| ChezRadio Procaster™
- A review from the non-tech
February 20, 2008 - from MLR
posted at www.part15.us
First, thanks to ChezRadio for
allowing me the opportunity to review this new entry into
the FCC Certified Part15 AM Transmitter market (whew.. mouthful).
I am really hoping that what I
got was typical of the TX package. Out of the box it included
mounting hardware, enough Cat3 to get me going, and oh yeah
- a surprisingly sturdy and easy to tune antenna.
In all seriousness, it took me
a whopping hour to go from opening the box to listening to
some tunes over the air.
The installation was very basic:
The tx was nailed to my lanai in the back yard, the ground
lug was fastened to a metal plate that holds the joists together,
which was, in turn, grounded to a 8' ground rod. Nothing special.
I picked 1700 because it was temporarily
open (daytime in San Jose - at night, forget it..), I stuck
a little Sansa MP3 player on the mod box, and made it loop
for testing. For music, I used some classic Tommy Dorsey,
a shot of Led Zeppelin, some DJ Magic Mike, a Little Dead
Kennedys, a spoken word concery bit from Henry Rollins, and
a bit of Zeromancer. I figured that should cover most of the
spectrum.
1/4 mile from the house, I was
hearing everything like it was a commercial station. At .5
mile, it was still strong. It sort of dipped out a little
at .75 miles because of the fact that I live on a hill, and
I think it skipped a touch (no idea.. just seemed like a logical
answer to me). At 1 mile, everything was still strong and
listenable, but it would phase out to a little hiss every
now and again. at 1 and 1/8 mile, it just quit.
I'm thinking if I really tuned
this thing, it would probably push 1.5 miles pretty good in
my area.
All in all, I give this little
tx pretty high marks.
On a 1-5 scale:
Ease of Installation: 4 (it would
have been 5 if it leaped from the box and installed itself:)
)
Sound Quality: 4/5 - the bass was a little muddy in places
- could have been my install.
Communication with Vendor: 5 (This guys is mega nice.. answers
all questions)
Pics would be here, but seriously
- all the stuff you need is at his site: www.chezradio.com
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