[AMRadio] FM transmitter

[Brian Carling]

On 4 Mar 2006 at 4:03, Donald Chester wrote:

> 
> >From: "Brian Carling" <bcarling at cfl.rr.com>
> 
> >(This actually refers to the British licensing of radio and TV
> >receivers. Both require a license and they actually go around
> >in vans to "ctach" and punish persons listening without a license!)
> 
> I have been told that those vans were purely "psychological warfare" and had 
> no real means to detect receiving equipment.  It was a scare tactic to 
> frighten the public into thinking they had better purchase a licence.
> 
> I suppose they could monitor TV sweep oscillator or local oscillators in 
> superhets, but with hundreds of sets operating in a city environment it 
> would have been difficult to pinpoint an "unlicensed" one.

They did monitor for the local oscillators. I saw them on more 
than one occasion patrolling with their highly directional antenna. 
It was a rotatable dipole with lots of loading inductance along the
element. It was conical shaped tapering to a narrow outer end, and 
was about 4-6 feet in length. It looked quite impressinve painted 
in G.P.O. green livery the same color as the vehicle - a Morris MInor 
1000 van! Same kind of vehicle as a VW bug only British - smaller and 
lower to the ground.

> When I lived in France they had a similar law.  But I went to a fleamarket 
> and picked up an old 1930's vintage "tombstone" longwave/MW/SW broadcast 
> receiver and used it, and nobody ever said anything.  I remember it was 
> quite a novelty amongst tenants in the apartment building, because most of 
> them had never before seen one of those old radios actually work (this was 
> in the early 70's).

That's right Don - tu parles bien le francais! I have heard you going at it on 
the air! Did you know we spent time in Brittany this past summer? It was 
a blast!
 
Soixante-treize de AF4K, Brian