First Year Up and Running

[T. Bennett]

First of all, i want to thank everyone who I have received advice/knowledge and sequences! The first run was tonight and it was rather successful. That is to say, there was music and sequenced lights, and for this I am fortunate.

Now comes the frustrating part. Let me start with some background. I am running a Whole House Transmitter (bought here at LOR) from my computer microphone output. I extended the trans. 9 feet or so from the laptop. It is indoors, just inside my front door. I estimate the distance to the road of about 40 feet. I started by testing my transmitter in the house on the computer with regular music. This seemed to work on the station I found. I checked on the radio stations link I found in another post, and listened to different stations to determine with had "pure" static.

I started the show and set the WHT to 88.9. I was not able to pick up anything on my car. My wife accidentally set her car to 87.9, and picked up the music. This was my first "huh?" moment. Her music was still quite fuzzy, and didnt work at all on 88.9. The neighbors, across the street could pick it up decent on their cars at 87.9 as well (remember, WHT set on 88.9).

I dealt with this for a little while and then decided to try to make it better. I tried 107.5 (which had some background radio noise, very faint though) and set the WHT to 107.5, and it worked GREAT in my car! Barely a static to be heard. My wife tried 107.5, still great! From there I tried a boom box, and nothing but static. Tried another boom box, (neighbor's) and nothing.

SO now to the question. What the heck is going on? Does anyone have some advice? I also looked for the "white tab" to remove in the battery box, to flip a switch a switch for a slight power boost, but it does not appear my WHT has this. So if anyone has any suggestions, as always, I am open ears.

I hope everyone show is going well, and Happy Holidays!

[testraub]

That white sticker is on the WHT 2.0 only that I know of. It's only about 1/8-1/4" in size. Also think of raising the WHT as high as you can. and keep walls from between it and the outdoors.

[Guest Don Gillespie]

T. Bennett wrote:

First of all, i want to thank everyone who I have received advice/knowledge and sequences! The first run was tonight and it was rather successful. That is to say, there was music and sequenced lights, and for this I am fortunate.

Now comes the frustrating part. Let me start with some background. I am running a Whole House Transmitter (bought here at LOR) from my computer microphone output. I extended the trans. 9 feet or so from the laptop. It is indoors, just inside my front door. I estimate the distance to the road of about 40 feet. I started by testing my transmitter in the house on the computer with regular music. This seemed to work on the station I found. I checked on the radio stations link I found in another post, and listened to different stations to determine with had "pure" static.

I started the show and set the WHT to 88.9. I was not able to pick up anything on my car. My wife accidentally set her car to 87.9, and picked up the music. This was my first "huh?" moment. Her music was still quite fuzzy, and didnt work at all on 88.9. The neighbors, across the street could pick it up decent on their cars at 87.9 as well (remember, WHT set on 88.9).

I dealt with this for a little while and then decided to try to make it better. I tried 107.5 (which had some background radio noise, very faint though) and set the WHT to 107.5, and it worked GREAT in my car! Barely a static to be heard. My wife tried 107.5, still great! From there I tried a boom box, and nothing but static. Tried another boom box, (neighbor's) and nothing.

SO now to the question. What the heck is going on? Does anyone have some advice? I also looked for the "white tab" to remove in the battery box, to flip a switch a switch for a slight power boost, but it does not appear my WHT has this. So if anyone has any suggestions, as always, I am open ears.

I hope everyone show is going well, and Happy Holidays!

Have you tried the headphone jack instead of the mic jack mine won't work when plugged into the mic jack only the headphone jack

[Jim Saul]

Hi, is it the WWT version 1 (gold) or version 2?

have you attached the extended antenna wire? you need to trim it to the correct length for your frequency, the higher your FM frequency the more you need to cut off, so i recommend starting at 88.1 and then going up.

if you didn't say the wrong thing, it should be connected to the headphone jack, not the mic. The headphone is usually green or blue, the mic is usually pink.

I had a much better results after i used a headphone extent ion cord to put the transmitter outside and ran the antenna wire vertically to the roof.

[T. Bennett]

Jim,
First, it's the WHT 2.0 and the antenna wire that is on it is all but 3 inches long. That's all that came on it. You said you ran your antenna wire to the roof? Did you attach more wire of some sort?
I would trim it, although like I said, it's only 3 inches to begin with. I did find the switch and I think it may have helped a little. I will have to figure out how to get the WHT higher in the house, but I have my PC on the ground floor so the Cat5 can reach the controller outside. I tried to move the WHT outside last night, but it didnt seem to be any better than being inside the door.
Tim

[gizmomkr]

I dont really have much to offer about the whole house unit as I dont own one, but can make some general statlemts.

Whole house is a low power transmitter with a low end antenna. I'm pretty sure it IS FCC part 15, so if you want to be legal, keep using it.

Getting a radio signal from inside your house out to the street takes the right amount of power and a good antenna. IMHO - whole house has nethier of those. I have seen some folks that say its been fine, and I'm glad its working for them.

Ramsey and EDM get much better reviews.

I KNOW people have had success with low power, but I STRONGLY PREFER about 250Mw.

Its easy to cut down my signal with shorter antenna and attenuators if needed -

I AM NOT saying forget the FCC - know the rules and USE COMON SENSE! you DONT want to broadcast as far as you can on top of another licensed frequency. If you are breaking the law and they take notice, you can get STEEP FINES

I think if you CAREFULLY, push the limits JUST SLIGHTLY on the power, your going to be muc happier. I dont hear people with 100-250Mw and good antennas complaining about poor transmittion.

I think the FCC is much more worried about the likes of Christian Slater/Pump up the volume. I picked an OPEN frequency, have a small antenna, and make sure my signal doesnt go more than a couple houses - but I know I'm NOT part 15 compliant.

If you want to keep using your unit, I would get the transmitter OUTSIDE and high as apossible. I saw someone place his inside tupperware - zip tied to railing with wire running up the front of the house.


IF your PC has a standard soundcard ; Green is Speaker / headphone out. Blue is line in, red is mic in.

Mic Level and line level ARE different. Mic level is LOWER than line level. Many folks have issues feeding the speaker out of the pc INTO a MIC input on a transmitter. This sends a much higher level signal into the transmitter and causes distortion. I dont think your issue has anything to do with audio level, because you states on SOME radios the signal is fine - that tells us your audio hookup is probably fine.

[Jim Saul]

Hi Tim, ok on the version 2, there should be an antenna wire that came with it along with a waterproof splice to add it in. The wire is thin, just like the 4" on that’s on it, but it is 130'. If i remember correctly, it was in a plastic bag in the bottom section of the plastic that the transmitter comes in. The instructions for it are labeled "international Antenna Extension Kit Instructions" and it tells you what length to cut it to for what frequency. 88.1 is the longest at 134" and does not require you to cut the wire, 107.9 would be 109.4"

if yours didn't come with the antenna, i would call them at 888-674-6226

The switch behind the white sticker in the battery compartment is located in the top battery compartment, on the side and is a small white sticker. I'm not sure what position it should be in, when i was trying to remove my sticker with a pencil point, the switch moved so i don’t know what the original position was. I've tried mine both ways but it didn’t seem to make a difference.