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Author Topic: Starting a pirate radio in Spain  (Read 5090 times)

Offline ThaDood

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Re: Starting a pirate radio in Spain. 5MHz?
« Reply #15 on: July 18, 2018, 1555 UTC »
Well, to answer your question in the 5MHz, the 60M band, it's a very good band to use. The military uses it extensively. In the daytime, it has nice regional coverage from 50km to over 500km, and is a good choice for NVIS, (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave.), antenna. Meaning, the dipole is low to the ground, like 10 meters, or less, and you are using the ground as a reflector to intensify more signal going to the F2 layer, and bouncing back regionally. (If I understand the theory correctly.) At night, this band goes long, very long. More than 1,000km, and can skip over the first 400km. Amateur radio operators and the US Army actually did a test exercise last year to see if they can talk coast to coast to each other, and they did, with 100W, or less. The downside of 60M? This time of year it is very noisy with lightning crashes at night. I am trying to think what is on this band for you to monitor 60M for yourself to study propagation. WWV right at 5MHz even comes to mind from Fort Collins, Colorado. Then, there's WBCQ on 5130kHz,     http://www.wbcq.com/   Anyway, bottom line is, 5MHz, a.k.a. 60M band is indeed a good choice.
I was asked, yet another weird question, of how I would like to be buried, when I finally bite the big one. The answer was actually pretty easy. Face-down, like a certain historical figure in the late 1980's, (I will not mention who, but some of you will get it, and that's enough.) Why??? It would be a burial that will satisfy everyone: (1) My enemies will say that it will show me where to go. (2) On the same point, I can have my enemies kiss my butt. (3) It will temporarily give someone a place to park a bicycle. See??? A WIN / WIN for everyone.

Offline diegocollado

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Re: Starting a pirate radio in Spain
« Reply #16 on: July 18, 2018, 2053 UTC »
Dear OgreVorbis,
Thank you very much once again for your very informative message.
I will take a look at those amps you linked. Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, but would you recommend I acquire or try to assemble an audio compressor? Would a software one work?

Thanks and best regards,
Diego

Not a problem. Stereo tool is a good one. It has compression and limiting and it also has an adjustable low pass filter for the audio, which should be set around 3-7 khz. The lower you set it, the signal will go a little farther, but the audio quality is obviously less.

I use a DSP board from China that has a ADAU1701. I've also used stereo tool in the past, but I've had audio buffering problems with it. It seems like it works fine as long as you don't use a virtual audio cable to route the audio within the computer. You should use a physical audio cable. The problem with this is that the computer can no longer be a sound source because its output is the stereo tool only. So if you have another sound source (or another sound card) and a mixer, etc. Then you just put that into the line-in of the comp and the output to the TX.

Dear OgreVorbis,
Thanks for answering all of my questions and helping me shape much better this project. I've definitely learned a lot. I'll report back when I have everything up and running!

Thank you very much and 73!
Best regards,
Diego
« Last Edit: July 18, 2018, 2056 UTC by diegocollado »

Offline diegocollado

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Re: Starting a pirate radio in Spain. 5MHz?
« Reply #17 on: July 18, 2018, 2056 UTC »
Well, to answer your question in the 5MHz, the 60M band, it's a very good band to use. The military uses it extensively. In the daytime, it has nice regional coverage from 50km to over 500km, and is a good choice for NVIS, (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave.), antenna. Meaning, the dipole is low to the ground, like 10 meters, or less, and you are using the ground as a reflector to intensify more signal going to the F2 layer, and bouncing back regionally. (If I understand the theory correctly.) At night, this band goes long, very long. More than 1,000km, and can skip over the first 400km. Amateur radio operators and the US Army actually did a test exercise last year to see if they can talk coast to coast to each other, and they did, with 100W, or less. The downside of 60M? This time of year it is very noisy with lightning crashes at night. I am trying to think what is on this band for you to monitor 60M for yourself to study propagation. WWV right at 5MHz even comes to mind from Fort Collins, Colorado. Then, there's WBCQ on 5130kHz,     http://www.wbcq.com/   Anyway, bottom line is, 5MHz, a.k.a. 60M band is indeed a good choice.

Dear ThaDood,
Thank you very much for answering my question. I will experiment, as soon as I have everything up and running, with the 60m band according to your theory and report back. I will definitely study the low ground dipole, as it sounds very interesting.

Again, thank you very much and 73!
Best regards,
Diego

Offline OgreVorbis

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Re: Starting a pirate radio in Spain
« Reply #18 on: July 19, 2018, 1023 UTC »

Dear OgreVorbis,
Thanks for answering all of my questions and helping me shape much better this project. I've definitely learned a lot. I'll report back when I have everything up and running!

Thank you very much and 73!
Best regards,
Diego

You're welcome. And if you didn't see it, the REL Map button in VOACAP seems to be the most straightforward. The rest of it is a little confusing.
Radio and Programming Blog: http://dosaidsoft.com/wp/

Offline ThaDood

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Hola Diego!!! ¡De nada! To add to that, from España is a very useful propagation website interactive map,  http://www.dxmaps.com/spots/mapg.php?Lan=E&Frec=50&ML=M&Map=W2LN&HF=N&DXC=ING2&GL=S   Not just for 60M, like the example I have chosen, but almost spectrum-wide. Just hit the tabs for bands, region, and even check-off the weak signal modes, like digital and CW, and keep phone operators. This way it gives you a better idea what real propagation possibilities are in real time. You can also choose if the operators are recent posts, or the last 24 hours. This site is a very useful tool indeed. Not me, but someone close to resembling me, wished a site like this existed 30 years ago for pirating. Contento DX!
I was asked, yet another weird question, of how I would like to be buried, when I finally bite the big one. The answer was actually pretty easy. Face-down, like a certain historical figure in the late 1980's, (I will not mention who, but some of you will get it, and that's enough.) Why??? It would be a burial that will satisfy everyone: (1) My enemies will say that it will show me where to go. (2) On the same point, I can have my enemies kiss my butt. (3) It will temporarily give someone a place to park a bicycle. See??? A WIN / WIN for everyone.

Offline OgreVorbis

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Re: Starting a pirate radio in Spain
« Reply #20 on: July 20, 2018, 0257 UTC »
I just discovered two things about that transmitter today.

You will need a -10db attenuator on the input to the amp because it drives it to almost full power even when you adjust the power pot. You won't be able to modulate it without (only CW).
You should put a simple RC audio filter on the input because it might create spurs from random high frequencies.
Radio and Programming Blog: http://dosaidsoft.com/wp/

Offline diegocollado

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Re: Starting a pirate radio in Spain
« Reply #21 on: July 29, 2018, 2140 UTC »
I just discovered two things about that transmitter today.

You will need a -10db attenuator on the input to the amp because it drives it to almost full power even when you adjust the power pot. You won't be able to modulate it without (only CW).
You should put a simple RC audio filter on the input because it might create spurs from random high frequencies.

Dear OgreVorbis,
Sorry for the late reply. I have been out for holidays these past week without a good and stable internet connection.

I hadn't considered the attenuator. Do you recommend any particular design or brand of attenuators? Having never bought one, I am a bit lost on where to get it.
About the RC audio filter, thank you for reminding me about it. I knew I was missing something, but didn't remember it was this!

I've been playing around with Stereo Tool, looks really good. Thank you for the recommendation.

Thanks and best regards!
Diego

Offline diegocollado

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Hola Diego!!! ¡De nada! To add to that, from España is a very useful propagation website interactive map,  http://www.dxmaps.com/spots/mapg.php?Lan=E&Frec=50&ML=M&Map=W2LN&HF=N&DXC=ING2&GL=S   Not just for 60M, like the example I have chosen, but almost spectrum-wide. Just hit the tabs for bands, region, and even check-off the weak signal modes, like digital and CW, and keep phone operators. This way it gives you a better idea what real propagation possibilities are in real time. You can also choose if the operators are recent posts, or the last 24 hours. This site is a very useful tool indeed. Not me, but someone close to resembling me, wished a site like this existed 30 years ago for pirating. Contento DX!

Dear ThaDood,
Thank you for the web resource, very useful!

Thanks! Best regards,
Diego