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« on: April 30, 2014, 1811 UTC »
Yup, the 11 meter band is wide open, and currently, propagation isn't bad, and one could get world wide very easy. Last night,I got American Samoa (70 Division) from the Great South West USA with 100W on SSB, running ESSB Audio, and a homebrew 1/4 Wave ground plane (Stainless 102" whip, Mirror Mount, 4 108" counterpoise wires) mounted at 18' AGL on a roof tripod, 5ft mast on the garage roof.... I'm pretty stoked.
As far as "bang for the buck", I believe that 11 meters offers some of the best:
Inexpensive Transmitters
Inexpensive Amplifiers
Short Antennas
One would just need to gain listeners... Of course, the nie sayers will scream "Lost CB'er!", but there IS a broadcast band there around 26 Mhz.... and it is very underused...
I wouldn't suggest the 40 channel freqs though, too many jammers, but above 27.405 (and below 28 Mhz), and below 26.965 (but above 25Mhz) is a perfect place to give it a shot with little cash involved.
Take the narrow chunk from 25.670 to 26.100, that chunk was set aside for broadcasting ... most exports will reach down to 25.165 at the end of their range... so they go that covered, no crystal swaps needed...
I am currently setting up a SuperStar 3900 to run AM mode with a Palomar 225 (Class AB) amplifier. That should get a nice 150-200 Watt Modulated AM signal out. I swapped about 3 or 4 caps in the audio chain and it will transmitter Audio 70Hz-10kHz with no trouble...
And a 1/4 Wave Ground Plane Antenna for 26MHz is a simple 9' vertical with 108" ground radials... $25 at Radio Shack for a 102" stainless whip, a short 3/8-24 threaded adapter about 6"-7" long, 4 wire radials and a simple 90 degree metal mount to anything upright...
My only suggestion would be to stay away from the STL freqs, that would be as bad and pirating on FM and pissing off the money payers to keep the FCC going
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