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Hi All,

A while back a few posted some questions about gear (what was good and where to get it). Not to belabor the point but maybe everyone could benefit by a group info dump? Basically a search of the net will turn up hundreds if not thousands of hits, but I figured that I could paste a few sources here (who knows maybe we could all add something and make a huge list of sources, recommendations and tips) and at some point put it on a web page somewhere? Anyway, here are a few places with products I think (based on personal experience) are good enough to recommend.

Gear I’ve used and would recommend:

Antenna -
Comet CFM-95-SL
It’s a very easy antenna to set up and has very good characteristics. I use one and love it! Ask anybody, it’s one of best the verticals out there.

SWR/Power meters-
Depending on what you are willing to spend you have some options. Almost any SWR meter will work for tuning your antenna to some degree - just get the lowest reflected power reading. If you’re more serious, I’d suggest either a used Bird 43 (with the correct elements) or a DIAWA (with the proper frequency range). If you’re into building your own antennas, an MFJ antenna analyzer is a wonderful tool which allows you to check your antenna without using your transmitter - but they have some sensitivity problems in strong signal areas (so if you live in a city/major radio market save yourself the money and possible confusion, just go for an SWR/Power meter).

Exciter (transmitter)-
Panaxis FMX
Veronica 1 watt PLL
I’ve used both of these and would certainly recommend them to the broadcaster on a budget. Of the two I’d be more partial to the Veronica.

A word on Modulation control-
This is probably one of the most important elements in a station. Over modulation is the enemy and
counterproductive for several reasons: it causes splatter and interference across the radio spectrum hindering the reception of other broadcasts, it wastes your stations power outside the pass band of your listener’s receiver (the receiver can’t handle the over deviation and your signal is clipped and distorted) the result is a weaker usable signal into the receiver and more noise on the distorted audio. How to avoid making a mess and sounding messy: Read -
http://www.orban.com/orban/techforum/optimod/pages/opitair/index.html

In general-
Limiting is very important, if you can do only one thing use a limiter. You will be able to have a
“louder” signal "without" over modulation and reduce your chances of interfering with other stations. Compression can help. If you can use compression too, great! This will help your station have a more consistent audio level even when your source material is varied. Multiband compression will help your station have a more consistent spectral balance between songs. Bottom line, no station should be without some sort of modulation control.

Products to consider:
Older “used” broadcast gear Orban, CRL, BE, CBS, RCA etc. are all good choices.
If you can’t find used professional equipment DBX, <sp?> DOD, Alesis, ART, Berringer etc are worth considering. Limiters with “peak stop/absolute ceiling” are preferable.

A word on stereo generators (coders)-
Having a properly designed stereo generator is also very important. A poor “SG” can make even the best transmitter sound bad and cause your signal to be received poorly. It can actually introduce undesirable characteristics that degrade your signal. In general my advice is to stay away from anything with a BA1404 IC in it. Try to find an SG with discrete component design. I think Veronica and Broadcast Warehouse both offer such stereo generators.

A word on amplifiers-
There are many units out there and they all very in quality, but remember whatever you put in gets
amplified. No matter how good your amp is, if you have a dirty transmitter you can expect serious problems when you amplify it. Get the best transmitter and amplifer you can get. Go for better quality rather than more power. Use a low pass filter. If you’re seeing higher SWR with an amp in line and low SWR without it, this should be a red flag. Chances are you have some harmonics (out of band radiation) causing the “strange” increase in SWR. This is an undesirable situation, to say the least. Find out what’s going on and take the required steps to correct it ASAP. You
could be interfering with aircraft, police, fire, ambulance or ham communications. If any of these
people have to track you down to get you to stop, you’ll both be unhappy (besides it’s the right and
responsible thing to do).

A word on Mixers, CDs, Tapes and Phono-
One thing to remember when choosing gear is it’s probably going to be exposed to some rather strong RF fields. This can be a serious problem, especially with Phono gear and also with Mixers (Mic inputs) and even with some Tape and CD players. Try to avoid the very inexpensive stuff, your probably better of getting some older “pro” gear that’s used. Chances are it was designed to a higher standard. If you can, bring a hand held CB or two way radio along when shopping for
gear. While listen to the perspective device, hold the CB radio near it and transmit. If you get pops buzzes or other undesired operation you should probably avoid that product.

Cables-
One word: shielding. Get the best you can.

Most of you already know everything I’ve stated, but for the new guys it may be helpful and save them some headaches. I hope it was helpful and not too preachy. If you guys have differing opinions or additional recommendations please pass them on.

-Seth KAOS

Some sources for gear-

General info sites:
A great article Recommended Reading for all would be broadcasters -
http://www.orban.com/orban/techforum/optimod/pages/opitair/index.html

Call sign lookup and info -
http://www.fcc.gov/mmb/asd/fmq/html

Station Search Database -
http://www.airwaves.com/fccdb.html

Rodger Skinner’s site LPFM -
http://www.concentric.net/~Radiotv/

Non - Pro equipment:
Panaxis - http://www.panaxis.com/index.html
Veronica - http://www.legend.co.uk/~veronica/
Broadcast Warehouse -
http://www.broadcast-warehouse.com
Their kits seem well built and they have supplied some
fine products for my friends.
L.D.Brewer - http://www.ldbrewer.com/fmkit.html
I have no personal experience dealing with Mr. Brewer,
however the kits he sells are very nice (especially
the Veronica 1 watt PLL).

Pro “$$$” used equipment/gear:
Everything - Harris
http://www.broadcast.harris.com/usedeq/index.html
Everything -
http://www.amfmtv.com/scripts/buy_rent_lease/list.idc
Everything - http://www.halls.com/rebuilt.html
Everything -RF Specialties Group
http://www.rfspec.com/product.html
Everything - http://www.broadcast.net/equip.html

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Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting some really useful info.

I've been piecing together my info from the various hundreds of mixed-quality websites out there and it's really hard to extract the useful stuff from the crap.

One thing, could you post approximate prices next to the gear? I'm especially interested in prices on the antenna and the SWR stuff.....


If I get some time today I'll put up a webpage on my site (http://wrybread.com) where we could add this info on the fly. By the way, have a look at my Burning Man 1999 pages at http://wrybread.com/burningman99.


For whatever it's worth (I'm relatively unknowledgable on this stuff and my signal didn't travel that far on the playa given my transmitter stats), here's my info dump:

I use a 1 watt mono pll transmitter going into a (theoretically) 20 watt amplifier. I bought it in kit form from free radio berekely (they're on the web, if you can't find them ask me). The kit was a total nightmare for me to put together, must have spent 30 hours hunched over the damn thing buzzed on solder fumes. And to tune it I have to flip dip switches and tune 3 pots using a tuning tool. Not much fun. But the people at Free Radio Berkeley have been absolutely stellar. Unbelievably nice people, unbelievably helpful. I think the kit cost about $200.

For an antenna I use a J-Pole, which is marginally tuned to my frequency, 88.3. It was about $50 (I bought the stuff two years ago so I'm a little fuzzy on price).

For an SWR meter I use some piece of crap that I got from FRB, seems to work at least somewhat. I massively covet a better SWR meter. (this one was $15).

I recently upgraded the cable running from my transmitter to the antenna and it greatly improved my signal strength. (the cable is about 25 feet, cost $15 in crimp-yer-own form).


As far as mics and all that, I completely ditched the concept of a DJ booth and I just put a few mics out in the open, right in front of the monitor speakers (no headphones), and I let anyone talk into them. It works great, there's almost never feedback.

This year for a mixer I use a Mackie, 1402. Love it, and it seems playa-proof (though sometimes it takes a little time to get the final verdict on that). ($350 used)

At Burning Man 1998 I just used the inputs from an old 4-track for a mixer, and it worked great too, though I was limited to just 2 tracks, yikes. ($100 used)


Hugh Mann
http://wrybread.com
"because you knead wrybread"

Burning Man 1999: http://wrybread.com/burningman99/


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its good

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