› Forums › Radionics › Pirate Radio › NL : Dude builds replica 80s pirate FM TX in his home :)
- This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated May 27, 2013 at 4:26 pm by Pat McDonald.
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May 11, 2013 at 5:57 pm #1055811
TX has valves ECC83 (first stage) and QQE03/12 (FM modulator and final RF stage). NB: This is the one shown at 0:40, the one at the top is different and for MF/HF (he makes transmitters for both)
QQE03/12 will produce 12W RF output power at Band II , this will get you most of a town with good antenna location (at least 10km radius). It would have been common on NL surplus market in 1980s as it would have been found in the finals of many small VHF ships radios when mariners were upgrading their kit from valves to solid state transistors and MOSFETS
He also got an Optimod 8100 soundprocessor (multiband compressor/limiter) which fits in with the era (as does the tune from Canadian Synthpop band Trans X, Living on Video).
the TX runs into dummy load (but there is enough just to make his house radios receive) so Theo Brouwer or anyone else from Agentschap does not knock to his door 😉
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May 11, 2013 at 6:10 pm #1273116PS: for those below 35
May 11, 2013 at 7:51 pm #1273118@General Lighting 545659 wrote:
the TX runs into dummy load (but there is enough just to make his house radios receive) so Theo Brouwer or anyone else from Agentschap does not knock to his door 😉
Am surprised the enthusiast hasn’t electrified the door and built a trapdoor chute leading to a piranha tank to take care of little pests like that.
May 27, 2013 at 4:26 pm #1273117the London pirates used to put 230V on the metalwork to stop the others (not even DTI/Ofcom) taking the TX away but TBH I think this dude may also be one of Radio Waddenzee’s broadcast engineers so AT will leave him alone anyway… especially as there are rural pirates there with 10 to 15kW on FM which get into Germany as well…
Even here in Blighty the main reason community radio is tolerated is to keep folk like me off other people’s roofs, about 50% of the volunteers are either formerly from Flex FM or Mystery FM (and usually its us what keep the station running and sounding good)
Radio Waddenzee is a legal community station for Groningen and the surrounding area on board a ship (usually on 1602), Agentschap basically let them carry on provided they turned down the TX power from 10 000W to 1 000W (probably because UK commercial stations complained to Ofcom that they could otherwise cross the border and compete with them). They do have an online stream and listening to it it does sound like they are using an old skool optimod rather than the newer ones which have a brighter but harsher sound.
The current presenter is some old boy from the 1960s/1970s and on his biography it says the ships cat Yepie always seeks out his show, and then trys to jump on the desk and knock all the faders out of position :laugh_at:
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› Forums › Radionics › Pirate Radio › NL : Dude builds replica 80s pirate FM TX in his home :)