We have most of the radio-station parts put together, enough to start running some transmission tests. Since there is a lot of traffic in the area for the MSU/Alabama game, we thought today would be a good day to start.
If you do hear us, please feel free to send us an email at contact@wmfh-lp.org You can find us on Twitter @WMFHLP or on Facebook too.
If the signal sounds distorted we particularly want to know. But if the signal is clear, that would be welcome, happy news.
Thanks, BIG THANKS to WTVA and Steve Rogers for putting us on WTVA television.
Wow!
One thing I should have said: we have had many individuals donate to our effort and two businesses
Children’s Health Center of Columbus
JTS & Co. Mortgage Brokers
And I’m glad that you are here looking at our website!
I hope you will be able to hear our station soon.
We still have some t-shirts to sell too. Somewhere handy on this website is an order form.
We accomplished a few things this past week, capped off by a short period of on-air testing at approximately 8 pm on Sunday 30-AUG-2015. We were running reduced power to test the newly installed antenna system.
I apologize for not keeping this blog a bit more active.
Yes, we are still here, still working on our station construction. In June we applied for an extension to our FCC Construction Permit and it was granted! We also held a Board of Directors meeting and covered our recent events, budget and things left to accomplish.
We also obtained a used antenna. It is a multi-element array. We don’t have space on our tower for such an array but we can use one or two of the six elements. July saw us tuning up one of the elements for use on our frequency. And we sold three of the elements to help offset the acquisition cost. We still have two of the elements unallocated and may be able to sell them to another LPFM station.
Today I was doing some feed line work. Feed line is a special kind of co-axial cable which transfers our signal from the transmitter, over and up to the antenna on the tower. Our feed-line situation is good. We have about 200 feet of low-loss 75 Ohm Cable-TV hardline coax with frequency-specific impedance matching sections on each end. Then we have about 25 feet of flexible coax, some on each end, to connect to the antenna and to the transmitter.
Besides the line itself, there is some math to be done to figure out our total “loss” in the antenna system. The FCC has licensed us for a specific ERP (Effective Radiated Power). We calculate the system losses to tell us how much power our transmitter needs to be generating in order to produce the ERP we want coming out of the antenna. We really could use a 300 Watt transmitter, but the inexpensive 250 Watt transmitter we have obtained will be adequate for now.
As you can tell, we are trying to cut costs in every area in order to get our station on the air. While doing that we also have been noting the areas we would like to eventually upgrade if the station proves to be a success.
Oh, one last thing: in July we applied for an equipment grant from the 4-County Electrical Co-Op which services our area. We have not yet heard from them a thumbs up or down. Our success with grants… let’s just say we have not had any success with grants. But maybe something will come through.