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my illegal radio station that never was ;) — Parallax Forums

my illegal radio station that never was ;)

whiteoxewhiteoxe Posts: 794
edited 2014-06-23 05:12 in General Discussion
This is just a short story, but true. After seeing on ebay radio transmitters around 50 to 100 dollars that have at least a kilometer range...it reminded me of boarding school. I wanted to have a pirate radio station that would be so inflammatory the priests and brothers would launch an investigation to try and find it. That was after id built akit that had a range of about 2 feet :)

well i never pulled it off, but it would have been a hell of a lot of fun. Now the transmitters are everywhere and not very expensive with more range than a boarding school needs to allow other students (and teachers,priests,brothers to tune in)

I was going to buy one for my young nephew, then i ralised that kids are so connected with all the devices they have these days that nobody would listen to a pirate school radio stastion ;(
Boarding school was a lot of fun, midnight raids on the refectory for food to say the least !!!

Comments

  • ajwardajward Posts: 1,130
    edited 2014-06-21 09:21
    I built a radio transmitter when I was in high school. The circuit was based on the CK722 transistor and had a range of about a quarter mile... which covered most of my little town.
    The FCC rules at the time limited output power to 100mW and an antenna length of three feet or less. Uh-huh... I spooled out about 30 feet of insulated magnet wire. FCC... Pshttt!
    Don't know that anyone, other than me, ever listened to it, but it was fun. I was riding my bike all around town with my transistor radio trying to see if I could hear radio WARD! :-)

    Amanda
  • whiteoxewhiteoxe Posts: 794
    edited 2014-06-21 12:12
    You had it all over me !! we should have teamed up , who knows how much strife we would have egged each other onto ;)
  • MoskogMoskog Posts: 554
    edited 2014-06-21 12:21
    I broacasted my closed-circuit TV from inside the barn. Drove a couple of kilometres away with a portable TV to see if I could see the cows. Think I was the only wiewer because I broadcasted on band one, channel 3 or 4 I think, when the local domestic TV broadcast used to be on band III.
    At that time, TV was fun!
  • whiteoxewhiteoxe Posts: 794
    edited 2014-06-21 12:47
    Moskog wrote: »
    Drove a couple of kilometres away with a portable TV to see if I could see the cows., TV was fun!
    wish i could have seen that!!
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2014-06-22 03:48
    FM transmitters are very, very easy to build. Some 35 years ago we had a home-made one on a small self-made printed circuit board in the house I shared with several other (EE) students. We lived out in the countryside, up in a hill. We had the transmitter connected to a Revox reel-to-reel tape, I think it could play music for eight hours straight. The idea was to have car music everywhere in the area when driving around. Worked well. This was back when radio was still strictly regulated, so the airwaves weren't exactly crowded with stations.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2014-06-22 07:16
    I had an home built tube AM transmitter, about 40W power at 1.68mhz. Used it very rarely, but longest recorded coverage was about 60 miles away!
  • whiteoxewhiteoxe Posts: 794
    edited 2014-06-22 09:32
    So many great stories.... but from days gone past ! Now you can tune into as radio station with your iphone and that station could be thousandsof miles away ! I live in Queensland but have tuned into radio stations in the US for fun!(using the internet) I wonder why there are so many transmitters on ebay these days to broadcast to ...who ??? [url] http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1W-6w-Fm-Stereo-PLL-Transmitter-Radio-Broadcast-Station/110995823596?_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109&_trkparms=aid=555012&algo=PW.MBE&ao=1&asc=20140122130056&meid=7802093646909729272&pid=100010&prg=20140122130056&rk=4&rkt=24&sd=290816450126[/url]
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,452
    edited 2014-06-22 14:29
    Yeah when I grew up in the 1970's radio seemed like magic and I had my own homemade AM transmitter with a range of maybe 50 feet. Even though I was by then much older than the protagonists I loved the movie Pump Up the Volume when it came out. Of course it wasn't long after that that the internet got popular and the dream of communicating with distant people got waaaaaaay easier.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,452
    edited 2014-06-22 14:34
    whiteoxe wrote: »
    I wonder why there are so many transmitters on ebay these days to broadcast to ...who ???

    I suspect a lot of those are going to people who want to broadcast throughout a large house with a large yard, farm, or institution like a school; the legal non-licensed solutions (Part 15 in the USA) for that are a bit underpowered. FM receivers are still very cheap and low-powered compared to other solutions for receiving such a signal; smartphones are nifty but their batteries die quickly, and cars don't come equipped with them by default.
  • whiteoxewhiteoxe Posts: 794
    edited 2014-06-22 14:41
    i was thinking along similar lines.. I just want a good a good excuse to buy one, maybe im trying to live in the past. BTY, Ive noticed the power rating seem to go from half a watt to 6 !! all about the same price.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-06-23 05:12
    Years ago my school friend built a portable transmitter and matching receiver, using nuvistors of all things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuvistor

    Well, the problem was how to test the range as we only had one way communication. He suggested I join him on the beach one night and I take the receiver and a flash light, as we walked away from each other on the beach I could signal reception, or not, with the flash light.

    I did not go but another friend did. Well, somebody called the police on seeing these strange flashing signals on the beach at night, suspecting some smuggling of drugs or human trafficing was going on!

    They spent the night in the police station and my friend got fined for transmitting illegally.
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