Hi Guys,
Today I started experimenting with Amplitude Modulation of my mini Tesla coil.
Well good success.. I like it enough to do the best I can and build it permanently.
This one was done on 1.7MHz (just off the domestic MW scale).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djChHZaFDzE

This is not straight to the radio, it has coax lead to a dipole in the backyard.
Cheers, Brek.

QUOTE: done on 1.7MHz (just off the domestic MW scale).

Can't do that in the USA, our MW AM broadcast band ends right at 1.7MHz. It was extended about 20 years ago. And we have a local station on that freq. This extended spectrum used to be used for radio location and such. Our FCC offered these frequencies to daytime stations, if you move, you can have night time service. But older radios may not be able to tune you in...

My Tasma 1001 only goes up to 1550kHz. So it looks like Australia did an extension to their AM band at some point.

As far as I remember it’s been up 10 1600kHz or so. Interestingly Wiki says Australia can allocate
commercial AM stations up in the extended area, but it could never happen because we never
got the receivers.

Not a problem though if I transmit with this on the broadcast band or not,
the transmitter power is easily controlled with it’s power supply ;)
It’s best with this power transistor is about 2.4 Watts, but even that, I don’t think will carry far without
a proper Earth connection for a freq down that low, and an elevated antenna.

When I was a boy, there was a university station on 1750. It's long gone of course, but we do have about a dozen special-interest stations between 1602 and 1750, which most radios are able to tune in.

My Calstan radio looks to have one such station VL2UV on its dial

I've heard that all Aussie broadcast stations full callsigns are VL#xx and VL#xxx. But as Australia is not really near anywhere else, just doing #xx and $xxx is enough.

Yes, VL2UV is (was) the university station. Thanks for refreshing my memory!

Campbelltown also had its own short-lived AM station, on 1602 if I remember correctly. It was called 2CT (I think).

VL was and still is the prefix for broadcasters. VK is the prefix for amateurs. I am not sure why there's never been a requirement for broadcasters to express the full callsign though I am surmising that it was just too much of a tongue twister for commercial situations. Amateurs are required to do so.

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

It would appear commercial stations don’t have to identify.
FM-104, MMM, Nova 106.9, Stereo 10, Sea FM, etc. None of these are ACMA callsigns.

That's true.

There is some sort of international law that requires radio stations to identify themselves every so often. I think it is is once per hour or more often. They can do this by way of a callsign or some other registered name such as a business name or trademark name as some countries no longer issue callsigns.

Here, the international law is pretty much reflected in Commonwealth law. All stations are given a callsign and they can either identify with that or use a funky name (the latter annoys me because it is gimmicky and often changes). The one thing a station can't do is use a name that includes the callsign of another station.

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
A valve a day keeps the transistor away...