In 2011, me and my friend saved up some money, and ordered ourselves a 15W FM PLL transmitter. Amazingly, it went through our customs, and the unit and the antenna came some weeks later.
What we did, was finding a pretty high spot mounting the antenna (14 feet), put the radio transmitter next to it, and hooked it up to a computer for testing. We tried out the signal, and it went further than any of us actually believed. We still have not tested it's limit, but it pretty much covers the small town he and I live in.
After not having a decent computer to play from, and generally not having a decent setup, we literally forgot about the transmitter for a while. We brought it up in the summer 2012, but did not come any further with setting it up expect building a table, which really didn't do much.
Now, in 2013 we have discovered many things we should have gotten for the station, some for improving the sound, and some for not disturbing the area of frequencies. At the time, we were running on 103 FM, but really we have tons of other opportunities, as there only are 4-5 stations here taking up at least 90.4 and 105.0.
What I believe we should get is; A low pass-filter Decent computer for playing music Equalizer for fine-tuning the sound Microphones, as the one's we had sucked (SingStar mics ) Compressor, for limiting the volume/ not blowing the listeners speakers
and generally finishing the place where we are going to have the station.
I would appreciate it if any of you would give me/us some more tips on what we would need, what's the best setup and so on.
I recommend the Behringer 9024 processor. It is a multi-band processor like the famous Optimod 8100's but with far better response times and a few extra features, and a lot less expensive! Often one can be found on ebay for under 100 bucks. These processors sound excellent and can make your audio sound loud and punchy without over-modulating.
At 15 watts a 5 pole low pass filter will do nicely. If you intend to go higher power, use at minimum a 7 pole filter.
Obtain a 5/8 wave ground plane which has about 2.3 dB gain over a dipole. That will bump up the 15 watts a bit. Or you could build a multi-bay dipole antenna system and achieve gain with that using a phasing harness. But such an antenna system requires a sturdy and tall support structure. The 5/8 wave ground plane is a little smaller than a CB base station ground plane antenna and can be supported by a simple TV antenna mast. The higher the better, but 25 feet should do nicely. And make sure the support structure is well grounded for static and lightning discharge.
For the rest of your audio chain, a lot of great stuff can be found at auction sites like ebay or craiglist, or just visit the local pawn shops in your area for stuff..including finding a decent program source computer. A piece from here, a piece from there approach can result in a very well designed and workable studio.
Peace!
K-ROCKS RadioOne
ZeroPointRadio
AM Stereo 1670
FM Stereo 92.1
Here is the exact antenna we got with the transmitter. Is this any good, and would it do better if mounted any higher? We have lots of unused cable (10-15m) which is for expanding the antenna placement. A
What you must understand all the cheap Chinese transmitters are basicly the same no matter what name/case they have they use the same design and they all use the BH141F/BH1401 IC Which is the same as whats in most iPod Transmitters and are not really rated for high power but if you keep your signal clean and as RF burns says a LPF is absolutely required to put out a clean signal and reduce harmonics i recommend running your audio through a compressor and limiter there are free software solutions out there (Sonos 4 - Now a free program).
What Coax are you using generally you want to keep the cable as short as possible and RG213 is good cable and isn't to expensive the higher your antenna the better!
Today me and my friend got up to setting up the station again, that would say we moved the antenna further up, fixed a new table and some more cleaning.
Also, I have found out the type of cable we have. It is "SYWV-50-5" It is not counted as flexible in anyway, if that is some info for you.
We tested the transmitter about an hour, and we got nice reception on our last frequency, 103.00
I have some pictures of the old antenna setup, but the new one I forgot to take pictures of. What we did with the new setup was just basically extending the pole it's mounted on.
Here is the old setup. What we did was simply extending the pole
Here is how we mounted it to the wall before. Has lasted bad weather and storms without a problem at all.
Here is the connector, BNC if I'm not wrong.
And last, the cable we are using. There is probably 3-5 meters (15ft) left unused before going to the antenna. The cable is not removable from the antenna.
I contacted Vi Electronics for a LPF, a 5-pole, FM tuned with BNC jacks, that would work fine?
I have some pictures of the old antenna setup, but the new one I forgot to take pictures of. What we did with the new setup was just basically extending the pole it's mounted on.
Hello crispy345. Since you're asking for tips, may I offer some friendly advice?
I would strongly suggest a better mount for the antenna as that does not look very sturdy at all and perhaps not sticking it out a window at an angle where the side of the house and the ground are in close proximity and in the direct signal path of the antenna.
Antennas need to be high up on a sturdy mast free and clear of any obstructions…as reasonably as possible anyways. At 15 watts with the antenna tilted out the side of the house like that, I’m going to guess that there’s probably a low to moderate hum in your audio…I’d actually be quite surprised if there wasn’t.
A good low-profile and inexpensive mounting solution would be to use a satellite dish mount secured to the roof of your house at the highest peak to mount a GP antenna to. Not the most ideal, but it's fast, cheap, secure and looks a heck of a lot better than a wooden stick out the window IMHO.
So with all the talk about Sonos 4 around here, I decided to give it a go and these are my initial impressions. I only played with it for an hour or so before I got frustrated with it.
The interface certainly isn’t pretty, but it works. The selection of pre-sets is very slim pickings (not so good if you’re a novice to audio processing), but a decent foundation to get started for those adventurous enough to go tinkering. When you do save your settings, I find that it saves it to the default pre-set unlike in Stereo Tool, where you can save your settings to a file for easy setup on a fresh/new install later on or to share your settings with others. Is there not a way you can save your settings to a file to load as a customized pre-set in Sonos4? So far I don’t see that ability.
How does Sonos 4 sound? I have to say, it’s loud, fairly clear and the audio certainly has punch. However, compared to Stereo Tool, I can really hear the compression & processing working hard. I guess that’s where Stereo Tool really shines…its aggressive enough processing for radio but it doesn’t sound like aggressive processing. The audio is loud, very clean and consistent…a real treat to the ears especially when compared to most commercial stations.
Here’s the bad part...I downloaded the latest version of Sonos 4 and I find the software to be very buggy. There are constant dropouts every so often and sometimes when I go to click on an audio setting in the menu list on the left, all the text starts flickering and the menu drop-downs expand and retract rapidly in an endless loop making it impossible to select anything. I have a fairly powerful Core i7 machine that I run my processing on and it is a well maintained PC with lots of resources to spare, so I am not sure what the deal is here with this.
Here the big Plus for Sonos 4…It’s free and I guess for some people, that may be the deal-breaker right there for choosing any other alternatives when deciding what solution to use. But…
While I will admit that in Stereo Tool, in order to take advantage of the FM features, you must register your copy to unlock them (and believe me it is worth every penny) however, there is a key gen out there that can generate a code to unlock all features on the latest version of Stereo Tool (v7.0.3) and have it run as ‘Registered’. If anybody wants a hand in getting Stereo Tool setup, they are welcome to PM me. In conclusion I will say that sound can be very subjective and personal and these are just my impressions and your experiences may vary.
Post by jessewillem on Feb 4, 2013 16:12:13 GMT -6
I used to use Sonos 4 as audio processing, and also did spend much time trying to make it sound nice. But the default presets aren't that great. So I worked on a new one based on one of the default presets. The best I've came up with so far is this one: home.online.nl/lvanderveen/sonospresets/fm49.fmt2, but it lacks a bit in treble. Also right click->Save Link As when you want to save it.
Also, Sonos 4 requires a fast dual core or better to function without skipping. But all the other software are much the same in their requirements. And also, the latest demo versions from Sonos 4 skip the sound a few secons every minute, the free versions don't have that.
Stereo Tool does a great job too, and don't forget Breakaway Broadcast Processor. But I don't use most of the available software anymore, as I'm working on my own piece of audio processing software with FM stereo generation.
And also, the latest demo versions from Sonos 4 skip the sound a few secons every minute, the free versions don't have that.
Okay...I'm confused here. Isn't the latest version free? I downloaded mine from here: www.burnill.co.uk/downloads.html ...and it's not the demo.exe either. I'm pretty certain this was the full package (Sonos_4_4.7.0.exe) is it not?
Okay...I'm confused here. Isn't the latest version free? I downloaded mine from here: www.burnill.co.uk/downloads.html ...and it's not the demo.exe either. I'm pretty certain this was the full package (Sonos_4_4.7.0.exe) is it not?
No, that's an demo version. The link I gave was the latest free full version of Sonos 4.
But now you're telling me that 'Sonos_4_4.7.0.exe' is also just a demo version and that only the 'Sonos_4_2.2.0.exe' you provided a link to, (which appears to be the same, except a few versions back) is the 'free' unrestricted one? That doesn't make sense and therefore that makes this whole Sonos 4 being free thing completely bogus.
If I can't source the official version from the official site, then I have no interest in installing it. No offense intended, but I am not interested in someone else's 'improved' or modified version or anything that comes from an unknown or questionable source. It's one thing to obtain a serial number to unlock features, but if the software itself does not come from the original trusted source, I will not install it and I will not deviate from that policy.
Sorry. I've uninstalled it from my machine and that's the end of that.
Hi Sam - interesting about "Stereo Tool" - I'd never heard of it. Maybe it wasn't around in 2002 or so? yes winamp 2.xx and some software limiter worked for me very well back then. (I used DFX 4(I think that was the name of it) - and later (because I lost DFX/crack when I had to re-install software on replacement junk/garage sale PC) Tom's Limiter 2.0. I con't tell one as better than the other - so stuck with tom's out of laziness in looking for replacemet crack (astalavista.box.sk used it be the goto place back them (and/or Usenet).
not sure where today. not tried the former - that may still be over there in Slovaka (sk) is ther country code I believe.
....................
the old winamp fails in the "gapless" playback though (a huge failing for Newage/Classical music playback - or 70's progressive rock where songs bleed into each other) new version of Winamp support gapless - but I will never touch winamp 3 or higher versions. Instead I discovered the lean winamp 2.x clone XMplay - it supports most winamp plugins and gapless playback, but not tried Tom's/DFx to verify that they work in particular.
currently (last 4 yrs) been junk PC-less so off the air. now bussy researching/building a Low Power TV equivalent, but one day I'll reintroduce Oldtime Radio (X-Minus One FOREVER! , Mindwebs, etc.............) to my town.
------------------oh ya, to original poster: any old junk PC 5-dollar PC (or freebie on the curb; Pentium 90 MHz or higher - running windoze 98 or higher) will playback mp3's fine.
or even a 486-80 MHz or higher will playack mp3's under DOS (I've done it with a nice DOS mp3 player - but never could find a DOS software limiter ;-/.).
)
