Is there any way ofcom could disable your 4g link with a jammer from nearby, so you turn up and get caught ?

Not unless they're willing to kill off 4G for everyone else in the area. If they do find your site they'll just take the equipment, they wouldn't get a warrant to jam/kill a 4G signal just go catch one guy.

If you are just using a stream for just your link, not as an internet stream for listeners, do you need to pay for streaming services like shoutcast or can you just host it yourself ?

Oh they will, they are very sneaky. They will turn your rig off and wait for you to turn up. Or disable your audio input. Then either put cameras out or have police on standby ready to make arrests. A few people will tell you on here, they almost wait in the bushes for you.

XXL wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:01 am Oh they will, they are very sneaky. They will turn your rig off and wait for you to turn up. Or disable your audio input. Then either put cameras out or have police on standby ready to make arrests. A few people will tell you on here, they almost wait in the bushes for you.

Yes they might, but as for jamming the phone/data 4G signal I very much doubt that...

jamming is illegal, remember the whole problem they had with drones over heathrow, they weren’t allowed to jam the drones signal.

Bton-FM wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:04 pm If you are just using a stream for just your link, not as an internet stream for listeners, do you need to pay for streaming services like shoutcast or can you just host it yourself ?

Yes you can set up on your own server - a static ip is usally needed..

Or if you're ok with 128kbps, use caster.fm which gives you free everything at that bitrate

Bton-FM wrote: ↑Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:04 pm If you are just using a stream for just your link, not as an internet stream for listeners, do you need to pay for streaming services like shoutcast or can you just host it yourself ?

Yes you could host it yourself and hide it. No problems if you are just using it to link to the TX

Your IP address will be on the tx pc though. Iv used Listen2MyRadio before now just to link.

So the problem with hosting from the studio is there is a chance you could be tracked back by OFCOM?

Just do what Albert does and concrete the rig into the wall, then have a decoy rig on display nearby for them to unplug. You can also use a rasperry pi with battery backup to monitor the decoy rig so you know if someone has unplugged it, and the Pi could also have a camera attached so you can see who's there.

If you're going to do a decoy, make sure that it has mains going into it, has a lightbulb inside so it's warm to the touch, has a brick or two inside it to make it credibly heavy, and is pop-rivetted shut! It's also good to take your supply to the main rig up the "coax" coming out of the dummy, so that when they unplug it, the station goes off the air. They'll be convinced that they've got the real thing, since they never want to hang around when stealing your gear!

Take the supply power to the rig up the coax ?

XXL wrote: ↑Sun May 03, 2020 1:02 am Take the supply power to the rig up the coax ?

Yes. The real gear is on the distant end of that coax. The dummies we used had a mains transformer inside, so we sent 24V AC up the "coax" through an SO239 / PL259 coming from the warm box. The box will also have the slight mechanical hum of a transformer making it even more credible!

I went a stage further, putting a TV aerial socket on the box, and connected a TV aerial lead to it. The coax plug would be shorted internally and operate a relay - if the PTT guys unplugged the "link receive" aerial, the relay inside the box would drop out with a loud "click" and the rig would go off because the relay would switch off the 24V AC. Reconnecting the link receive aerial lead would pull the relay back in - another click and the rig would come back on......

Later dummies were equipped with LEDs for even more credibility.

You could also use a TV connector that has it’s outer ring (the part you grip with your fingers) livened up with the mains, then Gotts or whoever tries to unplug the dummy will end up with a big belt.

nrgkits.nz wrote: ↑Sun May 03, 2020 6:51 am You could also use a TV connector that has it’s outer ring (the part you grip with your fingers) livened up with the mains, then Gotts or whoever tries to unplug the dummy will end up with a big belt.

You could, but they'd then get really serious about identifying who'd done it!

One London station famously attached a thunderflash to their rigs to prevent tampering! Another actually had their valved rigs explode by using a relay to reverse the 650V to the supply smoothing capacitors. They were using directly rectified mains through a voltage doubler network, and the explosion was spectacular!