Metrofi up and running --implications...

Feedback.pdxradio.com message board: Archives: Portland radio archives: 2007: Jan, Feb, March - 2007: Metrofi up and running --implications for radio?
Author: Missing_kskd
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 9:46 am
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At least downtown. I've not had a chance to connect yet, but I will soon.

This is the free PDX Wifi service that will be AD driven.

Seems to me, this would be a great tie-in for local radio stations. Running some ADS that promote station streams, local goings on, and of course the cool (yeah, I know, but they are supposed to be cool) HD & HD2 content, etc...

The beauty of this service is the ads will be known PDX internet users. Nicely targeted for this kind of thing.

Very soon, much of the city will have essentially free streaming capability that will be fairly portable.

This also is a great venue to promote the HD content, unavailiable to all but a small segment of HD enabled listeners. Putting those streams online would allow people to sample them. (This would also work with AM simulcasts, but the net is better I think)

I know there is a working group that has agreed to only do specific things with the HD2s, but if there was a time for local content, or just new content types, this is rapidly becoming that time.

IMHO, people will have fairly specific streaming times. This suggests to me, it may be beneficial to somehow promote program schedules, if a station has them. Streaming music may not compete well, but specific programs that are themed somehow will, particularly if they have some local connection or just have set expectations for the potential streaming listener.

Get 'em hooked on a solid show or two, then they will miss it enough to use their radio when not within access points, or for better quality.

Could also promote shows that are on HD2 / Stream only as well, thus not significantly impacting the main identity. Perfect for exploring new content forms and or perhaps cultivating some local talent here, again with fairly low risk.

Lots of up and coming creative people in this town, let's hear 'em!

One solid justification for doing this kind of thing is the potential AD revenue loss this service will represent. It is targeted for PDX consumers by it's nature. Connect here, see ADS relevant to here. Heck, they can generate highly localized ADS by local region, based on the access point being used at the time. It's gonna compete nicely with radio, might as well jump in and leverage it to keep as many dollars going toward radio as is possible!

Does not have to be live either. Local shows, produced when it makes sense, but streamed at specific times of day would work well in this new venue. Air them on radio and stream first, then offer downloads for later on, delayed to preserve the value of the initial offering.

Doing things this way would also work well for the HD2 slots as they do not yet generate enough revenue to pay for people, but would work just fine for airing programming like this.

Coverage map here:

http://www.metrofi.com/cities-16.html

That's it really. Just wanted to toss some ideas out there as I think this development is significant. Discuss?

Author: Chris_taylor
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 3:49 pm
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Not quite in my neighborhood yet but they are getting closer. Nice to have the access points on the map.

Author: 62kgw
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 4:00 pm
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There are reports that the coverage is less than promised. You are lucky if you connect from inside your house, even if you get an amplifier thing. Otherwise it might be OK only from the sidewalk or your front porch.
What frequency is it on?

Author: Andrew2
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 4:25 pm
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Presumably it's 2.4GHZ if it's 802.11 which I'm sure it is (all WiFi cards are setup this way).

Andrew

Author: Missing_kskd
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 6:38 pm
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Yep. Anything else would require people to get special devices.

62: It's gonna be a balance between them providing solid coverage everywhere and not ruining the utility of other wireless devices. Too strong and the S/N ratio of your home wireless might be hosed. Too weak and nobody uses it...

Wonder what the PDX ISPs think about this? There are a lot of people who will be perfectly happy with this kind of service, given they can use it reasonably within / around their homes. That's gonna cut into monthly service revenue.

Will be interesting to see how that all shakes out.

Anyone know the connect speeds yet? Maybe it's not good enough to stream audio?

Author: Stevenaganuma
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 7:30 pm
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802.11 b & g use 11 channels in the 2.4ghz spectrum. Here's a channel assignment graph.

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/wireless-guide.html

If you want to boost a WiFi signal but don't want to spend much money, check out the Pringles can antenna project.

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.html

Author: 62kgw
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 7:37 pm
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How does the those gray things on the streetlights communicate with the ISP? is that on another frequency? or is it cabled/fibered?

Are they hazardous like cell phone towers?

Author: Skybill
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 8:26 pm
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Most likely the back-haul to some point where they pick up the internet is on a 5.7-5.8 GHz unlicensed frequency.

I haven't actually spent any time looking at the system in Portland other than I saw some of the units on light poles a few weeks ago on 43rd (st. or ave., I don't know but it's the Hollywood Dist. exit on 84)

Depending on how the system is designed and if it's a mesh network there would be some of the units that are called Gateways and they communicate back to the internet (usually through a wireless link, some routers and other equipment). The Gateways can communicate with a PC but they also communicate to each of the nodes. The node is the unit that connects to your PC.

Depending on how much bandwidth is assigned to the nodes, the gateways and the back-haul, determines how many nodes are assigned to each gateway. Usually 4-6 nodes are run off 1 gateway.

We built a Wi-Fi network in Colorado Springs, CO that covers 2 separate 1 sq. mile areas and we used mesh networking to accomplish it.

As far as distance, the maximum distance to expect from a node is about 300'. And that's assuming clear line of sight. Walls, trees and any other obstructions will reduce the distance.

The standard Wi-Fi card in most laptops runs at 30mW with some optional cards running as much as 100mW. The nodes generally run at 1W.

Here are some web sites about mesh networking for anyone that is interested.
http://research.microsoft.com/mesh/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_network

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2004/01/22/wirelessmesh.html

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid7_gci870763,00.ht ml

62kgw, cell phone towers are not dangerous. The FCC has very specific rules for RF exposure in their OET 65 rules. The levels are based on RF level, frequency and time spent in the RF field.

They have limits that are different for the general public (public) and for trained personnel) occupational). The thought being that the trained personnel are aware of the limits and have the equipment to measure and or protect themselves when working near it.

For example, the transmitters that we use have a rated output of 500W at 941MHz. Figuring in the loss of the feed line and the gain of the antenna, some of our sites can radiate close to 3000W ERP. If for example we install our antennae on a roof top and the base of the antenna is 8' above the roof level, the "occupational" distance from the antenna is less than a foot.

RF is non-ionizing radiation (the same kind as in a microwave oven) and at worse case, it will cause heating to the human body.

In short, unless you are bear hugging an antenna for an extended period of time there really is nothing to worry about. However, it is always best to err on the side of caution and not spend any extended period of time in the near field of any energized antenna.

There is more information at the FCC's web site;
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet65/oet6 5.pdf

Author: Humbleharv
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 8:30 pm
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"How does the those gray things on the streetlights communicate with the ISP? is that on another frequency? or is it cabled/fibered?
"
If you wired people would get off the computer once in a while and read the newspaper (you know, that thing that has all the ads mixed in with the articles) you would know the answer to that. It was covered in depth a month or so ago in the Oregonian.

Author: Andy_brown
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 8:33 pm
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"RF is non-ionizing radiation (the same kind as in a microwave oven) and at worse case, it will cause heating to the human body."

Wrong. All radiation above 1 GHz is ionizing and there are strict limits on the amount of power/field density allowed for human exposure.
Yes, this is considered hazardous.

Each node delivers about t-1 bandwidth (1.5 Mbps) but remember that is shared amongst all the users on that node. Streaming at e.g. 64 Mbps would support multiple users, but with no load balancing streaming would probably buffer and drop a lot (just a guess).

Author: 62kgw
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 9:00 pm
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Multnomah county and/or Portland city council sought to regulate cell phone towers a few years ago because of the UHF RF radiation hazard of cell phone towers. Local neighborhood groups often use this arguement to prevent new cell towers from going up. If these Internet wifi things are MICROWAVE RADIATION, then thats even worse of a hazard! Everyone knows what happens of you put a cat in a microwave oven. How come our progressive envirnmental leaders are allowing this? How will it affect trees, birds and sqirrels?

Author: Skybill
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 9:37 pm
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Andy_brown wrote: "Wrong. All radiation above 1 GHz is ionizing and there are strict limits on the amount of power/field density allowed for human exposure.
Yes, this is considered hazardous."

Andy,
Ionizing radiation starts at about 1017 Hz or about 1,000,000GHz which is at the upper end of UV light and slightly below X-Rays.

There is a good chart depicting this at; http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet5 6e4.pdf

Scroll down about 4 pages.

The following is cut and pasted from that document:

WHAT IS NON-IONIZING RADIATION?

As explained earlier, electromagnetic radiation is defined as the propagation of energy
through space in the form of waves or particles. Some electromagnetic phenomena can be most easily described if the energy is considered as waves, while other phenomena are more readily explained by considering the energy as a flow of particles or "photons." This is known as the "wave-particle" duality of electromagnetic energy. The energy associated with a photon, the elemental unit of an electromagnetic wave, depends on its frequency (or 4 wavelengths). The higher the frequency of an electromagnetic wave (and the shorter its corresponding wavelength), the greater will be the energy of a photon associated with it. The energy content of a photon is often expressed in terms of the unit "electron-volt" or "eV".

Photons associated with X-rays and gamma rays (which have very high electromagnetic frequencies) have a relatively large energy content. At the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum, photons associated with low-frequency waves (such as those at ELF frequencies) have many times less energy. In between these extremes ultraviolet radiation, visible light, infrared radiation, and RF energy (including microwaves) exhibit intermediate photon energy content. For comparison, the photon energies associated with high-energy X-rays are billions of times more energetic than the energy of a 1-GHz microwave photon. The photon energies associated with the various frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum are shown in the lower scale of Figure 2.

Ionization is a process by which electrons are stripped from atoms and molecules.
This process can produce molecular changes that can lead to damage in biological tissue, including effects on DNA, the genetic material. This process requires interaction with photons containing high energy levels, such as those of X-rays and gamma rays. A single quantum event (absorption of an X-ray or gamma-ray photon) can cause ionization and subsequent biological damage due to the high energy content of the photon, which would be in excess of 10 eV (considered to be the minimum photon energy capable of causing ionization). Therefore, X-rays and gamma rays are examples of ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is also associated with the generation of nuclear energy, where it is often simply referred to as "radiation."

The photon energies of RF electromagnetic waves are not great enough to cause the ionization of atoms and molecules and RF energy is, therefore, characterized as non-ionizing radiation, along with visible light, infrared radiation and other forms of electromagnetic radiation with relatively low frequencies. It is important that the terms "ionizing" and "non-ionizing" not be confused when discussing biological effects of electromagnetic radiation or energy, since the mechanisms of interaction with the human body are quite different.

62kgw,
While 2.4Ghz could technically be classified in the microwave frequency region of the spectrum, they are in no way similar to your microwave oven, microwave ovens are at about 10GHz, and do not pose any danger at the power levels they are running. The Wi-Fi nodes are running about 1 watt omni-directional where as your microwave oven is a very directed beam and it is running anywhere from about 400 watts for a cheap low power oven to close to 1000 watts for a high end oven.

That is also why they have a metal mesh is the door and the klystron is shut down upon opening the door.

Most of the reason that municipalities try to regulate towers is so they can generate revenue from permits, etc. Also a lot of people have the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome and they are usually the first to complain when their cell phone drops a call!

Author: Andy_brown
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 10:38 pm
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I do stand partially corrected, but there is a history.

The ANSI C95.1-1982 (American National Standard Safety Levels with Respect to Human Exposure to Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields, 300 kHz to 100 GHz. "Radio Frequency Protection Guide For Whole Body Exposure of Human Beings" ) specification said otherwise. (Ionization was defined at 1.0 GHz.) Also, there was an FCC document titled OST Bulletin No 65 "Evaluating Compliance with FCC-Specified Guidelines for Human Exposure to Radiofrequency Radiation" that was used to estimate field strength, which I know has been updated as well. The government was concerned about the potential public outcry when they licensed cellular phones, and rewrote the standard to "update" and reflect better levels of understanding provided us through science and research.
Since all standards are continually updated it is a mistake on my part, but I don't get paid to keep up with that anymore. It definitely used to be defined differently.


Here is a brief history:

http://www.rfsafetysolutions.com/IEEE_standard.htm

If you look at the EPA's own current diagram, you can see that
all they have done is shift the line up a little from where I remembered it to be, and downplayed it's effects down between 1-10 GHz.

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/ionize_nonionize.htm

Also, if you go to OSHA you will see that "non-ionizing radiation" is still considered quite harmful. "Microwave radiation (MW) is absorbed near the skin, while Radiofrequency (RF) radiation may be absorbed throughout the body. At high enough intensities both will damage tissue through heating. Sources of RF and MW radiation include radio emitters and cell phones."

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/radiation_nonionizing/index.html

Bottom line, exposure to any living thing by too much radiation in the microwave region will disrupt your cells, even if "burning" is no longer considered ionizing

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
Now I'm more up to speed as a result.

Author: Jr_tech
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 11:10 pm
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Every microwave oven that I have seen operates at 2.45 Ghz. Has anybody experienced wi-fi problems near an oven ? Mine kills my 2.4 gig phone.

Author: Andy_brown
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 11:22 pm
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"microwave ovens are at about 10GHz, and do not pose any danger at the power levels they are running."

Jr_T, you are correct on that as well. Skybill definitely got that one wrong. It breaks up my 2.4 GHz cordless phone, too. Besides, 10 GHz is X-band radar. Further, the level of radiation inside a microwave oven is dangerous, hell look at what it does to raw meat!! If the oven has leakage, it could be potentially harmful. Why else have we seen all the warnings to people with biological internal appliances?

Author: Darktemper
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 11:25 pm
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I only had issues when I put my laptop in the microwave and nuked it! Wireless has never worked since....but the display seems to be a weird shade in pulsating green and glows in the dark when it's not even turned on! Is that bad or good? LOL

You should see what double ought buckshot will do to a laptop! Only a Swiss would be able to use it afterwards! LOL

Author: Alfredo_t
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 11:29 pm
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A check of the label on my microwave oven says that its operating frequency is 2450 MHz (2.45 GHz), not 10 GHz. I think that this is pretty much a universal frequency for microwave ovens because it is assigned to these types of unlicensed uses. Therefore, do microwave ovens intefere with this type of wireless networking?

As far as the RF radiation hazards of these things and cell towers go, they are not worth worrying about because the electromagentic field strengths that you would be exposed to are pretty low. With the WiFi, you're talking about a 1W transmitter that is up on a lamp post or traffic light, so you are pretty well protected by distance. Cell towers use gain antennas, so most of the radiation is going to be confined to a fairly narrow beam that will literally be going over your head if you approach the cell site at ground level. If you are worried about exposure to microwave radiation, then don't use cell phones, as the phone handset blasts your head with a lot more radiation than the cell tower will.

Author: Andy_brown
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 11:43 pm
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"Therefore, do microwave ovens intefere with this type of wireless networking?"

Unlikely. Not in the case of the Portland city implementation.
But at home, I wouldn't be placing your wireless router on top of the microwave oven (which is exactly where my 2.4 GHz. cordless base is, and I definitely get interference when it's on).

In theory and practice, microwave ovens deliver their energy to the inside cavity. Levels of radiation around the edges of the door to the oven have limits which must be met to get FCC approval under parts 15 and whatever else is written on that label. It can be the source of both bodily harm and interference through the air (especially in an older oven with a worn door gasket) and it can also put noise on the house AC line. So in theory they can be the source of interference, but in practice it's not an issue (except maybe in commercial kitchens trying to receive a wireless network).

Author: Skybill
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 12:24 am
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Sorry about the frequency error! I must have been thinking about the Police radar that I used to work on back in the late 70's. It was 10.525 GHz (to the best of my memory).

I think I may have confused things with my statement above: "While 2.4Ghz could technically be classified in the microwave frequency region of the spectrum, they are in no way similar to your microwave oven, microwave ovens are at about 10GHz, and do not pose any danger at the power levels they are running."

I guess I didn't word it correctly. What I meant was that the Wi-Fi didn't pose any danger at the power levels they are running. Microwaves definitely pose a danger if they are not contained in the cavity. As you mentioned "hell look at what it does to raw meat!!" you bet!!!

Never use a microwave if the seal is damaged or the glass broken.

The FCC OET 65 stuff can be very confusing. I have to go thru RF Safety Awareness training every year since a lot of our transmitters are on shared roof tops with other tenants. Columbia Center (now Bank of America) in Seattle is a good example of that. The roof looks like a porcupine!

Am I worried about walking around on the roof by all those antennae? Not really. I don't stand right next to any antenna for very long and if there is a satellite dish that has an uplink on it I try to stay away from the front of it.

That being said, would I climb a broadcast tower in the near field of a FM or TV antenna? Nope. There are a couple of reasons; 1-I'm to fat and old to do any climbing anymore! 2-The power levels are so much higher that I don't want that kind of exposure.

We have an MPE (Maximum Permissible Exposure) calculator that we use whenever we install a transmitter and it's amazing. Even if our ERP is approaching 3000 watts, if the antenna is 8' off the roof, there is no "red" area and the "yellow" area is only a couple of feet right around the antenna.

All in all unless you are in the same horizontal plane as an antenna and within a few feet of it there is nothing to worry about from a cell tower.

Also, I called the tube in a microwave a Klystron when its actually a magnetron.

Author: Nwokie
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 12:49 pm
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If you wqant to check for a microwave leak, turn your lights off, and pass a neon flourseent light bulb around the door, if theres a leek, you will see a glow.

In my AF days, the radar transmitter, in the 10GHZ range put out over 150K watts, and we had several tests we had to make where we were in close range, 100" from the antenna.

I know a couple of guys who were hospitalized for radiation burns, because they took too long to do the test.

Author: Adiant
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 5:46 pm
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I have not seen any published tests on what the average, in-service microwave oven radiates, in terms of radiation outside the unit, with the door closed. But one thing I found very interesting, when I took a tour of our (Edmonton) first and most popular TV station locally on my birthday a year and a half ago.

The station had to install a microwave repeater downtown because their News truck with the microwave dish was getting too much interference during lunch hour whenever it was parked downtown. Why? The station engineers concluded it was the cumulative effect of the large number of microwave ovens being run in downtown office buildings.

To me, that speaks volumes about the leakage levels of your average, in-service microwave oven. And, remember, most buildings have a lot of RF obstructions -- look at how closely spaced cell phone towers are for each provider in a downtown core or any area with large buildings. And there still wasn't any digital cell phone service and spotty analogue service in the basement of the building I recently worked in.

Author: Skybill
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 7:14 pm
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I've got a spectrum analyzer that will go up to 3.5GHz.

I'll have my tech in Denver send it back to me and then I can measure the leakage of my microwave.

I'll post the results after I've done the tests.

Author: 62kgw
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 7:16 pm
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Actually I am suspicious about this because it seemed there was all kinds of folks lined up against cell phone towers because of the so-called RF hazard, but not a peep from these same people about the wifi on streetlights.
Could it really because be the cell phone towers are private big business, while the wifi is local city hall sanctioned and is "free" alternative to wired connections thru big business? Like certain local skids were properly greased somehow?

Author: Missing_kskd
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 7:20 pm
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The field strength of the wifi is a lot less isn't it?

Author: Skybill
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 7:56 pm
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Missing, Yes, the field strength of the wi-fi is a lot less.

The transmitter of the wi-fi units is 1 watt and even with a 3dB gain antenna would still be about 2 watts ERP maximum.

The output of a cellular transmitter is probably around 50 to 100 watts. It has to go thru a combiner, because there are multiple transmitters at the same site, which most likely has about 3dB loss which cuts the power in half. It then goes thru the feed line to the antenna. The feed line probably has about an additional 1dB loss and the antenna usually has about 10dB gain. So that would give the cell site between 250 and 350 watts ERP.

Even at this higher power, the 5% area (Defined by the FCC as "the area of responsibility") is only about 13' in front of the antenna.

Long answer! I suppose a simple yes would have done!

Author: Alfredo_t
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 9:08 pm
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I don't hold the NIMBYs' technical acumen in too high of a regard. I would say that the most likely reasons why they're not complaining about WiFi are:
1) They don't want to pass up free Internet.
2) Their real motivation is that they find cell towers ugly, and they are afraid that having ugly things nearby will decrease the resale values of their homes. The WiFi nodes are inconspicuous enough that they are not seen as a threat to property values.

I'm looking forward to seeing the data from SkyBill's spectrum analyzer tests. I would recommend measuring radiation coming off the back, sides, and top of the oven in addition to what leaks through the front door. Over 15 years ago, I discovered that the microwave leakage from a running oven was strong enough to induce a nasty buzz in a nearby tape player (one of the audio stages acts as an AM demodulator to the RF energy). The buzz was more intense when the tape player was placed behind the oven than in front of it. If there are WiFi transmitters nearby, it would be interesting to see how many dB the microwave oven hash is above the WiFi signals. Finally, it would be interesting to see how far from the center "carrier" the microwave oven hash extends (I predict that you will see a LOT of sidebands at 60 Hz increments).

Author: Missing_kskd
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 9:42 pm
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I've a little microwave radiation detector, purchased at Radio Shack many years ago.

The reason I own the thing is I repaired a coupla microwaves and needed to test them for safe usage. They worked, but I didn't know what they were gonna end up cooking. Turns out they were fine. The area I worked on was the switching relays.

Older units ran at very high power compared to most of the ones sold today. Some over 2500 watts! Most today average 6-800 watts by comparison. Commercial units still exceed 1000 watts.

Of course, these are overall current consumption, I do not know the actual radiated power output of the ignitrons. Given the differences in overall cooking power I see, the older units did deliver a lot more power to the food.

Be ware of cheapo microwaves. They do have the occasional spike of leakage from time to time. Most often it's near the door latch system. Another source is the front grille, where they may have made manufacturing decisions for cost reasons, letting safety slide.

Interestingly, your average cell phone will peg this detector at anything closer than 6 inches! I've not taken the time to figure out if it's the coil in the meter (analog type) reacting to the cell signal like an AM radio would, or if it's just a lot of radiation.

Looking forward to the spectrum data as well.

Author: 62kgw
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 9:52 pm
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Skybill, if your spectrum analyzer goes down into the AM band, and if you have time, it might be interesting to look at the so called HD stations, and try various bandwidth, sweep rates and peak hold settings. Try same on FM HD also.

Author: Skybill
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 10:43 pm
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I've also got a communications service monitor (IFR COM-120B) that we use for working on our transmitters and it's capable of off the air measurements. I have it here in Vancouver now. It is good up to 999.9999MHz.

So I don't have to go chasing through all the other threads, can you give me the frequencies of the AM and FM stations that are of interest?

Author: Alfredo_t
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 11:07 pm
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OK--this is a little bit scary! I just slapped together a very crude microwave leakage detector, and it is detecting something.

I took a D'Ansorval meter movement, an MBD101 hot carrier diode (other high speed UHF mixer diodes could be substituted) and two alligator clips. The diode has its leads sticking out at 180 degrees and is connected across the meter movement, cathode to the + terminal, anode to the - terminal. The alligator clips are sticking out from the meter terminals at 180 degrees, making a miniature bowtie antenna. I put a cup of water in the microwave (you should never run a microwave empty) close the door and start 'er up. I then bring my crude detector near the door--lo and behold, I see a reading that fluctuates as the turntable in the oven rotates. I can get up to about 1/4 scale deflection on the meter scale! I don't think that I want to hold my hands that close to the microwave again!!!!

Author: Skeptical
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 1:11 am
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ahem, so I tried the florescent tube (a pair actually, in plastic shrinkwrap home depot packaging) thing near the microwave door and nothing happened no matter how much I jiggled the door, however I did discover that if you rub your hands up and down the plastic covering, it'll light up where your hands are. Also if you walk around in a darkened garage with the tube, you'll pick up stray static electricty (hopefully that is what it is) here and there just by touching it with the neon tube and it'll light up. Yikes! If I'm gonna climb a tower or something, I know what I'm taking with me.

Author: Missing_kskd
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 9:50 am
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Since this turned into a booga booga microwave and cell phone tower device thread, check this out:

I had a cell phone sitting on top of a portable external USB disk. Incoming call erased part of it!!! Just happened.

Beware of that combination! Arrgh!!!

Author: 62kgw
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 12:28 pm
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Alfredo, whant happens if you put the detector next to a cell phone?

Author: Alfredo_t
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 12:48 pm
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I don't have a cell phone, but I will try keying up my 440 MHz handie-talkie (3 watt output) near it tonight.

In my initial posting, I forgot to mention two important pieces of information:

1) I measured the forward voltage drop of the MBD101 diode, and it is 410 mV. This means that the alligator clip bowtie must be picking up more than 410 mV of RF in order to get a reading on the meter.

2) I connected the alligator clips to a longwire antenna, and all of the electromagnetic crap picked up there (mostly 60 Hz and 1360 kHz) only move the meter needle slightly (perhaps 1/16th of full scale).

Tonight, I'm going to see if I can improve the sensitivity of my instrument by experimenting with a folded dipole and possibly turning the antenna into a little Yagi. By the way, 10-20 years ago, Radio Shack used to carry a Micronta brand microwave leakage tester. This thing had an elongated plastic enclsoure with a meter movement on one end. If I remember correctly, this meter did not take batteries. Has anybody on this forum ever looked inside one of those meters?

Author: Missing_kskd
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 1:58 pm
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That's the one I have. I'll see if it has screws. If it has screws, I'll crack it open for a look see and schematic. If not, I'm reluctant to pry old plastic cases open. The little snaps never seem to work well for anything other than first time assembly.

No batteries. The deflections you noted are very similar to the ones I see with the meter.

I think your ad-hoc design is likely very close to that of the detector.

On the front, the antenna is enclosed in a plastic form about 1.25" x .750". I suspect a printed circuit board antenna design.

Author: Nwokie
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 2:52 pm
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Back to the original subject, when , not if, you have wifi, or something like it universally available, it will be much easier for about anyone to put up hidden web cams, etc.

Author: Skybill
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 9:03 pm
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Back in the late 70's when I had my 2 Way Radio Shop in St. Louis, I used to work on some of the local Police department traffic radars.

The device I used to test the output of the radar unit was simply a piece of waveguide with a detector diode and a meter at the end.

Same principal as the devices mentioned above.

Author: Missing_kskd
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 10:13 pm
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No screws Alfredo!

(The innards will remain a mystery for now!)

For what it's worth, I did check out our known crappy microwave. Meter deflections were in line with what you described.

I would not be surprised to find the bare circuit you created with a printed circuit board antenna!


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