Tonight there is snow on the ground and I have the belief that snow and ice cover cause the AM and maybe shortwave signals to travel better than usual, so I am staying on the air later than usual.
Tonight there is snow on the ground and I have the belief that snow and ice cover cause the AM and maybe shortwave signals to travel better than usual, so I am staying on the air later than usual.
I will not be driving in the snow to test the range, instead I am using my imagination to visualize the signals getting way out into radios far away.
Part 15 radio lends itself to imaginary fantasy.
Snow Fade?
Yeah, snow here also. And, although I enjoy looking at it, everytime it snows I have to retune the antenna since I moved it to ground level.
By the way, although it’s to soon to pass judgement, I’d have to say initial results are dismal at best compared to the roof top mount.
Sounds Cold and Wet
Based on the part 15 rule as written, you would need to get down near the ground on your knees and open the box to re-tune the transmitter. Cold, wet, miserable.
I’ll bet an inspector wouldn’t kneel in snow to inspect the setup. They would wait until a nice warm day.
It’s discrimination, I tell you!
2 Comments
There is an AM station I get here that usually
comes in better during the winter time. I can
only get them during the day.
It’s WSBS, 860, Great Barrington, MA – about 2500
watts day, I think 500 W critical hours and 3.9 watts
at night. We had talked about this station a
couple of weeks ago, when we were discussing
night time power levels.
I called them up one year during the winter, and
the staff was thrilled that I could hear them in
West Hartford, CT.
By the way – Carl – you had posted a broadcast
engineering blog a couple of days ago. Or maybe it
was part of a magazine, I don’t know. Anyway, there
was an article in there that mentioned the WSBS backup
1 kW transmitter. There was also a mention of another station
which is a semi local to me. That is, WINE 940, day only
in Brookfield, CT. I think WINE is 1 kW day.
I’ll have to check those.
Bruce, DOGGRADIO STUDIO 2
Ground?
Q — What are you using for grounding the system?
Height can be an advantage especially where there are ‘Faraday Cage’ concrete buildings with lots of rebar. OTOH, if you mount the antenna on such a building, sometimes the rebar forms a decent ‘accidental’ counterpoise.
Otherwise, of course, these AM band things are ground wave (daytime), so being on the ground is OK.
Somewhere I posted some pictures of the new local NDB tower at the airport. it has 12 50′ ground radials and a 6-element hat, gets out about 35 statute miles on 25 watts, 284 kHz. It’s probably one of the last ones to be constructed as this type of navigation technology is considered outdated by the FAA … consequently, the FCC will no longer issue new station licenses for them.
That piece of non-essential gibberish aside, it’s still a good example of an AM radio antenna system.
Oh, here they are:
http://fhtinyradio.com/Library/ImageLib/P1010076.jpg
http://fhtinyradio.com/Library/ImageLib/P1010077.jpg
Passing Beuty
Thank you Ken for those pictures of a beauty that is passing from this world.
We were lucky to be here while such wonderful technology took form before our eyes.
The future view may not be so lovely.
What? Oh, I needed that cold dish of water poured on my head. I was living in the past.
What’s for dinner?