The scene where the reporter spins the dial on the radio, and she has to go almost half way down the band to find the next station is a true blast from the past. There are few, if any, populated areas today where the band is this empty.
Agreed. More compression doesn't equal 'better' sound, just more in your face and fatigue inducing. Yes, SOME compression is needed to be able to be in the same ball park as other stations on the dial as far as 'keeping up with the neighbours' but too much just mashes the sound and loses any semblance of 'hifi' quality which the FM system is capable of.
Looks like a directional array antenna system. I have never seen that type used on any us fm station I have ever visited. There may be some but I never saw one. Most were omnidirectional as much as possable. I have used directional yagis on 2 way repeaters to shift their range in a particualr direction.
21 dB antenna gain is 128 fold. One can see the horizontally stacked dipoles on the individual vertical bays which provide the horizontal directivity and gain. I don't know if the 21dB is net, inclusive of transmission line loss. If it is net, an 80kW transmitter would provide the 1MW ERP. I take it the transmitter is located just south of the Republic of Ireland - Northern Ireland border and directs its signal in the UK. Nothing new. On the AM band in North America, high powered stations located just over the border in Mexico would beam their signals north into the United States. What this unusual is their signal should be almost entirely vertically polarized which is unusual in FM broadcasting. What I find amazing is that a station this size and power is unlicensed and its transmitter plant was so inexpensive.
Doesn't the use of a 19khz pilot tone for the "stereo" portion prohibit the use of audio frequency up to that point, in effect losing a bit of high end?
Yes it does, they use brick wall filtering after 15Khz Young children will notice and your dog. I am 56 and I think my hearing drops off at 14khz. I still hear clearly but old TV sweep circuits and switching power supplies are hard to hear.
Loudness isnt the same as signal......Hook it up and see. I can have a shit signal but still crank the volume. I can transmit with my volume up full or down, it makes no difference as long as my transmitters on. THE RECIEVER has to pick up my transmission properly...and in turn crank their own volume. If I use my legal 5 Watts of power the recieving signal is ONLY as good as their RECIEVER and ANTENNA. If I illegally increase my power output - transmissions they will 'then' recieve it clearer, stronger. and may be able to play it a bit louder. Just coz I play it out loud doesnt mean im making the reciever listen to it loud....thats theur choice
I am only going on what I know. I am not a Pirate Radio expert - I use various radios and have experience in a bit of electronics, but more focused on the Antenna side. I do CB, Ham/Alateur, SDR, and use radios to communicate bwhen I am out via handhelds and base station. On my "shitty" but legit transcievers most have a PTT button. When pushed it operates TX or transmit. Now I can turn up mic gain and down on the base station, but most have just a PTT button so when you transmit / talk it makes no difference if the Vol is up really high or not. I 'can' set the TX power in menu systems on the hand-helds though. but your right - I am an idiot after all. I didnt think they use propper audio mixers etc. Some of the more advanced Ham set-ups use audio mixers to control multiple radios and really better the sound - so I shoulda thought, but as I say I was just going on what I am familiar with - CB legit power is 5 Watts but is more on EU or international channels - Amateur is 10 W on the first license and you get more freq range. Only Pirate experience i have is using my Raspberry Pi to transmit an FM signal off its GPIO Pins using the command terminal - I did a very brief video on it. It transmits on UK commercial freq range, and with a simple wire antenna I got about 100 meters. I was using text-to-speech converter to type vocal messages - picks up on all nearby radios and you can change all the ID info. Some people are running playlists off VLC and other software via linux. I mess with antennas more - I can get the max outa my "shitty" little radios as I am too skint to buy new. I fix and repair, and make my own shit, I made a dipole for my RPi using the GPIO4 and a neg/ground and boosted my TX power massively - off 5 Volts. Anyway - Apologies for not being as much as an expert as you
FM or AM? Compression of the audio signal can allow you to run closer to 100% modulation more of the time. Thus the received broadcast will be perceived as louder by the listener.
The scene where the reporter spins the dial on the radio, and she has to go almost half way down the band to find the next station is a true blast from the past. There are few, if any, populated areas today where the band is this empty.
Agreed. More compression doesn't equal 'better' sound, just more in your face and fatigue inducing. Yes, SOME compression is needed to be able to be in the same ball park as other stations on the dial as far as 'keeping up with the neighbours' but too much just mashes the sound and loses any semblance of 'hifi' quality which the FM system is capable of.
I always dreamed of having a radio station just like this one! Very Nice! From, Radio DJ TOM COSS of Meriden, Connecticut!!!
Looks like a directional array antenna system. I have never seen that type used on any us fm station I have ever visited. There may be some but I never saw one. Most were omnidirectional as much as possable. I have used directional yagis on 2 way repeaters to shift their range in a particualr direction.
You're a cool dude Miles! Great document. Btw more power to you with the Bases series and Ammach - great stuff.
If Comreg hadn't have been in operation we would have still had Energy 106.6FM the greatest of them all
wow, look at his watt meter ....its pegged over at 5:36
21 dB antenna gain is 128 fold. One can see the horizontally stacked dipoles on the individual vertical bays which provide the horizontal directivity and gain. I don't know if the 21dB is net, inclusive of transmission line loss. If it is net, an 80kW transmitter would provide the 1MW ERP. I take it the transmitter is located just south of the Republic of Ireland - Northern Ireland border and directs its signal in the UK. Nothing new. On the AM band in North America, high powered stations located just over the border in Mexico would beam their signals north into the United States. What this unusual is their signal should be almost entirely vertically polarized which is unusual in FM broadcasting. What I find amazing is that a station this size and power is unlicensed and its transmitter plant was so inexpensive.
How can she say it's a weaker signal there's no signal meter on that radio. And on FM loudness is not related to signal strength.
1 million watts? Overkill much? How are they able to afford their electricity bill? Most of the powerful FM stations in the US are only 50000 watts.
1 million watts effective radiated power, including extremely high antenna gain.
Ryan Toomey 1 MW, holy shit!
great vid,,,delta loop are amazing more gain and better s/n.
Fascinating stuff.Thanks.
Is the Susan Charles referred to the same lady who was on the Ross Revenge?, if so I got a very nice hand-written letter from the Ross, c 1986.
Doesn't the use of a 19khz pilot tone for the "stereo" portion prohibit the use of audio frequency up to that point, in effect losing a bit of high end?
Yes it does, they use brick wall filtering after 15Khz Young children will notice and your dog. I am 56 and I think my hearing drops off at 14khz. I still hear clearly but old TV sweep circuits and switching power supplies are hard to hear.
No matter what, stereo or mono, the maximum audio bandwidth of an FM station is only 15 Khz.
When was this video made?
Woww very nice
All i have to say is WOW but BIG WOW
Loudness isnt the same as signal......Hook it up and see. I can have a shit signal but still crank the volume. I can transmit with my volume up full or down, it makes no difference as long as my transmitters on. THE RECIEVER has to pick up my transmission properly...and in turn crank their own volume. If I use my legal 5 Watts of power the recieving signal is ONLY as good as their RECIEVER and ANTENNA. If I illegally increase my power output - transmissions they will 'then' recieve it clearer, stronger. and may be able to play it a bit louder. Just coz I play it out loud doesnt mean im making the reciever listen to it loud....thats theur choice
I am only going on what I know. I am not a Pirate Radio expert - I use various radios and have experience in a bit of electronics, but more focused on the Antenna side. I do CB, Ham/Alateur, SDR, and use radios to communicate bwhen I am out via handhelds and base station. On my "shitty" but legit transcievers most have a PTT button. When pushed it operates TX or transmit. Now I can turn up mic gain and down on the base station, but most have just a PTT button so when you transmit / talk it makes no difference if the Vol is up really high or not. I 'can' set the TX power in menu systems on the hand-helds though. but your right - I am an idiot after all. I didnt think they use propper audio mixers etc. Some of the more advanced Ham set-ups use audio mixers to control multiple radios and really better the sound - so I shoulda thought, but as I say I was just going on what I am familiar with - CB legit power is 5 Watts but is more on EU or international channels - Amateur is 10 W on the first license and you get more freq range. Only Pirate experience i have is using my Raspberry Pi to transmit an FM signal off its GPIO Pins using the command terminal - I did a very brief video on it. It transmits on UK commercial freq range, and with a simple wire antenna I got about 100 meters. I was using text-to-speech converter to type vocal messages - picks up on all nearby radios and you can change all the ID info. Some people are running playlists off VLC and other software via linux. I mess with antennas more - I can get the max outa my "shitty" little radios as I am too skint to buy new. I fix and repair, and make my own shit, I made a dipole for my RPi using the GPIO4 and a neg/ground and boosted my TX power massively - off 5 Volts. Anyway - Apologies for not being as much as an expert as you
FM or AM? Compression of the audio signal can allow you to run closer to 100% modulation more of the time. Thus the received broadcast will be perceived as louder by the listener.
salute _\
No way a million watts! More than likely a 100,000 watts.
He should just turn down the deviation and stop being a knuckle head, the station seems to be following most of the other rules/standards.