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Post by part15engineer on Jan 20, 2019 16:51:13 GMT
Due to the high cost of utilities in Colorado and the ineffectiveness of even high power am / medium wave signals at night Variety 1560 will be a day timer only running between 5:50 am and 6:10 pm mountain
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Post by thelegacy on Jan 21, 2019 5:42:20 GMT
How come you don't use a frequency between 1620-1700 Khz don't you have any blank frequencies in the X band?
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Post by part15engineer on Jan 21, 2019 14:32:45 GMT
couple very local IBOC stations tear up the whole upper portion of band with digital hash and the YL has stated she does not want a huge electric bill so we came to an agreement to basically run from 6am to 6pm on the station to minimize elctric usage.
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Post by Admin on Jan 21, 2019 18:40:37 GMT
How much power does the whole setup use?
It would be interesting to put a watt-hour meter on the whole setup to see what it's using.
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Post by mark on Jan 22, 2019 5:39:13 GMT
I commented on this subject before, about electricity use, and all the gear you have in your studio and I don't understand how a part 15/BETS-1 automated set up has to use so much power.
Here's a picture of my set up running 24/7. And the cost of electricity in Toronto in prime time 7 AM to 11 AM and 5 PM to 7 PM is 13 cents a KWH and 7 cents other times, evening night and weekends and based on the power consumption of the 11" laptop with Zara, small headphone amp with EQ, compressor and Decade transmitter my cost is between $8 and $9 a month  to run the station.
Just how much is electricity in Colorado? Typical household cost?
Not only that daytime weekdays is most likely the most expensive time to run the station. After 7 in the evening till 7 AM is cheapest.
Just trying to understand how your station can, or needs, to cost $150 a month in electricity.
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Post by End80 on Jan 22, 2019 5:50:49 GMT
I ran basically the same setup except with a Rangemaster on a sailboat, also lights, and some fans all on a 12v and charge maintained connected to a small solar panel.. it was only a few weeks and was just experimental but I foresaw no problem with it ultimately draining the deep cell 12v battery I had bought at WalMart. I seriously doubt you'll even see any difference in your electric bill even if you shut your station down for weeks straight.
In fact, you'd probably save more money by not turning on your front porch light or something! |
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Post by mark on Jan 22, 2019 6:22:41 GMT
Interesting being able to run a part 15 station on a boat with a battery and solar power.
Wonder if my set up could do that. Not sure it could. The compressor needs 12 volts DC but the computer as you know needs the 20 volts from the adaptor (battery would run it for about 5 to 6 hours maybe longer if you turn off the screen). And the Decade runs on 16 volts AC.
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Post by Boomer on Jan 22, 2019 9:06:18 GMT
I sometimes have wondered about whether to bother with running my station at night. I had different ideas, like boosting the power (it's carrier current) or increasing the amount of audio processing at night, since it runs with a light touch on the levels all the time.
I also thought of letting a computer or laptop rest at night, by switching over to a small mp3 portable player that uses low power, like one I have that runs on a 5 volt charging cube, just having it play songs loaded to a chip. Even a 2 gigabyte player could hold many hours of playback on random play, including IDs mixed in. It wouldn't be unlike smaller college FM signals used to program at night, DJ not saying anything for a long time and playing music without crossfades.
I'd do that since I listen at night, and there would still be strong signals in some houses on my block.
Those LPB transmitters can still use a good bit of power, so my station's 5 watt unit's book says it takes 25 watts, but the bigger ones, and the FOX transmitters people use now for carrier current can take over 100 watts if you crank them up. In that case I've thought a more efficient class D transmitter might be better, but I'm so hooked on the sound of LPB, with the modulator chip into a linear amp, it's great.
Always good to think about saving energy with stations that run 24 hours, the big boys do. It's up to each station's operating philosophy, and how professional they need to be, or what setup to have, to feel comfortable with their stations.
Boomer
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Post by End80 on Jan 22, 2019 11:12:15 GMT
Interesting being able to run a part 15 station on a boat with a battery and solar power.
Wonder if my set up could do that. Not sure it could. The compressor needs 12 volts DC but the computer as you know needs the 20 volts from the adaptor (battery would run it for about 5 to 6 hours maybe longer if you turn off the screen). And the Decade runs on 16 volts AC.
The solar could keep your laptop battery topped off, it seems you could eliminate the 20v adapter altogether. The Rangemaster uses a 16v (or is it 18?) pwr adapter, but can operate on 12v just fine (Keith Hamilton confirmed this before I tried). I assume the Decade can as well. Does the Decade use a wallwart or is the adapter built in?... You could always use an inverter but that would cost you some efficiency. But anyway you look at it your system doesn't have much of a power draw. Yeah, it would be nothing to run it solar.
I should mention I was just running test and never got so far as using processing gear, although I would have eventually if the hurricane hadn't beach my boat on the island across the way (It's still there to this day). I use a lot more gear (probably unnecessary) but I still feel confident it would have easily handled it. During my test I was only keeping the battery topped with a 15 watt panel, but for the full kabang I was going to install my two 100w panels.. You see the original intention was that I was going to actually live on it a while and wanted ample power for refrigeration, fans, lights, computer, internet.. I had it all ironed out. I still got all the stuff, just no boat!
I'm not currently up and running at all with the station. The only pictures I've got of the studio is from when a built a cabinet for it almost 10 years ago, which I disassembled about 5 years ago..ncant remember why exactly, but I still have all the gear:
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Post by End80 on Jan 22, 2019 11:16:09 GMT
I think carrier current is cool as hell Boomer, but you gotta love the simplicity of free radiate transmitters.
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Post by mark on Jan 22, 2019 17:07:17 GMT
End 80 said "The solar could keep your laptop battery topped off, it seems you could eliminate the 20v adapter altogether. The Rangemaster uses a 16v (or is it 18?) power adapter, but can operate on 12v just fine (Keith Hamilton confirmed this before I tried). I assume the Decade can as well. Does the Decade use a wallwart or is the adapter built in?... You could always use an inverter but that would cost you some efficiency. But anyway you look at it your system doesn't have much of a power draw. Yeah, it would be nothing to run it solar."
The Decade uses a wallwart but won't run on DC so would need an inverter. Haven't tried with a 12 volt AC to AC adaptor(these adaptors aren't that easy to find) but if it does it may by with reduced performance.
I have several 16 volt AC to AC adaptors as back up as these are made by Mode electronics. Wish power supplies were just on board eliminating these wallwarts.
@ Boomer...Used to run on an MP3 player till recently when I got a small computer just for broadcasting with Zara as it sounds so much more "professional".
The player was modified to work on 3 C batteries for almost 3 weeks continuous playback by opening it up and removing the Li-ion battery in there and bringing two leads outside and using a battery holder. 4.5 Volts was the approx. voltage of a fully charged Li-ion battery.
The MP3 player works good if it's gapless playback. Sony and Sandisk are. Doesn't sound good if a big space between tracks and jingles.
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Post by End80 on Jan 23, 2019 6:39:29 GMT
The Decade uses a wallwart but won't run on DC so would need an inverter.
I've never seen an AC to AC wallwart.. Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. The wallwart I use for my Rangemaster is a AC/DC Adapter Transformer, input 120v, output 12v dc --I don't think this is the one that came with it, (it was like 16 or 18v) but it's the one I've used for at least 6 or 7 years. On the boat I just eliminated the transformer and plugged directly into the 12v system.
You're saying your wallwart output is AC? I thought all wallwarts were DC output.
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Post by Boomer on Jan 23, 2019 12:22:11 GMT
I like the End 80 setup with its wooden console, that's what it would look like if This End Up made radio stations..  That custom jigsaw logo is great! Oldies WMRK's looks cool too, the simplicity of it, and small size. My old Ramsey FM-10 station kind of looked like that, a tape deck fed through a VCR for auto level control, used like a limiter, then to the transmitter. I showed friends, and someone asked, 'Is that all there is?' I guess he thought any radio station would take a whole room full of equipment and tubes, but I was using what I had. I like carrier current, wanting to do it for a long time, since my first listen at the drive-in theater and hearing some school station using it, and it's taken decades to get on the air myself, thanks to schools selling off their old equipment, and just keeping the dream alive on my end. I have a free-radiate antenna system too, and like OTA radio as well. I think they both have their strengths, and using both, they compliment each other. Carrier is the best in homes, since your electricity is connected to other homes in a defined area, those houses should all get strong signals through their power lines. Carrier is not really great for moving cars in my case, the signal is so variable as you drive between poles and under different sets of wires, and fades in and out. OTA is more solid in a car, and comes in places where there are no electrical wires around. I've tried to think of a way to use computer by day, then have it go to sleep and switch to an mp3 player at night, when I think listenership would be lowest and allow a more relaxed presentation. There are AC to low voltage AC wallworts, with the DC conversion circuitry inside of the piece of electronics rather than in the part you plug in. That's often used when the electronics needs several voltages, or a split supply with positive and negative voltages. In that case a DC supply wouldn't work, it needs the AC sine wave to get both +/- voltages. If the Decade doesn't work on DC, I assume something like that is going on. Boomer |
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Post by End80 on Jan 23, 2019 15:44:15 GMT
That wooden cabinet is long one now, but it was designed in such a way that took up only a corner of a room but still provided ample airflow and easy access to the cabling. You cn check out the construction herebeginnings
I don't think neither carrier nor free radiate are much good for moving cars, but still think use of the car radios is a likely listening audience for any part15 station, there was a discussion about this a few days ago at part15.org
As for automatically switching to a MP3 player at night, Angry Audio has a hardware device ($229) that could do that for you. You could set your automation to quit broadcasting at 6pm and let the pc go to sleep, and the ""fail-safe gadget" would recognize the broadcast ended and automatically switch to your MP3 player (it's a silence sensor type unit). It's pretty cool and very good price for a professional hardware device. They have some other cool units too.
A cheaper option might be using on of the RDL units to do it, I have a couple, one is for stereo to mono conversion and the other for unbalanced to balance conversion. Got them both on eBay for about $30 each ( or thereabouts). Never had one of their silence sensors though.  |
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Post by mark on Jan 23, 2019 17:42:08 GMT
"I've never seen an AC to AC wallwart.. Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. The wallwart I use for my Rangemaster is a AC/DC Adapter Transformer, input 120v, output 12v dc --I don't think this is the one that came with it, (it was like 16 or 18v) but it's the one I've used for at least 6 or 7 years. On the boat I just eliminated the transformer and plugged directly into the 12v system.
You're saying your wallwart output is AC? I thought all wallwarts were DC output".
Yes! exactly. The adaptor is 16 volts A/C output. There are A/C to A/C wallwarts, my answering machine uses one to.....9 volts A/C. The Decade runs on A/C not DC. The power supply is just not on board like most things that run on A/C.
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That custom jigsaw logo is great!