Musicbox 1610 Signs On..

I am pleased to report that after some initial stalls, burps and tweaks, Musicbox 1610 has,
indeed, made it on the air in September.

The first night I got on the air was September 13. Didn't get an audio signal through to just before dark. But..the signal and audio were there and sounded pretty good for a Rangemaster system mounted barely 2 feet off the ground.

This past weekend, our friend Robert came out and helped me with some of the "tower" work.
The Rangemaster is mounted at the very top of a telephone pole, and with the 102" whip, I'm
estimating that our antenna is roughly 24 feet high.

Just getting the Rangemaster higher more than doubled the coverage. Then we added the ground line and added 3 25 foot copper radials that point east, a little northwest, and one to the west. I didn't try to tackle the underbrush on the south side of the pole!

The radials added about a 5% increase in coverage. We also did some other tweaking, and I believe I'll probably need to do a final fine-tune on the unit..but Sunday the signal went from Capital Circle N.E. to Nino's Restaurant on the Parkway..about 3 miles.

Trying to add a ground to the greenhouse frame, didn't help at all, and, in fact made things worse. We lost the signal out at the Parkway. Came back, took the greenhouse loop out and got the coverage back.

For 100 milliwatts (one-tenth of a watt) I think we are doing OK.

The format seems quite listenable and I've enjoyed actually turning on a radio for the first time in years.

I had a litle technical trouble Monday morning..but today even in the pre-dawn hours there was a signal there up to Mom and Dad's. I'll be interested when someone with a car and radio can help me discover some other reception points..if there are any.

I'm delighted to be on the air locally again..for the first time in over 2 years.