Ok so wich one will not get me in trouble? I did look into the C.Crane and people love it and it has great sound quality but they all modded thers to boost it. From my understanding on reading some FCC reports is it seems the FCC only targets people who have commercial transmitters or are interfearing with other stations. So if you are on a clean frequency and arent over doing it you can get away. Again thats just my understanding from it. I would like to remain legal so I dont get in trouble.
The only thing wrong with the wholehouse is the limiting that's supposed to be part of it's operation doesn't work so you need a compressor between it and your audio source to get near the volume of the other stations.
The only thing wrong with the CCrane is it's underpowered out of the box.
Based on the fact the wholehouse works good as it comes without any "mods" and has more features that would be my choice if I were to choose between the two.
Some of those FCC busts posted on here are for 100 or 200uV/M over the limit but we don't know the full story.
Mark
Look, here's the deal: Don't interfere. Keep it clean. Keep the signal in your neighborhood. You will never hear from the FCC. If you want outside your neighborhood go AM but keep the installation legal. End of story.
The FCC targets complaints, no complaints and you can run whatever you want. They cannot tell what transmitter you use by listening, well unless its total junk LOL!
WDCX pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as the FCC is concerned.
The Whole House units may sound just fine and get good coverage, but they do have a history of being seriously overpowered right out of the box. Some units were reported at being 23 times over the limit. Additionally the company has a history of skirting the rules, most notoriously the Whole House FM 1 which was never certified and used a false certification sticker. Not to mention the questionable practice of including their "International Antenna" in every box and the well documented High Power Mode. (Of which NEITHER were included in any documentation supplied to the FCC for certification.)
Only my two cents, but I'd stick with the C Crane. (FWIW The internal Processing on the C Crane DOES work, unlike the Whole House)
That being said, there is a FANTASTIC post that includes pretty nifty modifications to the version 1 unit here http://www.part15.us/forum/part15-forums/transmitter-talk/whole-house-fm-transmitter-anyone
Thelegacy Said:
Station8 has not finalized his antenna for the masses quite yet. I'm still waiting to beta test it
MrBruce Said:
It appears to me like his project has been on hold for while now. I'm still trying to get a decent mod for the Chris Cuff AM C-Quam transmitter. Mine can't transmitt more then 10 feet with ANY TYPE OF ANTENNA.
I created a thread here at part15.us regarding my Chris Cuff's high power output stage. Now before anyone goes on a tangent about me saying "high powered" let me tell you, the high powered mod is designed to reach from the transmitter to a near by AM radio, no neighborhood coverage and that is just how high powered this transmitter is, it can't get past 10 feet from the 10 foot antenna with a good ground to house plumbing.
I would like to get it up to legal distance, nothing more, but I hesitate to dicuss that here, because unles one knows just how limited the RF output is, one would think I was trying to exceed legal FCC part 15 AM transmitter output power allowances.
It is a nice sounding AM stereo transmitter, it just can't get out past 10 feet before signal is totally lost in AM hetrodyne.
So I really can't use mine to provide any kind of usable signal to anyone but myself, without some type of mod to the RF output stage.
Mean while, Station8 has been working on that, but I still have not heard anything new on his progress.
Bruce.
I do seem to recall some of the C Cuff transmitters being ultra low powered at first. I don't think any of us would be against getting the unit to legal specs.
edit: Didn't many of his transmitters lack antenna tuners? If so have you tried running a tuner on it?
I totally agree with keep your FM signal in the neighborhood and you're fine. Where I live now that is where the signal is. The complex is ¼ mile wide and 4 units a piece. I can walk around and hear my Whole House FM Transmitter 3.0. The signal is clean and many have commented on its sweet sound. I use NextKast which I highly recommend to anyone running FM and wanting professional sound quality. To do live talk shows and have more than one DJ or Live Music, there is a line input in NextKast and still goes through the compressor and limiter. So a Radio Shack mixer will work on a bidget ising NextKast. Id rather have a transmitter that works than one that only goes 50-75 feet. Best of luck.
mighty1650 Said:
Didn't many of his transmitters lack antenna tuners? If so have you tried running a tuner on it?
MrBruce Said:
Mine has everything, the tuner, the addition of the high ouput stage, he built it more as a novelty item, you know, it's cool to have your ipod or mp3 player play over that AM stereo receiver on the work bench kind of thing?
His circuit boards were professionally etched, the board is limited in size for the addition of additional parts for any kind of useful RF amplifier stage. I've spoken with a few others who built his kit, it sounds FANTASTIC on my Realistic TM-152, but others have told me the kit is very limited in range, even with all of Chris's updates. He designed it for personal use, not for the purpose of operating a part 15 AM radio station.
Perhaps, if more of us obtained the kit, we could all work together on a circuit that allows it to work bettter for part 15.209 use.
I work better as a team, that is why it would be cool if a few other people had the kit and we create a topic related to improvements we have tried.
Bruce.