PCS-Electronics

1) What are the limitations on the length of coaxial cable from your amplifier to your antenna? Does it depend on the strength of your signal?

2) A PCIMax 2005 + a 15W amplifier gives you 15W of stereo-encoded signal. A MaxPro III + a stereo encoder also gives you 15W of stereo-encoded signal. The cost of the two (assuming standalone mounting, and not including cost of the housing) is roughly the same. So what's the technological difference between the two setups?

3) The PCIMax 2005 price sheet shows a 15W booster as being 179 Euros, and on the Amplifiers page it shows a 15W MAX booster at 189 Euros. Are these in fact the same product? What's the difference between them?

4) Let's say you wanted to use a PCIMax 2005, at 300mW transmit strength, to beam a link to a remote transmitter. What's the possible effective line-of-sight range at that wattage with a directional antenna? How do you set up the remote link to recieve that signal?

OK I think that's enough questions for one post. Please respond!

1.)

Longer the cable more loss. 20-30m is about the maximum sensible
lenght, anything more and you get too much attenuation. Of cuorse
you can use special low-loss cable.

2.)

Stand alone solution gives better sound (some minimal the noise
from the PC still remains).

It does not require a PC

You can take it out to the field and power from batteries


3.)

10 Euro discount for purchasing both in combination, they are the
same thing.

4.)

Depends on type of antenna. Up to several miles can be acchived
with RPL0205 on receiving and transmitting end with favorable
conditions.

Thanks for the response! Here's some follow-up questions.

1) More loss = lower signal range? Or by loss, do you mean loss of signal quality i.e. buzz, hiss, etc.?

2) If you were to assume the two combinations both as standalone, and you had two enclosures, one with a PCI Max 2005 and the 15W booster, and the other with the Pro Max III and an SE-4 stereo encoder, what would be the difference in the actual circuits on the boards? Is one better than the other purely from the point of view of technology on the boards?

1.) More loss = less signal, meaning less range

2.) SE4 DSP is a high quality stereo encoder with compressor,
limiter, sharp low pass filter, precise preemphasis and 19KHz
notch filter.

PCI MAX has a more simple stereo encoder and leaves audio
processing to the PC, meaning it is desirable that you use some
audio processing software, such as winamp with audiostocker plugin,
MLB4, SAM3 or similar software.

Of course you may want to be free from using a PC.

MAX PRO III + SE4 is the way to go if you want a real radio station
with power above 15W (100W, 300W or, if you will, 10.000W).