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Fm transmission


Ske65088

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I've considered this as the next step, but honestly, I will not have the time to do it.  I'm trying to get time off of work so I can even put out my regular display.  Working 70 hours a week over 3 jobs has me stretched too thin.  If I knew for a fact that getting the same transmitter that George has will work, I'd rather do that.  I'm now sure what the difference between the CZE (mine) and CZH (His and others) really is.  

Dang jobs always be getting in the way of peoples fun time.

Edited by jerry72
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I got the good antenna for my CZE-05B built today.  Did a quick test and it's working great.  Summary version is it's a 1/2 wave vertical dipole built from 3/8 inch copper tubing enclosed in 1/2 inch PVC.  It got a coat of flat black paint which is now drying and then final mounting later this evening.  I will take a couple photos in the morning and post them here.

 

No more Whole House Transmitter for me.  Although in defense of the Whole Room Transmitter, it survived being drenched last year not once, but twice before I found the water leak in the brick column where it was mounted.

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I'm glad it didn't.  I had gotten the Whole Room Transmitter before I knew better.  After the first drenching, I ordered the CZE-05B from Amazon and figured the WHT would not last long after the drenching.  Ended not putting the CZE into service last season at all.  I have the transmitter right out by the sidewalk so if it gets 100 feet it will work for me.  I did find out about the hidden little switch and had a better antenna on it.  Between those, it did all right for me, but planned all along to use the CZE-05B this year.

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I promised yesterday to post some photos of my newly built antenna for my CZE-05B FM transmitter.

The transmitter is in this brick column.  The upper part of the antenna housing is the black pipe extending above the back of the column.

 

FM-Antenna_1.jpg

 

 

From a different angle.  The antenna elements themselves are about 28 inches long and are enclosed in the black painted PVC pipe.  The lower pipe besides housing the bottom half of the antenna, is buried a little into the ground to mechanically support the weight of the antenna structure.  The upper portion of the antenna is a couple inches shorter than the pipe so that if I ever change to a lower frequency, I can extend the antenna without having to rebuild the housing.  The lower section of the antenna extends to within a foot or so of the ground.  And yes, my dwarf Mandarin Orange is covered with oranges.  They are mostly ripe now and taste great!

 

FM-Antenna_2.jpg

 

 

A closeup of the center feed point.  This is built inside a 1 inch T style PVC condulet with reducers to the 1/2 inch pipe that houses the antenna.  It's a little hard to see in this photo, but there is a piece of polycarbonate that holds the two antenna elements together.  The antenna itself is not anchored to anything, but the 3/8 inch copper tubing has enough slight bends (a result of unrolling it) that it drags enough going into the 1/2 inch PVC that it stays in place.  After the season I am going to add a nylon bolt through the polycarbonate into the PVC of the condulet to hold the antenna in place.

FM-Antenna_3.jpg

 

 

With the cover plate in place and showing the mounting to the brick column.  When I built the column, I installed a single gang conduit box near the top with the expectation of using it for a LAN connection when needed.  I have never used that, but the conduit into the box makes a perfect path for the antenna cable.  For the antenna mounting, I just attach a black coverplate with a conduit fitting.  You can also see the 1/2 to 3/4 inch and 3/4 to 1 inch reducers at the top of the condulet.  The pipes enclosing the antenna elements are not glued so I can remove them to adjust the length of the antenna elements if needed.  Any yes, I should have painted the screws when I painted the rest of it...

 

FM-Antenna_4.jpg

 

Overall a fun little project and it's working great!

I have the CZE-05B on low power and have a 3dB attenuator in line and I still have better coverage than I had last year.  And the audio quality is FAR better than the WHT ever had.

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Dang jobs always be getting in the way of peoples fun time.

I won't even mention how long it's taking to build a Holdman Star......Hint:  It wouldn't be practical to measure it in weeks :)

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Jim, what mixing console and speakers do you use?

-Chris-

 

The show computer outputs to channels 3 & 4 of a Mackie 802VLZ3.  Those inputs are on the main stereo bus.  The main output has two sets of outputs.  The balanced outputs (on XLR connectors) goes through about 200 feet of shielded twisted pair cable (two cables - one for each channel) to a pair of isolation transformers which convert it back to a three wire (left, right, & ground) unbalanced stereo cable.  That goes into the line input of the CZE-05B FM transmitter.  The unbalanced outputs from the main bus is fed right back to line inputs for channels 7 & 8.  Those two channels are on the Aux stereo bus of the mixer.  The aux bus outputs in 1/4 phone jacks with semi-balanced feeds.  Those run to isolation transformers to convert to a true balanced line.  From the isolation transformers, it goes through about 110 feet of shielded twisted pair cable (again, one cable per channel) to another pair of isolation transformers.  Each unbalanced output from an isolation transformer goes to both RCA input jacks on one of the amplifiers.  There are two Pyle 75 watts per channel amplifiers.  Each amp drives two speakers in the yard.  The 4 speakers in the yard are similar to these:

http://www.ticcorp.com/omni_speaker_gs3.htm

The amplifiers are similar to these (except they are 75W per channel and don't have the USB input):

http://www.pyleaudio.com/sku/PTAU45/Stereo-Power-Amplifier---2-x-120-Watt-with-USB,-AUX,-CD-and-Mic-Inputs

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  • 2 months later...

Or you can get the CZE-5C and broadcast for 3/4 of a mile from inside the garage with the stock antenna.  Not recommended for areas with a dense amount of FM stations. This baby gobbles up about 2 digits on the dial.

 

Z

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I wish I could use a good FM transmitter in the UK.

 

This year I am going to get some better speakers. For 2015 I had some PC speakers in boxes. They sounded OK.

I use a Behringer 1002Q USB. I am going to have a Pi for 2016 and the on board sound is awful! I will use the USB interface of the 1002QUSB, if I can get it working.

For 2016 I am going to buy a cheap in car transmitter and use it sometimes, although it is illegal.

I won't put up any signs, just use my matrices for tune to signs, so I can only advertise it when there are no men in black suits sitting in a van with a huge antenna on the top outside.

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I never understood the laws over there about it. Maybe you know why they are as they are? My first thought is that it goes back to WW2 and making sure no one transmits across the channel back in those days? Maybe its just a tax thing where if they allow it, they can't control collecting taxes. Never made sense too me but there's laws in all countries that never make sense.

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5 hours ago, dgrant said:

I never understood the laws over there about it. Maybe you know why they are as they are? My first thought is that it goes back to WW2 and making sure no one transmits across the channel back in those days? Maybe its just a tax thing where if they allow it, they can't control collecting taxes. Never made sense too me but there's laws in all countries that never make sense.

It is because it could potentially cause interference to emergency services, and also radio stations have to pay a lot of money for playing music and transmitting it to the public so they can listen for free, so why should I be able to broadcast music without paying anything.

Playing music in public here is illegal, although it is not enforced if it is just a few people.

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