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« on: November 29, 2020, 0045 UTC »
I'm a technical novice who moved to a remote area a few months ago, and am looking for a new hobby.
Our new town only has about hundred people spread out over a square mile or so.
Other towns with stations are 30 miles or more away.
No shopping centers, only a few open-to-the-public businesses, so there's never been any "official" media here, or other station's ad revenue to hurt.
Part 15 has always been an interest to me, but I've just never pulled the trigger.
Never wanted to raise any gov/radio cluster hackles in the urban places we lived before.
And never really had the space.
I checked the dial here, and FM has a few open frequencies, I think.
There's only 4 AM stations listed on radio-locator unless you click "include fringe stations." But I've never heard any of the fringe AMs in the car.
I like that more people are probably scanning around on FM, and the signal won't completely disappear at dark,
but AM seems like a bigger playground where no one would ever "care" and I might could squeeze out a little bit further in the day. Even if it's only 50 feet "further" that's okay. lol
The goal is mostly to learn, practice some soldering, and surreptitiously see if anyone ever notices outside my yard.
I don't intend to break all the rules like Christian Slater in that movie, but I figure if I do, out here, probably no one will notice before I can fix whatever I broke in the system.
So I'm thinking, for those of you who have played with Part 15 longer than I:
if you knew then what you know now, would you have started out with AM or an FM?
And if you would have a preference, which brand/model of transmitter/antenna/software setup?
I know they both have advantages and disadvantages, and those all depend on geography and other things beyond me.
But I can probably only talk the wife who's funding this new hobby into launching one transmitter at a time. Unless someone has some exceptionally cheap novice solutions. lol
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