Thanx for the Mention DB....SSTRAN antenna information for 2006
Hi DB, and everyone.
First time for me on the new RADIO INFO Board, and with a computer no less (no more ugly webtv artifacts).
First off, my name is spelt wrong; it took so many months to get onto this new board that when I finally did............yep, spelt my name wrong.
I thank DB for mentioning my website, which features coils and antennas for certain part 15 operations/transmitters. I have a lot to say about this subject since I've been off the board for nearly the entire year.
The part 15am antenna biz was wonderful and somewhat overwelming last year as I built 73 antennas/projects for nearly as many customers. I also stupidly erased most of their comments about my product so they do not appear on the most recent edition of the site (mentioned on DB's post).
This year however yielded just three orders, and I believe that may be to either the fact that I didn't talk about the antenna on "here" this year, OR, the decline of AM part 15 interest/market used up.
The original letter from the poster stated he had problems putting up a part 15 am because of his apartment location.
Even though I had established a wide range of products last year (and discontinued most of them this year in the interest of building a 'standard product' I can not recall too many customers who desired a "regular" installation and thus had several different requests for customization...........in short that is what made my business so "busy"...because I was always trying to concoct ways in which people who wished to put a part 15am on the air could do so in their particular circumstances.
We have had several instances of success using the "sstran am antenna" and the tx inside of a house or an apartment. It can be done, but most people, especially those with very limited knowledge of radio or the AM band believe that with 1/10th of a watt in an incorrectly (read technically incorrect) antenna installation situation feel they should be blanketing their area in RF. And there is where the problem laid.
And, to do this, certain "give ups" have to be made by the person wishing to put on such an AM installation.
While it is true that copper in a building can be used as a ground, most buildings these days utilize pvc. And most grounds in electrical outlets these days are not really true grounds or are leaky............so generally these items can be ruled out.
And apartment buildings tend to frown on running copper cable down to a busted in rod in their land..............it's a tricky biz.
So, in instances like these, we set our sights very low, and work our way up.
A couple examples of in-apartment/house installations I've built are....
1. One man purchased the complete antenna system including the ground system from me; he took my advice and spread the ground system out on his (livingroom?) floor, and covered it with a rather thick rug. Because his building was mostly lumber, the system worked, shooting signal out of windows. He liked the installation, but we were probably talking about 1/2 mile of solid signal and again, most people expect miles and miles of signal out of something that was never meant to produce that type of signal.
2. I'd had several requests for antennas that could be put in an attic. So, what I simply did was break the antenna down into a size that could be installed in the highest part of the attic roof. Again, we spread the ground system over the floor where it could be done, and either connected into a ground rod (for extra grounding) OR went into an electrical juncture/soldered to copper water pipe. The downside to this is generally the signal became a directional one..........because the antenna ended up with several foot made into a top hat, which tended to concentrate signal into one or as much as three areas while nulling the last area. Of course something like this can be pointed and an antenna like this works better the less insulation and other material is concentrated into the attic area.
3. There were several requests by customers that had concluded they could indeed hang the antenna outside their window onto the building, courtesy of the landlord. A simple purchase (and a little changing of them) of antenna hangers ususally used for TV aeriels made this possible. I probably built 5 of these units, no problem.
Of course my biggest problems last year were because of people who could not read, or follow basic instructions, and took matters into their own hands. This is ok for people with a radio background (who kind of knows what to expect) but for beginners, this is a deadly path, even with 100mW.
To finish, I appreciate DB's mention of my name (correctly spelled!) and mention of my website.
I didn't do much advertising this year simply because the work became to be too much, but also, this year I had so many requests for antennas............and I spent a lot of time answering questions that I felt that either most people were not interested in the expense of buying one, OR, they decided to build their own...........and it was the people who ultimately decided to build their own that I heard the most from in 2006 (like I'm INTERESTED in their problems!!.....ie; I'm not).
I have no problem hearing from customers who buy from me who have questions, but I have a real problem with people who take on the job, and write me complaining that they can't get it right..........like it is my fault. Those same people, after spending a lot of money on a project they couldn't build, I think, just gave up...........but for sure I heard from them! And here is the funny part (I learned this when I tested the products I built before I attempted to sell them)......THEY DIDN'T BUILD THEM RIGHT...........winding a coil is not very easy, and the material is expensive. The only reason I could afford to sell one for less than $100, is because I got a lot of orders and bought 20 pound spools of magnetic wire.............which made them affordable. If you buy just enough to build a coil that operates in the 1610-1710kHz band, and mess up the job, it is a large amount of money wasted............for some, enough to give up the project.
The subject of being on the air in the standard band came up. I built about 4 very long coils designed by an engineer which did indeed extend just past 1400am...........and that is because there are truly a few areas in the country where the expanded band (or high standard band) is crowded. So we looked at what I would need to do to build one that would operate from 1250kHz on up.................and came up with one which ended up to be thinner than my standard coil but about 3 feet long with a lot of taps...........it was quite a project to build and it was priced high.
I still have some supplies left to build antennas, ground systems and coils for the sstran and Ramsey TX's (those that are kits that can be adapted to accept a copper/coil based antenna. You are welcome to write me at this address:
[email protected] if you are interested in the current prices. Remember, copper has gone WAY up in price and so I base prices on those prices now; and, I no longer provide the long pipe (I leave that up to the customer to purchase since it is cheaper to buy locally than to ship!).
If there is a demand, I'll continue to build them, but this year had very little demand and I used up my prebuilt supplies in sales last year and this year.
I would like to stay in the coil winding/ground system business and leave the simplest parts of the antenna (and the heaviest to ship) to the customer in the future.
So, if you have a request for either product or for something you think you can't build, please feel free to email me at this address, and include as much information as you can; I'll be glad to write you back.
Carl Van Orden
Antenna Guy
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