[BC] Part 15 radio station

[Dana Puopolo]

Not if the antenna is connected to ground through a choke; THEN the antenna is
DC and AC connected to ground.  There's a 4 x 2 inch rectangular copper drain
pipe that runs down my building-all pieces soldered together. It's painted so
no one will steal it. At the bottom it empties into a grassy area-perfect to
put two ground rods-one on each side of the pipe, and directly brazed to it. 3
meters is 118 inches, so a 102 inch whip and spring will be 108 inches
long-leaving ten inches for my 1 inch strap ground lead to connect to the
pipe.

The problem with this whole part 15 thing is that the FCC has zero clue about
what to do.  Two FCC inspectors could look at any Part 15 install and one
would say it's OK while the other would say it is not.

Personally, I think the FCC has bigger fish to fry (sorry for the bad pun,
Richard). There are plenty of high power FM pirates out there that have been
running for years in every city. Going after Part 15 AMs in the sparsely
occupied AM expanded band (most running FCC approved transmitters such as
Rangemasters) because their safety ground allows them to transmit a few extra
blocks is a HUGE waste of FCC manpower!

Not to mention that the FCC would likely back off from a station operated by a
seasoned engineer such as myself, because I could not only come up with a
strong defense for running a safety ground myself, I could probably make it
stick by calling in my friends in the indusrty to help me (like you and Ron
Rackley).

By my estimation, there are over 60,000 Armenians within a 1 mile radius of my
home (I live right in the middle of Little Armenia). Putting on a brokered
time Part 15 community station (that also streams in the 'net) for them sounds
like a no brainer.

-D


------ Original Message ------
Received: Thu, 15 May 2008 08:11:09 AM EDT
From: "Richard Fry" <rfry at adams.net>

A wire from a Part 15 AM tx chassis to a buried ground rod/conductor may be
considered by the user to be a NEC-required safety ground for the 3-meter
antenna, but in reality the antenna is not directly connected to that
conductor.  Instead, such a "safety ground" becomes one arm of an
off-center-fed dipole, whose lower tip is connected to r-f ground.

An expanded-band Part 15 AM system mounted 20 feet above the earth and
using a 20-foot ground conductor produces about 5 times the groundwave
field intensity for the same applied power as when it is mounted with its
base at earth level,