FM transmitter dropping signal

[Max-Paul]

Bernie,

I am sorry and not meant to offend. But the truth of the matter is this. The Whole House transmitter is a POS. You ask for help, yet not forth giving any particulars. So, please describe your set-up if you will.
How close to front of house? Is there any metal like a furnace or return ducts between the transmitter and the front of the house? Did you attach the wire to the transmitter? Did you follow directions and cut the wire to proper length? and anything else you can think of to describe the installation of the transmitter. Oh, do you live near a FM broadcast transmitter? Or out in the country and very few Broadcast stations can be received? Did you listen to the broadcast band during the day or at night? You would be surprised at how many more stations you can hear at night. So, did you decide what frequency you were going to use based on day time or night time station usage of the band?

[Terry Hurrle]

I have the WHT 2.0 and I get good reception. I have visited with some of the people out front of the house and they hear it fine. I can drive west for about 5 blocks before I loose it and north 2 blocks. Others say they loose it in about 2 blocks any direction which is fine. I am not trying to broadcast the signal all over town. Once you leave the front of the house you don't see the show any more. I have the original antenna on it and have it standing upright next to the radio. Tried several locations and this is the one that works best. Yes there are others that are much better but this was the one that fit the budget this year.

[Max-Paul]

Terry,

First I am glad to see that you are one of the very few who are happy with your W.H.2 transmitter. I wholly agree with you Terry. We as a group are not trying to transmit across town, just a few houses on each side of our own. It's just if you read as much as I do of this and the LOR forum. You start to see a trend of people who seem to be having troubles with their W.H.2 transmitter. Is it the hardware or the software between the ears? This is the reason I do not suggest the W.H.2 unit to others. Ya, its what? 60 bucks or so? Well you know what they say about price and quality. Maybe this is another example of that.

All I know is that per postings, maybe 1 out of 20 are happy with it.

[Terry Hurrle]

Max,
I did not say I was totally happy with it. I said it does the job. Will I upgrade in the future? Yes. I just had to get what we could get this year. E-bay will get this one.

[George Cotton]

I also have the Hlly (no "I" in the name, go figure). I had been running another off brand unit (also found on eBay) for a while.

When I got the 1st one, I put my Diawa SWR meter on it at the 10w level and it looked very flat on a 2m Ringo at 35' on my tower. Putting out about 250mw as listed, but at those low levels I'm not sure how accurate my meter really is. It sounded and worked very well, but then it failed during the Halloween show last year and was not even registering on the meter and was very weak at the street. I guess the final failed and I was hearing the driver. I looked around and finally decided on the Hlly off eBay.

Got the Hlly in pretty quick from China and put it on SWR meter. Ranged from no reading to > 1W, considering it was supposed to be max of 500mw. It has 7 power levels and I found that Level "0" was very easily overmodulated. Front panel control over rear line input is nice.

I ended up with the power at "3" which shows about 100mw on my meter and the audio level at 60 (out of 79). I get a solid block coverage and very spotty reception at 2-3 blocks, but my car uses the in glass FM antenna which is overall pretty deaf. I found that level "1" and "2" cover my street well also, but are still prone to distortion on some passages.

So far (knock on wood), the Hlly has worked for 3 seasonal shows now with less than a week of Christmas shows to go. I'm hoping that running it at 10% of its apparent capacity will give it a long life. Also, my entire system is on a timer so nothing is actually on until 5 minutes before show time and then turned off 5 minutes after the last show.

[TitusCarnathan]

I will have to give that a try turning down my laptop volume my reception dies out after about 50 feet the problem is I use both speakers and fm radio

I hope I can get it working I would hate to have to go buy a diffrent fm transmitter

[Steven H]

After reading several suggestions here that have had the same problem as myself, after just a few short tests, the WHT 2.0 output is much better. The antenna was originally cut to length, a cable run of about fourty feet to the WH, the antenna only is outside through a window and almost competely vertical. The field strength meter(s)(both very old but work) did not even show any strength. After finding the 'hidden' switch, cutting the audio from the computer to about 40%, raising the audio on the WH with no distortation, and making sure of a good AC/DC P.S. connection, the range went from way less then a hundred feet to over a block.

After Christmas, will see if an antenna ground can be added to the WHT2. Grounding can make a big difference! Anyone already check the ground system out?

Thank you for your help!