Mark Schoonover wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:09 AM, Alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Wed, April 30, 2008 3:03 am, Tracy R Reed wrote:
>
> Maybe the guy in Texas was using a traditional eastern CB. :)
>
A 400 watt linear?
heh.
-ajb
Possible, but when the solar cycle is just right, the 3 watts out of a
CB is enough for global communications. Right now we're at the bottom
of the solar cycle and starting to climb out. Conditions are pretty
poor on the higher frequencies that even running 800 watts out of my
truck won't help.
Back when I was going to school for my hardware engineering degree, I
made extra money repairing CBs. Of course I had a few myself as well as
a couple linears that I built or repaired. One of them (which I still
have) was a 100W Palomar.
I routinely used that linear to talk to people as far away as Australia
on side band, and on occasion to people all over the country on AM.
Normally, these kinds of distances were not possible, but when
atmospheric when conditions were right, the entire world was available
to me. Making things really cool, I live in a canyon that acts like a
parabolic dish pointing North-East. In the center of this dish sat my
now broken 5/8 wave ground plane antenna mounted above my all aluminum
mobilehome. With the gain of the antenna, and the gain of the reflected
waves from the canyon, I could talk a long distance with just a stock
radio.I once built a 1260W linear (it was my senior project) and that
thing effectively shut down all CB traffic in San Diego and up into LA
when I keyed the mike (until the used 2KV plate supply shorted, sending
110VAC into the irreplaceable tubes and blowing one out :(( ).
I still have my radios, but the antenna snapped in half years ago during
high winds when one of our 60' tall trees smacked it.
There was a time that I toyed with the idea of putting a repeater
(acquired from a friend) on top of Rattle Snake (another friend owns the
top of it) and not only using it for private voice communication, but
also data. These days that would be much easier with the USRP
(http://www.ettus.com/).
PGA
--
Paul G. Allen, BSIT/SE
Owner, Sr. Engineer
Random Logic Consulting Services
www.randomlogic.com
--
[email protected]
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