L.V.S.R. - 'The Voice of the Valley' Station Tour

L.V.S.R. is Lost Valley Scout Radio, Broadcasting in Lost Valley on 1620 AM and 89.3 FM, and sending a streaming signal live to family and friends around the world via the Internet. Since Lost Valley is a wilderness camp with limited bandwidth we can only provide a 24 kpbs stream, think of it as listening to your favorite distant AM radio station.

Part 15 Broadcasting:
The FCC Permits very low power broadcasting in a non-interference basis on the AM & FM Broadcast band. LVSR primary broadcast frequency is 1620 kHz. at 100 milliwatt output power. The 89.3 mHz. transmitter is producing 10 milliwatts of power and can only be heard in Lost Valley.

AM Transmitter - SStran AMT3000 High Fidelity Low Power AM Radio Transmitter Kit. It is a 100mW unit for compliance with the FCC Part 15 regulations in the USA.  The transmitter kit includes an audio compressor and limiter as well as a selectable treble-boost circuit. The RF oscillator is crystal controlled for stability and precision. The AMT3000 is connected to a FM Receiver to pick up the audio feed from the automation computer.

AM Antenna - On the SStran website it states "If you want to maximize your range, check out our instructions for building a Part 15 compliant outdoor base-loaded vertical antenna. With this antenna installed close to ground level, expect 1/2 to 1 mile strong-signal range. Range will increase to 1 to 2 miles when the antenna is elevated to 20 feet or more." We downloaded the information and built our AM antenna to SStran's specs.

FM Transmitter - The FM transmitter is a crystal controlled Ramsey FM25B purchased from eBay.  The FM25B features a PIC microprocessor for easy frequency programming. The transmit frequency is easily set using DIP switches. Frequency drift is a thing of the past with PLL control making the signal rock solid all the time. The FM25B's real claim to fame is the use of the latest cutting edge stereo generator on the market. The audio quality is excellent with amazingly good stereo separation to keep all audiophiles happy!

After some testing we purchaced a Ramsey STC1C - Stereo Transmitter Companion. We set the levels so the Peak LED flickers a bit which resulted in perfect modulation without splatter or distortion. The output is really cleaned up by the switched-capacitor low pass filtering in the STC1. An issues with higher order harmonics and clock feed-through which cause annoying heterodynes and whooshing noises disappear. We use this as a STL link to the AM Transmitter 150 feet away.

FM Antenna - We tried making a 1/4 wave groundplane, but were never satisfied with the range. We then designed a simple dipole antenna that doubled the range. After the first prototype, the antenna was built using 1/2" copper pipe.

Automation Program - We started out using Winamp Player on shuffle, it played music, but a radio station is not just playing music.  Also, it was freeware, so the price was right.  The next step was an add-on program called Winamp Radio Scheduler. It gave us the ability to add commercial jingles at a set time, but still limited functionallity.  The search continued, then while browsing the Part15.us website we discovered a program called Zararadio. We discovered that several other stations also used Zararadio, so we checked out their website.

Well after about 10 minutes looking at Zararadio's package, we knew it was the software we had been looking for, not only because it is a powerful program, it's freeware! There were a couple of issues that were not addressed:
First: No Audio Processing, it had a simple AGC but not the level of processing available with Winamp.
Second: No streaming capability.
So, a second computer was set up to handle both of these issues.

Audio Processing - We're back to a Winamp platform using Sound Solution Version 1.3. This is a free software plugin that will make an FM station sound like it is using an expensive audio processor.

Features:
* Multiband Compressor-Expander-Limiter
* Center frequencies B1=170Hz, B2=1000Hz, B3=3200,B4=7200,B5=12000
* Gated AGC
* Stereo expander
* Dual band output limiter / compressor / clipper
* Bass Equalizer
* Built in preemphasis 50-75uS generator and lowpass antialias filter

Streaming - When Winamp was developed, someone realized that if MP3 data was decoded it could be broadcasted as an MP3 stream over the internet. Shoutcasting was born.

L.V.S.R. uses an external Shoutcast streaming provider, Fast-Serv.com, to lessen the dataload on the camp's network.

Transmitter Site

Now that we have all the parts and programs in place. Where should we put all this stuff at Lost Valley?
Our first thought was in the Tom Tabb Center on the Grace side of camp. It had the area we needed, it had internet access over the in-camp wi-fi network. We thought we had a winner, but when internet streaming was brought up the network adminstrator he said it would be to much of a load on the wireless network. On to plan B...
There is one place in camp with internet access that is directly connected to the microwave transmitter from Anza, the Commissioner's Office at Casey Lodge. Now we had to find a way to install all the equipment in a secure cabinet. A surplus Motorola equipment cabinet was donated for L.V.S.R.'s use. Here's a photo of the cabinet:

And last but not least, our studio sign...

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