find a little rude. Pls forgive me.
I am a total noob besides being a DJ at a handful of wedding over the years. Like you will read below this town needs help and a lot of it. The community center closed last year which hurt for the young people. They. Do not have very good examples to follow in fact the only thing to do that I see is for them to drink and or make babies.
I remember going up and being entertained by our local radio station. After talking to a few select friends who are active in the community, I heard only good things about starting it. The people who have been born and raised here many of them do not have running water or electricity. They will watch TV and listen to the radio with the use of a generator. Yes the sad thing is this is in the USA.
I moved here 3.5 years ago and was only supposed to be here for 13weeks. The internet sux, the theater is close next month and need I say more. No BS it is bad here, but I don't want to be any place else. There are between 1000-2500 in the town limits maybe.
Here is the deal. I was searching on Amazon a few weeks ago and came across a 7 watt Chinese FM transmitter. Since I live 2.5 hours from anywhere, I said hmmm lets give it a try without doing any researching.
After a quick test, I noticed it needs some help. I have been reading for hours a day and find that "FM low pass filters" is mentioned. I understand that there is an inline from transmitter to antenna, however what is not mentioned is what type to buy or where.
After doing more research, I am find a big need where I live for a micro-station. The most popular this to do here now is drink then grow up to drink more. The closest radio station is 80 miles away however they do have a repeater, but they have nothing to do with the community other then to advertise for our money. There are local bands that the community supports, but no way to hear them on a regular bases.
I will be getting a better and cleaner transmitter later.
I have always wanted to do this, but stress from supporting a family can at times drowned out a dream.
I want to be as legal as I can and still reach people across across the main road, which, should not be hard since this town is maybe 2 miles from north to south and 1/2 mile from east to west.
I also need help with getting feed back from the transmitter to my computer. It has a bad hum and will after a few mins lock up my PC.
2.how can I fix the hum and feed back from/to my PC.
3.any help would be great and my eyes and my head would be thankful.
After more research and testing with a bad headache, I found that this unit has or might have a low pass filter. I did not hear anything of other channels with my 4runner or potable player after 25 feet.
At any rate this will do until, I get an antenna, mix, ect to see how it is going to work. I have in the plain for either an EDM or Ramsey then I will keep this as a back up.
*** I still could use help on the transmitter locking up my PC and at times even my iPhone. I have a mixer coming in sometime next week, so I hope that will help, but I was hope that Radio Shack might have something that might help until then. Some kind of filter maybe?
Re: "FM low pass filters"
you should know the approx. frequency since you are in the FM broadcast band 88Mhz to 108MHz (the cutoff freq. would be higher than this., max power, and the line impedance which should be 50 Ohms, There are also different cut off rates. You need to stay well below the max power rating of the filter.
For 7 watts transmit max power rating should not be a problem in most cases.
to simplify just search "broadcast FM low pass filter"
You could also build your own from scratch.
For #2 may be an audio isolation transformer, opto-coupler with supporting electonics, might work. There is also SignaLink that hams use but it might not give you good bass response and costs some.
Maybe someone else have some cost effective solutions.
I found that there is not a problem with the 1 watt or 7 watt. I am not sure though with higher or lower sister channels and how the harmonics" and "spurious" signals might been affecting them. I am broadcasting on 94.3 so it would be 188.6 and 47.15?
94.3 X 2 and 94.3 X 3 would be the most likely to be inadvertently transmitted with noticeable power from a from a 94.3 transmitter. However, with low power and a filter I would expect this not to cause much of a problem. Hopefully, the transmitter has a clean signal already.
Also, As you go up in power it would be a good idea to keep people and electronics like a computers away from the antenna.
And, with FM the higher the antenna the better.