HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: redhat on December 20, 2010, 1931 UTC
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Hello all, I've been poking around the forums here for the last few weeks and finally decided to speak up. Fellow op, although most of my dabblings are on the FM band. My questions concerns these two formats as I'm currently working on an exciter design for both, that is a multimode exciter. Does anyone, in the states anyway, use DRM or AM stereo for transmission? A friend of mine caught a pirate from Iowa someplace running DRM in stereo around 9MHz and it sparked my interest.
Thanks,
RH
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I have seen occasional discussions over the years about this, but I don't know of any pirate transmissions that have used these. The biggest impediment, I would think, is the lack of pirate DXers who have equipment to hear these modes. There's not much point in buying or building equipment that can transmit in this manner if no one will be listening.
The same has applied to FM pirate broadcasts on the HF bands, although every once in a while someone will give that a try, most likely using ham equipment that supports FM. Usually they will get a small number of reports, probably from DXers with ham equipment that can receive FM, or from those who know tricks allowing FM reception on AM or SSB receivers.
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I have seen occasional discussions over the years about this, but I don't know of any pirate transmissions that have used these. The biggest impediment, I would think, is the lack of pirate DXers who have equipment to hear these modes. There's not much point in buying or building equipment that can transmit in this manner if no one will be listening.
Al -
Wasn't it "CRUNCH RADIO" that used to say they were broadcasting in "C-QUAM" ?
Isn't that some form of stereo am? I remember they had a BEAUTIFUL signal. Of course I was just listening on the ICOM or Kenwood in normal old am mode.
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I remember Crunch Radio, and I remember that he had a great AM signal, that he was very proud of. I don't recall the part about him using C-QUAM, but it's possible; he seemed to be very technically-oriented.
That was a good station, playing a lot of music that you don't normally hear on the pirate bands. Too bad it disappeared.
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Crunche always announced on the air he was using a homebrew 20 watt tube tx with Heising modulation. I know from his posts on the FRN he was interested in AM Stereo. However,I don't know if he ever used it on air.
I spent a Memorial Day evening in the early half of the decade splitting time on 6925 with him. It was very enjoyable,he'd sign off,I'd sign on,we went for about three hours. On his last tx that night,he announced he was calling quits for the summer due to atmospheric noise and he would be back in the fall. I don't think he ever transmitted after that weekend?
He had the best sounding audio of any pirate I ever heard. Very fat and broad w/ no distortion whatsoever.
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I did some DRM experiments, but unless you have a strong signal that's rock steady, it'll sound like an early digital cellphone in a fringe area when decoded.
Peace!