Messages

1381

General Radio Discussion / Re: homeland security

« on: January 23, 2014, 0805 UTC »

My guess is your location will likely influence your likelyhood of hearing something.  I would guess that anything they use will be APCO-25 with some form of encryption.

+-RH

1382

General Radio Discussion / Re: Hudson County TIS 1710 Going to 100 Watts

« on: January 22, 2014, 1806 UTC »

One other thing I forgot to mention, there are a lot of people out there that never report anything.  Even if you give out an email or postal address, I think a lot of people just grin, listen to the music, and move on.  Only the diehards send in reports and such.  The fact that I could be on the air, and call up my cousin several states away and say "go to you car and tell me what you got on 1710" has some merit.

+-RH

1383

General Radio Discussion / Re: Hudson County TIS 1710 Going to 100 Watts

« on: January 22, 2014, 1742 UTC »

I just like the idea that a broader audience could be had by using frequencies that the average American (An important distinction, as the rest of the world stops at 1610KHz.) could hear.  Sometime toward the end of the year we may be doing some MW testing.  That's the goal anyway, lots of hurdles to overcome.  The number of radios that get 1710 is getting smaller and smaller.  Both of my Kenwood car stereos stop at 1700, and most Chrysler radios do too.  I think the GM Delco's go to 1710, as do Carver TX-11a's, and a variety of Walkmans, component tuners, and bookshelf systems at my disposal.

More stereo for your radio

+-RH

1384

The RF Workbench / Re: So...what can a person do with 2 or 4: WL23791/TH150

« on: January 22, 2014, 0911 UTC »

I'm not sure I would want to witness the initial startup of a series modulated 10KW AM rig.  Sounds like a fire department affair.

+-RH

1385

The RF Workbench / Re: So...what can a person do with 2 or 4: WL23791/TH150

« on: January 21, 2014, 1247 UTC »

Finding a modulation transformer at that power level won't be easy.  I've contemplated similar arrangements with big tetrodes for carrier levels over 10KW, but for the previously mentioned difficulty, decided the best route would be a linear amplifier, rather than high level modulation.

+-RH

1386

General Radio Discussion / Re: Hudson County TIS 1710 Going to 100 Watts

« on: January 21, 2014, 0548 UTC »

This puts medium wave operators in a quandary;  Do we abandon 1710 (and all the casual listeners that might stumble upon MW pirates) in favor of 1720, which cannot be received on any domestic AM receivers?  Or do we use both?

Questions, questions....

+-RH

1387

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Wolverine Radio, 6940 USB, 0142, 1/19/14

« on: January 19, 2014, 0228 UTC »

0210 Got him here with the usual +10 signal, softening a bit here recently, now about S9 on peaks at 0227.

CSNY, Ace, and Yes, the Old Prof' approves

+-RH

1388

General Radio Discussion / Re: First hearing held on the Communications Act Update

« on: January 16, 2014, 0902 UTC »

"Yesterday's net neutrality decision, while a victory for consumers..."

That's where I stopped reading the article.  Any organization that sees the death of net neutrality as a "victory for the consumer"  is so out of touch with the current online climate that they are unfit for any sort of representative or legislative action.

+-RH

1389

General Radio Discussion / Re: The Coolest new discovery in quite a while...

« on: January 14, 2014, 2156 UTC »

I hate teaser topic headings.

1390

General Radio Discussion / Re: Is this the end of the wire for RadioShack?

« on: January 11, 2014, 0111 UTC »

I agree with Zane, go with Monoprice.  Its the same Chinese crap, but its damn near next to cost.

As far as connectors go, Digikey or Mouser, whoever is cheaper.  Switchcraft or Neutrik, no substitutes please

+-RH

1391

The RF Workbench / Reference Books (and sites) for Pirate Engineers

« on: January 09, 2014, 2054 UTC »

I've seen echos of this topic in other threads.  Here are a few reference books I keep around for designing stuff

The ARRL handbook (Older versions seem to be more "hands on" and for this reason I have several editions, some dating back to the mid 30's)

The NAB Engineering handbook (lots of good stuff from a commercial perspective.  Gives you something to aim for.)

Harry's Homebrew Lots of great DIY projects and tricks, methods, et al.
http://www.sm0vpo.com/


+-RH

1392

The RF Workbench / Re: Measuring transmitters with an oscilloscope

« on: January 09, 2014, 2037 UTC »

In case anyone else is interested, this site gives a run down of transmitter modulation checks with a scope.  In practice, I have a selection of RF samplers that fit in my bird for envelope sampling, but you could do just as well with a T-106-2 torroid with 20 turns terminated by a 10 ohm 1W resistor to feed your scope. 

http://www.nu9n.com/scope_your_audio.html

+-RH

1393

The RF Workbench / Re: Can one use a CW transmitter to transmit voice? *edit, added link

« on: January 09, 2014, 2019 UTC »

Long answer yes, short answer maybe.  It depends on the architecture of said CW transmitter.  Most are setup for class C amplification, which means any low level AM is going to be stripped off (mostly) during the amplification process.  Thats why most low power rigs (The commando comes to mind) use high level modulation of the final output device.  Because of intrinsic feedthrough capacitance, the drive to the final usually has to be modulated to some extent as well to assure good modulation depth (-100% modulation).  Other rigs, like the corsair, use low level modulation followed by a "linear" amplifier.  I may have screwed up some details, but that's the gist of it.

+-RH

1394

General Radio Discussion / Re: Re-arranging the FM band

« on: January 09, 2014, 0054 UTC »

Christian religious adult contemporary (funny how you can tell that genre just by the music, even before the singer starts in, isn't it?)

I'm glad I'm not the only one that notices that!

+-RH

1395

Equipment / Re: LW Transmitter - homemade Not Bought!

« on: January 04, 2014, 1624 UTC »

If you are seeking information on building transmission equipment, then the "Black Arts" forum would be a better choice.  You can search the internet as well as the rest of us.  Try and be polite, we're only trying to help you.

That aside, PLL in that frequency range is easy to achieve with a few TTL components.  That's the way I would go, at least that way it wont drift all over the place on you.

+-RH