PCS-Electronics

Hi,

First of all I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows the situation in the Canary Islands (spain). We're real small here in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria but the band is packed from 88-108 and everyone is stamping on each others signals... its a listeners nightmare. This leads me to believe that there is no licensing authority here - or at least, no enforcement of licencing.

Can anyone confirm ?

So, anyway, I figure I need lots of penetration, perhaps something in the line of 2kw ERP to cut through the mess. Most of the stations here seem to be low power affairs. Also, after carving a notch out of the band, I'm going to need good strong audio and a lot of audio polish to cope with competition elsewhere on the band.


Suggestions for strong audio processing?

Currently my Mic is an AKG C-4000-B Large Condenser with shocks and pops. I have this running through an M-Audio TAMPA compressor/limitor/gate which seems to be doing the job, but what should I have between the mixer and the exciter to keep the final audio peaked and within bounds ? Between live mixing sessions music will come from DJPro studio automation software (Unless anyone knows something better) and the PC Output from DJPro will be AES/EBU or SPDIF. So, I'm looking for something that can handle digital inputs. Ideas ?


Suggestions for transmitter arrangement?

Unfortunately, I am in the city at the top of a steel-cored building. I was previously looking at a stacked dipole arrangement but I'm worried about interference. The reason I want to stack is that I would feel safer with 4-6 smaller redundant amps than one expensive one I cannot afford to replace.

Alternatively theres a groundplaned 5/8 that is supposed to be really good on gain and prevents me from saturating the building below me but can I still use an Amp array into a single antenna? - I'm fairly sure that wiring 4 in-phase (same exciter) outputs together would probably blow the output stages due to the amount of power coming back down the feeders.

Any tips? Anything that will pull my signal horizontal yet can be fed by multiple amps for redundancy ?


Remote transmitter opportunity...

Later I may have the option of using an STL to an overlooking mountain and then directing both into the city and a village on the other side (A friend owns farming land there) but theres no electricity up there so I'm figuring a diesel generator would be the only way to go. That is shelved till I can get sponsorship and advertising revenue going but tips would be appreciated nonetheless.

Being in the tropics we have very high UV, low cloud cover, high humidity and the lowest temperatures of the year are around 26 degrees, mean is 31 degrees and summer can reach 46 degrees (celcius) ... would solar panels be cost effective for such a large transmitter to supplement a nightime diesel generator? They tend to be around 15% cheaper here due to domestic demand but having never used these before I am unsure how expensive this would be including the storage batteries. My gut feel is that it would cost too much to be practical and I would probably be better off with 24/7 diesel. I'd love to hear otherwise though.

I want to get the station well established before pursuing anything so costly. But it is good to have plans so any advice on unpowered locations would be real useful and may help me flesh out my mission statement to attract sponsors and revenue.


A lot of questions, my apologies.


One further question... I notice the PCS stock is very similar to V**O*I*A equipment (Masked to avoid advertising). Are you dropshipping or partnered by any chance? Would/could goods be collected from UK or US ? The import duties here are ridiculously high but air-fares are very low so I'd prefer a carry-in over shipping anyday : )

Many thanks for your time and patience.


-Medus

IceFM: Technotrance, Bouncy Techno, HappyHardcore, DnB, HipHop. Good mixing. Live sets. Aiming to be the bounciest station in the Canarias archipelago without all that Reggaeton and commercial garbage.

Ice - The station your neighbours listen to... whether they want to or not : )

Our stuff is 90% our products, developed in house.

We are inside EU so you probably do not pay import fee, correct?
Or are you in a special VAT-free zone?

pcs wrote:Our stuff is 90% our products, developed in house.

OK, Cool.

pcs wrote:We are inside EU so you probably do not pay import fee, correct? Or are you in a special VAT-free zone?

Well, we're in the EU for most things, but not for others. The rules are different for here than for the Spanish peninsula - possibly because we a not 'geographically in the EU' but rather off the west coast of Africa... The problem here is that import handling is a scam. For example, a replacement hard drive from Maxtor worth 120euro incurred a 40eu charge to split the consignement (It was on a palette with other peoples items) plus 20eu administrative and warehousing (It was in the warehouse for all of 10 minutes because we were tracking the order and arrived before the plane) and on top of that we were charged tax (despite having paid tax on the original item at purchase time) and also delivery (Even though the sender paid extra for door-to-door but this couldn't occur because we had to pay the aforesaid charges in person before they would deliver - which meant we had to go there anyway and pick it up) .... total cost to RECEIVE a door-to-door package worth 120eu was over 80eu.

Complaining we were told that this was standard with all the handlers... and that there was no regulation.

when we first moved here our personal effects were also 'taxed' (illegally) and we ended up paying 400euro to release a 1000 euro set of boxes for pickup (Despite having paid more in the UK for complete door-to-door service)

So I hope you can appreciate why I'd prefer to spend 60 euro on a return ticket and bring the goods in myself as luggage. I hold a UK passport so there is nothing 'wrong' with me paying the tax in the UK and carrying the items through as personal effects.


Regarding the technical questions, any input ?


-Gary

You ought to give shortwave a hard look from that location? You could literally hit the entire Atlantic basin w/ 100 watts and a decent antenna? All of your signal would be going off shore,the local radio authorities wouldn't care or bother with it? I would kill to be located where you're at.

Simulcast the FM on SW from say dusk until 10 pm. in the 6-7 mhz band and have the best of both worlds? Pick up Marko's 10 watt SW AM rig and try that for kicks? You'd be heard in both W.Europe and E.North America on that band in that time frame w/ even that amount of power.

Don't waste a dream location like that.

Unfortunately Medus aka Gary Chapman dissapeared completely from the face of the earth.

We were in contact and working on a project together, than towards the end he just disappeared.

I can''t get him on the phone, can't get response from e-mail either.

I hope he is ok and nothing terrible has happened to him.

I also hope he did not decide to take off with whatever confidential info I gave him about our products