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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 15:45:37 GMT
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Post by Druid Hills Radio on Nov 15, 2017 18:14:11 GMT
What FCC Official said all that?
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Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2017 17:35:24 GMT
What I've always wondered about the "200 foot" statement is what do they consider "effective range"?
Is this the 60 db contour, is it a marginal signal, is it where the signal dissappears?
As usual a vague technical description.
Comparing apples to apples, what is considered "effective range" for a commercial signal?
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Post by Druid Hills Radio on Nov 16, 2017 18:02:35 GMT
What I've always wondered about the "200 foot" statement is what do they consider "effective range"? Is this the 60 db contour, is it a marginal signal, is it where the signal dissappears? As usual a vague technical description. Comparing apples to apples, what is considered "effective range" for a commercial signal? I have always told myself, "John, the effective service range is the noise free range."
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2017 18:02:40 GMT
The View from KDX
MRAM asks: "What I've always wondered about the "200 foot" statement is what do they consider "effective range"?"
Here at KDX we consider the 200-feet mentioned by the FCC as an area of "full quieting on an average radio".
We don't know any numbers.
There are three households, not counting the Internet Building", within our 200-foot signal. None of them pays much attention to radio.
There would be room for quite a few homeless tents but in this community it's illegal to help the homeless.
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Post by Admin on Nov 17, 2017 1:45:44 GMT
If I had a full quieting, noise free signal at 200 feet (an effective range) I'm sure it would be heard quite a bit further out.
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Post by Boomer on Nov 17, 2017 4:35:03 GMT
I thought it was just someone at the FCC getting tired of getting asked just said 200 feet range. People seem to think that since radio is a high technology that there's an exact number that applies to a certain power or antenna length.
We're used to that with digital things, like having 32 slots on our streaming server, or that anything over 100 percent on a digital level meter is clipped.
Maybe that's a good thing to say, range is based in the analog world, so it can be highly variable.
Boomer
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Post by mark on Nov 17, 2017 4:54:40 GMT
I think that marginal signal would be the limit of which effective range would apply. A very good tuner/radio would still get it ok but an average radio may not hear it at all.
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Post by Admin on Nov 17, 2017 17:50:09 GMT
Ahhh, but their official in print statement is "effective range" so they should be consistent with their meaning.
For a commercial station I wouldn't think a "marginal" (not full quieting)I signal would be considered effective.
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Post by thelegacy on Nov 17, 2017 22:10:44 GMT
Effective Range should mean audiophile quality listening to a high end Radio like a Tecsun 660, 880, 365, County Comm GP-5 SSB, Sony Elite, Macantosh, Carver, Yamaha, Luxman, Rotel, Technics SA-206, Marantz, Dennon
A crap Radio like Emerson need not apply.
I really think that the FCC should tell the Hobbyist to simply buy a Tecsun or a CountyComm Radio with a DB meter and go out 200 feet and the signal should be 60db as required for a commercial or LPFM station to be a protected contour. Its a form of measurement everyone can deal with and will allow a nice listener possibility for maybe 1/4 to 1 mile for those who buy High End Radio's.
Tecsun should be the official Radio for measurements as the FCC does like it as a means for measurement for AM.
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Post by Boomer on Nov 18, 2017 13:17:03 GMT
There's a big range in the quality of FM radios, I've found. It seems like portables are all over the place, from great to poor, and car radios seem to be more consistently great across the board. I expect factory car stereos to be good nowadays, and if your car FM radio isn't so good at picking up stations, I'd suspect something else like the antenna connection before blaming the radio. I've found the AM sound quality though in car radios to be pitifully bad, the narrowest sound, where you can't even hear consonants in the vocals. I thought to myself, 'I think Hyundai wants to kill off AM radio.' I've found that smart phones today have better than expected tuners, Droid and Nokia have been tested, and even with just the headphone antennas they're selective and sensitive, where you imagine them to be like a pocket radio with lack of space for good tuners. I was surprised. I haven't tried Tecsun, but I'm looking at the import pocket radio of theirs that goes down to 76 mhz. I got a cheapie from INDIN that cost $10 with shipping, bigger than a pocket radio, using D batteries. It's halfway decent for the price, 'it works.' FM is in the good range, and AM actually has some bandwidth, unlike a lot of the newer DSP portables. It would be better if it didn't have step tuning, meaning the steps should be finer. Inside is a circuit board with a tuning pot in the center, and nothing else, kind of funny to see, I surprised a friend by showing him. A great place to find reviews and untangle the radio jungle is radiojayallen.com/ The dude reviews every radio he can find it seems like, and tests with actual reception, knows radio, so he knows what to look for. Boomer
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Post by thelegacy on Nov 18, 2017 16:45:17 GMT
I watched a few Youtube video's on the comparison between the Tecsun 880 and the 660. I was surprised to find that though the 880 had a few more features like Bandwidth selection for AM whereas the 660 does not and the PL 880 also has some hidden features not included in the manual that you can find on Youtube that the actual sensitivity on the 660 was better than the PL 880. The Oscillator was a little warbling on the PL 880 whereas the PL 660 was Rock solid. This could especially be heard in CW and even SSB. The PL 660 uses regular batteries whereas the PL 880 has that special bettery and if that goes bad you have to order it which can cause you to be without your Radio for quite sometime while you wait. I'd rather use regular rechargeable batteries.
The thing I want to have as a feature because it would really help when tuning in my FM and especially if I ever go AM is that DB Meter found on the CountyComm GOP-5 SSB or Tecsun PL 880 or the PL 365 which is supposed to be the same as the Countycomm GP-5 SSB.
The Price of the 660 isn't bad either because I can get a Refurbished unit for $85 and a New County Comm GP-5 SSB which has the DB meter cost about the same. I'n going to try and locate a comparison between the Countycomm and the PL 660.
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Post by Boomer on Nov 20, 2017 18:15:10 GMT
Tecsun
Good run down on Tecsun radios, I see they make a whole line, from very cheap to feature laden. I'd definitely want standard batteries for a portable radio, very important because you can buy standard AA batteries or D cells anywhere. General coverage radios should have general purpose batteries in my opinion! If that was your emergency radio and it had a non-removable battery during a disaster, that could be bad.
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Post by thelegacy on Nov 20, 2017 18:28:53 GMT
Radio Shack even had a police scanner that took a pack that you could use rechargeable NiMh batteries or you could use 8 non rechargeable AA batteries in the non rechargeable pack. Very smart indeed.
I want to use batteries you can buy from any store that carries rechargeable batteries. I still think the Tecsun 365 takes regular batteries. I’ll double check that one.
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Post by Boomer on Nov 22, 2017 21:27:12 GMT
It's better to have the option to use off-the-shelf batteries, as I like digital cameras that use two AA batteries. A camera is something you take out on hikes, have it on trips, and I take extra sets of Nimh cells with me, and I use them.
I have another camera that's lithium batteried, and I can bring along a cell phone battery charger pack, but if that runs out in the field I might be out of luck. It's like in the recent weather disasters, when people's phones were ran down and there weren't ways to power or charge them.
There used to be high power CB walkie talkies that had 'dummy cells', plastic batteries with a wire connection through them. If you used alkaline batteries that put out 1.5 volts, you'd load 8 cells into the holder, and two dummy batteries. If you had nickel cadmium cells, 1.2 volts, you'd load all ten slots in the holder to get the same voltage to the radio.
Well let's hope we get a 1000 foot rule, though it would likely take 20 or more times power to do 1000 feet. I think it would be harder to get on FM, the hot commodity broadcast band right now. The AM band is supposed to need more revitalization and some life blood pumped into it, and maybe low power radio there could work in some cases.
Boomer
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