I just odered another SSTran amt 3000 to replace the first amt3000 that was damaged by lightning in London,Ky two years ago. I plan to have this transmitter run on 1610 khz and hopefully get some coverage and listeners.
This time the blue bucket with the antenna mounted to the bucket will be elevated but still on the ground,
Let me try to explain what I mean, behind my house we really don’t have much of a yard, in fact all of our land here is in front of the house and that extends further past our house to the side or the length of the yard is greater left to right than it is front to back, ehh the more i explain it the less it makes sense.
So there is 80 feet of yard behind the house running the length of the house and the from my back door to the edge of the property is 50 feet, most of which is a hill that climbs at a 45 degree angle more or less.
Not the easiest thing to climb but it can be done. My property backs up to the landlords property and is devided by a fence.
If I stand on the top of that hill I can see the roof of my house, at least the bottom floor, that is where I will be installing the SSTran. The bucket will still be on the ground but no longer surrounded by metal objects or very many tree’s. Power and audio will be brought in via an outlet in our out building, the audio will probably come into the transmitter either by a radio tuned to our fm signal at 89.7 fm or from a cable running from the studio.
This is something we haven’t tried yet on fm or am, but since the hill is there why not take advantage of it?
I will be using the built in processing on the SStran on a very light setting, as far as grounding the transmitter goes i haven’t made a decision on this yet.
The first SStran was not destoryed by a direct hit from lightning but the day we had a very close strike was the day the transmitter stopped working, inspection of the board there is scorch marks around the components right behind the left and right channel rca jacks. I tried to revive it with new parts but it wasn’t the same, there seems to be more damage than what I was seeing.
So to ground or not to ground? Seems several part 15 stations have great success without grounding, but from a safety stand point, grounding just makes sense.
I will probably have Stephanie help with the soldering, I have Essential Tramors that cause my hands to shake, my soldering skills aren’t the same as they were 3 years ago. Stephanie and I work on a lot of projects together, it brings us closer and we learn from each other that way.
We will keep you all posted on the stations progress.
Thanks
Reply to “ordered another SStran”
Hope this works and you solve the lightening problem. If you don’t ground and it’s mounted on a wood post or something you will have less chance of a hit…lightning loves a 10 ft metal rod and copper ground. Maybe there’s a fast acting fuse you can put on the audio and power lines to the transmitter?
Mark
New location
Thanks Mark,
Since we moved to this location two years ago we have had a chance to see how storms behave in this valley. We are most of the way up the side of a mountain with at least another 900 feet to go before being on the very top of the mountain.
This valley is protected for the most part by two tall ridges that run along side of our one lane no outlet road and behind a row of 8 or 9 homes. So far the trees around us on the hills get most of the strikes and shield us from some of the worst weather.
That’s not to say we can’t get a close strike, we have had a few close ones and it’s always good to have some kind of safety measures in place. The location I mentioned in my post above is always wet from water running off the mountain, should be helpful for ground conductivity.
Excellent Choice
In another thread I rattled a little bit about your wise choice of an AMT5000, but I see here that I jumped to the wrong conclusion since you (Barry & Stephanie) are actually getting an AMT3000. So let me re-rattle.
Wonderful choice! I am listening right now to one of my two AMT3000s, made extra powerful by the hand-wound loading coil which brings it to fulll resonance, a perfect match for more costly transmitters at tremendous savings.
Little known fact, both the AMT3000 and AMT5000 have the same excellent near-FM sound quality with built-in limiting and compression which, like you plan to do, is very good used lightly so listeners cannot detect subtle changes in the yet strong audio sound.
You think you’re happy now, but when you get that rig lit up pumping out AM radiation there in the mountains, you will cancel any plans for heaven in the future, because you’ll be there right now, here on earth… with your SSTran AMT3000.
I missed that rattle some how
I will have to look for that thread, the last time i heard a rattle was when the brakes were acting up on my Jeep. Turns out that a lousy mechanic left one of the old brake shoes in behind the splash guard and rotor. Yep, that cost me a few $$ to fix.
Here is a picture of the hill i was talking about, over look the tall grass. My wife and I have been fighting some kind of bronchial virus of some wicked sorts and haven’t felt like mowing.
By the way Carl, your post sounded like an ad for the SStran products, I was sold when i bought the first one a few years ago, but you have reinforced that desire to own another SSTran.
Unsolicited Advertising
Thank you Barry.
Yes, I am an unsolicited ad for SSTran Transmitters Products.
I have never asked for PhilB’s permission, I just use my 1st Amendment right to launch into promotional pitches for the AMT 3000/5000 at social gatherings, toward fellow passengers on city busses, in line at the grocery, passing neighbors, memorial services and so on.
As producer of the Low Power Hour I am biased and prejudiced in favor of the SSTran products, which would disqualify me for the job if I worked for a boss, but since I own the program I can be one-sided and opinionated.
All the people who talk about other transmitters leave me quite cool, I turn away.
Yet there is a glimmer of decency and sometimes I think other Part 15 equipment deserves fair treatment. Maybe some other time.
Weekends are nice but..
Never order somethng on a weekend, much less late at night or early morning.
Your wait for an order will seem to take much longer than usual because most business is during normal hours Mon. thru Fri.
You could say I need to be patient and you’re right but I can disagree and be impatient if I want to be, I am old and have that right lol Ok maybe 48 isn’t that old. But whatever, I cannot wait for the SStran to get here.
Meanwhile I have a review to write and publish on the Sony car receiver, a room to clean out and a studio to build after that room is cleaned out, various things need my attention at home and there isn’t enough hours in a day to do them all.
Now in my head I have been trying to work out how this transmitter was going to be installed outside on the hill when it occured to me that I have a ground rod close to that area I have pictured in post #5 Some how i missed that rattle.
*If you look to the bottom right edge of the house, you can see our cable box.
This box is oversized considering there is only a splitter and two cables going in and out of the box. Right below that but not in the frame is a ground rod where the cable company installed a ground for our high speed internet.
You see where I am going with this?
Why not run a ground from the transmitter to the ground rod and bury it a few inches under the soil? I know it enters a gray area with the ground wire being over 3 meters but being in the ground wouldn’t allow that ground wire to radiate into free space.
There are metal fence post’s close to where I want to mount the transmitter but they are only about three feet below the soil and made of i assume steel. Not really the ideal ground.
My thinking is that long run underground to the ground rod would offer some protection against lightning strikes while offering probably a decent signal path for our AM 1610 signal.
There is another ground available but that is on our service pole and I’d rather not mess with that as it could present a ground loop in the transmitters audio chain.
Any thought’s on this idea?
*That should have been bottom left hand corner.
Barry and Stephanie
Blue Bucket Radio
The Little Things Show
Challenging Terrain
Challenge Accepted,
Here is an idea of where I live and what type of terrain we are dealing with.
Yup, those are hills and I am right smack dab in the middle of them.
You can see the major highway bottom of the image, the road I live on with only one way in and out as well as the few house’s surrounding this area.
Sunlight hours are shorter in the valley than what they are on top of the mountain.
There are at least 8 houses on my road alone, that is not counting the houses on the road connected to mine.
If you right click this image and choose view image it will open up as a larger image or use this link.
In Transit
Wooo! 1 day closer to starting our AM 1610 project.
WOOO and WOOP
Barry Rock95seven said, “Wooo!”
As it so happens WOOO is located in Defiance, Ohio, 95.5 LPFM 35W, but has no website.
WOOP is another story. In Cleveland, Tennessee 9W at 99.9 LPFM, there is a website and it’s a good one, very entertaining and informative. For example, scroll through the news headlines, observe the teeny schedule, and especially the “What WOOP is About.”
http://woopfm.com
My ground advice is that for buried ground wires length is NOT counted, so they can be any length.
Look toward hills you want to reach up and over, bury ground radials pointing toward those hills and it does wonders.
I had a problem toward the south which faces uphill… the AM signal from the AMT5000 was not going uphill until I buried a ground radial pointing toward the hill, and now signal not only goes uphill but for 5 blocks further, all uphill.
I’ve got to go, it’s almost time for the Phil Hendrie Show on KDX-AM & FM.