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The RF Workbench / Shortwave from summits (and other misc. questions)
« on: May 26, 2025, 1050 UTC »
I've been lurking over the past few days and unfortunately found out some asshole has ruined the reputation of rabbits around these parts of the web. I just wanted to assure everyone that I chose this name because I first got fascinated by radio from an old TV set back in the late 80s. I managed to pick up what I later found out what a pirate TV station on UHF channel 65 (IIRC) and spent many years attempting to tune it in again. Only to discover later on that it only broadcasted twice and I missed the first or second time it was on the air.
I'm not a fan of or even knew some old man that caused a lot of drama around here years ago until yesterday when I stumbled upon some blog posts about it while looking up information on transmitting on shortwave/mw. I'm just a fan of rabbits because they're cute and also because of this story about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit#East_Asian_folklore
I'm currently working towards getting my ham ticket after years of putting it off but the locals have been less than helpful and so have most of the people I've tried to talk to online in the usual 'legal' forums. Hence I ended up here. While talking to random people on the ham bands seems like it could be fun (but probably mostly boring from what I've heard over the years) my main intention with it was learning how radios work and eventually broadcasting.
To cut to the chase: I am interested in broadcasting a prepared weekly/monthly show on shortwave that includes a lot of music. I am pretty well versed in audio/video stuff when it comes to PC and networks. But I'm pretty much lost when it comes to broadcasting it over the air. My main interest in this comes from the fact that I fear broadcasting over the internet will become highly restricted soon (already is if you don't play ball by handing over your real ID) and I want to ensure I have a way to spew my own form of propaganda and the music I like to an audience after the internet is locked down tighter than it already is. As I expect the American internet to be more like China's in the very near future.
I'm not opposed to learning how to build my own transmitter and other hardware. I'm learning all I can at the moment. But I wanted to know what the state of things is now as far as buying a pre-built one and what people are using. How much power they're using. How far they're reaching out with the power they're using. What kind of antennas they're using etc. etc. I tried asking similar questions on the legal ham forums and basically got yelled at for no good reason. Then a bunch of old farts started quoting FCC regulations that I honestly don't care about and lecturing me on issues I didn't ask about. Getting a straight answer out of those folks seems impossible. It's like a bot stuck on repeat with them. People around here seem nicer from reading old posts. I hope the place is still active.
While I have a lot of room at home and can build pretty much whatever I want broadcasting from such a location didn't seem like the best idea. Thankfully, I really like hiking and there are several summits near by that I'm familiar with. My plan was to haul up what I needed on foot and broadcast from those locations over night when the park is "closed". I'd have a friend drop me off and come back the next morning when it re-opens or pay the small fee for a camp site. Then I'd haul my hardware up the mountain to the fire towers just before sunset, do my thing over night then come back down after first light. Does this sound like a good plan?
I'm just unsure how much all the stuff I'll need is going to weigh and if it's feasible for one person to carry it all. I'm wanting to broadcast on shortwave to reach the most listeners. I'm also wanting to broadcast in AM as opposed to SSB for the same reason and also because I'm worried about the sound quality. I plan to broadcast non-mainstream music that ranges from classical to jazz to electronic. Most of it probably hasn't been heard on the air before in America. I plan to pre-mix everything on my PC using a generated voice for announcements/news/DJ duties. It's widely known software that sounds good and is already used for the last 10-15 years to produce vocals for popular music. I'm pretty sure it'll sound fine. The goal with that was avoiding sending my real voice over the air and the hope that it couldn't be used to ID me later.
All that said batteries are heavy. So are generators. But I want to put out enough power to be heard. So I was hopeful some of you might have advice about those type of things. Since I have to do this on foot and might have at most one other person to help me carry it.
Searching for transmitters I saw a lot of discussion from about 10 years ago where people here were praising some 40-150watt transmitters someone here was building. But then there were reports of them catching fire. I was wondering if anyone is still using those or if another person made some that were safer and if any were still for sale. Or if I should focus more on building my own. What are the stations currently on the air and broadcasting using in 2025?
Aside from the usual legal issues would broadcasting from within a National Park add charges on top of any legal problems I'm already facing by doing this? My plan was to move around and do it from different summits. But I'll no doubt end up on the same one multiple times since there are only so many mountains within range of me by car. Do park rangers look for this type of thing? Do you think I could get away with claiming that my hardware was for ham stuff? I've heard a lot of hams are doing similar projects lately (SOTA I think they're called).
Any advice you could give in general would be helpful. I was first interested in AM/FM when I started looking into doing this again. I had a small station as a child that no one could hear on FM. Since I lived in a gully. I'm mainly interested in shortwave because I was hopeful more people might be able to hear it aside from the 2 or 3 that are probably in range of any legal set-up I could build.
I'm not a fan of or even knew some old man that caused a lot of drama around here years ago until yesterday when I stumbled upon some blog posts about it while looking up information on transmitting on shortwave/mw. I'm just a fan of rabbits because they're cute and also because of this story about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit#East_Asian_folklore
I'm currently working towards getting my ham ticket after years of putting it off but the locals have been less than helpful and so have most of the people I've tried to talk to online in the usual 'legal' forums. Hence I ended up here. While talking to random people on the ham bands seems like it could be fun (but probably mostly boring from what I've heard over the years) my main intention with it was learning how radios work and eventually broadcasting.
To cut to the chase: I am interested in broadcasting a prepared weekly/monthly show on shortwave that includes a lot of music. I am pretty well versed in audio/video stuff when it comes to PC and networks. But I'm pretty much lost when it comes to broadcasting it over the air. My main interest in this comes from the fact that I fear broadcasting over the internet will become highly restricted soon (already is if you don't play ball by handing over your real ID) and I want to ensure I have a way to spew my own form of propaganda and the music I like to an audience after the internet is locked down tighter than it already is. As I expect the American internet to be more like China's in the very near future.
I'm not opposed to learning how to build my own transmitter and other hardware. I'm learning all I can at the moment. But I wanted to know what the state of things is now as far as buying a pre-built one and what people are using. How much power they're using. How far they're reaching out with the power they're using. What kind of antennas they're using etc. etc. I tried asking similar questions on the legal ham forums and basically got yelled at for no good reason. Then a bunch of old farts started quoting FCC regulations that I honestly don't care about and lecturing me on issues I didn't ask about. Getting a straight answer out of those folks seems impossible. It's like a bot stuck on repeat with them. People around here seem nicer from reading old posts. I hope the place is still active.
While I have a lot of room at home and can build pretty much whatever I want broadcasting from such a location didn't seem like the best idea. Thankfully, I really like hiking and there are several summits near by that I'm familiar with. My plan was to haul up what I needed on foot and broadcast from those locations over night when the park is "closed". I'd have a friend drop me off and come back the next morning when it re-opens or pay the small fee for a camp site. Then I'd haul my hardware up the mountain to the fire towers just before sunset, do my thing over night then come back down after first light. Does this sound like a good plan?
I'm just unsure how much all the stuff I'll need is going to weigh and if it's feasible for one person to carry it all. I'm wanting to broadcast on shortwave to reach the most listeners. I'm also wanting to broadcast in AM as opposed to SSB for the same reason and also because I'm worried about the sound quality. I plan to broadcast non-mainstream music that ranges from classical to jazz to electronic. Most of it probably hasn't been heard on the air before in America. I plan to pre-mix everything on my PC using a generated voice for announcements/news/DJ duties. It's widely known software that sounds good and is already used for the last 10-15 years to produce vocals for popular music. I'm pretty sure it'll sound fine. The goal with that was avoiding sending my real voice over the air and the hope that it couldn't be used to ID me later.
All that said batteries are heavy. So are generators. But I want to put out enough power to be heard. So I was hopeful some of you might have advice about those type of things. Since I have to do this on foot and might have at most one other person to help me carry it.
Searching for transmitters I saw a lot of discussion from about 10 years ago where people here were praising some 40-150watt transmitters someone here was building. But then there were reports of them catching fire. I was wondering if anyone is still using those or if another person made some that were safer and if any were still for sale. Or if I should focus more on building my own. What are the stations currently on the air and broadcasting using in 2025?
Aside from the usual legal issues would broadcasting from within a National Park add charges on top of any legal problems I'm already facing by doing this? My plan was to move around and do it from different summits. But I'll no doubt end up on the same one multiple times since there are only so many mountains within range of me by car. Do park rangers look for this type of thing? Do you think I could get away with claiming that my hardware was for ham stuff? I've heard a lot of hams are doing similar projects lately (SOTA I think they're called).
Any advice you could give in general would be helpful. I was first interested in AM/FM when I started looking into doing this again. I had a small station as a child that no one could hear on FM. Since I lived in a gully. I'm mainly interested in shortwave because I was hopeful more people might be able to hear it aside from the 2 or 3 that are probably in range of any legal set-up I could build.
