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FM car stereo reception


crackchecker

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Tested and tested my Ramsey 25 antenna location(s). Yes I said locations, I have moved it around to find the best location with little to no interference and best range. I have it now in a location that gets me aprox. 200 yards in either direction down my street.

Last night while cooking dinner we had a knock on the door.... "Hey, your shows not playing any music!" So I grab my jacket and run to the garage where the transmitter and test radio is located. It was broadcasting just fine...

Went out to my truck and Honda and both picked up the show just fine for the distance I figured to. While out there another person in a different make and model vehicle stopped and said the same thing.

Sooooo.... Has anyone else had people pop by unable to pick up the radio?

I'm just going to chalk this up to coincidence and crappy car radio's. I might raise the antenna up in elevation a little...

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I can get it in my wifes car about 4 blocks away, in my truck, sitting at the display, can get it with static. Must be something with the vehicles.

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I am using MBB 4000 and last year while at a TSO concert about 60 miles from home, one of son's friends texted him and said there was no audio on our display. Of course, I fretted about it the rest of the concert and the drive home. Show was off by the time we got home, so I hurriedly ran an On-Demand show and had good audio. Who knows? I suspect it was with the OP's car radio, but it sure worried me that night. We often leave town for a few days around Christmas and I always worry a little about something crashing and me not being able to do anything about it.

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Well, this makes me wonder . . . last year I had no problems or complaints. However, just this morning for the first time I checked the reception in my new car (since last season at least) in the driveway. It wasn't very good at all. I've checked the frequency and connections and they're all okay. We get great reception inside the house, but not in my car in the driveway. Hopefully its a specific radio thing and not an antenna/transmitter problem. The funny thing is, I had to change my frequency because my car was picking up what used to be a weak fringe station last year, but now comes in very well in my new car! I'll have to check this out with my other car.

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had someone steal the antenna off my car last year, with no antenna I had to be line of site of the FM tower to get the local FM radio station. My guess is that person did not have an antenna or it was broken off

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I have not had any complaints here, but let someone borrow my spare EDM and J pole.

They said one of their vehicles picked the station up good. (92.7fm I think) The other did not. They changed frequencies to something in the upper 100 range and it was better.

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My cadillac pulls in my station from quarter mile away, Best friends honda even in my driveway has static. Its gotta be the car.

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I have no antena (somebody cut it couple of years ago) I have some interference because I have no antena.
Just curious about my car alarm: from last week when I turned on the whole house transmitter, my car alarm makes couple of noise and also happened again last night.
Could the car alarm makes interference? who knows.....

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crackchecker wrote:

Tested and tested my Ramsey 25 antenna location(s). Yes I said locations, I have moved it around to find the best location with little to no interference and best range. I have it now in a location that gets me aprox. 200 yards in either direction down my street.

Last night while cooking dinner we had a knock on the door.... "Hey, your shows not playing any music!" So I grab my jacket and run to the garage where the transmitter and test radio is located. It was broadcasting just fine...

Went out to my truck and Honda and both picked up the show just fine for the distance I figured to. While out there another person in a different make and model vehicle stopped and said the same thing.

Sooooo.... Has anyone else had people pop by unable to pick up the radio?

I'm just going to chalk this up to coincidence and crappy car radio's. I might raise the antenna up in elevation a little...


First off- the 25B out of the box should give you more than a 600 ft range, unless its output was turned down, and/or the antenna was poorly located (ie in a basement) or has a poor SWR.

The second thought I had is that if the frequency of the transmitter was slightly off (ie 104.8 instead of 104.9) some radios would pick it up on 104.9 or 104.7, others wouldn't, which would explain the variance you are describing. The signal needs to be in the passband of the receiver to be heard. Some have tighter front ends than others.

Try it youself - tune the radio up and down one step (ie in this case in addition to the desired freq. of 104.9 check it out at 104.7 and 105.1) and see if you can hear it better/worse there.

Greg
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Greg Young wrote:

First off- the 25B out of the box should give you more than a 600 ft range, unless its output was turned down, and/or the antenna was poorly located (ie in a basement) or has a poor SWR.
I have tuned it per the MFG's book. When I varied from it I had a tonne of static and/or distortion. The factory antenna didn't give me much distance at all... I just have a feeling that the Ramsey 25 just doesn't have the power to get the distances. I have already decided to look into an EDM for the following year anyway. Just gota make it through this year.

The second thought I had is that if the frequency of the transmitter was slightly off (ie 104.8 instead of 104.9) some radios would pick it up on 104.9 or 104.7, others wouldn't, which would explain the variance you are describing. The signal needs to be in the passband of the receiver to be heard. Some have tighter front ends than others.
I thought that too. The guy let me get in his car and check the radio frequency myself. In my cars and some friends that I randomly checked there was nothing either up or down from the set frequency. Pretty tight in my eyes.

Greg
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Galen wrote:

Well, this makes me wonder . . .I checked the reception in my new car . . . It wasn't very good at all.
I think I solved my problem, I had my computer turned all the way up and was probably over driving my transmitter. After turning the volume down, I get much better reception in my car. It will definitely do for the show.
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crackchecker wrote:

Greg Young wrote:
First off- the 25B out of the box should give you more than a 600 ft range, unless its output was turned down, and/or the antenna was poorly located (ie in a basement) or has a poor SWR.
I have tuned it per the MFG's book. When I varied from it I had a tonne of static and/or distortion. The factory antenna didn't give me much distance at all... I just have a feeling that the Ramsey 25 just doesn't have the power to get the distances. I have already decided to look into an EDM for the following year anyway. Just gota make it through this year.

The second thought I had is that if the frequency of the transmitter was slightly off (ie 104.8 instead of 104.9) some radios would pick it up on 104.9 or 104.7, others wouldn't, which would explain the variance you are describing. The signal needs to be in the passband of the receiver to be heard. Some have tighter front ends than others.
I thought that too. The guy let me get in his car and check the radio frequency myself. In my cars and some friends that I randomly checked there was nothing either up or down from the set frequency. Pretty tight in my eyes.

Greg


Sounds like the output transistor is partially fried, which explains the reduced range. The Ramsey series are really sensitive to static, to the point if you touched the antenna when transmitting you could damage it, not to mention if you transmitted into a shorted/non-existent antenna...
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ecool365 wrote:

Is it best to have antena line on transmitter going strait up or among gutter?


Which transmitter?

What kind of antenna ?
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More power won't fix this issue
You need to use a PLL (Phase Lock Loop) modulator. most out of the box modulators are already designed with that installed.

If your modulator has a digital display chances are your fine

as a back-up modulator I use a Ramsey and it is not PLL and it does drift and causes the problems issued in this thread

and just a reminder. the FCC allotted power for unlicensed broadcasting on the FM dial is 11.43 nW's (nano-watts)

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