my property and add some of the road after the road crews go on their lunch break.
It is rather beautiful out here in the sticks and yes Carl there is plenty of wildlife. Wild turkeys and Deer are most commonly seen out here but Kentucky is home to bears and wildcats.
Snakes are common as well, even the poisonious kind. The creek across the road in front of my house has various fish and crawfish. And the lady bugs this time of year are looking for a place to hibernate so if you have a window without a screen you can bet there will be several in the house in a matter of minutes.
Anyway, the weather here has warmed back up again. Current temperature is 66 °F and partly sunny or cloudy. (is the glass half full or half empty?)
Now would be a good time to look over my options for placing the antenna and ground elements and while i do that i could take my phone with me and make a video.
One question though, can you post video’s here??
Videos
Maybe videos can be posted here, I don’t know, but I’ll bet MRAM at thealpb.com, himself a member here, would be happy to post the videos over there with a link from here.
I remember some videos that have been linked from here, but they were physically located someplace else.
Some of those animals come into the city up here in mid-Missouri, but I don’t think bears or wildcats have been seen. Foxes and coyotes follow the railroad routes.
There is a Zoo within one mile and I always think a lion will escape and grab me when I take out the trash.
Video and Images can be linked
I think i’ll stick with uploading images to my photobucket account and blog, that way i can just link to the images here.
The little town we live in is part of the Daniel Boone National Forest/Park system , the mobile home park we moved from was in the middle of that park system as well but was mostly city with a portion of the park open to the public.
This is where i am most comfortable, in the natural surroundings of nature and being in a park system like this is almost heaven.
We have a total of 5 maybe 6 radio stations on AM and FM combined other than that the dial is empty save for some distant signals. The Appalachian region of Kentucky is diverse.
The mountains, the people and the history just add’s to it’s charm.This is coal country.
Look up zip code 41723 on radio-locator.com and see for yourself.
There is almost nothing here.
These mountains act as a shield in some areas, radio is almost non-existant unless you live on top of one of the mountains or have an extensive antenna system for radio reception which is why AT&T has such great coverage out here. They use the moutain tops for their cell phone towers. They are also the only game in town when it comes to cell phone carriers lol
As for my radio station , i will keep the fm humming along on 102.7 MC and add the AM (frequency not yet decided) will have to be pieced together a little at a time.
Taking my time on the AM will keep me occupied until the job is finished and ensure i do it right the first time.