I know FRB is very slow in delivery, but I was wondering if anyone has some thoughts or experience on the quality of the transmit audio with their designs. I was debating this model in reference to the NRG 4 watter.
Hi, I bought the 10 watt trasnsmitter, 7 band filter and stereo generator. Yeah, I had some delivery problems too. Finally had to threaten PayPal action. I finally got everything put together. There's a guy here in town who knows Stephen, (went to school with him), and does linear amp additions to CB's. I left everything with him because he has the test equipment, etc. to set everything up for me. I built an antenna, but he recommended that I get one on eBay, which I did. I should have it next week. I'll post when I get everything set up and ,(hopefully), "on the air".
Stephen Dunifer is notorious for taking forever to get the stuff shipped out. Lots of people have had problems dealing with him but overall he's a good guy, just bad at the business end. Luckily in todays age there are many other sources to get transmitter kits from. My setup is nothing more than a Ramsey kit using lots of filtering and a few basic RF amplifier stages to get to the power I want. Kits and RF parts have come a long way since the Panaxis days.
I've been using the Ramsey FM 25B while waiting for the new transmitter. I built an exact clone of the TM-100, even to the copper clad ladder style antenna wire, and it works pretty good. I get next door on either side and all over my building. One side is conduminims and the other is an old house converted into apartments, as is mine. I've been practicing being on the air. I have a CD changer, DVD player, turntable and computer as sources. They feed a DJ mixer, an equalizer, and a compressor/limiter.
In frustration with Stephen I tried one of those 5 watt "Hilly's" on eBay. What a frustration! It barely made it to the alley and started overheating. You can't get 5 watts from a 500 ma. wall adapter.
I have a lot of technical experience-having worked as a second class engineer, among other things, like my own repair business. So if anyone has tech. questions, ask me. Terry (non compos mentis)
I agree with Darklife about Stephen. He's a good guy, but the "business side" needs to be improved. Perhaps it's just a matter of him having "too many irons in the fire" and not enough help with processing orders.
terrydec,
We're looking forward to your assessment of the 10 watter. I'm especially interested in the audio quality and overall stability.
Well, I got word the new antenna shipped today. When it gets in I'll take it over to **** so that he can tune it and, hopefully, set up the transmitter. More later. T.
i did quite a bit of reading on lpfm gear. i ran a hlly 5w box for a bit while looking for other stuff. FRB stuff looks kind of sloppy. if i was gonna lay out some coin on FM i'd go with a tuggicom from ebay. the stuff looks really well made. they have a 25w exciter with everything ready to go at a reasonable price. the stuff is made in israel. motorola had a plant in israel for a while. if you look at the tugicom assembled stuff it looks commercial and kind of moto'ish. i wonder if somebody got access the plant.
Stephen Dunifer's problems in shipping maybe because of delays in getting parts etc.; some parts he uses are becoming real hard to come by. Some parts require large orders in 100 to 500 piece quantity range; for resistors and caps no big deal; but some RF transistors cost $10 or more a piece.
Stephen, may wait until he has enough orders for transmitters to place an order for parts. I know I'm stuck with lots of parts, I used for the Panaxis transmitters; I will never use for anything else.
I use either EDM or Ramsey FM30b transmitters, and amp them up with Stephen's amps and filters. His prices are more than reasonable for a California based operation.
Stephen Dunifer's problems in shipping maybe because of delays in getting parts etc.; some parts he uses are becoming real hard to come by. Some parts require large orders in 100 to 500 piece quantity range; for resistors and caps no big deal; but some RF transistors cost $10 or more a piece.
Stephen, may wait until he has enough orders for transmitters to place an order for parts. I know I'm stuck with lots of parts, I used for the Panaxis transmitters; I will never use for anything else.
I use either EDM or Ramsey FM30b transmitters, and amp them up with Stephen's amps and filters. His prices are more than reasonable for a California based operation.
Okay I agree. I didn't mean to say Dunifer can't get the job done. He obviously does and you state a good case. But everyone remember we are buying America here, half the parts are outsourced which increases time. I didn't mean to sound like I was disrespecting Dunifer. In my opinion he's the firecracker of microradio movement. But since we are talking American parts we have to outsource to get good RF parts and such. That's the sad part. Our country no longer is in full control of that. So I apologies to Steven.
In fact getting good RF amplifier transistors is like finding gold today.
So I hold no grudge. Also he is a personal business so it's not like buying from Walmart.
I hope the wrong words didn't come out on my part. I probably just didn't define the context well enough.
Hi- UPDATE- Okay, my go- to RF tech for setting up and tuning the FRB 10 watt ran into problems with the transmitter kit. It would oscillate. He checked my work, the plans and instructions, (which are, admittedly, pretty vague). He also contacted FRB and their suggestions weren't much help. I decided to purchase the assembled transmitter, which is on eBay at the same price I paid for the kit, Go figure! Hopefully, the assembled transmitter will (A) work, and (B) show us what's wrong with the kit. Once all of that is done, I'll have some answers, and maybe a working kit for sale. Now to settle in for my 10 week wait for FRB to ship!
I don't know. If anybody knows his RF it's this guy, and he says everything looks good from an assembly point of view. He tested the coax, antenna and 7 band filter, and that all looks good. He's a close friend of Stephen and does nothing but work on transmitters. The reason I'm having him set this up is because he has all of the expensive equipment. He has an SWR/Power meter that cost around $500. He has a new tester just for testing the output transistors. If he says the transmitter is faulty, I'd bet on it. Of course that makes me look bad. One of the reasons I went ahead and bought the assembled transmitter is so that he can compare the two. Hopefully I can get them both working and sell one, (or have two transmitter sites-that would be cool too).
Ok, on Monday I FINALLY got the transmitter that I paid for on the 5th of May. However, it has NO resemblance to the item shown on the eBay listing. It looks like some cheap kit a kid threw together. I contacted him about my disappointment, and our emails rapidly degenerated, ending in profanity. The next day he offered a refund. I accepted. Of course I haven't seen it yet. I'm sure he's trying to stall until the 7 day refund option runs out. Fortunately I purchased it on eBay and paid with PayPal, so I still have some recourse. I also have copies of all of his email promises. We'll see.
He put a delay on the PayPal refund until the 30th.What a butt head. I don't know if it worked or not, I never plugged it in. I DO know that I told him 4 times what frequency I wanted. Was it set on that? Of course not. The transmitter was shipped today. I have a bad feeling about this More later.
I think I've figured out why it takes so long for FRB to ship. The date he ships seems to be just a few days after the time limit for any resolution with eBay or PayPal. Hey, could just be a coincidence. Anyway, I got my refund-he hasn't contacted me about it, and I bought a 15 watt Chinese model. I'll post a thread about what happens with it later. Meanwhile I've worked out a programing schedule, and bought a DVD recorder and DVD changer. Automated Radio-here I come.
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