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JoeFM1
Guest
Driving around this afternoon. Discovered a signal on 95.3 MHz. No programming. Just silent stereo carrier. Was really strong around 45 & Mt Houston. Lost it near 45 & Tidwell.
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purpledevil
Guest
No mystery to me...
...but West Mount Houston I sincerely doubt. I had a hard enough time reaching the parking lot of Joe V's on Antoine & Vets Memorial from my location in Camden Park, so you've got to be exaggerating the distance. I checked that channel several times on Saturday and it is the cleanest signal in that part of H-town.
Anyone out there confused from past conversations with me, I changed the frequency on the pt 15 to 95-3 from 94-9, after I got unpacked and rewired. I'm using the old TV antenna on top of the house, which I don't care much for, but I find KHTZ penetrates this part of town better than where I was by a significant amount. Work in progress, but it makes me wonder if the TV antenna pointed north has something to do with reception at 249? Nah, there's just no way, I'll turn it back on and check for myself tonight. Anyway, nothing to see here folks. Move along...
...but West Mount Houston I sincerely doubt. I had a hard enough time reaching the parking lot of Joe V's on Antoine & Vets Memorial from my location in Camden Park, so you've got to be exaggerating the distance. I checked that channel several times on Saturday and it is the cleanest signal in that part of H-town.
Anyone out there confused from past conversations with me, I changed the frequency on the pt 15 to 95-3 from 94-9, after I got unpacked and rewired. I'm using the old TV antenna on top of the house, which I don't care much for, but I find KHTZ penetrates this part of town better than where I was by a significant amount. Work in progress, but it makes me wonder if the TV antenna pointed north has something to do with reception at 249? Nah, there's just no way, I'll turn it back on and check for myself tonight. Anyway, nothing to see here folks. Move along...
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JoeFM1
Guest
Not exaggerating... But then I have a 10db gain RF amplifier in my truck between my JVC and antenna. Lets me pull in stations normal radios cant detect. I got it so I can hear everytime 99.7 in Palaciois comes to life... Usually once a month for a half day.
I had no idea, Purple.... I got home and was looking at the status of LPFM apps to see if it was one of those. I scan the bands quite frequently because Alex Jones is supposed to be putting a station on here in Houston sometime soon.
I had no idea, Purple.... I got home and was looking at the status of LPFM apps to see if it was one of those. I scan the bands quite frequently because Alex Jones is supposed to be putting a station on here in Houston sometime soon.
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purpledevil
Guest
You must have the Cadillac of radios, Joe. On my check yesterday, with the transmitter on obviously, I picked it up clean at Parker & 45 (parking lot for old Woolco...now self-storage building). By the time I made it to the Northwest Dialysis Center on Stuebner Airline and Rittenhouse, it was flaking out badly. Went south and lost a usable signal (as you said) just before Tidwell. I guesstimate it's got a range of around a mile from my location. What time did you hear the open carrier, Joe? I lit up shortly after 1, and concluded just before 3:30. I wonder if the cleanest frequency I could find isn't going to stay so clean for long. Ah geez, guess I'll be searching for a different operating channel if so. Thanks for the report, Joe. I'm rather amazed if that was actually me, but I'm skeptical at this point.
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JoeFM1
Guest
Purple, my truck stereo is a $69 Walmart.com special. Alas, JVC is a decent brand, but what makes the big difference is this amplifier from Crutchfield... http://www.crutchfield.com/S-HEeTEBh5IOv/p_12044UA60/FM-Signal-Amplifier.html
Yesterday, I was up in Coldspring helping a friend. Driving home, I stopped in Humble at Dirty Burgers (the burger joint run by our fellow member RageRadio). Took 1960 over to I-45. It was around 3:30 to 4 p.m. when I was near Mt Houston and scanning the dial. When it stopped on the garbage on 95.1, I specifically remember thinking what a waste of a good frequency. Hit scan again. It stopped on 95.3. Dead air. The signal was weak, going in and out all the way to Tidwell, then faded away.
You are right, DJ, but he doesn't have much to worry about. Our local (yeah, Steve is still around, at least for now) FCC guy doesn't have any interest in this board, but I know for a fact a certain FCC attorney, among others in Washington, regularly read these posts. (Hi guys!
) With the reduction in manpower as well as in budget, they simply don't have the manpower to monitor everything going on. This board gives them more intelligence as to what's really going on than any of the field reports coming from regional offices. With that said, also understand that the FCC is complaint driven. You may recall a thread last year about pirates operating on 99.7... See http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?681876-Another-new-99-7 A licensed co-channel broadcaster made a formal complaint. Steve was quick to tell them to silence the transmitter. Soon, they resurfaced on 87.9, a frequency that interferes with nobody. Steve Lee knows all about it, but no one has made a credible interference complaint. Just like Alex Jones' pirate in Austin isn't interfering with anyone. Until Washington says squash the pirates like a bug, they will continue to broadcast. Just don't let them cause interference...
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rbrucecarter5
Guest
I don't know why anybody would think a $20 signal amp would have less noise than a $40 FET inside a top of the line car stereo. Noise adds according to the root sum squared law, meaning the noisiest stage tends to dominate. FM sensitivity is more a matter of suppressing noise than it is of gain. So a cheap signal amp is only going to make reception worse - not better. If your present car radio isn't working on a distant station, it is far better to spend a little more on a decent car stereo than it is to go cheap and try to compensate. By far, the best results will come with a whip antenna and a good car radio. I can drive around Houston with spotty reception of KLTY Dallas. I go up to Huntsville, I'm starting to get a whole lot of signal from Dallas on 98.7 and other clear frequencies. Before Cypress radio signed on, I had Bob-FM from Austin on my presets, because it was reliable.
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Anonymouse
Guest
I use a Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player with Rockbox on it.
Rockbox is a 3rd-party replacement firmware to add extra functionality to many MP3 players out there.
http://www.rockbox.org/
Rockbox is a 3rd-party replacement firmware to add extra functionality to many MP3 players out there.
http://www.rockbox.org/
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JoeFM1
Guest
Purple... You never said what you are programming. Last night i had Christian music and then preaching on 95.3 at our future church near Crosstimbers and Fulton. Today I have preaching on 95.3 at the BBQ Inn -- verry good food and service, by the way -- on Crosstimbers at Yale. Very weak signal.
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purpledevil
Guest
It ain't me, lol. Before the move, I was running a variety of musical numbers from the old house. From Buddy Holly to Randy Travis and Imagine Dragons to Micro Chip League. I have a very unique taste in music, which tends to be a turn off to most. The whole purpose for setting up my pt 15 was so I could put my headphones in and listen to my music when doing yard work, or sitting out in the garage working on one of the cars or simply kicking back and drinking a cold one. I'm not sure what the DJ thinks is illegal about my transmitter. It's nothing more than a $49 job from Fry's. Nothing modified, nothing tweaked, I just learned that if you take that little transmitter and surround it by a plastic case so it doesn't get wet, you can attach it to a tall object (like a tree or a roof's eave) run the headphone jack extension back down to the computer's output audio jack, and wala...it covers my whole yard and then some. The warnings on the unit say I can't tinker with the unit itself to get more power out of it, it doesn't say that I'm prohibited to elevate the unit as high as I possibly can. That is why I was skeptical about reception of a dead carrier on the frequency, at the same time as I was testing my little unit. From Tidwell, I'd say that's possible, especially with the added Crutchfield component. All the way to Mt. Houston, or down to Crosstimbers? There's just no way it can reach that far, IMO, but just in case, I pulled the transmitter back off of the antenna and said the heck with it, because I don't know any better. If that old tv antenna really can send my signal up to Mt. Houston (which I still can't believe) then I'm not taking any chances since someone has already apparently heard it on before I even got started playing anything. Of course, it's not like it was EVER on more than a few hours at a time anyway. I program the music for me, not for those around me. Maybe that's selfish, but the solution for anyone else would be if you want to be able to do the same, make a trip to Fry's and get ready to climb a ladder.
Joe, my plan was to rebuild the playlist and do something a bit different, especially out here in the 4-4. I have a boat load of old Z-Rock cassettes, so I've been listening to them, jotting down what they were playing back then, adding things like Slipknot, Godsmack, and such that I figure they'd be playing if it were still a network today, and building my own little Z-Rock playlist. Hell, if I really wanted to go nuts with it, I've probably got every liner they used back then too. A little editing and "Z-Rock 95-3, we don't break for wimps!", "Flip us on and flip them off!", "If it's too loud, you're too old!", and "the loudest station in the nation!" could be rebirthed, if only in a very sporadic and flea powered way. In all honesty, it's certainly not worth taking the chance of being visited by the Federales. The transmitter is up in the attic now, so if it makes it to the neighbor's house 2 doors down, I'd be surprised. Ah well, it probably won't be for long anyway. The more and more I settle into the house, the more and more I realize that I should've just moved to Bellville and sucked up the long drive to work each day.
I can't imagine the Commission wasting the resources it would take to come after me, and then find out they've got nothing more than a cheap transmitter attached to a tree trunk...or in the case of this house, attached to the top of a rusty old TV antenna that needs just the right gust of wind to conclude its torture.
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JoeFM1
Guest
Remember the example of 102.5 KMAZ -- covering all the way to Humble with 1.3 watt of power at 1017 feet. Just think of the range you'd get if we snuck up on the Chase Tower and duct taped your flea power gadget to the side of Hector's antenna. Height seems to be the most important factor, followed by antenna design. Height makes all the difference in the world!
Great idea, but somebody already beat you to it. The new Z Rock KKZR website can be found here... http://www.zrockkkzr.com/ Or listen live on tunein... http://tunein.com/radio/Z-Rock-1069-KKZR-s181388/
They also recreated Rock 101 KLOL... http://www.rock101klol.com/
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JoeFM1
Guest
What's on 92.5 in the Heights?
Was driving along I-10 earlier. Scanning the dial. Picked up a strong carrier on 92.5 from the West Loop all the way through downtown. Can't recall -- and its hard to search the CDBS on my phone -- if there was an LPFM granted something on 92.5. Anybody?
Was driving along I-10 earlier. Scanning the dial. Picked up a strong carrier on 92.5 from the West Loop all the way through downtown. Can't recall -- and its hard to search the CDBS on my phone -- if there was an LPFM granted something on 92.5. Anybody?
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Anonymouse
Guest
Here is a list of all FM stations 50KM from Houston.
http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProFacLoo...e=29-45-47&sLongitude=95-21-47&sPlace=Houston
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