SignalGuy

Bits and pieces: I drove up Rt. 309 to see the doctor again yesterday. That gave me a chance to check on that new station on 1620 KHz. It’s still a loop, but, they have a call sign now, and, are stating that they are a joint operation of Quakertown Boro, and, it’s school district. They are also starting to carry local event info, and, promising further development of the station. They seem to have upped the power a bit, now rendering part 15 operator WNAR unlistenable all the way from Mile marker 25, on North to Quakertown. WNAR remains useable through most of Telford, Franconia, parts of Lansdale, and Souderton, and much of Rt 113 between Franconia on down towards Harleysville.

That noisy / buzzy / otherwise unmoderated carrier wave on 106.5 MHZ was back on this weekend, mainly Sunday. I’m wondering if it’s a forgotten part of a church sound system somewhere, coming on and off with some other gear, etc. When it’s on, I can’t hear my own Sainsonic outside of my apartment anymore.

The crystal I have ordered for 1700 KHZ is here! Quite possibly my last custom crystal. But I am finding more and more stuff to replace them with. It looks like it will be something based on the now very popular “Arduino” microcontroller boards.

With good motorcycle riding weather approaching, my part 15 projects will temporarily go on the back burner, but I do hope to be firing up on 1700 KHZ AM this year.

Happy Easter!

I’m receiving reports that what was once the gold standard for custom crystals, International Crystal Manufacturing in Oklahome City, OK, will close it’s doors very soon, probably no later than May. At this moment they are still accepting orders if and where remaining materials and pending facility sale allow it. They will be missed by many radio hobbyists. I am trying to play some games with my personal budget, attempting to fund the purchase of a couple more crystals before the end comes. After this, it will be Chinese DDOs and DDSs unfortunately! … Unrelated: A couple of weeks ago, I took a routine ride up to Quakertown for a doctor appointment. I am used to being able to hear WNAR (“Wer’e Nostalgic About Radio”, a high end part 15 operator) all the way up, normally fading into the ignition noise around mile 30 on Route 309. But this time, with WNAR still strong, I began hearing something called “Information Radio”, with no other callsign or I D, around mile 25, with both WNAR, and the newcomer showing equal signals by mile 27, and the new guy taking over from there on north. WNAR has lost at least two driving miles on Rt 309 to this newcomer! WNAR offers pro grade programming in the style of the “golden age” of radio. The newcomer? A one minute repeating loop claiming authority to broadcast “community and safety information” as needed to the public, but, without making mention of any affiliation to any type of organization, agency, or company or government, etc! Just a generic loop asking you to lock a radio button there (1620 KHz) This new install appears to cover much of the Quakertown area. … unrelated… decided to further attenuate my 101.5 fm station. Only about a 50 foot range now. I’m concerned about this powerful intermittant mystery carrier with the slight buzzy hum coming from the Franconia to Harleysville area along Rt 113. Whatever it is, It’s too strong not to get noticed for long and I don’t want any misunderstanding! Looking forward to getting back on A. M. this year. I want to see if a syncronized multiple transmitter setup could at least partially offset the limitations inposed by using a free airspace tuned counterpoise, rather than a traditional ground, E. G: two 5 foot metal poles with coils, and the transmitter in the middle at the feed point, or, a magnetic loop antennae, etc. I’d like to keep the new station build as easy to relocate as possible. That’s all for now, All the best!

Well the first commitment has been made. I’ve just gotten off the phone, ordered crystal from ICM. 4 weeks lead time. Time to dig out some parts and a soldering iorn!

The inevitable has happened! Someone else has begun test transmissions on 106.5. It’s a mostly unmodulated carrier detected for about an hour around 11:30 am, and again at 4:30 pm. They are particularly strong out on RT 113, south of Franconia, and north of Harleysville. And I can receive the carrier all the way to where County Line Road crosses Perkiomen Creek, a couple of miles northwest of Telford. That’s a good 7 miles or so!

They are strong enough here in the borough to drop me down from about 150′ to about 100′ coverage. There is no programming yet, and when I turn my van’s radio all the way up on them, I hear the same type of background power supply noise I hear from my own SainSonic. It’s identical to my ears.

In other news, I’ve sent a Request For Quote on a 1700KHz HC-51U crystal to International Crystal Manufacturing out in Oklahoma. I feel I should expidite my move to AM at this time.

 

I’ve been able to spend a little time reading and downloading Part 15 related music and info these past few weeks, as well as upgrading the audio and file management. I finally have figured out that despite the presence of what looks like an external antenna jack on the Sainsonic, it was meant only for the stock whip! I’d previously thought the reverse threads were some oversight on my part. It had been easy to get the adapter to fit despite it, by using a file on the threads.

Anyhow, the external antenna and attenuator are history, stock whip back in place, filed threads did not hurt the fit, low power setting engaged, and, coverage is now only about 125′ instead of the solid 200′ I had set up for.

I’d thought about building an attenuator into the transmitter shell, but, I think it’s time to set up for a move to the A.M. band anyhow. 1700 KHz is open here. And I have ideas for a poor man’s synchronized transmitter setup.

I saw the comments in the news this week about the FCC moving to make it even easier for A.M. stations to put up translators on F.M. It’s probably too much to ask that 106.5 in Souderton / Telford will remain unoccupied for much longer, though I know of no such pending action.
I also followed a link to the FCC enforcement actions page. I found it interesting that almost ALL recent FCC enforcement is related to F.M. I didn’t even see ONE A.M. enforcement action!

I’m thinking of using a “spitfire” transmitter, modified to act as a synchronizing oscillator / exiter, to feed a pair of closed cables, connecting to the oscillator stages of a pair of free running Ramsey transmitters I have. I should be able to inject a signal into the free running Ramsey oscillators and get them to “lock” on to the synchronizing signal. I did something very similar, with regenerative receiver circuits, back in the day. I was able to use a crystal oscillator to force the regenerative detector to “lock”, and, could copy CW, SSB, etc, with no drift.

I plan for the audio to be routed to the Ramseys by seperate audio cables, taken together with eack one having it’s own osclillator, thereby maintaining their identity as seperate transmitters, each with 100 MW into an integral antenna. The spitfire would just be creating the R.F. needed to synch the two carriers. One transmitter would be in the southeast window, the second would be in the northwest window. I’ll be happy to create about a 300′ radius coverage. maybe a tad more with a car radio.

Considering the ten square mile coverage that part 15 operator WNAR in Lansdale is getting, I think my goal may be realistic.
Time will tell!

Musopen Telford Update For Monday, Jan 30, 2017.
Over the past two months, some updates were downloaded and installed to the spare Samsung Galaxy Core Prime that I was using to play music into the transmitter. Unfortunately, I began noticing problems with the broadcast audio after that time. I wasn’t able to solve it, and, had been considering switching over to an old HP-Compaq office computer anyhow.
I took the leap this weekend. In addition to solving the audio issues, I gained access to a superior automatic level control functionality, a better EQ, More on screen info, and of course, storage room for MUCH more music. The looping and shuffling features seem to work better also.
Of course, the PC is power-hungry compared to the phone. As an interim measure, I completely disconnected ALL of the drives that have any moving parts: Hard drive, Optical drive, Floppy drive. I then went into the BIOS & SETUP screens and adjusted anything I could find that looked like it could cut back on power useage.
I then installed the Linux Mint operating system, and the free VLC Player, to a USB memory stick intended to serve as the primary boot drive. I did have a problem with the PC booting from the installed version, although, oddly, not the “live disk” version. But I found that the problem went away when I plugged a cheap WalMart USB hub / Card reader combo into the machine and moved the installed op sys USB stick there. Boots reliably now, and, the only moving parts are the fans, all turned doen to minimum speed, and very little heat coming out of the box! 🙂
I will also be watching the “Rasberry Pi”, and, “Asus Tinker Board” scenes, as they offer much lower power consumption. But, I won’t go there until something as versatile as VLC on an X86/LINUX box becomes known. The compressor / limiter alone is worth going to X86: it has the processing power to customize and maintain levels properly, even with the raw relatively uncurated files I am getting from Musopen dot org. That’s going to be very important when I get my A.M. transmitter going, and maintaining modulation levels are going to be much more important!
MY BEST TO ALL ON THE BOARDS! … 73 … The Signal Guy.