This Friday from 2pm Fresh air radio (the Uni student radio) will be literally out in the fresh air! Using a transmitter powered by bicycle in Bristol Square.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Pedal Powered Radio Show
(32 posts)-
Posted 14 years ago #
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With that transmitting power will I pick it up in Musselburgh?
Posted 14 years ago # -
No idea, will get the organizer on here to explain more.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Googled it and there seems to be a lot of variables like receiver sensitivity, antenna efficiency, line of sight etc. But I'm off to find out more about the Tesla coil wireless power transmitter. Wow.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Mainly, assuming it is a conventional radio transmission and not online, it will depend on their antenna and to a lesser extent on the mode used.
Power can sometimes be a red herring, though it will cover up many failings, using CW (morse code, a *very* efficient mode) I have made two way contact with most of Europe using only a couple of watts output into a rubbish antenna, but that relied on "skywave" or "Skip" transmission and a bit of luck(!), locally (ie. next door out to around 50 miles ish ish) you'd be looking at what is termed "ground wave" where the radio signals behave more like a light beam from a torch.
Anyone know what mode/power/antenna they are proposing to use? (Geek interest warning lol)
Posted 14 years ago # -
Hello!
Thanks for all the interest in this event! We've never tried it before so hopefully it'll all work on Friday! We don't know if anyone's ever done this before either? Does anyone know? WOuld be really interesting to find out.Basically, we have 2 bike generators - each produce 100W at the very most, though mostly around 70W. The equipment needed is an amp, speakers, mixer (we're using an 8 channel one, 2 mics and a bunch of line ins - only uses 16w too!),2 mics, one laptop. The laptop will stream the show online as well as (hopefully!) record it. We're doing this through Fresh Air Student Radio at Edinburgh Uni. They broadcast online normally, but have never used pedal power! I don't know much else about the transmitting part of the technical stuff, but happy to answer anything else about the bike power stuff...
Maybe see some of you down there on Friday. All welcome, students and non-students!
EmilyPosted 14 years ago # -
...as much as I prefer other methods of telling people about events and goings on and things, here is a link to the facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205521739462714em
Posted 14 years ago # -
Only 70W each? need a bigger gear! :)
If it's not raining I might pop along with my camera and grab some covert snaps from behind a lamp post.
Posted 14 years ago # -
I saw a couple of bikes generating power at the Big Tent in Fife last year. Probably a very lossy system. There was also a bike mounted juicer - seems to do the rounds of the various apple festivals. Very cool, I want one.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Hello! Wow you have a great picture of the bikes...that was me at the Big Tent with the collective DIY Edinburgh - the same generators will be those powering the radio show! Would it be possible to have a copy of your photograph please at all?
Funny small world huh.Our system is very homemade and DIY, which means we know how to put them together and reuse materials otherwise thrown out as much as possible - except for the electronics and capacitors etc of course! It looks not that 'slick' per se, but it's safe and it works. I'd love to make a smoothie maker one too also! They're great, very fashionable it seems!
To Kaputnik - please do come along and take some pictures and say hello! Would be great to have you there, and to have a look at any pictures you take if that's ok? If it's raining we'll be in the potterow dome probably. If you're not a student still very welcome inside
See you there hopefully...spread the word!
EmPosted 14 years ago # -
Emily, that's quite a coincidence. Pity the Big Tent isn't on this year. I'm really tempted to try to find a way of getting along to this. I'll check-out the FaceBook page. PM me for a copy of the photo.
Posted 14 years ago # -
I'm on holiday so I'll come along on my bike with the camera. Do I get a shot on the generatocycle?
Posted 14 years ago # -
I think you should, its as close as your gonna get to affording a powertap for a few years.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Like Rollapalooza but with a point to it.
@Emily - I've changed the copyright to Creative Commons so you can download it from Flickr ( right-click I think).
Posted 14 years ago # -
a point to it.
Does one get extra points for blowing up the generator through sheer awesomepower?
Posted 14 years ago # -
Maybe ERC types should be banned.
Posted 14 years ago # -
I'll wear my baggies. They'll never suspect a thing!
Posted 14 years ago # -
turning up on your immaculately clean machine might tip them off tho..
Posted 14 years ago # -
immaculately clean
Spectacularly filthy machine thanks to Sustrans route planning
Posted 14 years ago # -
Still? you're no roadie!
Posted 14 years ago # -
I was too busy fixing the skipping gears too think about cleaning. I think... We'll find out for sure when I try putting them under awesomeload to keep up with a downhillbound upsidedownycle
Posted 14 years ago # -
"This Friday from 2pm"
Until?
Posted 14 years ago # -
3.30
Posted 14 years ago # -
Until the generator gets tired?
Posted 14 years ago # -
I was thinking an hour of spinning might be nice, depends on the music they play I guess.
I might donate them some sudocreme
Posted 14 years ago # -
Pedalling a radio show is harder work than it looks. Especially without foot retention. Much easier to spin it at a higher cadence than in low cadence "real man" gear.
Got a couple of reasonable photos that I'll upload later.
Posted 14 years ago # -
We went round that way but we couldn't see the event, maybe we were just too late (spent too long at the Nintendo 3DS roadshow in St Andrews Square). Was it over at the Teviot side? Bristo Square has certainly changed since I was a student.
Posted 14 years ago # -
We left about 3;30 and they were still going strong. The 'fuzz' (university security) turned up at one point clearly uniformed about the event, but left again without incident.
The generator was indeed very hard work! I felt like a smoker again. Nice to see such rosy-cheeked students having fun tho :)
Posted 14 years ago # -
Click for the set.
Was a good laugh, but terribly hard to pedal a cyclogenerator when you've got a stodgy cupcake blocking your mouth. I think I got a way with spitting numerous bits out when I laid down some awesomepower through the cranks.
They should definitely do this again but advertise through the road club etc. and have some sort of meter to compare the output of the two cyclists.
I missed the name of the band but they were quite good. First gig coming up soon sometime or something like that.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Wow what an amazing array of posts!! : )
Thanks for coming down and taking photos and pedaling! It was awesome! The show'll be available for download soon, from freshair.org.uk hopefully.
You're right it was pretty hard going huh, it's never been that difficult before when we've powered other things. Must have been taking a lot of power. Matt and I were saying we need to make the whole set up more efficient too so less power is lost through heat...Cyclingmollie - Sorry that you didn't find it! We were next to the big new building, at the side of Teviot. Hopefully you'll find us next time. Thanks for the picture use! DIY Edinburgh will put it on our website soon, when we have time! We can credit you for it if you want?
Kaputnik - would Transition and DIY Edinburgh be able to use some of your photos for our websites please? We can credit you for them if you would like. They're great pics, especially of the generators!
Caro Bridges and the River is the band (I play cajon with them) - thanks for saying we were good! We're playing at Sneaky Pete's on thursday 3rd march, you're very welcome to come along of course! I'd like to do a pedal powered gig soon too! of course...Ruggtomcat - awesome recumbent! Let's go for a cycle some time! (to everyone)
I agree we should do it again and next time put it out on more cycling forums. I didn't know about this one till Tom told me (thanks Tom)...might need your guys help there for next time !?!
See you !
Posted 14 years ago #
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