Govt daft idea of the day (turning off FM radio)

[NorthernRaider]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...adios.html

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Just thought about this, what a bloody sneaky way of wiping out free and pirate radio stations ( or resistance broadcasts) if you persuade the sheeple to go over enmasse to digital radio. I'm led to believe digital broadcasting kit is bigger , more complicated and more expensive than FM broadcasting kit.

I think I will have to badger Lightspeed to come up with a PC based Prepper radio station ( one not staffed by extreme right wingers )

[iaaems]

I have a radio in my car - but I rarely use it, apparently it has a CD player in it - never use that. The only useful thing with regard to the radio is the hands free phone appliance which has been used once or twice over the years.
Curiosity got the better of me and I obtained a digital receiver - just to see what all the fuss is about.
That gadget now resides in my so called workshop and rarely gets turned on. Why? Purely and simply because it is not a really pleasant experience listening to it. The sound seems to be restricted and somehow distorted compared to AM/FM - a lack of tonality so it would seem. This might just be due to the engineering used to cram as many stations into a frequency allocation and in order to do this the sound quality is compromised. If this is the case then I'm afraid I think this is just not good enough and I will not be embracing this system with any kind of enthusiasm. Also the reception is a bit dodgy depending upon the angle of dangle of the aerial which indicates - to me - that line of sight reception is the order of the day rather like my digital telly which is super critical on the aerial position.
So all in all progress would seem to be embracing the one step forwards and two steps backwards routine.

[Steve]

Many years of gunfire and fast motorcycles have taken the edge off my hearing, however I find that DAB is good.

With regard to FM services for preppers, it's a fairly trivial task to add additional amplification to a commonly available FM transmitter, the type used to transmit audio from your MP3 player to your car radio - available for £20 and tuneable over the whole commercial FM range. However, these frequencies have a limited range and are likely to be crowded purely because of the ease of building transmitters.

In a serious SHTF situation I'm not sure that preppers would want to be broadcasting from home, so perhaps an automated, self-sustaining system could be placed somewhere high.

Which brings me to the question of what you would actually want to transmit to people you don't know. I'm thinking that a loop of useful survival information would be good - water purification, hygiene, gardening etc., etc. You might want to organize a meeting, where you could attend as a sheeple and sus out potential allies ( ie the other people who were there pretending to be sheeple ).

This could be an interesting subject, perhaps some of the board heavyweights could run with it.

[Lightspeed]

Picking up on Steve's thoughts.

The only reason I can see that one would want to broadcast as you describe is to communicate across the whole of a local community that was not pre-organized for a SHTF situation. (perepared communities would have CB or some other form of point to point radio transceiver network in place). A low power broadcast frequency FM transmitter would be a good choice for this as it would be receivable by pretty much everyone in the community on their old FM radios, radio enabled smartphones and even UV5r type walkie talkies.

River Song was looking into this a while ago. I don't know how she got on.

FM broadcast equipment is readily available out of China on the Bay. But beware that getting caught transmitting with this sort of equipment in UK under current legislation will land you an extremely heavy fine. the things used in cars ater transmitting a few thousandths of a watt of RF. The transmitters I'm talking about output between 1 and 20w, so many thousands of times more powerful.

Remoting such a transmitter and powering it from solar charged 12v batteries is entirely viable, and of course the recorded information loop need be nothing more complex than an MP3 player set to repeat.

[NorthernRaider]

""Which brings me to the question of what you would actually want to transmit to people you don't know.""

Not a lot, certainly not my location, certainly no location they can triangulate onto. perhaps a market place where trade and barter is going on. Some third party location for an RV possibly but as so many people are simply unreliable in issues involving preps I struggle to see any major plus's that are not offset by negatives.

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I've recently changed the hailing channels I was using on my UV 5s to keep my local comms in family, I used to advertise my old frequency to other preppers who I was working with but that's no longer needed. On a similar topic I have noticed people on CB 27FM CEPT trading and bartering on some evenings.

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LS please forgive me if I'm being silly but isn't 27FM CB erm...... FM ? and 27AM CB .......AM, could we not utilise whats already available if we want to make prepper broadcasts, or do you see a need for a stand alone prepper broadcaster??

[Lightspeed]

Agreed NR. Its not for me either.

Good thing about the UV5r is that you can still keep an eye on your old calling frequency, while actively using another ( Dual Watch DW Feature)

Yes the AM and FM notations doe indicate the transmission type ( mode) In case of confusion the FM on CBs is on a different and non compatible frequency to FM Broadcast band.

In the hamlet in which I live, CB is the de-facto communications tool among the farmer types and their families. And from here CB can also reach the nearest other villages which are 5 miles or so away in either direction. I have a base radio that is both HAM and CB capable on all modes which has variable power output from 0.1w to 25w. Its the 0.1w that is of most use in covert communications.

[NorthernRaider]

I would really like to hear a considered opinion on preppers broadcasting from the urban prepper community as to how they would view or use an FM broadcaster. I guess if it was mobile to prevent being triangulated and it broadcast useful stuff it could become a beacon for urban preppers.

[CharlesHarris]

A method I use with great success in the mountains, is to set up a cross-band replexer which is powered by a 34ah sealed lead-acid wheelchair battery, which is kept topped off using a Siemens SM20 solar panel. I can use a low power UHF portable radio to control the replexer, which simultaneously transmits my UHF linking signal on the VHF input frequency of a 2-meter repeater which I can readily hear, but cannot get a clear signal into with the hand-held. The remote receiver is mounted in a waterproof Pelican case, placed well up on the mountain top about 5 km away, at about 800m AMSL. Access control to the link repeater is maintained via digital squench, to prevent random "kerchunkers" from bringing it up. The Sheriff's Department, State Police and Mountain Rescue all have the access codes and know of its location. The replexer has all the proper licensing and coordination and cost less than $200 to build. As long as its antenna doesn't get a lightning strike or ground bounce from a nearby hit, it will run 6 months without maintenance.

[Lightspeed]

I have been building similar systems here, also with digital coded squelch on input, and with the additional protection of being able to remote switch it on and off by a DTMF code string.

I'm accessing using UHF from a little Yaesu VX3r-e outputting 0.1w UHF into a stubby antenna, so minimal RF broadcast on input, but still maintaining access to the box when its on the ridge a couple of Km away.( line of sight of course)

[NorthernRaider]

As soon as I sent post number 7 I knew I would not understand the rest of the thread