Messages

1

General Radio Discussion / Re: FCC Will Open a New Window for LPFMs?

« on: July 02, 2023, 0223 UTC »

That rocks! I thought they'd never open up for applications again. When I heard about this in the `00s, I looked into it, but it's not really for individuals, it's for community radio, with a bigger staff and non profit sponsorship of the station. It might work if you had a group of friends on your side.

I'd want to open a LPFM in a storefront and people could hang out and chill to the tunes.

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Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: 1978 "PEEWEE" STATION | The MICRO-BROADCASTERS COMMUNITY Forum?

« on: July 02, 2023, 0214 UTC »

Ahh, teenage dreams, I wonder what happened, if this guy ever got into commercial radio or TV, or some other job in the industry?

That's a well equipped radio station, good chance he stayed in radio, but a pro might not like to talk about his origins. I found out that Rush Limbaugh had a Peewee station, but only heard about it after he died.

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Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: LPFM to Part 15 AM radio translator-like link for Vinyl-thon / Record Store Day?

« on: July 02, 2023, 0206 UTC »

That's a good idea, taking an FM station that can barely be heard in an area, picking it up with a good receiver and broadcasting it on AM.!

Since we have FM translators for every Am station, why not allow AM translators, to put an FM signal on the AM band, simple antenna and lower power in an area that doesn't have the signal.

Maby it's as simple as that no one has asked for that service.

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General Radio Discussion / Re: New feature - KiwiSDR Camping Mode

« on: March 20, 2021, 0750 UTC »

That sounds like a good idea! I've coordinated listening with others over texts, and we often hit the same SDR when a pirate is on, and Camping would work for that!

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General Radio Discussion / Re: Time Is Running Out for FrankenFMs – Just 4 Months Left

« on: March 20, 2021, 0745 UTC »

According to some in the business, Chicago created a whole new oldies format, connected with their ME-TV brand.

If you ask me, the FCC and broadcasters should work on extending the FM band downward into channel 5-6 area, maybe to 76 mhz as proven radios exist with that coverage range, and it would be no problem to add it to new digitally tuned radios with small design changes.

Reason? The US sorely needs more FM frequencies in the larger cities, especially with HD carriers taking extra bandwidth in larger cities as well.

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General Radio Discussion / Re: The Strange Story of DC's Lost AM Radio Station Still Transmitting Inauguration

« on: March 20, 2021, 0733 UTC »

That is THE best kind of radio mystery, something I could only dream about. It's like a sc-ifi story where people find a radio station abandoned 50 years ago and turn it on, and it's playing tapes of the personalities from back then.

There is a station that broadcasts on one day a year, official broadcast, not pirate!

7

The RF Workbench / Re: Re-CAP'ing the GE Super Radio II. Rip from SWLing

« on: March 20, 2021, 0727 UTC »

I too think the early SupeRadios were the better ones by far. Built stronger with air variable tuning capacitors in the first version I believe. A 40 year old Super can still play if taken care of, where many are having problems with jumpy tuning on Super 3s, due to the tuning voltage carrying DC and polarizing the contacts, especially when the radio sits for a while.

Going by sites about this, they used less proven and reliable technology, but the reception, if the SR3 is tuned up well, is supposed to be superior than earlier Supers.

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The RF Workbench / Re: Someone had Corsair II AM TX experience?

« on: March 20, 2021, 0716 UTC »

This latest exchange is a good reason that all companies should have a public relations department. PR serves up the platitudes, and it's fake sincerity, but those words, saying nothing, seem to soothe people.

9

General Radio Discussion / Re: Noooooo........ Hudson County NJ TIS station is back on 1710 AM

« on: January 21, 2021, 0251 UTC »

I've seen reports from well before the pandemic where this station was stuck or operating incorrectly over a long period of time, and heard it myself by SDR as well. Didn't the FCC know about this to judge them unfit for operation, like commercial stations would be?

On the other side, I notice that most of the these alert stations are running test loops, telephone tones and IDs that repeat endlessly, hum on carrier and other problems for years in some cases, why bother?

10

General Radio Discussion / Re: FM Radio Licenses Soon to be Available to Educational Institutions

« on: January 21, 2021, 0241 UTC »

That's good to hear -- more opportunity for pirates who would want to move over to the commercial side. In some areas we might not have open frequencies, but then, the station Spacing rules have been relaxed a lot over the years, so it's worth looking in to, maybe not even as an owner, but as a consultant to help your own area's school or nonprofit get on the air. So many don't know about radio, you can help them. It was done many times with LPFM stations.

11

General Radio Discussion / Re: Empty HF frequency band for emergency coms

« on: January 21, 2021, 0236 UTC »

I can see that problem with the sensitive RF front end in an SDR, and switching over to a nearby transmitter, it does have to be done with caution.

It was the same thing when IGFETs came out, and they were built into RF preamps. In the circuit they were tougher, but they were still getting blown out at ham stations due to lightning or strong transmissions nearby, and IGFETs were expensive at first.

One thing that was done was to use back to back high speed silicon diodes, like IN914 from antenna input to ground, and a smaller coupling capacitor from the antenna. The diodes conduct first, keeping the voltage clamped down so the RF stage doesn't get enough to harm it.

You could look up diode protection for RF front ends and diode T/R switching in a transceiver for ideas.

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Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: This Knight lit up a lot of potential broadcasters!

« on: January 21, 2021, 0217 UTC »

That's a good use for 1Watt here, that if the intercoms use only a fraction of that, then a watt might be nice for a small station.

13

Huh? / Re: Is It Time for Radio to Restore Dynamic Range?

« on: January 09, 2021, 0716 UTC »

I've always hated the loudness war, it's ruined some good music, just to be louder. Early it was said to be competition between mastering engineers to see who could be loudest, then loudness was used to be heard better on low dynamic range speakers in lots of products now.

I could see how hyper compressed songs would be played lower in a normalized streaming environment. MP3 Gain has been doing something like that for years in music collections. An RMS ALC would do something similar, holding the average level some db lower for hyper compressed as opposed to something more dynamic.

If you didn't limit, compress, and clip much after the ALC, that might help the sound be better on highly compressed tracks, they wouldn't ride so high into the "destructive" sections of the processing.

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Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: This Knight lit up a lot of potential broadcasters!

« on: January 09, 2021, 0703 UTC »

That's the classic Knight I've seen on review sites for awhile. Nice with the solid metal cabinet. Too bad it doesn't have the tubes, they might have burned out and the owner threw them away, or maybe fell out of their sockets during a move or something.

I've heard stories that these Kignts have hum, frequency drift and you can even get a light shock from the case of it, and with all that would you still use it today on your station, or is it more for old time's sake, like doing a show once a year because you learned radio on it as a kid?

I didn't think vacuum tubes were so expensive, but maybe the Knight's are because they're in demand, since 5 years ago I got two power pentode tubes for old hifi output, and they were $10, shipping included 6bq5 I think. The guy said they tested good on a tube tester.

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Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: Audio-Sine Part 15 AM transmitters (history)

« on: January 09, 2021, 0651 UTC »

That was unknown information! I've only seen references to Part 15 from those times from the odd newspaper article talking about a small station run in some unique way, to make it a local interest story, but those are always so lacking in information about where the transmitters come from, and being into radio I'd wonder about it, and think they must have a kit, or technician or ham build it for them.

The other place I'd get some information were scientific catalogs, with more professional looking stations, like one from Numark, that seemed to be an audio and sound reinforcement company in the 70's.

I really didn't know that there was anything more professional in those dark days. Well, I heard LPB was around, high power for the campus station market, not 100 milliwatts.

It's great that whip and mast concept was saved, and by such a small oversight too. It shows how the FCC would listen to users and companies who would be inconvenienced back then. Now the FCC must want the small users to go away by ignoring them. You file petitions and just get back crickets.