HELP NEEDED!! Middle aged with big plans, little knowledge :-)

[helpMUCHappreciated]

Thank you first of all for accepting me to your group.

It's a long story but I'm pretty much dedicating the rest of my life to this & other projects for political anti government reasons and of course some good old school jungle among.

I have some decent money coming but at the moment have a very low budget.

I can't even afford a swr meter at the moment.

I have a cheap chinese transmitter with the antenna that screw directly into the back. It is 7 watts.

This is completely useless as antennas need to be high up.

There are sites that have instructions to make your own antenna and tell you the lengths of wire for which frequency.

Am I likely to blow my transmitter attempting this without a swr meter?

Also instead of just buying more powerful transmitter is a rf amplifier any good, I know they used to use them with CB radios.

Much thanks for your time.

[pirateaddict]

Welcome to the forum hma. I don't know much about broadcasting but i will tell you now, don't use that Chinese box at all and do not amplify that Chinese box if you like your liberty.. They're dirty sprogg boxes and no serious or even amateur pirate will touch them..I'm sure someone else will be along shortly with a more technical explanation than what i can give.. Get online, pcs electronics, Dutch rf shop. The Chinese transmitters use the chips that you get in i-trips and are no good for anything other than very low power transmission to your car radio..Plus you can't get the volume high enough without them knocking the stereo tone out..I welcome what ya doing though, with the political stuff.. We need to break the status quo and get rid of all the thieving lying leeches.. We need a guy fawkes who knows what he's doing instead of that failure we had yonks ago..lol..

[helpMUCHappreciated]

Thanks for your help 'pirate addict'.

I'm not concerned about going to prison for my political endeavors.

[Albert H]

Sadly, the Chinese things are based on chips used for "iTrip"-type transmitters - good enough to go from your iPod to your car radio, but if you amplify them, you're certain to cause interference. This interference can't be filtered out - it's too close to the frequency that you want to use, so the basic Laws of Physics are against you achieving electronic cleanliness with those things! Also, because the transmitter is operating on several frequencies at the same time, the power available at the frequency you want to use is being wasted in those spurious outputs.

The need for cleanliness isn't just to facilitate "legitimate" broadcasters - it's also to prevent interference to services you might really want to use like the Ambulance and Fire services! Also - any hint of interference to other radio stations, and you'll get an "unfriendly visit" to take your gear away.

Stations with clean, stable electronics (unlike those Chinese interference generators) often get away with operation for some while if there are no complaints. This is worth bearing in mind.

The possibility of unattended operation should also be high on your list of requirements - stations NEVER operate directly into a transmitter: they use "link" systems to covertly feed the transmitter from their concealed studio, or rebroadcast 'net streams, or broadcast pre-recorded programmes off tape players or MP3 players.

You need to enlist the assistance of an engineer who really knows what he's doing. Sadly, I'm unavailable, but many of the people on this forum will point you in the right direction!

[bristolpirates]

Bare in mind that they will target you much more quickly if you are broadcasting political content too.

[Albert H]

Bear in mind that they will target you much more quickly if you are broadcasting political content too.

That's not necessarily true. It depends how you include the political content: "Vote for Bloggs!" is obvious. "Have you seen the neat stuff that Joe Bloggs bloke is doing?" can be just as politically manipulative - possible more so - but is more covert.

Choice of musical content can be politically manipulative too. This is probably not true of the average darnce track, but some of the musical genres with some intelligent lyrical content can be very political too.

The guys on the "Voice Of Peace" very carefully selected the music they played - Edwin Starr's "War!" would be a bad choice, Noosha Fox's "Climb Aboard The Love Ship" would be entirely appropriate. They successfully manipulated the views of a whole generation in parts of the Middle East.

It's a great pity that the current crop of hardline Muslim nutters ban music - a radio station persuading them that jihad is just a stupid waste of life could be very effective when coupled with some really intelligent musical choices!

[radionortheast]

if you don't id you can get away with all kinds of swearing in songs, people will think their listening to a big itrip

if the antenna is a screw in telescopic wip at the back i don't see it going to far get a gp instead, better yet get a pcs transmitter run low power few watts see what it dose and don't do politics! actually if it was at such a low power level i doubt anyone would care! there problaly are easy ways to get a point across thought, phone ins on radio shows etc, writing a blog using social media, guess if theres people there you will find an audience

think the only way to get people behide what your doing is to do it by the back door like FIP did in brighton, everyone went into uproar when that was taken off air, guess that was poltics by the back door, you want to make it quite mild..maybe a pirate that dosen't sound like a pirate

[helpMUCHappreciated]

Thanks

The politics is the main reason I'm doing it & it's going to be severely critical of the government.

I don't want to depress anyone one but I've attempted suicide many many times in my life due to severe depression & one of the things that stopped me was the promise to myself to make sure I spent the rest of my life fighting political injustice.

I'm certainly not afraid of death and not afraid of prison........

Hopefully that makes the picture a bit clearer, sorry to be so intense.

My attitude at the moment is if OFCOM takes down a transmitter I'll put up 100 more.

I would never transmit full power from my home.

A 4g smart phone, battery & transmitter will allow live transmission from anonymous locations.

Wireless movement detection cameras are very cheap to cut transmission before discovery.

I have lots of ideas, shame nobody listens to the radio anymore, better move straight to TV

And yes my ip address is hidden by multiple layers of security

[OgreVorbis]

Thanks

The politics is the main reason I'm doing it & it's going to be severely critical of the government.

I don't want to depress anyone one but I've attempted suicide many many times in my life due to severe depression & one of the things that stopped me was the promise to myself to make sure I spent the rest of my life fighting political injustice.

I know what you're thinking. I'm very similar to you actually in terms of the government and severe depression. I do pirate radio for the same reason as you except in the US.

Anyway, I'd really get one of the cheaper PCS electronics transmitters. I understand you don't really care that much, but honestly, they're not really much more expensive than those CZE chinese things. Just don't get the STMAX 3015 he went the way of the chinaman with that one. I really don't know why he used a shitty chip on that one when he's clearly capable of designing good transmitters (must have been lazy). I'd get the MAXPRO 2015 - Cost effective and high quality.

[radionortheast]

don’t want this to be one of those things where someone says they’ve commited sucide many times it all gose quiet i’m totattly with you on spending the rest of my life fighting political injustice..do it throught twitter at the moment and other channels I have some sucessors, its harder to crack big orangizations i keep hammering away thought having a go, theres one thing if you buy a product it gose wrong write about on twitter companies don’t like the bad pr from the tweet so they’ll ususally try their best to please you, with goverments departments, news orangizations, their programed not to really respond unless lots of people are saying the samethings. I don't use social media for social reasons, maybe what i'm doing is antisocial. if changes things then cool and now websites that didn't seem to have a purpose have a purpose

anyway really do appreciate you both coming out about your depression beable say that

[Albert H]

Depression is a cruel affliction. I was treated for it (many years ago) after the sudden death of my first really serious girlfriend. I went into a rapid downward spiral, and it was only the intervention of a couple of really good friends that helped me out. They steered me towards a psychologist who, with the aid of many counselling sessions and some anti-depressant drugs, sorted me out and got me functioning again. I never want to have to go through that torture again!

If you want to press for social change through the use of "alternative media", be prepared for some major hassle from the authorities. They don't like anything that doesn't conform to their strict rules, and the idea of open media outlets scares the hell out of them.

As an exercise, listen to the BBC news on Radio 4. Then listen to the same news presented by (say) the English service of Russia Today. The same stories will be covered with wildly different slants - you can hear the British BBC-lefty propaganda in every BBC bulletin.

Don't make your political or social message overt - be careful to embed what you want to say into other items. Learn the propagandist tricks of the newspapers and the BBC. Use the same tricks, but modified you convey YOUR message. You're a pirate station - there's no reason for you not to include subliminal messages if you want.

Make certain that the programme material you broadcast will suit a wide audience - there's no point in broadcasting to the three people in your town who like Grimecore. You need a wide, general audience. Get it right, and you'll have other people who'll want to get involved, who'll help to operate and finance your project. Get it wrong, you'll achieve nothing, waste time, energy and money and get fed up with it. Get it right, and you might change the views of some of the listeners for the better!

Good luck!

[ragga]

I don't use social media for social reasons, maybe what i'm doing is antisocial

antisocial media