PIRATE RADIO SURVIVAL GUIDE
Note: this chapter is from the book "Pirate Radio Survival Guide" written by; N Radio Doomsday, and Captain Eddy of The Radio Airplane. If you like this book a like to support their efforts, you may send a donation of your choice to either Capt. Eddy at PO Box 452, Wellsville NY 14895.

Please note that some chapters refer to illistrations or drawings, these could this BBS version of the book. If you would like the illistrations or have other may inquire at the above adddress.

QRM

These 3 very important letters are taken from the Amateur Radio "Q Codes" and mean "Is my transmission being interfered with?" or "Your transmission is being with." The source of the interference is typically MAN made. QRN means the same except the source of the interference comes from NATURAL causes.

While broadcasting and another of your radio neighbors decides to use the fre have chosen, You are being QRM'd. This is unfortunate but since you are not sup there anyway, just move to another frequency!

While broadcasting and YOUR transmitter is QRMing your neighbors TV, Radio, S Phone, etc. you have a SERIOUS PROBLEM! Do not ignore it! From what little info on pirate busts I have obtained, MOST seem to be related to unresolved interfer It is in your best interests to take a active approach to solving your QRM prob not solve QRM problems, the FCC WILL take steps to solve the problem! Since we what their solution is, I am going to present easier, less costly, painless way problem.

START WITH YOUR OWN GEAR - Perhaps the most overlooked part of any station is good ground system. See the chapter on Station Ground Systems.

Use a low-pass filter on your transmitter. This is a passive device that you feedline between the Transmitter and Antenna. While not difficult to build, for would recommend purchasing one. You can expect to pay between $25 to $75 for a low pass filter. They are rated in Watts so you need to know much power your tr runs so you won't get one that is to "small". Some of the better units are tune help to knock down harmonic interference greatly. Any Ham Radio Equipment catal carry several Low Pass filters, so they are not hard to find.


While more advanced, your Transmitters Parasitic Supressors could be "smoked" Transmitter will appear to operate normally, as it should, if your supressors a generate more harmonic type QRM than is normal. See Figure 1 for a schematic of suppressor. Usually mistuning a transmitter is enough to burn out the resistor and since the resistor is in parallel with the coil, you cannot easily tell if with out un-soldering one side of the coil. If the resistor looks like a charco pretty safe to assume it's bad. "Hey, my Transmitter doesn't use parasitic supr somebody to add them. It is not terribly difficult and can be done by anyone wh to solder and wind some wire around a resistor! Learn how to properly tune your If your transmitter is not tuned correctly you could be generating interference your manual!

Do not "over-drive" the transmitter! This will generate QRM and also make you wide, splatter, and sound distorted! It is easy to over-drive any Transmitter. check if your pushing your transmitter to hard is to listen to yourself off the that you need to put some distance between yourself and the transmitter to keep overloading your receivers front end into distorting. This is simple to rectify the "Audio Gain" on the transmitter or reduce the line level audio feeding the your signal's audio clears up.

Use a properly constructed, RESONANT, antenna! See the chapter on antennas fo information. You could find that it is your choice of an antenna that is giving

Watch the TV in your house to see if you are interfering with it. Check your etc. and notice any interference problems, if any. This will help to determine at fault. It is always convincing if you can demonstrate that you do not interf in your own home.

"I'VE DONE ALL THIS AND I STILL QRM MY NEIGHBORS!" - This is where the game can get interesting and you need to have your "cover story" well rehearsed in o off" anyone to ILLEGAL activities! If you have any experience with phone phreak term "Social Engineering" will mean a great deal to you. Should you not know wh Engineering" is, I will try to tell you what it means in general and how to app with neighbors.

Social Engineering is the art or getting information out of people without ra suspicions. Sounds easy doesn't it? Believe it or not, in practice it is quite

Remember, none of the following information will do you ANY good if your neig yourself are already on bad terms! The damage has already has been done and you concentrate your efforts on the preceding information! It is in your best inter friendly terms with your neighbor because He or She can very easily end your pi with unpleasant results!




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