1051
General Radio Discussion / Re: Bombing destroys Afghan ISIS radio station
« on: February 03, 2016, 0438 UTC »
...Or rally against people with fewer weapons 
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Shortwave Pirate Radio In North America And Around The World, And Other Signals That Go Bump In The Night
We seek to understand and document all radio transmissions, legal and otherwise, as part of the radio listening hobby. We do not encourage any radio operations contrary to regulations.
Always consult with the appropriate authorities if you have questions concerning what is permissable in your locale.
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1052
General Radio Discussion / Re: MW switch-off for Radio Bristol - four new DAB transmitters boost coverage
« on: February 02, 2016, 0233 UTC »
I doubt anything like this is in store for the gold ol' USA. We're too geographically large and dependant on highway travel to abandon MW just yet. I haven't heard of the Russians or the Chinese doing anything like that yet.
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1053
General Radio Discussion / Re: The Quest for the Ultimate Vacuum Tube
« on: January 30, 2016, 1627 UTC »
I would but there is something so unappealing about a device that required a 30KW cat diesel to run it 
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1054
The RF Workbench / Re: Studio gear used for X-FM's 2015 Halloween show
« on: January 30, 2016, 1625 UTC »
:thumbsup:
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1055
General Radio Discussion / Re: The Quest for the Ultimate Vacuum Tube
« on: January 29, 2016, 0248 UTC »
There's a 4CX1000A/8168 on my desk and a 4CX15000A7 on the coffee table. Does that make me old too?
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1056
The RF Workbench / Re: Specs on the venerable RS 270-030A?
« on: January 26, 2016, 2339 UTC »
I wish you luck in your quest, young jedi.
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1057
The RF Workbench / Re: Specs on the venerable RS 270-030A?
« on: January 26, 2016, 2037 UTC »
What are you trying to do with it?
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1058
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Undercover Radio 6960 USB at 0138 UTC, 1/23/16
« on: January 23, 2016, 0151 UTC »
0149z Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' Sounding good here about S9 on peaks.
0151z A few bars of 'American Women' then a whoops from the good Doctor. About4-5 KHz 9KHz audio! Thanks for the shoutout!
0201z Benway back on the mic, then into Aerosmith's 'Dream On' (Great track, BTW)
0206z Benway back on the mic, real hard to make out, music is doing better. Props seem to be down at the minute too, hoping for a rebound.
0207z Steppenwolf 'Born To Be Wild'
0211z Queen 'We Are The Champions'
0214z Sounding a little better on the mic now. I was straining to hear you, then 'Sweet Child O' Mine' nearly knocked me outta the chair. Starting to get some rolling fades now.
0223z Benway lamenting he can't find any of his stories, might have to write some new material. Into ZZ Tops 'La Grange'
0227z Benway thinking of wrapping it up, into 'Spirit of Radio'
0234z Benway with email ID's, wishing everyone a nice weekend and hope to hear a lot of pirates. QRT
Sounds like someone built a new phasing exciter Sounds real nice on peaks.
I was lamenting the other day that I haven't heard you in a while. Diggin' in the fridge for something cold and ready to settle in for a while.
Thanks for the show!
+-RH
0151z A few bars of 'American Women' then a whoops from the good Doctor. About
0201z Benway back on the mic, then into Aerosmith's 'Dream On' (Great track, BTW)
0206z Benway back on the mic, real hard to make out, music is doing better. Props seem to be down at the minute too, hoping for a rebound.
0207z Steppenwolf 'Born To Be Wild'
0211z Queen 'We Are The Champions'
0214z Sounding a little better on the mic now. I was straining to hear you, then 'Sweet Child O' Mine' nearly knocked me outta the chair. Starting to get some rolling fades now.
0223z Benway lamenting he can't find any of his stories, might have to write some new material. Into ZZ Tops 'La Grange'
0227z Benway thinking of wrapping it up, into 'Spirit of Radio'
0234z Benway with email ID's, wishing everyone a nice weekend and hope to hear a lot of pirates. QRT
Sounds like someone built a new phasing exciter
Sounds real nice on peaks.I was lamenting the other day that I haven't heard you in a while. Diggin' in the fridge for something cold and ready to settle in for a while.
Thanks for the show!
+-RH
1059
General Radio Discussion / Re: maybe yet another mode? FM??? 6900-6990?
« on: January 19, 2016, 1707 UTC »
It doesn't really lower sensitivity, but wider bandwidths also contain higher average noise power, hence the apparent loss of sensitivity. Carson's rule for significant sidebands are related to maximum audio modulating frequency and peak deviation. I was testing with 7.5KHz audio and 5 KHz deviation, and had significant sideband energy out to around +/-25KHz, which is a little on the 'hoggy' side. If it were practical, I'd have done it by now.
You can always close down the receive bandwidth, but the distortion rises very quickly as sideband truncation begins to occur. AM for all its faults is one of the most spectrum efficient modes.
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You can always close down the receive bandwidth, but the distortion rises very quickly as sideband truncation begins to occur. AM for all its faults is one of the most spectrum efficient modes.
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1060
General Radio Discussion / Re: maybe yet another mode? FM??? 6900-6990?
« on: January 19, 2016, 1359 UTC »
The problem with FM is the amount of power required for good reception. I did some tests a few years ago with an HP broadband generator and concluded that the bandwidth needed was just too wide for our little chunk of spectrum. For good fidelity, I needed close to 40KHz of bandwidth or so, and that would probably upset some folks. 2KW or so would probably give nice coverage coast to coast...
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1061
Equipment / Re: High SWR in a cushcraft A3S yagi
« on: January 17, 2016, 0823 UTC »
Water in a connector, carbon trail somewhere in the coax, probably something like that. Try connecting the analyzer to the antenna with a known good jumper and all will be known. Could be water in the antenna's matching system too.
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1062
Equipment / Re: What radio should a beginner get for shortwave listening (Under 90 USD)
« on: January 17, 2016, 0821 UTC »
Just remember, "There's butter in the refrigerator"....
I also vote for the Tecsun at that price point.
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I also vote for the Tecsun at that price point.
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1063
The RF Workbench / Re: Studio gear used for X-FM's 2015 Halloween show
« on: January 16, 2016, 2019 UTC »
If your looking for ham stuff, really the only thing you'll need is a good voice processor. People seem to go way overboard with this ESSB thing, stacks of EQ's and compressors, et al. They probably say the same of what we do over here (hi, hi). Anyway, if you can, find an older Symetrix 528 (The E versions are largely surface mount and are harder to service) and a decent mic and go to town. There will be a temptation to get a DBX 286 because they are about $200 new, but you get what you pay for, and they have issues with RFI ingress (There is NO protection or filtering on the front end). Then all you need to do is figure out how to get the audio into the radio. I always used the aux input on the back of my 857, but that only works for sideband, not AM 
Good luck!
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Good luck!
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1064
General Radio Discussion / Re: maybe yet another mode? FM??? 6900-6990?
« on: January 16, 2016, 0446 UTC »
DSB can work well, no need for steep filters, so you can run as much bandwidth as you want. It's a good idea to leave some carrier leak as a tuning aid for people, otherwise it can be very difficult to get the tuning right.
DSB is also quite easy to generate, even at low levels, and is conducive to class D/E amplification.
+-RH
DSB is also quite easy to generate, even at low levels, and is conducive to class D/E amplification.
+-RH
1065
The RF Workbench / Re: Studio gear used for X-FM's 2015 Halloween show
« on: January 16, 2016, 0216 UTC »
A lot of the gear is of commercial origin, stuff stations threw out, and I refurbished and repaired myself.
The left rack is the input rack, it contains the gear primarily concerned with feeding the console. There are two valley 400 mic processors, their corresponding behringer effects units set up for light plate reverb, a mixer to combine the two dry feeds from the mic processors and feed the phone hybrid, a telos delta phone hybrid (nice because it has compression built in so I could eliminate the outboard compressor), and two phone preamps.
The console is an Audio Arts Air 2+ which kinda sucks because all the inputs are unbalanced, not a good thing in a high RF environment. A nice console otherwise.
The right rack is the output rack, it contains gear primarily concerned with program conditioning tasks. The top shelf contains a net top type computer running Linux and Zara with two audio outputs, one for beds/sound effects, and the other for log playback. Below that is an Aphex compeller, which levels and peak limits the output of the console to protect the flash recorder and the STL (studio to transmitter link). Below that is a broadcast tools switcher to control what gets fed to the flash recorder, and what feed is being monitored at the consoles external input. In theory this would allow monitoring of up to 3 transmitters. A flash recorder is fed by the switcher and used for airchecks. There is then a Behringer format converter to convert the analog audio to AES which is then sent over coax to the transmitter. The off air feed is brought back over coax and converted to analog to feed the switcher. There is then a EQ to tailor the room characteristics to my club-foot nature, and a monitor amp to drive the speakers.
The monitors are a pair of Alesis MKII passive 6.5" monitors, mics are Shure SM-7B's
Everything is in road cases with connector plates and a detachable wiring harness to keep setup time to a minimum.
That's about it I think.
+-RH
The left rack is the input rack, it contains the gear primarily concerned with feeding the console. There are two valley 400 mic processors, their corresponding behringer effects units set up for light plate reverb, a mixer to combine the two dry feeds from the mic processors and feed the phone hybrid, a telos delta phone hybrid (nice because it has compression built in so I could eliminate the outboard compressor), and two phone preamps.
The console is an Audio Arts Air 2+ which kinda sucks because all the inputs are unbalanced, not a good thing in a high RF environment. A nice console otherwise.
The right rack is the output rack, it contains gear primarily concerned with program conditioning tasks. The top shelf contains a net top type computer running Linux and Zara with two audio outputs, one for beds/sound effects, and the other for log playback. Below that is an Aphex compeller, which levels and peak limits the output of the console to protect the flash recorder and the STL (studio to transmitter link). Below that is a broadcast tools switcher to control what gets fed to the flash recorder, and what feed is being monitored at the consoles external input. In theory this would allow monitoring of up to 3 transmitters. A flash recorder is fed by the switcher and used for airchecks. There is then a Behringer format converter to convert the analog audio to AES which is then sent over coax to the transmitter. The off air feed is brought back over coax and converted to analog to feed the switcher. There is then a EQ to tailor the room characteristics to my club-foot nature, and a monitor amp to drive the speakers.
The monitors are a pair of Alesis MKII passive 6.5" monitors, mics are Shure SM-7B's
Everything is in road cases with connector plates and a detachable wiring harness to keep setup time to a minimum.
That's about it I think.
+-RH
