wildstar@nmtvax.UUCP (12/26/85)
It seems I found an ideal location for placing in a 5000 foot Beverage receiveing antenna, the only problem being that it is a quarter mile away from my dorm, and that I cannot string coax across or above the street directly adjacent. Even if I could, there are a number of adjoining properities whose owners refuse to even hear about even any connections whatsover, even IR beams, crossing thier property line. I have an Advanced Class license, and I am primarily interested in working 80 and 20 meters on relatively low power, hence the tremendous possiblities raised by such an extreme length antenna. The problem is that I need some means of relaying by radio the control signals to tune a local receiver hooked up to the antenna, but that I do not want to violate either repeater regulations or cross-service regulations. For instance, suppose I use the AM band at less that 100 milliwatts power, 10 foot antenna length, which are the FCC's maximums for unlicensed operation; to relay control signals to and resulting audio from the antenna site. Would I be violating cross-service regulations due to the retransmission of amateur traffic on AM, even though the power and antenna restrictions for citizen use are conserved? If other bands in amateur service or common carrier are acceptable, or if the strategy I outlined is acceptable, in that no rules ( especially part 97! ) are violated or even bent, I would like to know. Please advise. Andrew Jonathan Fine
hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (12/27/85)
> > It seems I found an ideal location for placing in a 5000 foot Beverage > receiveing antenna, the only problem being that it is a quarter mile > away from my dorm, and that I cannot string coax across or above the street > directly adjacent. Even if I could, there are a number of adjoining > properities whose owners refuse to even hear about even any connections > whatsover, even IR beams, crossing thier property line. ^^^^^^^^ I wouldn't consider this to be a "connection" of the sort a property owner could prohibit (other than putting up an opaque "fence"). How would they even know? You certainly don't need the property owners' permission to spray radio waves above their property - so why would you need permission for IR? > > Andrew Jonathan Fine --henry schaffer
wjc@ll-vlsi (Bill Chiarchiaro) (12/30/85)
Why not use an amateur band for the link? The MIT Radio Society (W1MX) has been considering a project similar to yours. W1MX is a fantastic transmitting location for 160 meters, but the noise level is so high in the city that you can hardly hear anything. We've been thinking about erecting a Beverage (or two) at MIT Lincoln Laboor- atory's Millstone Hill site in Westford, MA. This site is a quiet, wooded location about 15 miles northwest of Cambridge. Our plan would be to upconvert the entire 160 band to either 440 MHz or 1260 MHz and link it back to Cambridge. With this plan, no remote control (except possibly for antenna switching) would be required. If the the 160 band is FM'ed onto the link, id'ing could be done by low-level AM (thereby avoiding annoyance for the operator at the receiving end). I believe this approach is entirely within the spirit of the FCC's amateur rules, and would be classified as auxiliary operation. An interesting by-product of this scheme is that anyone who could hear the link could, by building his own down-converter, take advantage of the quiet antenna. Bill N1CPK