parnass@ihu1h.UUCP (Bob Parnass, AJ9S) (01/18/85)
x From the January 15, 1985 issue of "Radio Communications Report": "The City of New York, acting through its Department of Gen- eral Services, is seeking proposals for the lease of one subcarrier, at 67 kHz, of WNYC/FM......" "WNYC/FM services audiences in the New York City metropoli- tan area operating on 93.9 MHz at a rated power transmitter output not exceeding 10 kw." Now that subcarrier paging is legal, what FM stations in the Chi- cago area are transmitting information on subcarriers? I'm considering connecting my shortwave receiver (with VLF coverage) to an FM radio, before any low pass filtering, to listen in if there is enough activity. Does anyone else on the net listen in? -- =============================================================================== Bob Parnass, Bell Telephone Laboratories - ihnp4!ihu1h!parnass - (312)979-5414
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (01/22/85)
FM SCA listening is fun and sometimes worthwhile. One of the best source for info on the subject is the FM Atlas people. Their address is simple: FM Atlas, Adolph, MN 55701 (a personal effort by Dr. Bruce Elving). I've bought a couple SCA decoders from them, and a radio with a built-in decoder and switch, which I gave to my mother as a present. They sell a fancy decoder from Capri Electronics for $98, which has tunable subcarrier dectection up to several hundred kHz or so. I bought one, as their price was lower than direct from Capri ($114 there) and also some "security" or "anti-bugging" firms were selling the same box for over $200! (You can switch it to listen off the power line, too, to detect wireless intercoms or bugs using that technique.) You can buy a simple SCA decoder kit and build it in most FM radios for $20 or $25, which is a cheaper way to go, or buy one of their SCA-equipped radios if you didn't want to muck about in the innards of one. Their prices are fair for the radios, I think. Anyway, of course most of what you hear is Muzak, which isn't worth paying for, in my opinion. There are some music services which have less elevator-like music than Muzak, though, which might appeal to you. I've never heard one of these adaptors, though, that really filter out the base program well enough to pipe the result into a hifi system, which would be about the only way "background music" would be of use in most home environments. If the sound from a portable radio is good enough, though, this would be worthwhile. Other things you hear: Physicians' News Service, a program of medical news directed at MDs, laden with drug ads. Could be bizarre to listen to for a while, but soon tiresome. Farm news & agricultural commodity info; once you've heard the price of pork, will you want to hear it again? Services for the blind: this is the really worthwhile service. They read the newspaper (you could listen to the paper while driving, if that interests you) and sometimes read books or magazines. Data: a lot of you out there might want to play with this. Some data transmissions are transmitter-to-studio links, just giving the station its own meter readings. But some is commodity or stock prices, probably encrypted, the access to which is sold, along with the decoding equipment, in some major cities. Look in your local libraries for the latest (9th) edition of the FM Atlas for more information on stations transmittng SCA and SCA in general. Regards, Will Martin ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin