Our local LPFM where I am, WTSQ-LP 88.1FM, has done Vinyl-thon / Record Store Day, for the last few years. This year, they planned to spin-it all vinyl for a 52hr, all live DJ's, on-air marathon. I've linked-in to that before, via our crappy DSL internet streaming link. Sounds good, due to their high bitstream, but then comes the problems of maintaining that with DSL, many drop-outs and robbing bandwidth for others here, wanting to do work and stream VID's. Now, last year, that station had to move to another BLDG, and that, including their single FM omni-bay, to the top of a bank BLDG. The results??? They were only +29ft higher in AGL elevation, but were now transmitting from the Mid-Kanawha River Valley. They now seem to be getting out better on the 88.1FM-side, and the increase is a +3dB to +6dB improvement. NICE, but still a shadow zone where I have my Part 15 AM stations, or was it? At ground level, here, college station WMUL Marshall UNI still dominates over WTSQ-LP's 88.1FM signal. However, I did another 'what if?' test and walked around the upstairs attic with an Eton E10 portable. To my surprise, I found a full FM quieting sweet-spot. I did not have that from WTSQ-LP years ago on FM. So, I then mounted an old FM GND-Plane to a rafter and ran coax to the studio. That was 4 days ago, and have had perfect, full quieting, mono, audio RX'ed with that E10 radio every time I've checked in various times of the day. Even with the radio's -20dB ATT on, I was still getting WTSQ-LP at maybe 70% quieting. By the time Friday afternoon came around, I had a working 1/2-ass FM link point set-up. So, Friday 4/21/2023 at 4PM, here, I linked-in that audio to my Part 15 AM stations and told the crew at WTSQ-LP that I was linking-in the full duration of their Vinyl-thon, all 52hrs of it. You can check this out yourself, and here WTSQ-LP spin-it, with LIVE DJ's in 2hr shifts, even overnight at
https://wtsq.org/ Yeah... Probably, should have posted this earlier, but... BTW, the WTSQ-LP crew dig that I'm getting them filled-in over here. That vinyl over AM wide-band radio just sounds so nostalgic, and no MP3 digital artifacts. Thus far, this is about the only thing that's gone right around here. OK... You might ask what the point of all that was about? A neat idea what could be done with Part 15 AM radio, an ass-backward, FM to AM-like, translator, where that FM station has poor coverage.
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