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Steve Sampson's avatar

One of the innovations with the Codec 2 version of OFDM, is the addition of rows in the waveform. Instead of sending say 55 carriers requiring a large bandwidth, you can send smaller widths (for example 17 carriers in say 4 rows). FreeData is using a well tested and real-world waveform. Being written in Python and a browser interface is not my cup of tea however.

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Jim Ancona's avatar

I didn't watch the video, but one big factor that determines whether it's safe to grab a broadcast tower is its height. If it's close to a quarter wavelength, the base is a high current, low voltage point. I don't recommend anyone try this, but in my young and stupid years as a college radio engineer we would grab the base of a quarter wave tower on our kilowatt AM broadcast station to show off to newbies. If I'd tried that with a half wave tower, the results would not have been pretty.

Just to reiterate, we did a lot of dangerously stupid things back then, like troubleshooting inside transmitters with the high voltage interlocks disabled. Luckily no one I knew ever got seriously hurt. But if anyone decides to try this stunt, remember that I told you it's a bad idea!

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