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THE TEAMEI Supremo & FounderWayne Green W2NSDI l

Associate Publi sherF. I. Marion

Executi"e Edito rJack Burnett

Managing EditorJoyce Sawtelle

FEBRUARY 2003ISSUE ' 5 0 7

AmateurRadio Today

TABLE OF CONTENTSTechnical EdIto rLa rry Anlonuk WB9RRT

Contributing CulpritsM,ke Bryce waaVGE

Jim Gray II

Jack Heller KBm QChuck Houghton WB61GPAndy MacAllister W5ACMJoe Moell KOOV

Sieve Nowak KEBYNlODr. RiCk Olsen N6NR

Advertis ing SalesEvelyn Garrison WS7A

21704 S.E. 35Th St.Issaquah WA 980294 25-557-9611

Fax: 425-557·96 12

Circulat ionFrances Hyvannen

10

14

23

25

27

30

FEATURESCheap & Easy Portable HF Vertical - KaMKBTry this medium-weight, sturdy, neat, visually pleasing,fun to use ...

Troubleshooting Computer Power Suppl ies - W6WTURule # 1: Be careful.

Build This Simple SMT Station - AA2JZDinner and a movie ? How about pizza and a project?

How's That Th ing Really Work, Anyway? - AA2JZPart 1: Receivers.

Warbleman ia - NY9D,.. and other QRP afflictions.

Breakdown in Cape Town - G3SWHThe surprise activity on this little jaunt turns out to benot just on the air.

DEPARTMENTS43 Abo ve & Beyond - WB61GP49 Ad Index64 Barter 'n ' Buy42 Calendar Evenls45 The Digita l Port - KB7NO48 Hamsats - W5ACM53 Homing In - KCJOV4 Never Say Ole - W2NSD/1

47 On the Go - KE8YN1760 Propagation - Gray1 QRX

63 Radio Bookshop

":-~lail

design73@aol.com

Data Entry" Other SluffNorman Manon

33 Hamfest Survival Guide - WB9YBM$0 that you can live to 'fest another day.

Business Office 34Edrtorial - Ad\.<ertising - OfCU~lion

Feedback - Product Reviews73 Amateur Radio Today MagaZine70 Hancock Rd. 36Peterborough NH 03458·1107603·924-0058

Fax: 603·924-8613 39

Radio Comm in the French and Indian War - K0RMKAnything 's possible when the Military Radio CollectorsAssociation holds its annual meet.

CO Sooner Spring - NB5N & CoxAn emergency preparedness drill that was more than OK.

Lifeline for Your Driftmaster - W1TLZHow to stabilize a boat anchor,

web Pagewwwwayncgrccn.corn

Reprints: $3 per articleBack issues: $5 each

Printed in the USA QRH. • •

73 Amateur Radio Today (lSSN 1052·2522) is pub lished monthly by 73 Magazine, 70 Hancock Rd.•Peterborough NH 03 458- 1107. The entire contents 02003 by 73 MagaZine. No part of this publicat ion may bereproduced without written pe rm ission or the pu bl isher, which is not all that difficult to get. The subscr iptionrate is: one year $24.97, two years $44.97: Canada: one year $34.2 1, two yea rs $57.75, inclUding postage and7% GST. Fore ign postage : $19 surface , $42 airma il additional per year, payab le in US fun ds on a US ban k.Second class postage is paid at Peterborough , NH , and at additiona l mailing crnces. Canadian second cla ssmail reg istration 11 178101 . Canadian GST reg istration 111253933 14. Micro film edition : u ntversrty Microfi im , AnnArbor MI 481 06. POSTMA STER: Send address changes to 73 Amateur Radio Today, 70 HanCOCk Rd.,Peterbcrouqn NH 03458 -1107. 73 Amareur RadiO Toda is owned by snaercmat Way Ltd. of Hancock NH.

Manuscripts: contributions foreossore publication are mostwelcome. We'll do the best we can toreuen anything you request, but weassume no responstlility lor lossOf damage. Paymer( tor sul::mtledarticles ... be made aller pl blication.Please SlbrTil bah a cisk <WId ah¥d cq:Jy d )'OU" artde (tBM (ok)Of Mac (pIefalled) formatsj,~checked 17a~ arJ::! schematics.and the clearest, best Iocused andlighted photos youcan manage. "Howto write for 73" gudelines areavailableon request. US citizens, pleaseinciJde your Social SeoJnty fUT'Iberwith SlbrTitled rl'l8r1I.IS01Jl so we canSlbTil: it to 1lrowIr wtxl.

Here's Lookin ' at Val et's tum our eyes toward the planet Venus, Just

our eyes, Not our telescopes, Because if we do use atelescope we might make the very same mistakemade by a very famous astronomer regarding canalson that mist-shrouded planet.

Tum-ot-tbe-tlast j-century astronomer Percivallowell is wei known lor promoting the incorrect notion

that water canals had been built on the surface ofMars. He also drew a map of the "canals" on Venus:the only problem was that no one else could see any­thing resembling canals, because Venus is alwayscovered by clouds.

Turns outthat Lowell had narrowed the apertureof his 24" telescope down to about 3" to attenuate

Continued on page 6

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Continued on page 8

The media brainwashi ngcontinues. Didja see theNewsweek Special Report onmedicine's next front iers?Twenty-nine pages of the is­sue had to do with treatmentsfor illnesses our scientists arcworki ng on. Well, bless theirhearts for their great pharma­ceutical company work. BULin all that coverage I didn' tsee any hint about why weget sick and how, maybe, wecan actuall y prevent it.

Yes. I know, I' m like a bro­ken record. I keep trying toget the simple, commonsensemessage across that when wegive our bodies the fuelsthey're designed to use theyaren't going to get sick andneed treatments. Hamburgersand fries with Diet Coke arenot what our bodies are de­signed to cope with. Nor cof­fee and doughnuts. They' reslow, addict ive poisons.

Treatments

Well, it was ten years agowhen the blacks rioted overthe acquittal of the policewho so brutally beat RodneyKing, Hey, how come thejury did that'? I' ll bet you'venever heard the real story. Iknow I hadn't.

The acquittal was the resultof the jury seeing the entirevi deotape of the event, notjust the lill ie segment shownendless ly on TV. Yes, thenews shows had the wholetape to work with, but show­ing the whole thing wouldn'thave been as shocking (news­worthy).

(unless they bring back theirsalad bars).

Let's say you're a smallemployer like I was a whileback, I had about 250 em­ployees. Today I'd be payingabout $1 million in healthbenefits for them. Next yearit would be S1, 125,000,Would I buy 250 copies ofmy health guide at $20 awhack, a $5,000 outlay, in thehopes of cutting my healthcare bills'! In an instant. Fur­ther, I' d blow another $ 10 fora video of Wayne Green ex­plaini ng the benefits of chang­ing one's lifestyle. I'd also getrid of the candy and coffee ma­chines in the employees'lounge. I'd replace them withbowls of grapes, cherries,apples, etc. Oh, and watercoolers with big bottles ofdistilled water.

A bigger company's CEO,wi th 10,000 employees, facedwith spending $40 million ayear on health benefi ts (wh ichhave been lately goi ng up atabout S500 a year per em­ployce), might he in terestedin investing S1 20,000 (bulkdiscount) in my books to helphis employees be healthier. Ifnot, his hoard of directorsshould fire his ass becausethe savings would go ri ght tothe bottom line, increasingthe company's profi ts (and itsstock price).

Would corner bars li keCheers and Moe's be replacedby sashim i bars'? I sure hopeso.

So , do you kno w an ypubl isher inte res ted in abook which co uld be thebiggest se ller yet? In 50 orso languages?

Some thing's out of kilter.we're having marc volcanoeserupti ng today than ever inhistory. We're havi ng moreearthquakes. And the Sun ishaving the longest and mostintense sunspot pcriod in his­tory. Why, it's almost enoughto make even a scientist think.But, not quite.

The scientific establisbmemin every field tends to be al­most totall y immune to newideas or investigating anomalies.Al ways has been.

So, what's going on? Theidea that Planet X will becoming along in May and de­stroyi ng civilization is patentlyabsurd. Yes, the governmentis sti ll covering up AmeliaEarhart's disappearance, evenafter 65 years. And PresidentRoosevelt's masterminding thePearl Harbor anack for 61years. And the Roswell UFOcrash for 55 years. And thefaked Moon landi ngs fo r over30 years.

I wouldn't be such a worry­wart about the whole X dealif what's happening wasn'texactly what Nancy Leider(Zeratalk). Mark Hazelwood(Blindsidedv . and several oth­ers predicted wou ld he theresul ts of Planet X neari ng.Well, by next month X shouldbe easily seen. Or totallydissed.

Hm m. got your QRPtested and handy'!

book tours and TV inter­views. I' d sure like to helpmillions of people he healthyinstead of only thousands, butI' m worried that the impactcoul d cause an even worserecession than we have now.

You sec, if the word everreally gets out about whatI' ve discovered it could: Puttens of thousands of doctorsout of work; close down two­thi rds of our hospitals; putalmost all assisted care fucili­tics out of business; closedown most nursing homes;bankrupt the pharmaceuticalcompanies; severely impactdrug stores; put most medicalschools out of business; se­vere ly de press the funera lbusiness; bankrupt the foodindustry giants; destroy thesugar industry; put most den­tists out of business; anddenta l schools; bankrupt thesoda pop industry; bankruptthe tobacco industry; bank­rupt the beer, wi ne and liquorindustries; put a mi ll ion liq uorstores out of business; wipeout cancer and other ill ness­related research organizations:destroy the Social Securitysystem as we know it; wipeout HMOs; wipe out thehealth insurance industry; wipeout the fas t food industry as weknow it; put Kleenex am ofbusiness: bankrupt the TVnetworks.

Just think what somethingfigs like this could do to the

American economy. And thenEurope and around the world.Icons like Coca Cola and

Many readers of my Secre t their hundreds of thousandsGuide to Health have been of workers would be history.pushing me to get a major Ditto McDonald's, Starbucks.hook publi sher to help market Dunkin ' Donurs, Pizza Hut,the hook ... comple te with Burger King and Wendy's4 73 Amateur Radio toaev » February 2003

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conunuedjrom page 1

the brighllight from Venus. That little known lact- recently publicized - caught the attention ofoptical experts, who realized that Lowell hadunwillingly tumed his telescope into a reverseophthalmoscope, an instrument used to exam­ine the interior of the eye. Instead of mappingthe surface of Venus. lowell was apparentlymapping theshadows 01blood vesselsand otherstructures on his own retina!

Sky & Telescope magazine explained the situ­ation in detail, presented Lowen's sketch of theVenusian -canale," and a photograph of rennetblood vessels. The two patterns are strikinglyalike.

You can see the pictures intheco-nne edition ofSky and Telescopemagazine.Just take your Webbrowser over to (http://Skyandlelescope.com].

Thanks to Q-News Australia, via GrahamKemp VK4 BS, via Newsline, Bill PasternakWA6ITF, editor.

What If?Acell phone call from a friend.A beeper mes­

sage from the boss. Justin Timberlake on theradio, 24f7 news on CNN, Each is an everyday,'wireless' event inour lives, usually unworthy ofa second thought.

But what if the radio revolution had not oc­curred? What if Guglielmo Marconi had not litthe spark of global communication on the coldand windswept cliffs of Cape Cod acentury ago?How would we comm unicate today?Would wiressti ll tether us?

The National Park Service at the Cape COdNational Seashore celebrated the 1OOIh anniver­sary of Marconi's first transatlantic, wirelessbroadcast from the U.S. on January 18th, with adayk>ng series ofpublic eventsdesigned 10 show­case the historic and pioneering nature of Iheevent.

"What happened January 18,1903, at tooaysMarconi site in South Wellfleet changed people'slives forever," said Superintendent Maria Burks,"Itshistorical significance rivals theWright Broth­ers' first flight.e

Working wi th local, regional, and national cel­ebration partners, the Seashore hosted publicevents that attracted visitors from all over. Theevents includedaNASA-sponsored, family spaceeducation program; weeklong, worldwide radiocommunication sessions hosted by the MarconiRadioClub andother amateur radio enthusiasts;and special Marconi presentations at theSeashore's Salt Pond Visitor Center.

"There was something for everyone - fromschool kids to philatelists to scientists and histo­rians," said Burks. "We told thestory ofone man'sinnovation and perseverance, his disappoint­ments and triumph, and the lessons they holdlor us today."

6 73 Amateur Radio Today e February 2003

The event

Using four wooden transmission towerserected on a steep cliff overlooking the rollingAtlantic, the 28-year-old ltalian-bom inventor setout to prove in 1903 that man could communi­cate across a vast distance without the wire­based technology of the 19th-century telegraph.

Michael E. Whatley recounted the momentousnight in his 1987 publication, Marconi - Wirelesson Cape Cod. "The air was literally charged withhigh voltage. Finally, Marconi went over to thewireless telegraph key.Withinlour minutes it wasdone. The message had been tapped out, andtransatlantic radio communication between theU.S. and Europe was no longer an experiment;it was a realily.e

"To His Majesty, Edward VII, l ondon, England."read themessagesigned by President TheodoreRoosevelt. "In taking advantage 01the wonder­fu l triumph 01 scientific research and ingenuitywhich has been achieved in perfecting a systemof wireless telegraphy, I extend on behalf of theAmerican peoplemost cordial greetings and goodwishes to you and all the people 01 the BritishEmpire ."

later that night came the King's response toRoosevelt: "I thank you most sincerely for thekind message 'Which I have just received fromyou, through Marconi's transatlantic wirelessteleg raphy.e

Whatley wrote, "The triumph was Marconi'salone, and the publicity (was) astounolnq." Themessages appeared on me lront pages of TheNew York Times and Boston Globe, and con­gratulatory telegrams "kept the Cape Co d(radio) operators in turmoil,"

The legacy

In the ensuing years, as rado. TV and spacecommunication thrived, the old Marconi station wasdismantled.and the site fel intodsuse.The oceanate away at the cliffs 'MIere the towers stood. Inthe '60s and 70s, the National Park Service re­slored the venue as the Seashore's Marconi Site,salvaging remnants01 a tower'sbase and erectingan exhibit sbener and viewing platforms,

Now the Park Service and the Seashore areable to celebrate the achievement of the manwho was honored in 1909 with the Nobel Prizeand who, when he died in 1937, was honoredthe world over by two minutes of radio silence.

Thanks to Jane and Chip Bishop of ChipBishop Communications, West Dennis MA.

Why Is It?There are a 101 01 strange and interesting

things that happen in our wonderfulhobby.Work­ing the World QRP. Making effective antennasout ofpractically nothing. Catching rare OX whenyou least expect it. Things like that. But there

are other things that can be frustrating 10 everyham worldwide (especiallyme).Thingsthat makeyou go hmmmm ...

One-way propagation: Why is it thai at timesyou hear a station on the air that you would RE·AllY like to work, and they're practically blow­ing you r headphones off, but they CAN'T HEARYOU!!? It's the wonderful phenomenon knownas "one-way propagation," also known as "I canhear the '&5@1, but he can't hear me! !" As I'vefound out, banging your head against the desk(nearest tree, car, cow, etc.) doesn't help 10 putyour signal forth any stronger. Screaming intothe microphone at the top 01your lungs ooesntget it, either. Indulging in these activities will al­low me XYl to prove once and lor all that thelast speed-dialer button on the phone is reallylor the nearest mental health response unit, andnot Pizza Hut, as she has always claimed!

Birds: Why is il that when you have a nicemultiband vertical looking pretty out in the yard(like mine - the vertical, not the yard!), birdsalways want 10 perch on the whip 01the upper­most section, and then scream at you about thebumpy rideand suffering motion sickness? With10 million trees around, theyalways seem to findantennas better landing strips,And Why is it thatwhen you're out there tuning the antenna (andpossibly offering more stability10 fheir ride), theygive a personal demonstration of toilet marks­manship? Things like this that happen are frus­trating, The neighbors are sure 10 complain thatyou're "out to hurt the little birdies" with that bigbad slingshot, instead of just trying to get a wireantenna up into the trees (personal tip: keep thesteel shot in your pocket until you're ready to useit - it's less conspicuous that way!),

Kids: Why is it that kids find coax cable sofascinating?The neighbor kids weremaking quitea racket in the back yard a tewweeks ago. WhenI went out there to investigate, l lound them try­ing 10 kill "the long black snake trying to eat themetal tree you have" g.e..my poor old vertical) bysnapping the coax around like a bullwhip, tryingtobreak itsneck! Thoughtful neighbors are great,but I find that it's much easier to make contactsvia ham radio if the snake continues to eat themetal tree. I'm glad they didn'l see where theother end of the snake went, because to see asnake pass a mobile home out ol lhe other endprobably would cause irreparable damage!

Neighbors: Neighbors can make or break aneighbortlood - hence the term "neiqhbcmooo,"living in a mobile home court, neighbors fre­quently come and go. It is because 01neighbors,however, that I found out what 'trent-end over­load" is. This is an interesting phenomenonwhereby a strong signal overwhesne receptionof desired signals. It's also responsible forfreaking out non-English-speaking neighborsas well. I lound out from my next trailerneighbor (well, it IS a mobile home court)that myCOs on 20 meters were making the CD trayon his stereo go in and out spontaneously. I also

found cct thai I was the "English-speaking de­moo line' in ltIeir TV sel! They were able to dealwith this pretty well, but a visiting relative fromMexico wasn't so receptive. She wound upscreaming on the way to the rear bedroom thatthe TV was possessed. I exorcised the demonfrom tIleir home by relocating the antenna to theback yard instead of the side one. After all. if Ihadn't moved it, the kids out bacc wouldn't havehad a long black snake 10 kill.

Ham shacks : Why is it that we all brag aboutIhe "shack" as being a huge,well-equipped placewhere we have a gigawatt of power at our dis­posal and equipment made from the rarest, mostexotic materials. and from whence we can talktoanyone in the woOd anytime we want to? Someof us probably can, I'm one of the more commonhams: My shack is the southeast comer of myliving room,I'm also a slaveto propagation,Ahhh,the wonder of ' sporadic E". Sporadic E is liter­ally a cloud of highly ionized atmosphere in theE layer that allows for long skip to occur. Morethan once I've had the pleasure of the band drop­ping out (the sporadic E cloud moving on or dis­sipating) during a OSO, only to tum over thefrequency to dead air! That's very frustrating ­especially when another ham hears both sidesof the conversation and then lets you know matthe other party went out to lunch thinking it wasall overt ARRRGGGHHH! It happens.

lingo: The "slang" of ham radio. Everything

has lingo wiltl it, as do we. Some of the lingo canbe frustrating, too. Sudl as bot-warmer: To somecps, a oot-wermer is a linear amplifier. t have afool-warmer, too. It answers to "Calico," and ruinsbagsofkitty litter! l id isenoeerone.Common term:A lid is what keeps food in a jar from spoiling. Hamlingo: A lid is someone~ NEEDED a lid to keepthem from spoiing evef)Q"le else's oo-air time. Youknow what I mean. laslly, klg sheet. 'Nhy do theycall it a "1og sheer? They're not nearty big enoughto use as a sheet for a log unless it's really smalland short. Why anybody would want to sleep onone is beyond me. anywcry.

Mobile operation: Working the world whilemotoring down the highway is a wonderful thing.Ir s not a 'NOnderful thing, though. when antennamishaps occur. For example, I set up my trustyold Kenwood TS-180S in my Chevy Astra vanas a mobile rig,A friend said that he'd had greatsuccess with Hustler resonators mounted on amast whiCh is in tum mounled on a spring-loadedbumper mount. I bought all of the items neces­sary to share in his success. After mounting theantenna mount to the bumper (While my XYLglared at me while I made the holes), and theantenna mast and resonator, I was set to checkthe SWR and "go mobile." Everything lookedgood. so I headed out on Interstate 70to try some75 meter mobile phone. A slight oversighl by myfriend: As t achieve the 70 mph speed limit. Iexperience a loud "thumping" in the rear of the

van. Hrmlm, I k:xlk inlo the side rnUror toCheck outthe rose. and discover thai my awesome spring­loaded, bumper-mounted antenna is doing a livedemonstration of how a sledgehammer shouldproperly be swungl Yow! Oh the sight, friends, ofseeing almost $200 of antenna bouncing off ofthe highway, only to ny up and dent thebad<. endof the van. You haven't lived until that happens.Is there ANY chance he might have forgotten tomention guying the antenna before take-off?Frustrating, you bel!

There are as many frustrating things about lifein general , as there individuals to experiencethem. I'll bet you could think of a few things thatmade you wantto tum a trusted HT into ao aeo­moose! Or the day when you get the covetedV"Iorked All Neighbors" award! Things that areunexpected, and yes, frustrating. But weatl man­age to deal wi th them in a positive manner, andoften learn valuable things along the way. Beproud to be a ham. Help others with our hobby.Enrich the vocabularies of those around youwhen things are bad - somebody has to do it,right? After all. when the chips are down, the hamwill come shining through, providing emergencycommunications when needed, being active inthe community, helping others. It's the ham way.

Thanks to Dewey E. Boss N0ZYG. 1661 WRepublic Ave. Lot #26, $alina. Kansas 67401;[dboss@cox.netj: [www.geocities.comISiliconValleylParkl3395j. m

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SGC Smartuners are designedto work with any transceiver(including the ICOM 802) andany antenna. They are fullyautomated, intell igent enoughto select the best match be­tween feed line and antenna inseconds and remember it so itcan recall that match in milli ­seconds. The Smartuncr setsthe standard. It is the originaland still the best.

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73 Amateur Rad io Today • February 2003 7

tl u shots hasn' t coo led yourenthusiasm to line up for asmallpox vaccination. it's timeto stop believing the majormedia and politicians. all wellunder the control o f the phar­maceut ical industry, and dosome homework, At least readWaleen James ' lnnnuntzation.The Reality Behind the Myth,That'll slow )'OU down . It'srev iewed on page 7 o f myH'i.{dom Guide.

A recent a rticle in TImetell s us that the smallpox vac­ci ne "is one o f medic ine ' smost dangerous: ' About athi rd of those vacci nated getsick enough so they miss workor school. Pregnant women.small children, anyone with asuppressed immune system or. .eczema, are III ma rc scnousdanger, Considering your diet.how stro ng do you think yourimmune system is?

O nly a small perce ntageac tually die from the vacci na­lio n ... an accepta ble loss ...unless o ne is yo ur child ."Gee, sorry about that:'

Maybe you've heard thatso me Russian scientists fig­urcd OUi how to modify thesmallpox virus so it would heable to oct around any knowne •vacci ne .. . and that one ofthem was brought to Iraq hySuddam ten ycurs ago to helpwo rk on his germ warfarede velopme nt team.

Confinued on pug e 4 2

Joh nny Can't Fail

Thc No C hild Left BehindAct has the sta te educationaldepart ments hu stling to se ttheir proficie ncy goals so lowthat, like Wyo ming, not asingle schoo l in the state willfail. Natu ra lly. the new law isseriously underfunded. As newtests arc devised we ' ll secsc hoo ls reacti ng in the time­dishonored way : teachi ng tothe new tests .

T he government mandatesforce all kids into fix ed cur­riculums, a llowing the kidsno discre tion. Is it any won­der that c rea tivity and initiati vearc so thoroughly squelched inour kids?

The governmen t wants cv­cry kid to be educa ted exactlythe same. Cookie cutter ap­proach. Beehive . I don 't sec

Raw meat. That 's mmm-eat .When people read my Se­

cret Guide to Health and dis­cover that cooked food isconsidered by our immunesystems as toxic. and that thisincludes meat, they ' re readyto go vegan. Raw meat"Ugggh.

Never mind that our ances­tors were hunter-gat here rswho ate raw meat for thou­sands of generations. Or thatthe Eskimos. who used to bevery healthy. lived to tal ly onraw meal.

I enjoyed reading an articleby a chef who e xplained thatany customer who orderedhis meal well done got theoldest and cheapest meatserved to him . The finest cutswere saved fo r the "veryrare" or "bl ue" customers,

Steak tartare h a favorite inFrance . That's raw hamburgerwith capers, Delicious . Andwith fondue bourguignonncone di ps cubes o f raw meatinto ho t oil at the table. I' vealways dipped mine just for ,Ifew seconds.

I'll ne ver fo rge t a fan tasticfondue in a litt le cabin up ontop of the mountain at Vail.where the local ham skierswe re cel ebrating a birthday,They had cubes of steak.moo..e. and e lk, And, a t thatheight. the fondue o il didn' tget hot enough to cook themeal much . I loved it!

The transition from 70%raw to 100% hasn't been dif­ficult for me, though I do stillcheat with liver. which I scarfor about three seconds oneach side, II' s about 98% rawand fabulous. I like it muchbetter than steak.

At my age. after almost loWyears of beating the hell outo fmy immune system, I needall the repairi ng ability myimm une system can manage.

Smallpox

If the recent revelationsabout the serious dangers o f

possible. Twinkles. genetica llymodified potatoes deep friedin canola oil. well done beefloaded with growth bormoncsand antibiotics. Krispy Krccms,Orcos. etc. You get the picture .

Raw Meeeat?

Fast Food

just sending out resumes.no mailer how crea tive andexaggerated they are. isn'tworking.

The free ride on your par­ems h. over. Or. worse, you'vegone thousands of dollars inhock to get that degree. Ei­ther way. you' re now ex­pec ted to enter the job marke tand start making money onvour own- .

It's almo st lime to sta rt grv­ing some thought to buildinga career. So. what's it goingto be'? You 're now facing oneo f the most important choicesin your life. One that youpostponed four years earlierwhen you opted for college.Now. yo u have to make a ma­jor choice. Will it be a job'!Or back to school for an ad­vanced degree. putti ng a ll thatcareer decision again?

If you keep doing thisyou ' ll end up a professor withstudents sho rt- te rm memoriz­ing the same stuff for quizzesthat you did .

How come it rakes metw ice as long to ea t as every­one else? Because I' m theonly o ne taking the time toactually chew my food , Ev­eryone c b c chews the ir foodjust long enough to he able toswallow it. and then washes itdown with ice water. tea,co la. wine or a malt.

Around a hundred years ago,when Dr. Kellogg did the re­search, he found thai a bigpart o f the d igestiv e systemlay in the sa liva action whilechewi ng food. He rccom­mended tha t every bite be

O kav vou are now " for- chewed one hu ndred times" .mally ed ucated." But that before swallowing. For a whiledoesn ' t mean yo u've learned he had seve ral mill ion peoplemuch of pract ical value to actually chewing the ir food,your career. Or, have yo u re- He didn't do us any favorsally had a career in mind '? O r when he brought us cornhave you j ust been going with Ilakes and other cold cereals.the flow '? Now, about that stuff you've

Your college teachers , with been drink ing while eating.very few exceptions. arc people That liquid goes to your stern­who 've never worked in the ach and dilu tes the acid bathbusiness wOl1d. They've !(lTCCt! your stomach needs to dis,..olveyou to memori ze the same stuff the food so your intestines canfor quizzes that they had to get the most out of it.memorize when they went to Well. co nsidering the j unkcollege. Stutf out of prcuy people arc using for food,much the same textboo ks. maybe it's best that it go

With the job market for through the digesti ve systemgrads in the pi ts these days, with as l ill ie abso rbed as

8 73 Amateur Radio Today. February 2003

College Grads

If you' ve watched any o fthe cop shows yo u know tha tsuspec ts are etten ordered tolie on the ground with thei rhands behind their hac ks .Cops have found by hard ex­perience that this is the safestway to keep from getting sho tor stabbed .

When, after a high speedchase, King was fin allystopped and ordered to liedown, he refu sed, The othermen that were in the car withhim all complied and gave notrouble. When the cops triedto force King down he foughtthem. He was too big andstrong for them. so they triedelectri fied darts to immobi­lize him, They didn 't fazehim . Twice he gOI back upand charged the cops. Whcnthey finall y managed to gelhim down he wouldn ' t put hi..hands behind him and wasstill struggling to get up. Itwas the last few seconds oftheir effo rt:.. 10 subdue Kingthat the media sho wed, Andshowed.

When the j ury saw thewhole tape they acquitted ,~lore than 50 people lost the irlives in the ensuing riot s .

T he media may have ourat tention . but it doesn't makemuch of all effort to he hon est.

How 1Tl1l1.:h have yo u see nin the mainstream med ia aboutthe reali ty o f cold fusio n.UFOs, crop patterns, and soon? I guess these thin gs j ust"don' t sell papers ."

NeuER S R Y DIEconun ued jrom page 4

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Cheap & EasyPortable HF Vertical

Try this medium-weight, sturdy, neat, visually pleasing.fun to use ...

Antennas are the most itnportent pert of an amateur radio sta tion. You don't believeit? Try getting on the air without one!

Many portable antennas havebeen config ured and de­scribed in the various ama­

teur radio publications. throughoutal most the entire history of amateur

Photo A . The Cheap & Easy Panahle J/FVertical securely mounted 0 /1 tI speakerstand.

10 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003

rad io. This project is what I like tothink of as a "better mouse trap." I' vetried the various methods of windingwire on a bamboo pole (and similarwood dowel types) sitting upright in aChristmas tree stand for a base. an au­tomobile wheel sans tire , or a patiotable umbrella base. Well, they worked!

Sort of.But those "lash-ups't lcft much to be

desired. in terms of being portable.sturdy. and easy to use! A "mobilewhip anten na" mounted on a rnicro­

phone stand, or a mu sic stand. or acamera tripod - we 've tried. All!Didn ' t wo rk: as we ll as the bamboopole . wood dowel method. althoughthey were a step in the right di rectionmechanically.

The idea to usc a speaker sta nd camewhile I was browsing through a flyer Ireceived one day from Parts Express.(They have a Weh sitc.) Parts Expressis an electronic compone nt and partssupplier located in Springboro, Ohio(south of Dayton ). At the top of theone page of the Oyer was the word··SPECIAL." Be low it : "T R IPODSPEAKER STA ND !! !"It didn 't ta kelong for the idea to sink in that this iswhat I' ve been searching for. searching,

every whiiii ch way! Lawd . I've beensearching - just like the No rthwes tMounted. you know {remember that

"')tune .. .Hmmm ... back to the subject at

hand, this impossihle idea l (dream) an­

tenna - there were times I thought ofDon Q uixote . Special Price! $29.50, itsaid (with a carry bag , too).

Well. to make a long story short. Igot one (a speaker sta nd that is. PhotoA). I happen to have a Radi o Shack an­tenna mou nt that I bought whe n I wasexperimenting with the different "simpleantenna" projects , and with someslight modification of the antennamount, I put together the device shown

in the pictures.The good news? This system works.

and is no biggie to put up and takedown! Also, it 's cheap (in the " bang­for-the buck" meaning of course)!

I assume that just ahout any of themobile Whip a ntennas out there can beused. I ha ppe ned to have Valor Pro­Am types of whip ante nnas for 80. 40.and 20 meters. They "Illned" after add­ing capacitance. The need for addi ngcapacitance. I found , was that theValor-type antennas are tuned for thephone part of the hand. T hat' s what

they are designed for. and the add itionof a capaci tive "hat" (or increasingwhip length) is required if operation inthe CW portion of the hand is desired .

I found that increasing the length ofthe stainless steel whip part of the an­tenna would work. as well as the add­ing of capacitance for lowering theantenna resonance point. Adding acapaci tive hat has advantages overjust lengthening the stainless steelwhip. Hy-Gain antennas (mobilewhip-type). as far as I know, can hetuned across the entire band selectedfor operation. by adjusting the whiplength , and they would probably he thebetter choice .

Anyway. some tuning will be ncces­saT)' if you need to work in the CWportion of a given band. no matter whatbrand of antenna is used. It would begood to consult an antenna book thatcovers mobile antenna operation. forsuggestions that could he used to opti­mize performance. The only "serious"problem I' ve had so far is that the to­meter antenna I have. a no-tunc typewound 0 11 fi berglass with no whip,would not resonate at all. I even tried astraight quarter wave whip; no soap.My gut feeling is that 15 meters isabout the upper usable limit of this"'ash-up! "

The capacitive hat was made using

#1 ~ copper grounding wire. availableat most hardware stores ; see Photo R.The thought has occurred to me to uscan aluminum throw-away pie pan cutto the appropriate size using cxperi­mental methods, although I haven'ttried it yet. The one advantage a wirehat has is that it has a smaller wind­loading co-efficient. The dimensionsof the wire hat in the picture are 12" x12" corner to comer. A disc-shapedunit would work as well, about a footand a quarter in diameter. Increasingthe number of cross members of thecapacitive hat increases the capaci­tance in small increments. and is agood way to fi ne tune the system. This

FOUR HOLES MUST BE OPENED UPAS SHOWN BY SHADED AREAS USE

CUT AND TRY METHOD.;

ANTENNA:< - -MOUNT TRIPOD

MAST

, - - -- - -I

- - 0 -"

ANTENNA IBRACKETSIDE I,

•- - 0 -

I

..0 -f ,

•- 0-I

CO~~E'6'TOR ---~ ~"t= : = := : = :§~-,ANTENNA 114" HEX CAPBRACKET ANTENNA _ BOLTS

BACK

ANTENNA MOUNTING BRACKETHOLE MODIFICATION ADJUSTMENT

I KNOB;

,: -, f--1

( :

lANTENNA MASTCLAMP BACK VIEW(TWO REQUIRED)

•

- - - ' -

1·5/8"HOLE

SPACING

ANTENNA MASTCLAMP TOP

o

ANTENNAMOUNTINGBRACKET

TOP

-,-

-. - -- -1- --- -,I ~RIPO~: MAST

: ~TOP;;::::-=-=::::!ij- - - - -

1-7116"HOLE

SPACING

..... . I

o;.,•• 1

'\\I)

SLIGHTLYENLARGE

SHADED AREAS NOTES:1. ANTENNA BRACKET NOT TO SCALE.2. THE ANTENNA MOUNT BRACKETAND MAST CLAMSP DO NOT HAVE THESAME HOLE SPACING. THERESPECTIVE HOLES MUST BE OPENEDUP USING A ROUND FILE

Fig. I. Cheap & Easy details.73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003 11

Day site. There were four antennas

gro und-mounted. in a phased array.

fed w ith a coaxial cab le syste m. which

was switched at (he opcrators posi­

Lion. The phasing of the ante nna array

was varied. which changed the direc­

tio nal pattern of (he ante nna array ' s ra­

di ated wave . This resulted in more

energy be ing co ncentrated in a desired

Photo D. Thimble clip placement.

Photo Po. Close-up ofmounting brackets.

The on-specia lprice was $29.80,down from $44.95;list price, $109.95.It weighs ~1M Ibs.•is easy to store,easy to transport(the ad says thai).When collapsedit measures threefeet tall - that isalso the antennaoperati ng supportheight (Photo C ).

It is not neces­sary. nor desir­able. to extend

the center support for HF band opera­tion. The system resonates very well; a1.2 :1 VSWR was obtained as indicated

on an MFJ -259B. That's not sayingthe system is perfect - someone witha good backgro und in antennas could

probably come up with improvements.If yOIl do. let me know. However. itworks good enough that it is worth giv­ing it a try. especially if you live in acondo. or somewhere with smotheringlyconstrictive antenna covenant restric­

tions. You might want to keep a unit

handy for portable/emergency opera­Lion as well , even if you have the good

luck o f being ahlc to have an ante nnafarm! The speaker stand , extended ,could dou ble as a short mast for VHF

and UHF ante nnas as well.

As o f th is writing, I understand thatValor Pro-Am an tennas are no longeravailable. "Ain 't that a shame?" (Fats

Domino , 1955). Um mm , th ey were theeasiest antenna to put up and take

d own as we ll as to add a "capacitivehat" to (may be Ham Stick w ill p ick up

where they left off, j ust a thoug ht) . Isuppose a fixtu re o f some sort cou ld be

fashioned ou t o f brass, wh ich wouldho ld a capaciti ve hat in p lace o n theHam Stick . I d on 't have the machinesor machining ski lls to make a properfixture .

The thought occurred to me, a nd it's

o nly a th ought so far : I wonder if twoo r more of the antenna set ups could beconnected. " phased," so as to a lter theradiation pattern. In past years I've secn

a four-antenna setup at the Hazel Park,Michigan, Amateur Radio Club Field

•••

/ .- ' " .-~-- -.-~

' , -:-' -,

The capacitive hat is made of #/4 copper grounding

I

Photo fl.Wlrt' .

system stood up to 30-m ile-pe r- t1Ourwind g us ts, and o nly mildly swayed toand fro.

The tri pod itsel f is easy to open andclose, and can he easily t ightened se­curely. The specs say that this speake rstand can sa fe ly support a 100 lb. lo ad

six feet above the 110m. I should thinkth at th at ' s s turd y e nough to hand le

any mobile whi p an te nna available .So if you ' re inte re sted, the spea ke rs ta nd cata log numher is #245-01 0 .

Photo C. This collapsed unit is em}' to

grab and go.

12 73 Amateur Radio toosv » February 2003

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used long shank bolts and wi ng nuts.in order to facilitate antenna bracketremoval . without need fo r tool s - incase I wan led to remove the w hip­mount bracket. and mount a 2-mctcra nte nna on the fully extended speakerstand. Now. how's that fo r an ine xpcn­sive (OK. cheap). easy-to-get-parts-for;medi um-weight. sturdy. neat. fun tousc . visua lly p leasing. professional(i n an a ma teu r se nse . of course).spiffy. useful project? fa

direction during transmutmg, as wellas a reduction in QRM as a resu lt ofthe im pro ved a ntenna patte rn whi lercccrvmg ,

In ge neral. the mobile whip typeantennas arc designed to be used inthe phone portion o f the respectiveamateur bands. The prohlem becomes."How do you make a sta inless steelwhip longer if it is (00 sbort?" The solutionis simple ! A nothe r sta in less stee lwhip ! Attach ed to the too-short whip,with thim ble clips (#44 1863S 1/8"Wi re Rope T himble & C li p Set by thePeerless Chain Co.. Winona. M~

55987). These guys (thimble clips)look like miniature muffler clamps.See Photo D.

It lakes a littl e " fumbling" to attachthese clamps because they arc sma lland hard to hold. You' ll use three of

them. When you get to working withthc m you will see what I mean. Theantenna ca n be made to resonate at alower freque ncy by using this methodto lengthen the whip - long enoug h toresonate we ll below the phone portionof the band. I guess this is a physicalrealizat ion of what in music is ca lledtheme and variation , in that a clamp­together whip is a variation on thetheme of a pu ll-out w hip. T him bleclips , alk/a guy wire damps. arc usedto faste n braided guy wires ; yo u canget them a t most hardware stores. Asocket type scre wdriver is the hesttool to use for tighteni ng the double­whip asse mbly. This idea work s. hat hmechanica lly and electrically!

The capaci tive ha t idea goes hack toWWII. Capacitive hats were fi rst used

on the whip antennas of PT boats. toincrease signal range. La ter, Cgersused a version ca lled a " Zing Ring ."T hey found it boosted performance .so it ' s worth it if you can install oneon the part icular brand of ante nnath ai you sculc on. II 1I 0es ta ke someexperimenting , o f cou rse.

The o ther parts used in this projectare off-the-shelf items from RadioShack. a #21 ·937 antenna mou ntbracket and # 15· 826 mast clamps. Themount bracket has ( 0 he drilled oval(Photo E ) in order to accommodate themast clamps. due to the large diameter ofthe speaker stand ce nter support. I

73 Amaleur Radio Today 0 February 2003 13

Hugh Wells W6WTU1411 18th SI.Manhattan Beach CA 90266·4025

TroubleshootingComputer Power Supplies

Rule # I : Be caref ul.

With the increasing availability of computer power supplies, hams are the recipients ofboth good and bed supplies. Becau se of their cur iosity level and association withelectronics, hams are prone to remove the cover from a power supply to see IVhatmakes it tick. Although troubleshooting a computer power supply isn 't very ditticult, itdoes present a potential danger.

arning: Unless you have• •prcv rous experience or arc

familiar with bow to workwith high-voltage/high-current cir­cuits, do not remove the cover from acomputer power supply. The internalvoltages of a computer power supplyreach 320 VDC with a current capacityup to one ampere. The energy gener­ated within the circuit can be lethal ­beware !

There is a tamperproof sticker onmost computer power supplies warn­ing of the danger of worki ng inside ofthe box. Assuming that you understandthe danger involved and have thebackground 10 work with high vo lt­age circuits. I' ll proceed to tell youwhat I know about switching powersupplies and how to pcrfonn sometrou bleshooting techniques.

Theory of operation

Let me point out that there are aboutas many different circuit designs forcomputer power suppli es as there aredesigners. Eac h is unique in its design.but the basic operation of each followsa single pattern. the single pattern be­

ing a high power switching ci rcu itdriving an output transformer. The14 73 Amateur Radio tcaev » February 2003

technique is reminiscent of early car switcbcrs. Other designs uti lizc aradios that used a vibrator to switch pulse-width-modulator (PWM) Ie lu

the DC applied to the primary of a sense the output ci rcuits and contro lpower transformer, the switchers. Regardless of the

The switching circuit may use one method used. the output voltage IS

or two power transi stors . depend ing controlled to maintain a voltage leve lupon the design , Because power at some percentage value - typicallyswitc hers operate pretty much like a +/-5% of nominal.high-powered osci llato r. the output The more you know about how avoltage requ ires some fonn of voltage computer power supply IS designed!regulation/control. Some designs utilize constructed . the easie r it is to trouble-an optical coupler to provide feedback shoot when there is a fai lure. To gainfrom the output circuits back to the familiari ty with a supply. look over

1201240VAC . 15OV

-" ow, oWM ENABLERECT ~ ' M' "'"- l,..o Fil TER .15OV ORV R

COM~

,k/."

,~ .,,,0

L """" -33V'< ECl

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OOM

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Fig. J. Block diagram of an ATX-\'ers;Oll computer switching power SII/'I,/)'.

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I<'i~. I. which is a block diagram of atypical ATX-version switching powersupply.

You'lI notice that the input voltagemay be either 120VAC or 230 VAC. Aswitch is placed on the side of thepower supply box allowing the user 10

select the input voltage that will besupplied. The switch changes the recti­fier from a bridge (230 VAC) to a half­wave voltage doubler (1 20 VAC). Ineither case, the total voltage that is ap­plied to the filter capacitors ends upbeing close to 320 VDC. The total of320 VDC is divided equally acrosseach fi lter capacitor and switchingtransistor. The outer +/- voltage linesare called "voltage rails: '

Also connected across the 320Vrai ls is an oscillator/driver/rectifier cir­cuit used for developing +5 VDC atabout 0.5 A. This is called standbypower (58) and is used to keep theco mputer "alive" even though it isintended to be asleep during periodsof nonuse.

To the right of the power switchingtransistors is a block called the PWM.This is an IC that typically containseverything that is required to contro land regulate the output voltages fromthe power supply during normal opera­tion. In the case of an ATX powersupply. an ENABLE line is providedto turn the PWM circuit ON or OFF asdesired. Grounding the enable line willallow the PWM to come alive anddrive the power switching transistors.A typical ATX power supply schematicis shown in Fig. 2.

All power supplies operating off ofan AC power line require rectifiers forchanging AC voltages to DC. In thecase of a switching power supply, theprocess is done twice. with the fi rststep rectifying the power line to pro­duce approximately 320 VDC to

power the power sw itch ing transistorswhich create AC power at a frequencyin the ra nge of :2 to 50 kH z. In the sec­ond step. the high-frequency AC poweris recti fied to DC at the operating voltagele vels required by the using circuit .i.e., the computer.

Before gett ing star ted with prob lemsand tro ubleshooting. I reco mmend thatyou spe nd some time comparing theblock d iagram to the schematic o f theATX supply. Gaining an understandi ngof the c ircu its and what the)' representwi ll allow the troubleshooting processto proceed at a more rapid pace.

Typical proble ms

Although I' ve worked with switch­ing power supplies for many years .I' ve o nly encountered a few re peatingproblems (although I suspect thatmany more exis t). Here is a listing ofthe problems that I' ve found:

• Fan

.~ .,,.• •.. ' ~,, ; ~ ...-.

• ~ <:>

""" I. '.', .....

• Dried o ut capacitors• Power transistors• PWM chip• Fu se

Fan

Of this listing, perhaps the fan hasbeen the most prevalen t fai lure area.Switching transistors are directly depen­dent upon a flo w of air across a heatsink to keep them cool (typ ically 75­80°F). When the fan ei ther slows downo r stops and the air flow ceases to headequate. then the po wer transistorstend to burn up, creating a fai lure .

T he typical fan used in computerpower supplies is o f the DC brush lesstype with either sleeve or ball bearings.Sleeve bearings are the most common.and have the highest fai lure rate. Aftermany hours of use . the oi l in the bear­ing di ssipates and the bearing beg insto wear and will develop a rattle. It'spossible for the fan blade 10 actu ally

hi t the case . caus ing it to slow down.Another failure mode is for the du staccumulatio n to mi x. with the bearingo il. and create a hard muck that cansta ll the fa n rotation.

Some fans arc serviceable. but di sas­sembling them is a lin k tricky becausethe p lastic freq uently cracks under 10 01

pressure. Replaci ng the fan with a newone is rec ommended.

Capacitors

After a power su pply has been inse rv ice for a long time and is typica llyfull of dust . the air flow is some whatrestricted . caus ing the fi lter capacitorsto warm up a long with the power tran­sistors. Wann to hot temperatures sur­ro unding filter capuc uors cause themto begin drying ou t. resulting in a lossof capac itance.

The one ind icator of dried out ca­pacitors is an intermi tte nt slart-up ofthe power supply. Thi s is particularly

".I ~-

"''.'"­•'.

...' .•

',­'.."" ,..-

Fig. 1. Schematic ofan ATX-version computer switching power supply.

16 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003

•

•I '" .e o:a , · r : __

..#f!"J . • #;T

Photo A. Heal)' cardboard used as a support during trouble-shooting.

Photo H. Power m pply board inverted Ofl

ready fo r diag nosis.the cardboard and

the board a nd the case to provide afa irly sta b le mount for the invertedboard . Photo A sho ws a heavy card­board sheet that I usc as a support andinsulator. Photo n sho ws the powersupp ly hoard in verte d O il i ts case,e xp osi ng the ci rcuitry fo r di agnosis.

Whi le inverted . short so lid j umpe rwires may be tack. so ldered to stand upon vari ous pads where measurementsare to be made . Meter leads can beclipped to the j umper wires so thathands may he ke pt away from the cir­c uit when po wer is applied. Power isre mo ved a fter making a measureme ntand be fore the mete r leads are touc hed.

Fo r sa fe ly 's sa ke, it is im portant tonot to uc h a ny live c irc uit o r the H Vside of th e ci rcui t boa rd . Ho w do youte ll the LV sec tio n fro m the H V sec ­tion? It tak es a litt le p rac tic e. hut thebotto m side o f the c irc u i t boa rd is

"

do fa il. they placean excessive loadon the switch ingtransi s to rs a ndcause them to fail.When a power tran­

sis tor fai ls, loo kfor additional prob­

lcms that mighthave caused thefailure.

Up to th ispoint, we 've con­sidered the safetyissues involved andhave gained SOITlC

ins ig ht in to the basic design o f aco mputer switch ing power su pply witha focus on effec ti ng a repa ir. Sometypica l problems have bee n identi fied .al ong with a br ief d iscussion of typica lfa ilure modes .

Safety ti ps

Pe rsonal sa fety is o f the h ighest im­portance whe n worki ng with a ny dan­gerous piece of eq ui pment. and thatincludes computer power supplies.When working w ith an open computerpower supply, it is imperative to workwith o nly the low voltage side of thepower supply when AC power is ap­p lied . There arc limes when somemeasurements m ust he made on thehigh vo ltage side of the supply, hut\...'hen that 's necessa ry. connect ions tothe HV side m ust he done whe n theAC power is removed from the supply.A meter may beattached to theHV c irc uit andthen read a fter thepo wer is applied.

To wor k o nthe unde r side ofthe power supplyboard , the boardmust he lifted a ndturned upside do.....11

without having 10

remove the w iresconnected to thepower connecto rsand switch. Ei­ther a cardboardor wooden sheetis p laced be lween

A fuse failure is so mewhat o bviouswhe n the interna l fuse link (e lement)has been vapo rized . When that cond i­tion is observed , then you might co n­e lude thaI something drastic createdme actua l fai lure and so me e xte nsived iag nosis may be req uired .

On the other ha nd , fuses also havethe ir o wn failure mode , which isn ' tq uite as obvio us as a me lted eleme nt.A fuse is typically made by attach ing afusahlc link between two meta l e ndcaps, and because the c leme nt is a re­sistor it will get warm d uring usc .Heating and coo ling of the e le mentcauses a mechanical stress o n the e le­ment that wi II cause it to break. Thebreak occurs more ofte n than not ncara cap rather than out in the middle,where the break mi ght he observedthrough the g lass tube .

Fuse

O thers

Po wer switch ing transistors ra relyfail in normal power supply operation.Therefore. when a transistor fai ls. it isusually caused by a lack of coo ling a iror a shorted DC o utput c ircu it.

Transistors

Rectifie rs and fil ter capac itors canalso fail, though rare ly, hut when they

true for the model series o f suppliesthat use a voltage boost circuit topower the PWM Ie. The vo ltage isboosted fro m about 12V to 21V topower the PWM IC a nd the sma ll out­put drive r transisto rs . If the boost filterc apacito r is d ri ed o ut. the vo lta ge isne ver boosted a nd the po we r supplyis very rel uctant to "c o me up" w he ne nabled .

No rmal trou bleshootin g techniqueswill fa il to ide ntify a specific prohlemwith the circ uit. ye t it fa ils to operate .When I' ve e ncountered such a prob­lem. I go immediat e ly to the boostfilte r capacitor and change it. whichusually results in a more normal opera­tio n. As a ru le. if one capacitor is d riedo ut. others are most likely d ried out aswel l. Chang ing a ll of the capacitorsmay he a good idea. hut probably not avery pract ica l so lution.

73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003 17

High voltagearea

Black wires

Switching transistors

Red wires

. - -- AC input area

\

____ Output driver transformer

----TlA94 PWM rc

Fig. 3. Bottom side ofa typical switching power supply board. Specific items are notedfor identification.

ICOWLI&HTeuc.8'

."IAC')

-0'-.. '

divided to provide iso lation betweenthe HV and LV sections. It really paysto just stud y the bottom side of thehoard and identify as m uch as you canabout it be fore ever appl ying po wer.Fig. 3 shows the bottom side of a typi ­ca l switching power supply. Speci ficidentification points arc shown that willboth support safety as we ll as assist thetroub leshooting process.

T he firs t and most prominen t indi­catio n of which sec tion is which:Look for [he sw itc hing transistors. asthey are a lways o n the H V side of the

IloVAC

supply. In addition. the HV filler ca­pacito rs arc also on the HV side. An­o ther indicator of the LV section is thelocation where the heavy black . red.ye llow, etc.. wires are connected .

Remember, it is for your safe ty thatyou become as fami liar as possible withthe hoard layout and circuit voltages be­fore begi nni ng a troubleshooting pro­cess. Dangerous vo ltages are present o nthe power supply board.. and care mustbe taken when the board is openly ex­posed while AC power is applied .Caution must he e xercised at all times.

TO "oW~1I.. su,,,&.y~EI,,*6 ,....STI7D

TroubleshootingI

Troubleshooti ng the c ircuit boardstarts by an attempt to identify andclassify the problem symptoms thatex is t. In most cases. when a co mputerpo wer supply fail s. it is "dead" andfail s to operate. That part icu lar clue isgene rally not suffic ie nt to lead youto a defective c o mpone nt. Because aswitching power supply operates prettymuch as a closed loop sys tem. allpieces of the syste m must he opera­tional before the power supply willcome up and operate . Therefore . it'ssometimes very frustrating to sort outwhat is re all y causing the failure . Themost log ica l trouble shoot ing process isto chec k as much of the various partsof the ci rcuit at possible and "clear"them of any faul t By a process ofe limination. the fault will eve ntuallysur face .

Before applying power to the supply.gather all o f the test gear and resistiveloads that are desired . I've found thefollowing items to be needed:

Fig. 4. The use of a \'ariac and series-connected light bulb for controlling line voltageand current while a power supply is unde rgoing diagnosis. The light bu lb provides avisual indication of the al//ou/lt of current being drawn

18 73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003

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A. Clear all DCoutput c ircui ts ofany shorts . Thisprocess involvesconnecting an ex­ternal5 VOC powersource through a.t7 ohm resistor toeach of the 5V

s ure to obse rvevoltage polarity forall components andmeasurements.

DO NOT REI.YONLY O N T HEPOWER SWITCHTO REMOVE ACPOWER ; PULl.THE PI.UG AE­FORE ATIEMPT­ING TO TOUC HOR WO RK O NTHE CIRCU IT.ALLOW A FEWM IN UT ES FO RT HE HV FILT ERC A PAC ITO RSTO DISCHARGE- CHECK TIlE~1

WITH A VOl.T­M ET ER.

CAUTIO,, : Ae

Test steps

must be restricted to only the LV sideof the supply.

2. The 100 W light bu lb is placed inseries between the Vari ac and thecomputer power supply (sec Fig. ~ ) .

3. The 5V power supply is used tolest all of the low voltage output cir­cuits for shorts . A 47 oh m resistor isconnected in series with the output ofthe 5V supply and acts as a currentlimiter (see Fig. ·h

4. In the case of an ATX-type supply.the enable line mu st be swi tched toground for the supply to be " turned

••on.5. Remember that if the board fault

is found and fixed while the hoard isinverted. there will be no heat sinkcooling from the fan. Excessive testingmust be avoided to prevent overheat­ing of the switchi ng transistors andrectifiers.

BOOST FILTERCAPACITOR

OUTPU T DRIVER

t--- - --- 4 +21V (BOOST)

..: ~ BOOST DIODE

•>1.5K;>

>> 22 0HMS.>

]

-"' ~

-

+1 2V STARTVOLTAGE

SWITCHERS

Fig. 6. Typical milage boost circuit used in some computer powersupplies. The transformerflyback pulse is rectified andfi ltered tocreate a mirage output 1Iigher tha n the I2V source (boost voltage J.

.7J\-

Vl. w

~"I- +

-v - -, VDc. PS Lv

Fig. 5. A 5 VDC towrr SUPI'!.", or a 3-6Vbattery, used for Jesting shorted COII/J/O -

"ems ill the output circuits of a computereowe supp ly.

• An osci lloscope• 5 VDC power supply (or a 3-6V

battery)• 5 ohm IO W resistor• 10 ohm 20 W resistor· 47 ohm In \V resistor• Se lec tion of cl ip leads

• Variac• 120Vll OOW ligh t bulb in a socket

with a li ne cord attached

Notes

I. As a caution, oscil loscope usc

...... 0'"

In_ '.... I,... ~.-

- y''''''' 1 • <IOl

,

•...•

,­"

-~-.,.­•••

,~

'"••

•••

•

, .~"'- .'"r:::J ,-•

.' ,>0' :c..~_----,;;:".,. 'T' ,....

•

••

. , .

-..I ,

•

.. ~:.-- - - - - - - - - ---;;:

-..

...

'·:::1·~"" ::oJ . - ,

-'" -L----.-.S

••••

...­'"

•

••

'"~••

,-,'N"..•

I ,....

...., 'a>~.--r-,I _ '..

'-'1-1. ,••'"'" '" """>'-±+--+~j''''...J -1 .. ..'>>--+"OJ,~ :--:i~l"" ,.... ·w ....l.~(,_-''.... ,.. co,.,

,~ ..,-. ,..-'" ,... .. .. .L ...Jc......J

.. "".,,.. . - ...

Fig. 7. Schematic ofa typical nOI/·ATX computer power slipply that uses a milage boost circuit.

and 12V output circuits individually- while observing polarity. With 5Vapplied. measure the voltage on thecomputer PS side of the resistor and itshould be essentially the same as thaton the 5V source side.

Note: Typically the +5V and +1 2Voutput circuits may have a 15()...470 ohmresistor to ground that operates as ableeder for the circuit. Therefore. thevoltage measured. when using the 5Vsupply and a 47 ohm resistor, will benominally 4Y.

To check the 3.3 V output With SVapplied to the main SV output. mea­sure the voltage on the 3.3V outputThe 3.3V output is sourced through aregulator or pass transistor fro m the5V ou tput. If necessary. re move the~7 ohm resistor from the 5V powersupp ly i n orde r for th e 3 .3 V ci rcuitto operate norma lly. No te: T he 3.3Voutput is sourced from the main 5Voutput. but the 3.3V dri ver/controllermay he sourced from the 12V outputTherefore. little or no 3.3V may bepresc nt during this portion of the test.20 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2003

If deemed necessary. the 3.3V outputcircu it may be checked by momen­tarily app lying 5V through the 47 ohmresistor. After clearing all of the plusvoltage output circuits , reverse the po­larity and check the negati ve 5V and12V output circuits.

Problem: If one of the output ci rcuitsexhibits a voltage lower than expected(except perhaps for the 3.3V output).then examine that circuit for any leak­age path that would be drawing suffi­c ient current to lower the 5V value.Pote ntia l leakage paths ex ist with thediode rec tifiers and filter capac itors.When in doubt, temporarily removethe item in question and repeat the 5Vtest.

B. Us ing an ohmmete r, check theresistors, diodes, and the coupling ca­paci tor located in the base circuit ofeac h switching power transistor.

Pro blem : Occasionally one of thesmall components will fail. shuttingdown the supply. It is usually neces­sary to lift onc end of one or more of

the components in order to obtain aproper measurement indication. Note :Se ldom arc the switching power tran­sistors damaged when one of thesecomponents fai ls.

C. Once the DC output circuits arccleared of any potential shorts. powermay he applied to the power supplyfrom the AC line through the Variacand light bulb. The objective of thelight bulb is to function as a currentlimiter, hut more importantly it pro­vides a direct visual indication of thecurre nt bei ng drawn by the supply. TheVariac and light bulb should remain inthe AC line until the power supply hasbeen deemed operational. If all of theabove steps have been completed, thenit is now time to app ly AC power to thepower supply.

Again. the dangers involved must beemphasized and that you must exercisecau tion when working around highvoltage ci rcuits. Test equipment suchas vol tmeters must be connected tothe HV circuit prior to having power

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Contmut.'d on page 22

E. The voltage boost circuit is al­ways a potential problem when it isused in the power supply. Refer to thepartial schematic of the boost c ircuit asshown in Fig. 6.

Note: Not all switching power sup­pl ies use a boost circuit.

One techniq ue that has worked forme is to tack solder a 47 ~/50V ca­pacitor between pin 12 and ground ofthe TlA94 PWM rc,

Problem: If the power supply comesup into operation reliably with an ex­ternal capacitor in place. trace theTL494 pin 12 circuit back to a filtercapacitor. The boost filter capacitorshould be of a value similar to 47 ~.

After changing the boost filter capaci­tor. be sure to remove the tacked -in47 JlF test capacito r.

F. Output filter capacitors do fail bydrying out over time. The fai lu remode is typically a loss of capac itance,causing the output ripp le to increase.

Test method: A capacitor of 100 JlFor greater having a voltage in excess ofthe ci rcuit being tested may be tack­soldered across the suspected capacitor.If the power supp ly operates, thenreplace the suspected capacitor.

Another test method is to connec tthe scope across the circuit in questionand observe the ripple value. Note:There must be a resistive load on theoutput of the circuit being tested.

Observe any significant change inthe ripple when a like capacitancevalue is added to the ci rcuit. Note : Be

reasonably close to the 320V. then con­nect the voltmeter across each of the HVfilter capacitors as the AC input voltageis raised.

Problem: If the two measured ca­pacitor voltages are drastically different.consider that one of the power transistorsor one of the capacitors may be shorted.Temporarily remove the power transis­tors and repeat step 6 to verify an equalvoltage across each capacitor. If thevoltages still fail to be close (equal) invalue, check the capacitors with anohmmeter. If the capacitors are OK.then consider the HV recti fier or the1201230V switch as a possible problem.

D. Setup steps in preparation fo rappl ying AC power.

Assuming that the fuse checks "good,"then steps may be taken to apply ACpower following these suggested steps:

applied. and then removed after theAC power has been turned off. AnyAC-powered test equipment such as anoscilloscope must not be connec ted tothe HV circuit at any time, as there isinsufficient voltage isolation to protecte ither the operator or the equipment.Usc of the osci lloscope must be re­stricted to only the low-voltage side ofthe circuit.

As a reminder. should the switchingtransistors be made operational duringthe power test phase, insufficient cool­ing air will be present to protect thetransi stors. Power-on test periods mustbe kept short.

Now, continuing with the test steps:

I. Connect the 5 ohm resistor to themain SV output (red) and ground.

2. Connect the 10 ohm resistor to themain 12V output (yellow) and ground.

3.·Connect a volt meter (set on the500-600V range ) to the 320V rail s.

4. Using the Variac. raise the AC linevoltage and observe the voltage devel­oped across the rails . The value mea­sured, with the switch set for 120V,should be approximately 2.8 times theAC RMS applied voltage.

5. If the light bulb glows dimly asthe Variac supplied voltage is raised.then slowly increase the line voltage to120V. Take note of the "320V" reading.

6. If the 320 vo lts fails to measure

Problem: If the voltage fail s to trackat approximately 2.8 times the RMSsource voltage. then remove power andtroubleshoot the HV rectifiers and fil­ter capacitors. It may be necessary totemporarily remove the switching tran­sistors should they be suspected ofbeing shorted.

Note: To remove the switching tran­sistors. remove the whole assembly byunsoldering the tra nsistor leads. andthen remove the heatsink retai nerscrews. Carefully lift the assembly.making sure that the transistor leadslift out of the board.

Repa iring a computer power supplyis quite a satisfying ex perience for aham. It's also a new e xposure to HVtechniques and safety practices beyondwhat you might experie nce in typicalso lid-sta te c ircuits . Pe rsonal safety isan important issue when working withcomputer power supplies and cautionis not (0 be avoided for expedienc y.

Hams ge t invo lved in a lot of elec­tronic projects, and it is expected thata n attempt at re pairing a computerpower supply will occur. The sugges­tions provided here on tro ub leshootingcomputer power supplies shou ld allowa ham to be successful in the process.

Although the troubleshooting pro­cess and fi ndi ng a "bad" part is fairlyeasy. sa fety is the word. Please becareful! Eli

C onclusion

a nd th e re is alwa ys a quan da ry asto where rep lacement parts can be

located .One of the biggest di lemmas facing

a ham these days is in locating suitableparts for projects . Becau se m uch ofo ur e lectronic equipment is now builtoffshore. replacement parts arc notreadilv a vailable One of the tech-o •

niques that I use to get around thesho rtage is to salvage TV and VCRboards as the y arc scrapped.

Parts such as capacitors and resistorscan always be used in ham projects sothey are of great importance to me.Semiconductors from TV and VCRboards arc of a lower priori ty unless Iknow the part and have a place to storeit.

Whe n it comes to parts for computerpower supplies. a source for ava ilableparts is certainly lacking. NTE rc­placement semiconductors are perhapsthe most read ily avai lable. but manytypes are not covered hy the serv ice.To counter the prob lem. I' ve startedco llecting used com pu ter power sup­pli es and "rob" parts from one or twoas the need a rises in o rder to re pairanother.

Occasionally power supply H V filtercapacitors appear in the new and sur­plus parts catalogs so you need to keep.1 sharp eye peel ed fo r the itemsneeded.

Replacement parts

At thi s po int almost all of the obv i­ous failure mechanisms ha ve beenchecked within the power supply andhopefull y the problcm has been de­tected and perhaps corrected. Repair­ing a power supply requires, in mostcases . a part to replace the bad one.

H. Measure the DC voltage from thedriver transistor emitters to ground.Typicall y. two diodes are connec ted inseries cond ucting from the transistore mitters to ground . The DC voltaged rop across those tw o diodes must hein the range 1.2-1.8V when the tran­sistors are being properly driven by thePW M.

Prob lem: If the vo ltage ac ross thed iodes is low, the dri ver tran sistors arenot be ing turned on. Use the scope too bse rve the d rivin g pulse fou nd onthe base of the dri ver transistors .C heck twice before connecting thescope probe.

the wave form is nussmg, verify thatDC voltage is app lied to the PWMIe. If the DC voltage is there . con­sider substituting another T IA 94 be ­fore repea ting the te sts . It 's al sopossi ble that the RC timi ng c ircuitconnected to pins 5 and 6 of theTL449..l is defecti ve .

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I. Assuming (hat TL494 pins 8 and11 are exhibiting eq ual pu lses. the nplace the scope probe onto the centertap at the driver transformer (collector!primary side). If the powe r supply

- - - - - - - - - - --- ----1 utilize s a DC boost vo ltage . a se riesof vertica l ri sing pulses should beobserved at the ce nte r tap with ana mplitude approachi ng l 5 · 20V.

Proble m : If the ce nter tap voltagepulse is present. then the boo st voltagesho uld be available at a pproximately20Y. Whe n the boost voltage fai ls torise from 12V to 20V at startup. checkthe following components: boost d iode ,boost f ilte r capac ito r. and resi s to rs .

Ano ther place to check is the inputto one PWM voltage comparator. Onevoltage compari tor is used to monitorthe boost voltage . Check all of thecomponents associated with the boostsensor circuit.

G. Having cleared a ll o utput c ircuits.the voltage boost circu it. and the powersupply still fails to operate: it may hetime to use an oscilloscope to checkthe PWM waveforms. A completeschematic of a vo ltage boosted powersupply c ircuit is show n in Fig. 7.

Attach the oscilloscope probes onlyto the low-voltage side of the supply.The scope is sometimes use ful forlooking at the sig nal output from theTL494 Ie. Pins 8 and I I are the oscil­lator output pins and they provide apulsed wave form that is used to dri vethe bases of the o utput d river transis­tors . The scope grou nd is attached tothe black DC (ground) o utput lead andthe probe tip is connected first to pin 8and then 10 pin I I of the T LA94 .

Problem: The wavefo rm obtainedfrom bo th pins 8 and 11 should be verysimi lar in shape and ampli tude. Thepeak amplitude of the pulse wi ll belimited to a value approaching 2.1 V. If

TroubleshootingComputer Power Suppliescorumued jrcm page 2 1

sure to remove powe r before adding orremoving a fi lter capac itor.

22 73 Amareur Radio Today · February 2003

Car1 Herbert AA2JZ43 South Plank Rd.Newburgh NY 12550[herbert982@aol,com)

Build This Simple SMT StationDinner and a movie? How about pizza and a project?

SMT parts arc rapidly becoming the "norm " in consumer electronics manutecturing.This "home-brcw" device can mske the learning and building process wiLh SMT devices .1

more plessursble event.

Fig. J. Dimensions of the hase and haid-down device are approximate. They wert' se­lectcd 10 lise the wood "stock " I had 0/1 hand to match the "hobby hinge, " and the basesi:e is the remaining "stiffener" for the piz~ pall. The primary requirement is. however;to have the test lead point become usable ill the lower halfof the working surface.

73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003 23

(l

~ p ri n~

..

comfortable working with commonhand tools and a fe w "home owner"power tools. and I suspect that many ofyou are also. So why not make yourown station. using easier to obtain rna­tcriuls. while using the too ls that mostof us either have or can borrow"!

The initial thoughts for design werecentered on using a "pizza pan" as thebase for the proj ect. This proved to hea poor choice, because the structure ofthe pan was of such thin sheet metal

,'"­,'"

i hiog~

T,~.-

lII pproJ. im. l~h

12" in diJI ml' Il'~

home-brew event. His design is asquare. padded work surface, with amachined-brass weighted and adjust­able ann. and a padded "turntable" atthe business end where constructioncould take place. Very neatly done anda testament to his skill as a machinist.

I was very impressed by the designand construction of his work station.but keenly aware tha t not all of us arcmachinists. capable of duplicating thatdevice - least of all. me! I am fairly

My initial entry into the hobbywas during the generation oftube-type gear (and yes. I'm

older than many and younger than afew). I the n went to solid state andnow have prog ressed to SMT (sur­face mount technology) devices. Notwanting to he "left behind." I' ve beenthinking of trying a project using SMT.

SMT, as it's called . is becomingmore and more the standard of the In­dustry. That's not to say that all partsarc being replaced by these min iaturede vices, but it sure seems to me thatthere arc many more projects designedaround them now than in the past. Themanufacturers of consumer electronicscan produce these parts more eco­nomically than "through-hole" items,Then there's the placement of parts onan assembly li ne. where robotics canhandle the task effective ly using thenewer devi ces, Lately. most of the con­sumer products I've obtained wereconstructed using this technology. The"writing is on the wall: ' or should Isay. the "chips are on the board:'

That' s what progress is. I suppose:adjusting your skills to coincide withtechnology. In April, at Atlanticon2002, W2GUM sported an impressiveSMT work station as an entry in the

-

Flat washef

Table I. Parts fist .

Epoxy or~

8·112·in by 1I -in. se"'adhesive fell pad

12-inch cram. wooden eese

I fi led the end of the nail to res t flaton the part bei ng placed. having foundthat the poi nt original ly there marredthe surface of the part . Spring tensionis a matter of "guess and stretch: 'Don' t make it so tight that the part ei­ther breaks or can' t he moved. Justenough tension to hold it down firmlybut a ll ow it to still he movable. Thearm assembly sizes were chosen to litthe hobby hinge (3/4" wide) and the3/8" test point I had. You might have toadj ust di mensions to li t your materials .The flat washer epox ied to the base ofthe shortest "ann" aids in stabili ty byproviding a larger flat surface for theann to move on.

The felt surface applied to thewooden hase serves two funct ions.First. it ho lds the projec t circuit boardto protec t it and stops it from sliding,and secondly it provides a convenientcontrasting co lor apart from the partsbeing in..ta lled. Black or white partsare more visi ble on the green surfaceand therefore easier to keep track of.(See Photo A.)

And there you have it! An SMTwork station that cost almost nothingto assemble. Construction time varieswith the user 's abilities and can bemodified to ti t your needs or avai lab leparts. It 's small enough to be stored ina desk drawer when not be ing used.but somehow I suspec t that it won' t seethe insides of the drawer fur some timeto come.

Now. when the gang shows up. I canoffer them pizza. After a ll, I do haveone very new. very unused pizza panfrom the beginning of this project. Fa

Feel, 4 ead1

that flexing of the pan caused by thetension-prod ucing ann would pose aproblem.

Usi ng. the pan as a template. I cut thesame-size disc from a composite woodmaterial. expecting to use it as a "stiff­ener" under the pan . I then realizedthat the surface treatmen t on the panwas a "no-stick" material , and had thework station heen comple ted. the ci r­cuit board would like ly be slidingaro und uncontrollabl y! I wish I hadrea lized tha t before I bough t the pan!So the pan joins the pile of "goodthought. bad idea " stuff.

The wooden stiffener. as a base,has prove n to he the best answer. Theattached drawi ng . (F ig. I ), givesmeasurements I uscd to create mywork sta tio n. The measure mentsaren 't c ritical: they "fit" my device .Your overa ll dime nsions can bemodified to fi t your part s , Keep inmind, though, that the pressure point(i.e .. the part tha t holds the SMT to theboard) should fa ll approximate ly in thelower third of the work surface . I had atest lead probe in my junk box justlonging to become pan o f a project. A"push point" ballpoi nt pen housing, Isuppose. would have worked equallywell. provided of course that the penpart was eliminated and a finishingnail of suitable size was epoxied intothe housing in its place.

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24 73 Amateur Radio Today ' February 2003

Photo A. The cOIllI,/erf'd SAlT worl: station, ready/or operation. Not high-tech or difficultto build. it docs make assembling a surface mOl/lit project milch easier 10 do.

Carl Herbert AA2.JZ43 South Plank Rd.Newburgh NY-12550[herbert982 @aol.eam]

How's That ThingReally Work, Anyway?

Part I : Receivers.

At a recen tly attended club m eeting, a newly licensed opera tor confided in m e; "Yes, [passed the leSl, bUl [ l ievcn 'l any idea how any of th is stuitwork s! [ just m emorized enough 10gel th rough the lest and get my license. " Sound Familiar to any ofyou OUl there?

The neophyte rad io amate ur hasspe nt hours studying the licensemanual. practici ng the exams,

to finall y complete the process andgain his or her "ticket" to proudly dis­play on the wall. This is great ! Onemore member enters the hobby.

But there 's a prob lem here ! Man y(and some longer-l icensed ha ms)ha ven 't a clue as to how their gear per­forms the functions tha t it does. Thisarticle isn 't intended to replace thecount less tomes ava ilable that teachthe engineering functions from the"ground up: ' It ' s merely an overvie wof the basic sections of a piece ofequipme nt. how they interact witheach other to produce the desired re­sult a fter turning on the switch.Know ledge is ga ined one segment at atime. I hope this segme nt encouragesyou to further your knowledge inelectronics . If no t, you shou ld atleast ha ve a basic understanding ofhow a rece ivcr "works."

I chose to begi n with rece ivers. Noparticu lar reason, it was the fi rst pieceof gear that came to mind. When tell­ing you about a c ircuit or function. 1will try to stay away from the engi­neering facts that all equipme nt arcbuill from, and attempt to explain the

subject without a lot of technica l jar­gon. My goa l is to have you he able tovisualize the happenings wi thin yourequipme nt sections, not to design thecircuits. You ca n add all this knowl­edge to your "storage bank" later asyou gain experience in the hobby. Fornow, just understanding the basic ideasof how a system works is OK.

Le t 's begin with a very basicBLOCK DIAGRAM of a receive r.Block diagrams are great beca use the yrepresent circuits and paths for signalflow. T he ac tual c irc uit co mpone nts ,thei r va lues and how they a rc co n­nected arc described in a SC HE­M ATI C. We wo n't dea l wi thsche matics here. Block diagrams showdirect ion or the logical path we mustfollow to achieve results and presentan "eas y to understand" overview ofthe device be ing described. This pro­cess will become clear to you as weprogress.

An example will help you understandhow the rece ive r works. Let 's s upposetha t we would like to li sten to the80 -me te r band. sa y from 3 .500 M Hzto ..1-.00 Ml iz . While exp loring thelower e nd of the band. we hearAB1AF, Arthur, sending CW on 3550MHz. We know what frequency his

transmi tter is on because the frequencyis marked on the front pa nel of our re­cei ver or the digital readout indicatesthat freque ncy. But how does a signa lbeing ge nerated far above the audiospectrum become transformed to therange usable by our human heari ng '!

The starting point o f a rece iver is theRF INPUT circuit that is connected tothe antenna. It is composed of circuits" tuned" to the desired frequency wewish to recei ve . By "tuned" we meanthat the signals passing through a coi land capacito r network arc only thosebetween 3.5 and 4.0 MH z. There arcoften two or three se ts of coils and ca­pacitors ' ganged" or joi ned together toprovide the "bandpass" desired. This isaccomplished by having the va lues ofeach co il/capacitor pa ir slightly differ­cnt fro m each other. O ther freque nciesare blocked or "tuned out: ' and aren'tallowed to pass through the net work .The receive antenna is connected to theinput side; the away side is attached tothe M IXER stage .

Having a tuned input is a good thing.Whi le antennas are designed to receivese lected frequencies. they also receive awide runge of other frequencies. Theseadditional freque ncies if allowed topass would have a negative e ffect on

73 Amateur RadiO Today • February 2003 25

Fig. I, Typical receiver block diagram. showing input bandwidth and signal. VFO andBFO f requencies. and audio output.

26 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003

incoming signal on 3.5 10 MfIz withthe VFO signal on 6.490 MHz a nd pro­vide an output on 10.0 MHz. The outputof this receiver's mixer will always be10 MHz and have a bandwidth of a fewkilohertz above and below the 10 MHzfrequency.

The next blocks are the IF FILTERand AMPLI FIER, labe led D and E. Dcontains a bandpass fi lter designed toa llow on ly the 10 M Hz signal pro­vidcd from the mixer to pass and E isan ampli fier to "boost" the signa lstrength. Often the IF FILTER is com­posed of a crystal lattice network. Thisis a series of crysta ls (in our case 10MHz) and capacitors designed [ 0 al­low only the 10 MH z signal to pass.The crystal frequency identifies the"ce nter frequency" of the Iilter, whi lethe capacitors are se lected to provideadequa te bandwidth of the filter. CWfi lters are designed to he narrow, in thera nge o f 750 Hz to I,()(x) HI , and SS Bfilte rs are in the 2 to .3 kl-lz range.While the crysta ls " se t" the frequencya llowed to pass, the filt er will all owfrequency slightly above and belowthe 10 ~1Hz crystal frequency to passal so. These variations are Art's CWsignal being passed a long through thecircu its,

Our signal has now passed throughthe IF FILTER and AM PI.IFI ER and ispresent at the input of the PRODUCTDETECTOR circuit (F), It has a d iffer­ent name, but it functions just like the).lIXER described earlier. It has twoinputs and can provide one of four out­puts just like the mixer c irc uit. The bigdilTerence here is that the PRODUCTDETECTOR is used to mi x frequencyfrom the BEAT FREQUENCY OS­CILLATOR (G ) or BFO to provide alow-level audio output. The beat fre­quency osci llator works just like theYFO, bUI provides an output on onlyone freq uency.

The BFO circui t in our example con­tains an oscillator circuit using a crys­tal identical to those in the crystallattice filte r ( 10 MHz), This oscillator

Cont rnued on page 56

Xow how does that happen, do JOU

suppose?

BfO9 9'995~1•1O.Ql))! 10tlL

G r--.~-

Typical 80 Meter CWReceiver

outpu t to he compatible with the re­mainder of the receiver. Because themixer has two input frequencies andone of them is 3.550 ~IHz, the secondfrequency to he supplied by the VFOin our example will be 6.450 MH z.This will e nab le the mixer to provide a10 MHz output.

The VFO or VA RIABLE FRE­QUENCY OSCILLATO R is a ci rcuitdesigned to provide a signa l to themixer that is stable, accurate , yet vari­able in frequency. The range of theVFO is carefully se lected to enable themixer to usc the frequency to providean output that will be compatible withthe remai nder of the receiver 's cir­cuits. For this example, the range ofthis VFO, to be compatible with thiscircuit. will be from 6.000 MHz to6.500 ~lH7, . Usi ng this range of fre­quenc ies fro m the VFO uses the"summing" principle to ac hieve therequired 10 1-1HI. outpu t. By "adding"the incomi ng signa l frequency to thatof the VFO, the JO MHz output fre­quency is real ized. You could a lso uscthe "difference" principle, where theVFO would he designed to operatefrom 13.500 to 14.000 M Hz. Thiswo uld abo resu lt in the 10 M Hz outputneeded, Lower-frequency YFOs aregenerally easier to desig n and operatea nd are therefore more commonlyused,

Suppose another signa l is present on3.5 10 MHz, 10 MHz from the low endof the band . You would "tune" theVFO "down" 10 MH z to 6.490 ~l Hz.

The mixer circuit would combine the

E

IF,ol.t/ p

PRODUCTDETECTOR

o )<)~ F HFlLT" iL > r->( -::::7:'->~

1 01lJ '.~ \ SCO ttI L~~

'----------' Y II "

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Ci1 YSTALU Tr..;.3"

Rf I ~ p u r

6 00-650 III1Z, ,

the operation of the rcceiver, Thus far.the signal we desire to hear has beenintercepted by the antenna and passedthrough a tuned circuit called the RFlNPlIT circuit which has been de­signed to pass only those frequenciesbetween 3.5 ~1H7 and 4.0 MH z. and isshown in Block A of Fig. 1.

The output of the RF INPUT circuitis at tached to a MIXER stage, labe ledHlock B Mi xers arc commonly idcmi­tied on a block diag ram by the c irclewith an "X" through it The MI XERhas two signals feeding it. the fre­quency we desire to listen to with itsvariations In frequency from beingkeyed at the transmitter. and the outputfrom a VARIABLE FREQUEl'CYOSCIL LATOR ( Bloc k C) . The varia ­tions o f the transmitted signal mat h­ema tically combine with the VFOsigna l. It is the mixer 's function tocombine these two frequencies a ndprovide a single usable frequency asan output.

Mixers are just what the name implies.They combine frequencies to provide anoutput. There are four desired outputpossibi li ties fr om a mixer, either ofthe two originals, o r the sum or dif­fere nce of the two . For our receiver,we will use an INTERMED IAT EFREQUENCY (IF) of 10 MHz. Th isfrequency is commo nly used in Q RPgear, and will he ex plai ned as weprogress through the receiver 's circuits.

So our signa l is bei ng received on

3.550 ~1Hz through the RF FILTERand has arrived at the ~lIXER input.The MIXER mu st provide a 10 Ml-lz

Erik Westgard NY9D3990 Virginia Ave .Shoreview MN 55126[ewestga rd @worldnet .att.net]

Warblemania. .. and other QRP afflictions.

You can't follow the work of the Nell' j ersey QRP Club or Da ve Benson KISWL of SmallWonder Labs without seeing references to our leading edge digital mode, PSK-3 I, anda kit called the "PSK-BO Warbler. "

The Warbler Q RP transceiver ispriced right ($45) and seemedlike a nice change of pace from

CW kits . Whcn mine arrived I put onsome music, warmed up the so lderingiron. and started jamming in parts. Thetransformers slowed mc down a bit.These arc mult ifil ar (have more thanone winding) and have to he woundexactly accordi ng to the plans.

In some of Dave's other kits he pro­vides a nice magnet-wire ribbon cab lethat keeps the windings from gettingfouled up. In this case you can windonc wire at a time. Each wire has toappear at the correct side of the coreafter each tum. and the wires shouldnot cross inside the cores. It's hard ona black and whi te diagram sheet tokeep track of three colors (my wife hasthis issue with quilt patterns) - Iended up deciding the "white" wire onthe diagram was for the red wire. I justnoticed there is a nice color picture ofan assembled Warbler on Dave's Website that would have been most helpfu l.

I breezed by the two surface mountSA6 12A ICs. To do these. pre-tin a padat each comer of the mounting pad forthe device. Then take a pointed tool,slide the part in place (watch the dotfor pin one). and warm up the comer

pads onc at a time to tack them down.If yuu have the part centered. you canthen warm up the remaini ng pads andput a little solder on each. I ran intoDave Benson and asked him abou tth is - he says he warms up an entireside of the IC pad s. and blobs in so l­der. Then he uses dcsoldcring braidto remo ve the excess. I shared withhim my theory on the need to open aco ld malted beverage to calm thenerves while working with surfacemount parts. He said that this has some

Photo A, P5K-80 mlrbler.

sc ientific merit - it lowers the brainsynapse-tiring rate, so you would heless jittery while soldering.

Haste and overconfi dence are notthe friends of kit builders. as the littlerig didn' t work. I only caught myselfmaki ng one assembly mistake on the30-part hoa rd. I spent maybe an hourpoking arou nd and worryi ng whether Ihad done a good job on the transformers.or gotten a short someplace .

The cab ling to the laptop was anabsolute nightmare. Part of the problem

73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003 27

Small Wonder Labs' 20m PSK-31transceiver

At the recent St. C loud, MN,ham fest, George N0VPR had whatlooked like a Warbler for sa le. I askedhim abou t it - he said it was actuallya 20m ve rsion. I asked why he wasse lling it - he said he cou ld not get itworking, and did not have enoughfancy test equipment to check it out.

I sa id right away if he was anythinglike me he had a wiring mistake or twoand that was it. He gave me a look of,"Well . I don' t think so, but anything ispossible ." I said I'd take it home andfix it up. Back on the bench. I checkedevery part. No mistakes at all - thecoils and soldering looked exce llent,nice a nd neat . I took out the cables andbattered laptop from my Field Day!emergency bag where my Warbler wasstored and fired it up. Right away therewere tracks and signals - th is timefrom far away, like Florida and Cali ­fornia. 1 sent a re lieved George backhis Warbler and a copy of my laptop­to-Warhler wiring instructions.

Thi s imposing set of acronyms is re­ally the " Four Days in May" QRPevent. It's every year in Dayton duri ngthe Ham ve ntion at the Ramada InnSouth, near Dayton Mall. They rentout much of the hotel and hold a full­scale QRP convention. There wereover 200 fol ks there this year, and Ihad a chance to meet ma ny of theleading lights of QRP. The Rev.George Dobbs G3RJV had a witty

QRPCI-FIlIM

was a 20m transmitter kit wi th crystal ,and they had a matching case avail­able . I thought the kit was priced onlya little bit more than the cost of thecrystal alone .

If you are not in the mood to windtcroids. thi s kit is perfect - there arenone. After a pleasant few minutes thisone was together and working. I didlake the time to change the RF connec­tors fro m the RCA-lype phone jacks toPL-259 jacks on the back of the case ,This kit has a built in transmi t/receiveswitch wh ich can save adding an exter­nal model , and has room for a secondcrystal.

wtrmg errors out of thirty parts ­10 :1 - which is my usual ra tio. Thereis a mi nor error on the 10/29/00 boardlayout diagram on my version of thekit. R-t ( 100 ohms) was not labeled.And LI should say 68 IlH instead of10 IlH . My wiring mistake was inswapping a 2200 ohm and a 22k resistor.

I tuned up my G5RV antenna in thetree outside and fired up the Digipansoftware . The software distributionsite had moved since the orig inal QSTWarbler article, but Dave's site had acorrec ted link. I found onc of the rail­road track patterns on the screen andclicked the mouse on it. The sta tion Icalled. K2EZR, wrote back that Ineeded to reduce audio gain to theWarbler as I was splattering. This ledto ha ving to find the correct soundcard dri vers for my laptop that placedthe vo lume contro l icon on the Win­dews" task bar. I may need to build anoutboard hardware volume control toget the right leve l of precision, and al­low the control to be se t the same eachtime the computer is rebooted .

O ne of my favorite receivers is thefi rst one I eve r built from sc ratch, abasic 20-mc tcr mode l from W I FB 'sQRP Notebook, Fig . 3-23. I madeseveral attempts at a scratch-bui lt 20mcompanion transmi tter, with no luck ata ll.

I was wandering the back com ers atthe M idwi nter Madness Ham fest here ,and saw one of the vendors with a dis­play of Ramsey kits. For $29.95 there

Ramsey QRP-20 20m transmitter

is left over from the audio equ ipme ntdays - "output" is relative - onebox's inpu t is another box's output. Ifyou decide on "line" vs. "micro­phone," that is a start. There is a b ote ndency for the audio from amateurrigs to be mono. and for the soundcards on laptops to be ste reo. I endedup making two trips to Radio Shadfor 1/8" jumper cables, and stereo-to­mono adapters. My final setup fromthe Warbler to my vintage TI laptopwas as follows:

From 11 "AF O ut" en the Warblerboard - a mono 1/8" male-to-malejumper wi th a mono jack-to-stereoplug adapter on the laptop microphoneend.

From 12 "AF In" - a stereo 1/8"male-to-male jumper to the laptopheadphone jack .

After dec iding I was getting ton litt leAF input and too much RF output, I fi ­nally noti ced that I had a pair of resis­tors reversed. This means I made three

Photo C. Left: 20m WarMer; right: ill box, 80m Warbler.

28 73 Amateur Radio Today e February 2?03

Photo B. Ramsey QRP-20 Transmitte r.

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stocks them and they are even disap­pearing from the mainline mai l ordercatalogs. T he suggested replacement isin many cases the varactor diode. Theseare at least still being made, but requi rethat one find an NTE dealer. or a wellstocked pans store to find one locally.

In a number of the more basic QRPdesigns, you find some designers willuse a common IN9 14 diode or even a2N3904 transistor (use the base-to­emitter junct ion ) in place of a "real"varactor (VYC) such as the M Y104.This is all we ll and good. but I havebeen trying to reverse engineer and up­date some of the older "all RadioShack" designs, and have needed tofind the capacitance range for theI N914 in such an application.

In an article in one of the last issuespublished of Ham Radio Magazine,Hugh Wells has a nice table with thecapacitance to voltage ranges for anumber of common diodes. includingthe IN4001 to IN4007, and the IN9 14.You can find the table on the HamRadio CD published by the A RRL. orin your archives. I will give you a hinthere - the 1N91 4 acting as a varactoris 0.5 to 4 pF. over an active range of 4to 0.5 volts. So at 4 volts it's 0.5 pF.and at 0.5 volts it's 4 pF. Higher volt­ages did not change the capacitance.The IN400 I had a range of 3-34 pFfrom 16 to 0 .5 volts.

References

Mark Milhurn KQOl, QRP ARCI,117 E Philip St., Des Moines, lA50315-4 114.

New Jersey QRP Cluh (WQ2RP),[www.njqrp.orgl].

QRP Amateur Radio Club Interna­tional. [www.qrparci.org/].

Ramsey Electronics. 793 CanningParkway. Victor. NY 14564, 585·924­4560, [www.ramseyelectronics.com].

Small Wonder Labs, Dave Ben sonKI SWL, 80 East Robbins Ave .,Newi ngton. CT 06111, (www.small­wonderlabs.coml] .

lYI FB's QRP Notebook, DougDextew, A RRL, Second Edition. 3rdPrinting, 1999. ISBN 0872593657.

"Varactor Diodes from Rectifiers,"Hugh Wells W 6WT U. Ham Radio .6/1990, pp. 40-4 1. fiil

It is a fact of modem life that vari­ab le tuning capacitors are gettingharder and harder to find in local elec­ironies stores. Radio Shack no longer

presentatio n. He is a very goodspeaker (years of practice on Sundays.I think) and was warning us of the dan­ger of "pelf' - goods acqu ired withmoney one does not cam, to impresspeople one does not care about. I pon­dered this while loading up my pullcan at the big flea market, and con­cluded that if I spent my lunch moneyon something I a lone wanted, I wassafe from pel f.

He had a slide in his ta lk showing anangel figure hovering over a personsoldering away at a workbench, withthe caption saying you didn't need di­vine inspiration to ge t projects towork. I didn 't think anythi ng moreabout that until I raced up after his ta lkto buy a copy of his new bookMinimalist Radio, and a copy of thecomplete Sprat QRP Journal on CD.In the book was a se ries of plans thatmight just solve a problem I have beengrappling with for more than a year ­building an a ll- Radio Shack DC re­ceive r wi th no mai l order or rareparts .

The QRP show has a nice awardsbanquet. and a QRP flea market at thehotel . This was another shocking drainon my wallet. as there were many doz­ens (!) of kits, books. bags of parts,and other items on offer. They have aquaint custom of taping QSL cards onthe door, so you can see who yourneighbors arc. An added plus is thatthe Ramada South was the first stop onthe free bus route to the Hamvention.

I had an idea for the larger OX con­tingents visiting Dayton from over­seas, which came to me after losingout on barga ins on 20' telescoping an­tenna masts (SIO) and 4' army-surplusantenna masting sec tions ($3). neithero f which would fit in my carry -onluggage for the airplane home. Theyshould get together and rent a standard20' shipping container - it cou ld befilled to the brim, customs-scaled,loaded on a ship, and unpacked backhome.

The lr-l914 as a varactor

73 Amateur Radio Today - February 2003 29

Phil Whitchurch G3SWH21 Dickenscns GroveCongresburyBristol BS49 5HQUK

Breakdown in Cape TownThe surp rise activity 0 11 this little jaunt turns out to be not just 011 the ail:

When the bombshell landed that our DXpedition to the MidlVay Islands in April 2002 as W4Mwas to be canceled as a resul[ ot [he hOLeI operator on [he island ceasing [heir operations.j im G3RTE and I looked around [or all alternative and readily accessible destination.

e looked at the possibility ofgoing to Grand Turk in theTurks & Caicos Islands

(NA-003), which is relatively rarefrom the IOTA point of view, hut VP5sees a 101of ho liday type activ ity fromProvidcncialcs C\A·(}()2) . which ratherundermines interest in DXCC acti vi ty.As we were all considerably out-of­pocket following the Midway fiascoand a trip to VP5 would have been al­most as expensive. we decided to putour plans for a 2002 DXpcdition onhold.

Having decided to abandon a radiotrip. I started to get big circular hintsfrom Jan about going on holiday to­gether instead. As we had already setour minds on going back to Madagas­car in the autumn. we agreed it wouldhave to be a cheap one! Afte r muchporing over brochures. we finall yagreed on a very reasonably pricedpackage o f a week in Cape Town inlate April. Flyi ng from London viaIstanbul on Turkish Airlines.

Once the booking had heen made. Isent a short E-mai l to AI ZS IAAX

suggesting that we meet up for a drinkand/or a meal. AI responded positivelyand suggested that we also involveVidi ZS IEL and his XYL HesterZS IESU. N4~(PQ. Several friendsasked if I planned to take any radioequipment with me. hut as our holeIwas in centra l Cape Town, I decidednot to. (Quite apart from the fact that Ididn 't think that ZS I was rare enoughto warrant the organization involved .)

We left Heathrow on the even ingof Friday 19th April. arriving in CapeTown arou nd II a .m . on Saturday

Photo A. Jail and Phil at Cape Point.

30 73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003

Photo 8, Jan. Phil, and \-7di at Sandy Bay, the fa mous nudistbeach (it \l'as a \'t' r)' cold day!).

1'11010 C. Al ZS JAAX in his shack.

-

Plwlo D. L to R: Hester ZS JESU. Phil G3SWII, AI ZSIAAX, andvidi ZSi El. in 'l id; and Hester 's shack.

th e 20th , ha ving c hanged aircra ft inIs tanbul a nd to uching down bric l1 y inJohannesburg. Vidi and Hester had ex­plained thai on most S undays theycome into the city center from theirhome in Somerset West, to go (0

church and (0 visit the V & A Water­fro nt. Coincide nta lly, their church isquite close to our hotel and we ar­ranged to meet at I I a.m. in the lobbyand to go to the Waterfront for lunchwith AI, hi s XYL Kay. and his sisterStell a.

The Victoria and Al fred Waterfrontis still a work ing harbour, but muchtaste ful rede velopment has taken placeand there arc many restaurants, bars,and shops. Jan and I spent the first partof the Saturday evening exploring andhaving a mea l - and the seco nd partgetting gloriously d runk on South A f­rican bra ndy in the hotel bar w ith an­other coup le in o ur group. Heavenknows what time we we nt to hell. hut Iwoke at 5 a.m. to find that a ll the lightsin the roo m were st ill burning! After alate breakfast. Jan was still fee linghung over, hu t I was (surprising ly)line .

Villi, Hesler. and Al a ll arri ved asplanned and we set oil fo r the DenAnker. a Belg ian restaurant at the Wa­terfront. where Kay and Stella joinedus. A family of seals cavorting in thesunshine provided e ntertainment dur­ing the exce llent lu nch. Vid i asked if Iwanted to play so me rad io duri ng ourtrip. but wc explained that we had arather full sc hed ule of sightseeing andhad no time availab le . Aftcr lunch.

Hester proposed that we all go hack totheir house for c offee . Somerse t Westis abou t an hour 's drive cast o f the citycenter and we were co nce rned aboutgetting hack to the hotel a fte rw ards. asthere appeared to be no pu blic trans­port avai lable. A l sol ved the problemby very kindly offering to dri ve out toSo merset West and then ferry us hackto to wn in the early evening. Even so.it was a fa ir ly de vious route home forh im. as he lives in Co nstantia in theso uthern suburbs of the c ity.

On arriving at Vidi and Hester ' shome. no time was lost in sho wing me

the shac k a nd firing up the rig . Vid iuse s o ne of the beautiful ;\2DANpadd les. but I am a d yed-in- the -woo lbug key user and ha ve ne ver go t thehang of an electronic keyer. Vid i un­earthed no less than three mecha nica lbugs from his co llec tion and o ne wasquic kly pressed into serv ice . A quidliste n o n 14 MHz at around 14-00 UTCre vealed a couple of W 7s ragchcwingo n an o therw ise dead band. 21 MHzmade for a qu ick QSO \I..ith A25/DJ6SL but 28 )'fHz was q uite livelya nd a C Q ca ll from ZS I /G3SWH was

im mediately an swered by N2UI at1445 UTC. fo llo wed by l'\4JE Aftcrabout ha lf a dozen " no rma l" QSOs. api le-up de ve loped, mainly of Europe­ans, so I reached for a pair o f head­phones and dropped into 5Nl';" mode .The pile-up gre w a nd I was fe n.-cd towork spl it at a good run rnrc , a lthoughI am still at a loss a s to what was sointeresting about a ZS station on 10 meters.

A I and Vidi were high ly am used bymy wrist actio n when using the hug , asusing an N2DAN paddle is an a lto­ge ther m uch more sedate a lTair. For thene xt couple of hours . I was plied withtea and biscuits whi lst working 194statio ns in 37 D XC C entities be foreJan dec ided that I had been indu lgedenoug h and it was time for Al to driveus back 10 the hotel.

The rest o f the ho liday went asplanned. Mo nday saw a birdwatchi ngtrip to the Paarl Mo untain Reserve . OnTuesday we took a tour of the CapePeninsula . We visi ted the KirstenboschBota nical Gardens o n Wed nesday inthe pouring rain. T hursday was allo­cated to visit ing the Wi ncla nds and noless than five vineyards. six if youcount seeing the cheetahs at Spier. Fri ­day dawned a beautiful day so we wereup ve ry early a nd took the first cablecar o f the day to the to p of Tab leMountain. which had bee n wearing itstablecloth (clouds) earl ier in the week.That evening. we we nt to AI's hornefor dinner with h is wife Kay and siste rSte lla, but d idn ' t get o n the a ir again.

Saturday. 27th Apri l, was o ur lastday in Cape Town and we we re d ue tofly home late that afternoon. We de­cided to do little el se hut pack andsome las t m inute shopping in Lo ngStre et a s tra nsport to the airport wasarranged for 2:30 p.m. Jan particularlywanted to vis it the Bead Shop. Wedidn ' t kno w until later that it was a

Conlin ued on page 32

73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003 31

Photo E. Lillich at the Den Anker. L 10 R: Hester ZS 1ESU, vidi7.SI£L, Steffa (A /\ sister], Kay ZSI AAXI2. Phil G3S lVH, A IZ5I AAX, andlau G3SWHI2. Photo F: Phil running (/ surprise IJile-UI' as ZSIlGJS IVII.

Breakdown in Cape TownCOllfillued I rom page 3 1

public holiday and most o f the shops.bars and restaurants on Long Streetwere closed. including the Bead Shop.

Somewhat d isappointed, we lookedaround for somewhere to have so melunch and a fina l beer before leavingand spotted a couple from our groupon the balcony of a bar ca lled thePurple Turt le, o nIv a few yards fro m

• •the hotel. We waved and they beckonedus to join them.

We sat al the end of the ba ko ny withmy hack to the handra il. I placed m ycamera hag containing the passpo rts.tickets and a not inconsiderable amounto f cash o n the floo r o n m y right ha ndside. Whils t engaged in a p leasant con­vcrsation with o ur fr ie nds. I was con­scio us of a group of Asian people atthe ne xt table and of one o f them walk­ing severa l times along the balcony tolook 0\"Cr the handrail and sig na l tosomeone be low. hut as the balconywas quite a hu sy part of th e oar. Ithought Iittlc or nothi ng of it.

When the time came for a secondro und of d rink s. I loo ked dow n a nddiscovered that my bag was m issing. Itwas o bvious that [ had bee n the victimof a very sl ick and professionally car­ricd ou t ro bbery by the people at thene xt tuhle but who we re now, o fco urse. long g OIl C. Wc rushed had toth e hote l and asked the m to phonethe police. but as there was o nlyabou t -1-5 m inutes before we weresched uled to leave fo r the airport. the

32 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003

local police recommended us to repo rtthe theft a t th e a irport. which I du lyd id . I then repo rted to the TurkishA irl ines desk and was informed thatre-issui ng the ticke ts would not be a

problem on paymen t of US S50 eachbut they wo uld not let us board thea ircra ft without passports.

We had no option hut to re tu rn to thehotel. hook back in our o ld room andstart to make pho ne calls home to letour fa mily know what had happened.Need less to say, we were unable tocontact the Bri tish co nsu late or the a ir­line o ffice unt il the Monday morning .Wc also phoned Vid i and Hester andarranged to meet up with them againafte r ch urch o n S unday.

We spent another very pleasant daywith them. includ ing a visit to theIMAX cinema a nd an excellent lunchat Ho ut Bay.

Fi rst thing on Monday m orning . Itelephoned the British Consulate andspoke to a very he lpfu l ladv who ex-

•plained that we needed to get somepassport photos and visit the o ffice toge t Emergency Passports issued at acost o f 510 Rand cach (abo ut (34) . Wealso visi ted the Turki sh A irlines o ffice,which was fort unate ly quire close tothe Consu late. On cxplaining our posi­tion we we re to ld tha t there werefli ght s on Tuesdays and Saturdayso nly, that the following day 's Flightwas already overbooked by 10 passcn­gers and that there was on ly one seatleft o n the ne xt Saturday n igh t. Theclerk did say that he thought that he

could probab ly get a second scat o nthe Saturday fl ight and would call us atthe hotel la ter in the day.

We were fai rly despera te to gethorne as soon as possible as both Jana nd I had im porta nt business co mmit­men ts. Consequently, wc made inqu iriesin a bucket shop as to the possibilities ofalternative fl ights home and in facttoo k an option on a South African Air­ways flight o n th e Tuesday eve ning .We a lso managed to contact our travelinsurance company in UK and we reto ld that our policy on ly covered thecos t o f the emergency passports. ticketre-issue fees. and replacement o f myca me ra , etc . T here wou ld be no contri­bu tion whatsoever towards o ur nece s­sary living expenses whilst wa iting fora fl ight home . nor towards the cost o fan alte rnative flight. We have held an"annual, m uhitrip wi th independenttravel" policy with the same companyfor se vera l years but it's at times likethe se that you realize that tra ve l in­sura nce never covers you fo r realsi tuat io ns !

When no phone ca ll was forthcom­ing from Tu rkish Airlines. we calledthem, on ly ( 0 be told that all thei r co m­puter systems were down and to callback in the morni ng . Next morni ng .the ai rline's co mputer syste ms werestill do wn and they had no idea o fwhen they wou ld be had on line, sowe took th e o nly decision possible _to take up our optio n 011 th e S AA flightthat even ing.

Continued 011 page 56

Klaus Spies WB9YBM815 Woodland Heights Blvd.Streamwood IL 60107

Hamfest Survival GuideSo that you call live to f est another day.

How do you survive ,1 batulest? Most of us would say that the hardest part is to avoidbuying items we lVatJ{ but probably IVOll 't need. Others might justify their purctiasesbut worry about avoiding a divorce when their signit icant others see them unloading ,1

trunk-load of IVhat they might consider "junk. " Regardless of what it is that worriesyou about having fun at a hamfest, here are ,1 iew pitfalls and lips on how to avoid them.

Lee s face it. there are timeswhen the mere mention of ahamfest to our wives wi ll el icit

dour looks. regardless of whether ornot we're actually going to buy any­thing. This may be because of an es­tablished reputa tion of dragging homeitems that , regardless of thei r actua lworth . end up clu ttering the house.

Wh ile there may be no way to in­stantly di spel such a reputation. thereare ways to lessen the impact. A trip tothe hardware store for parts cabinets anda bit of time with a typewriter to type uplabels for the bins on these cabinets will"0 a 10nO' way toward sorting out thee e .

stuff we' ve accumulated in the past.Convincing the folks at home that wecan keep our junk organized and ofT thefloor also will go a long way toward al­lowing us to being able to sneak in trea­sures in the future. As a side benefi t. itmight even ex tend to helping us findsomething when we need it for aproject . instead of making us huy itbrand ncw even though we bought thesame thing at a hamfcst six monthsago - but can ' t find it in the clutter!

Involvemen t

a benefit to surviving a hamfest. Forex ample, even though my mom is nota ham. she 's been curious enoughabout what I do. to learn at least a litt leabout e lect ro nics. and ham radio. So.by telling her what the end results arethat I' m aim ing for - he it a searchfor part s for a g ive n project , or a ra­dio for a new mode of operation ­she 's goucn a lot more tole rant of the

stuff c luttering up the house if sheknows that it's actu ally goi ng to getused for something (instead of jus ttaki ng up space ).

Do I really need if!

Before anyone ge ts the idea tha t thi sis a "gimmc't-only type of event where

Con tirmed 0/1 page 57

Photo A . Dare N9ZA Z shows how to property set "I' f or seiling, 10 111(1 1.:.(;' i f [un andFamily involvement can actually be survivable.

73 Amaleur Radio Today . February 2003 33

Roger Klingman K0RMK1030 BayshoreWichita KS 67212

Radio Comm in theFrench and Indian War

Anything spossible when the Military Radio Collectors Associationholds its annual meet.

DXpeditions in Indian country, steals and deals, and seminars on the radios that wonWWII were the highlights of the Military Radio Collectors Association's annual meeting.MRCA is an offshoot of the Old Military Radio Net (0500 EST Saturdays on 3885 kHz).

ith no dues, no officers, andonly one meeting each year.the 2002 meet ing was held

September 6-8 at the Gilbert, PA fair­grounds. in conju nction with the RedBall Mili tary Transport Ral ly - anarrangement which benefi ted collectorsfrom both groups.

Flintlock and tomahawk vs. HC­611s

Steve Finelli N3NNG, MRCA EventsDirector. created a challenging fi eld

exercise for Friday, September oth.Two local passes. "Big Pocono" and"Little Gap" were of crucia l importanceduring the French and Indian War,1754-1763. Raiding parties used thesepasses to punish British settlementseast of the mountains. Our objectivewas to establish communications pos tsat these two locations, each just over10 miles from the MRCA base in Gil­bert. From these posts, foot patrolswould fan out, giving us observationalsecurity.

The Big Pocono team was led byDale Gagnon KWlI ; the Little Gapteam was led by AI Klase N3FRQ(both shown in Photo A conferring onthe best avenues of approach for eachobjective). Ted Young W3PWW re­mained at the MRCA AN/G RC- 19base station (Photo H).

On Da le's team were Mark " Brown"Beeve r W1 NZR. Brian Neri WA2CWF,Dave Kormanicki KB3ELD, and me(K0 RMK). On top of Big Pocono. weput Dale 's BC-474 into operation. We

Photo A. AI Klase N3FRO (at left ) andDale Gagnon KWI/ plan D'Xpeditians.

34 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2003

Photo H. Ted Yo ung 1V3PWW setting up AN/GRC-19.

Lessons and displays

Con tinued on p age 5 7

The lead lecturer was NormanChipps N3RZU. Hi s presentationwas so interesting and humorous that15 minutes after he started I looked atmy watch and found that an hour hadpassed. Hi s subject was the TBX-8used by the Navaho Code Talkers inthe Pacifi c Theater (Photo E). Fromintervie ws with surv iving members ofthe Code Talkers he found that theTBX was preferred because of its range,and it had a portable AC generatorwhich could be used to power a fan,very desirable in a jungle environment.

Other presentat ions were "EnigmaCipher Machines" by Thomas PereraW ITP, "The Enola Gay " by MikeHanz KC4TOS, and "Command Sets"by Gordon Eliot White, a long timeco ntributor to CQ Magazine.

Nearly twenty functional militaryboat anchors were on di splay insidethe fairground building. WilliamDonzelli brought his TAVI, a pre­WWII Marine Corps radio. K I BOXshowed us his "Pogo Stick" radio usedby the U.S. Cavalry. N3FRQ had anAN/GRC-9 . My BC-654 was therewith legs, thanks to N3NNG. Otherstatic di splays included a Navy ModelGO-9 aircraft transmitter and an SCR178/1 79.

Photo E. TBX-8 below photos of Code

Talkers.

73 Amateur Radio Today. February 2003 35

The large military vehicle ra lly at­tracted quite a few de alers . Man y ofus were able lO find bargains amongwhat, to the undiscerning eye. ap­peared to be junk. KB 3ELD found anM- 1942 fiel d desk in practically newcondition - hard to find at anypri ce, let alone what he paid for it(P hoto D) . Other finds incl udedWWII headsets in original wrapping ,manual s, and connectors of all kinds.Warren Harding Kl BO X found arare WWlI J-47 te legraph key madeby Lionel.

There were over 200 vehicle dea lersand only five military boat anchordealers, hut there were some goodhuys on our side of the fairgrounds.While the going ,Price was $150 for aGRR-5 , one sold for $ 105 with all con­nectors. new orig inal headset, neworiginal antenna sections. and vehiclemount.

Steals and deals

Beckley WA2AUI, and BreckinridgeSmith K4CHE. Their GRC-9 waspowered by a GN-58 with WA2AUIdoing the gri nding. When the GRC-9experienced rece iver failure, one ofthe team 's BC~611 s was util ized as areceiver while K4CHE took the otheron foot patrol.

It is my pleasure to report that ourfield exerc ise was a success. NoFrench or Indi ans infiltrated while wewere on post.

I

Photo C. "Big P" team from from to back: Dale KWH, BroWlllVINZR, Dave KBJELD,and Brian WA 2C WF.

erected a 30-some-foot vertical an­tenna with a 4-wire counterpoise (two33', two 60') la id out in the cardinaldirections and connec ted to the verti­cal through a loading coil (photo C).Power came from a Honda 300 wattAC generator at the other end of a verylong extension cord to reduce interfer­ence. With 5 watts PEP, KWII wasable to establish contact with MRCAbase using both CW and phone. Withthe BC-474 working, W I NZR andKB3ELD patrolled as far as 600' fromour post on " Big P", rem aining incontact using thei r BC-6 11 s.

On AI' s "Little Gap" team were PercHarnersrua WB 2JWU, Stew "Bud"

Photo D. Dm 'e KB3ELD with WWII U.S.Armyfield desk.

Dave Cox NB5NDirector of Operations & TechnologyTulsa Health Department5051 S. 129th E. Ave.Tulsa OK 74134[davecox@tulsa·health.org]

CO Sooner Spring

Gary CoxDirector

Tulsa Health Department

All emergency preparedness drill that was more than OK.

Immediately following September 11, zorn, the Tulsa Health Department commissionedan Emergency Preparedness Committee to review the emergency response capabilitiesof the department. and make improvements where needed. lVe realized early on lhalwe would need an Emergen cy Operations Com man d Center (EOCC) to serve as ouroperations nerve center.

Photo B. TARC members.

~iS article chronicles the transfor­

mation of an archived-recordsroom into our EOCC, and our

partnership with the Tulsa ARC to dem­onstrate the effectiveness of amateur ra­dio during an emergency response, bystaging a spec ial eve nt during a state­wide hiotcrrorism dril l in O klahoma.

"CQ Sooner Spring , CQ SoonerSpring , CQ Sooner Spring," Call foran early spring'! Not really. Cclchra­tion of spring in the Sooner State(Oklahoma )'? Wrong again, a lthoughnot a bad idea. Then just e xac tly whatwas that determi ned voice en 2 1.320~tHL ce lebrating '? Freedom - sort of.Thai vo ice on 15 meters on April 13was that of Dave Cox :'\B5N (Photo A).

PhOIO A. Da ve NR5N, EOCC stationtrustee. snags the CDC.

36 73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003

Dave , along with over I(X) other Tu lsaHealth Department employees and 300volunteers, was partic ipati ng in anemerge ncy drill code-named "SoonerSpring," simu lating a response to a bio­logical terrorist incident - spec if i­cally a smallpox outbre ak.

In addition to Dave , over two do/enmembers of the Tulsa Amate ur RadioC lub (TARC) could be found on thegrounds operating six portable stationsranging in freque ncy from 3.5 MHz to440 MHl , vo ice and data , and on 900MHz on ATV (amate ur tele vision )(Photo B). Thepurpose of theportable stations,under the d irec­tion of the TARC ,was to demon­strate the va lue ofamateur radio inemergency com­munications. Thepu rpose of Dave 'sopera ting, wh ilelimited in scopeto exerci se-relatedcommunications ,was to christenthe Tulsa HealthDepa r t m e n t' s

newly constructed EOCC (Emerge ncyOperations Command Center) . Othercontrol operators in the EOCC duringthe event were Cindy Kappe l N5EMKand Pete Mann KF5RD (P hoto C ),

Until September I I , 200I , no onereally thought that a release of small­pox was even a re mote possibility. But,fo llowing the e vents of that ho rrificday in Septe mber, and the subsequentreleases of anthrax in Florida and inthe northeast, a resurgence of smallpoxsuddenly seems possible . A nd, thededicated employees of the Tulsa

If you're a No-Code Tech, and you're having funoperating, tell us about it! Other No-Code Techswill enjoy reading about your adventures in hamradio-and we'll pay you for your articles. Yes, lotsof nice clear photos, please . Call Joyce Sawtelleat BOO-27¥i'B73 to get a copy of "How to Writefor 73 Magazine."

Photo C. Cindy N5EMK and Pete KF5RD,take a breather from calling CQ.

Health Department are actively pursu­ing every avenue available to makesure that they will be ready whe n, andif, such an incident occurs in theircommunity - preserving our freedom,you might say.

As the lead agency in Tulsa Countyfor response to bioterrorism, the TulsaHealth Departme nt has significantlyenhanced its emerge ncy response ca­pability since September II thoA pub­lic health emergency preparedness planhas been drafted, epidemiology andenvironmental fi rst-responder staff havebeen added, and a disease surveillance

system has been

es tab lished . Acritical component

of their plan wasthe install ation oftheir EOCC. While

the EOCC israther basic in de­sign (Fig. 1), it isunique in charac­ter. In fact, EOCCsare virtually non­existent in localhealth departments.But, then again, theTulsa Health De­partment is prettyunique in itsel f.According to GaryCox, the director."Tulsa's health de­partment is con­sidered among thetop ten in the na­tion." And, he isquick to proclaim,"We aren ' t slow­ing down until we

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~:s:::;-.z ,73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003 37

•

Fire Ex!.

Fig, 1. EOCC floor plan.

Photo F. EOCC ham radio operating position.

Photo U. Records mom before conversionTO EOCC.

hit number one: ' Clearly, their EOCe.and thei r partnership with the Tu lsaAmateur Radio Club, will move thema step closer to their goa l.

When the plan to establish an EOCCat the Tulsa Heal th Dcp..irtme m wasfirst conceived. the room where it isnow located was used for storing in­active medical records (P hoto D). Itslocation in the basement, adjacent tothe telephone and computer networkswitching room, made it ideal. The el­evator shaft was just a few steps away,offe ring an easy option for run ningcoax to the roo f three stories up. And.the roo f of the e levator shaft wouldprovide an ideal platform for mountingan tennas. The bigger cha llenge camein outfitting the station. Weeks werespent researching equipment. Countlessreviews were considered. Seasoned ham'>,communications specialists, and equip­ment manu facture rs were co nsu lted.

Photo E, EOCC dury stations (RecordsRoom after cO/ll'ersioll).

38 73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003

Station specifications fina lly fe ll intoplace a mere four weeks before SoonerSpring. Two things came out of our ex­haustive research: First, every ham isof the opinion that his brand is thebest; and second, virtually every majorhrand on the market today is excellent.

Going in, we only had three specificgoals for the station:

• It had to be capable of pro vidingthe communications network that weneeded - access to loca l emergencyagenc ies. the Oklahoma State Depart­ment of Health 100 miles away, otherlocal health departme nts throughoutOklahoma, the CDC in Atlanta, Wash­ington. DC, and international. TheKe nwood TM-V7A dual-bander(144/440 MHz) eas ily satisfied the lo­cal, as welt as much of the state needs.espec ially with TARC's impressiveUHF Super Links system. while theKenwood TS-570D HF rig providedoverlap for much of the state, reliableaccess to the CDC in Atlanta andWashi ngton, DC, and internationalaccess for resource deve lopmen t andinformation sharing .

• The second goal was to provideequipment that would be easy to learnand easy to usc, particu larly in anemergency situation. We certainly didn' twant an ope rator to be faced with thedaunting task or having to learn anoverly complex radio in the midst of acrisis. You have to admit, some of therigs on the market today are incredi blycomplex. The TS-570D and TM-V7Afit the bill nicely.

• Finally, the station had to offer anelement of in-trigue. Of the 320employees at theDepartment , onlytwo were licensedamateurs. If wewere to have a re­liable reservoir ofstation operators,we wo ul d ha veto b uild internalcapac ity. To dotha t, we estab ­lished th e T ulsaHealth DepartmentAmateur RadioClub ( K5THD),partnered with

TARC to provide license classes for allinteres ted employees, and provi dedthem access to the EOCC statio n forskills development and training. Withinthe fi rst few months, nine employeeshad signed on. The capabilities of theKenwood equipment. coupled with thereach of the Cushcraft A4S 4..d ementvaai the Hustler 6-BTV vertical, and the, .'Alpha Delta DX-A dipole, provided plentyof intrigue. And for good measure, and por­tahle communication for the incident com­mander during an emergency, we threwin a Kenwood TH-F6A handle-talkie.

Having comple ted the co nfigurationand installa tion of the EOCe, it wastime to exercise its capabil ity (PhotosE and F). One of the goals that theSta te had set for Sooner Spring was toestablish contact between Tulsa and theState Health Department, via amateurradio. Being unini tiated into amateurradio. they fel t that this would be chal­lenge enough. Our goa l was a littlemore optimistic - to establish contactwith the spec ific locations mentionedprevious ly and to contact 30 states and20 countries. This would serve asj ustificatio n to the un informed as tothe capability of amateur radio.

The specia l event was staged froml 300Z to 2100Z on April 13th. TheDepartment's two licensed amateurswere joined by two dozen TARC mem ­bcrs. Over the course of the eighthours of operati on, we exceeded mostof our goals. In addi tion to contacting the

Continued on page 57

Norman Wilford W1 TLZ3630 Hightower CourtCocoa FL 32926-4484

Lifeline for Your DriftmasterHow to stabilize a boat anchor:

Some tube-type equipment will drift to the point of distraction. When getting ready tooperate. the procedure in my early day s was to turn on the transmitter and receiverand then h ope they would be tamed by the time 1 enjoy ed my martini and dinner. 11took a couple of hours with the station that was in the basement. My Drittmester, intwo-tone green paint. would continue to drift through the evening and the companionreceiver was subject to the vagaries of room temperature and power line flu ctuations.Using them on FSK, RTn' and SSB was an adventure in itself in that with tube equipment.it W.1S always necessary to "spot" the frequen cy of the other station before the nexttransmission. 1 remember chasing the other stMion across the band m ost of theevening. The S:'i1! phesing adapter was another story when three hands were useful .

, .

at a ncar-l inear rate, whe n the currentnow through the diode IS a fewmicroamps. The IN9 14 diode can detecta temperature change of 0. 1 deg. F.

A typica l d iode -voltage-temperaturecurve is shown in Fig. 2 . To measuretemperature change inside a compart­ment, so lde r the diode on the end of apa ir of wires and connect the ci rcuit

,-; , .-

!/sorI ." ,

, ..0.­,,i

""r-e I' !. l1.OL-_. .. .

A rough measure of temperaturechange in the VFO compartment canbe accomplished with the c ircuit. III

Fig. 1, using a I N9 14 diode. a resis tor.and a 9 volt batte ry. A digital vo ltmete rwill be most accurate for measuringthe voltage change across the diode . Asthe temperature change increases. thevoltage across the diode will decrease

Now. with increased activ ity onAM, some of the old boat an­chors arc being resurrected and

used to good advantage. to the conster­nation of the SS H crowd. Also. the ageof tuhc gear docs not he lp stability char­acteri stics. If the equipment drift exhib­ited by your station is satisfac tory, readno more.

A partia l cure to temperat ure dri ftproblems IS to usc a 2k . 10 walt.wirewou nd resistor across the powerswitch. This wi ll draw current throughthe primary of the power transformerand yie ld a litt le less than seven wattsof heat. A winterized basement mayneed more wattage. A disad vantage isno control of the heater and a po ssibil­ity of overheating equipment in sum­mer ambient temperat ures. I suggestusing the technique only if you need it.

---· 5~ - - -- - -:..1-

"" c

oo-:

I , _ .1­90

. ,

Fig. 1. Part ofFig. Z tupper right com er)shows method ofmeasuring temperature.

Fig. Z. A silicon diode voltage rs. temperature typical calibration. / 00 to 150 deg. F. Use is 10allow measllremem of the equipment sinternal temperature change when warming lip.

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003 39

Fig. 3. Schematic of temp era ture control circuit for the Driftmaster system.

Photo A . Layout of all components 011 a Radio Shack 276-170circuit board. Location ofall parts is described in the text .

40 73 Amateur Radio Today. February 2003

Photo A shows a proto type te mpera­ture contro l ci rcuit board. The compo­nents can bc mounted in a ny favoritemethod. Thi s simple circ uit's compo­nents can be surface-mounted in thelatest Manhattan style on printed cir­cuit material. O ne pain is cu tt ing is­lands for compo nent connections.A nother technique is to use a Dremelelectric too l to cut cross-hatch islandsin the copper foi l. I ha ve a lso usedstrips or circ les cut out of electricaltape and then placed in position on the

Circuit boa rd construction

pm 2 (LM741 ) a nd wi ll all ow the

bridge to balance at a higher tempera­ture. Resistor R5 is used to set hias onpin 2 and contro l the sw itc h-over pointof the bridge ci rcuit balance . The 220kresistor is used to in troduce hysteresisand preve nt chatter at the transitionpoint of the LM741.

The sens ing diode D I and a heatercleme nt can be mounted inside or ou t­side the VFO compartme nt. The diodesensor should be shaded from directheat rad iation of the heater and/or theYFO tube. G lass diodes arc light scnsi­tivc and shou ld be shiel ded from lig htfor th is purpose.

Description

"rt(all RadiO Shack PIN

resistors (unless MSR, Mouser)1/4 W)

at . R3 10k. 5% 27,.,335

aa 22k.5% 27H 339

"' 22Q.5% 271-1103

I "5 500Q trimmer MSR 72-T20 XH-5oo

I RO 27k. 5% RSU 11345147

R7. Rl l 220k. 5% 271-1350

R' 22k.5% 27 1·1325

RW 4.7k, 5% 271·1330

nt lN91 4 276 ·1620

ca CEO 276-2{l9 Iut LM741 0P

276·007amp

MPSQ' 2N2222A 276-2009

transistor

I R"SPOT relay.

275·24812 V coil

I PC, PC, 276·170 ITable J. Pa rts fist. control circuitry (Fig. 3 ).

verses and power

to the heater turnson. Decreasing theresistance of R5(turn CW ) wi lllower vo ltage at

••'"

How t he circuit works

Refer to Fig. 2. Resistors R-I throughR-6, with the diode. fonn a tempera­ture-sensitive bridge circuit. As tem­pera ture on the diode changes, thevo ltage d ifference (pins 2 & 3) acrossthe bridge will change. If the currentsthrough both halves of the bridge arcequal. voltage across the bridge will be

equal and ou tput of the LM74 1, pin 6,will be low. The LM74 1 op amp IS

used as a voltage comparator/switch .As the temperatu re on the diode de­

creases, the voltage on pin 3 comparedto pi n 2 will increase and the output onpin 6 will switch to ncarsupply voltageand dri ve the 2N2222 to sa turation orfull- on by closing contacts III seneswith the heater. The relay will energizeand switch a hea ter on. As temperat ureon the diode increases, vo ltage on pin 3will decrease and the LM74 1 output.pin 6. wi ll go low and tum the healer all.

The heater willbe off un til thetemperature in thecompartment, setby R5, lowers andthe voltage bal ­ance at the inputof the LM74 1 re-

+-~-- -----

~

I iZV.

shown in Fig.!. Note the ambient airtemperature and the voltage across thediode.

Turn on the equipment and note thevoltage change across the diode as theinternal cabinet te mperature increases.The diode voltage changes wi ll indicatetemperature change III the compart­ment. Not actual temperature. j ust thechange. If yo u got this fa r. you reallyarc a true experimenter.

A more scie ntific solu tio n IS tocontro l VFO te mperatures with acontroll ed heater. T he sc he matic.Fig. 3 . shows a si mple c irc uit to con­tro l a heate r placed 1Il or ncar th eVFO co mpartme nt. The temperaturesenso r IS a I N9 14 diode . w hich ca nbe ceme nted or suspe nded inside orouts ide of the frequency controlcompartment. A di ode can serve as asensitive and stable temperature sensorwhe n connected in the bridge ci rcuitshow n he re .

Fig. ./. Schematic of the power SIIpply pan of /'11010 A .

/so v

78~/1.

The heater power (lamp. resistorI. etc.) required for your installation wille depend on many factors. Equipments size. room temperature. and the heater0 power requ ired to raise ' he internal

equipment temperature to operati ngy temperature. could vary greatly.f My thanks to W4GXC. Without hiss he lp. this document would have gross• e rrors In spe lling and punc tua tion.t J.D . a lso made the photograph andr you can blame me for the schcmat-,

res. Trial and confusion, anderror.blind fa ith will win out. If tha t prcdic-

r tion docs no' work for you. r hang) around [wl tlzecarr l.net]. ill

-, p,rt DescriptionA S Part No . (un less

M SA, Mouser)•

• e, 220 I'F. 35 V 272·1017electrolyl ic

IC2 Q. 1I'F. 50 V 272·135

cer81T1tC

I "114 A 3AG

27()..1002'00IFUSll clips Fuse dips 276-744

•

78112 voltage MSR 511·L78L12ACl-U2 regulator - or

LM7812or276-1n 1

I 03UA b<idgoe 276-1620 I"""'"

I "1ro'12VAC 273-13858 Itransformer

Note If a wal l ranstormer (wal-wart) is used . ~ shooId be",led /of at leaS! 3lIO rnA al 12 VDC.

Table 1. Pans list. power suppJ)' (Fig. 4).

We pay SCASHS

(well. check)

for art icles:SEN D f OR "IIOW TO WRITE FOR 7]"

IZOV I1.V ..... BPI0'ot ""I [f u r18.S:V 7811-

J',A I -</ /1. 1{,I, - • U%5 V ~, .I

t

lamp for 120 volts or a small automo­tive lamp for 12 volts will work: we iA small panel lamp would hayenough heat for testing. if the room inot too cold. This will be a heater tcheck operation of the temperaturesensing c ircuit. Note that the rclacontac ts are isolated from the rest 0

the c ircuit. As mentioned earlier, glasdiodes are light-sensitive ; the reforeprotec t the diode from direct lighfrom any heat source wi th tape. Fothis test. the lamp should be ncar thediode , D 1.

Connec t 12 VDC to the Dri ftmastec ircuit and tum the 500 ohm pot (R5full clockwise and the lamp shouldcome on. Turn the pot co untcrclockwise and the lamp should tur n o ff', S(far. so good? Set the pOL where theLED just comes on. If you touch thediode. the heat from your finger shouldturn the LED off.

Place the heater (lamp ) in contactwith the diode and place a sma ll covero ver these two parts. Find a position ofthe pot (R5 ) where the ci rcuit turns onand on automatica lly with heat fromthe "heater." Your control point shouldhe above ambient room temperature. IfR5 will not control the re lay and LED.check the wiring. solder joints . con­nections. and components .

To use the Driftm aster, position thediode and heat source in or near theVFO compartment. The control c ircuitboard can be located where conve­nient. Be sure wires to the heater anddiode are we ll insulated.

Th is circuit has been used for tem­perature control of photographic baths.pool pump circulators. cooling contro l,and to prevent freezing.

For a heat source. temporarily con­nect a small lamp in series with the re­lay contac ts. the two screws at theright end of the c ircuit board. Thelamp for this test should not be morethan 6 to 10 watts: a Chri stmas tree

Testing l our creation (smoke lest )

Power supply

Fig. 4 shows the AC power supplythat can he used with the Driftmastcrcircuit. If a 12 VDe wall transformeris used for power. a ll of the parts inFig. oS are nor necessary However. if the12 VDC source voltage. when unregu­lated. causes chatteri ng at the transitionpoint. add a zcncr or regu lator IC tothe circuit. The wall transformer willsave space and simplify constructionand mou nting of the uni t.

copper side . T he ex posed copper canbe etched away, and then the tapepee led off and parts mounted in posi­tion on the created islands. This proto­type unit is on a section of RadioShack 276-170 punched and e tchedcircuit hoard. The layout is not critical.but leads associated with the 741 pins2 & 3 should he kept short. Long opamp leads are subject to noise thatcould cause chatter at the transitionpomt.

The neatest ye t: The New JerseyQRP Club sells a too l they call The NJIslander Bit. II is a hollow. diamond­tipped . 5mm end mil tool. I use it in adrill press to cut 3mm d iameter islandsjust through the copper side of the PCmaterial. An E-mail to the New JerseyQRP Club [www. njqrp.org] will ge lyou information on this useful tool.

Components on the circuit hoard .Photo A. a rc. left to right - two #6screws for 120 VAC co nnec tions to thetransfo rmer, 1/4 amp fuse. trans­former, bridge rect ifier. voltage regula­tor behind the disk capacitor. 220 ~F

capacitor. 5k pot, and a cl uster of partsassociated with the LM74 1 op amp.The farthest end of the assemblyshows the relay, 2N2222. and the LEDindicator. The two #6 sc rews ncar therelay arc for connections to the iso­latcd normally open relay contacts tobe in series wit h a heater.

73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003 41

CRLENDRR EDENTS

Listings are free of chsrge as space permits. Please send us your Calendar Event two months inadvance of the issue you wanr it to appear in. For example, ityou want it to appear in theMay iss ue, we should receive i t by February 28. Provide a clear, concise summary of theessential details about y our Calendar Event.

FEB 8

ST. CLOUD, MN A 'Cabin Fever RelieverHamtest" will be held February 8th, 9 a.m. to2 p.m. at Holy Spirit School, 1615-11 Ave.South, SI. Cloud MN. The St. Cloud ARC willhost this event. Set up at 8 a.m. Tickets $5,tables $10. VE exams 10 a.m. 10 12 noon fornew licenses and upgrades . Ta lk-in on147.015{+), backup is 146.940(-). Contact J.Mau$ WOMBD, 320-685-8295, or {wOmbd@arrl.netj.

FEB 9

MANSFIELD, OH The Mansfield Mid"WinterHemtest/corrouter Show will be held Sunday,February 9th , at the Richland CountyFairgrounds, Mansfield OH. Plenty of prizesand an over400-table flea market in three largemodem heated bui ldings. Doors open to thepublic at 6:30 a.m. Tickets $5 in advance and$6 at the door. Tables $12. Talk-in on 146.34/.94 W8WE. Advance ticket/table orders mustbe received and paid by February 1st. SendSASE to Dean Wrasse KB9MG. 1094 BealRd. , Mansfield OH 44905; or call 419-522-9893and leave a message for a return call. Info isalso available at [www. MASEH org]. There wi libe a League Night banquet the night beforethe hamfest. More info on the banquet will beavailable on the Web site, or call Bill MartinN8TQ at 419-526-4661.

RICHMOND, VA The Showplace . 3000Mechan icsville Tpke., wi ll be the location forthe "Richmond Fros ttes t 2003" Hamfest!Electronics Show. and the AR RL VA SectionConvention. The Richmond Amateur RadioTelecommunicat ions Society will host thisindoor event which features a flea market,

NEYER SRY DIECOHllJluedJrom poqe 8

why a future physicist should have ex­actly the same education as an operasinger or furniture maker.

Begging Bowl

A recent letter fro m the League askedme to donate money "for the defense ofamateur radio frequenc ies." For $30 I' dget a certificate of recognitio n. They42 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2003

na tiona l and loca l ven do rs , majormanufacturers, and forums. Admission is $6.You can get tickets and more info online at[www.frostfest.com]. Special VIP tickets areavailable before Jan. 25th for early admissionand special entrance. Call 804-330-3165 tomake reservations. Call 804-790-0077 opt 4for general info.

FEB 22

LAPORTE, IN The LPARC Hamfest will beheid February 22nd at Civic Auditorium, 1001RidgeSt., LaPorte IN, 7 am. to 1 p.m. Chicagotime.Admission $5, tables$10. One admissionincluded with each advance table reservation .Talk-in on 146.52 simplex. Contact Neil StraubWZ9N. PO. Box 30, LaPorte IN 46352. Phone219-324-7525. For table reservations. send E­mail to [tables@k9jsi.orgj . Visit the Club Website at {www.k9jsi. orgj .

MILTON, VT The RadioAmateurs of NorthernVermont is sponsoring the Northern VermontWinter Hamtest and ARRL Vermont StateConvention on February zznd, 2003. from8 a.m.until 1 p.m at Milton High School, Route 7, inMilton. 5 miles north of 1-89 exil1 7. Featuresinclude a flea market, dealers, book sales,forums. demonstrations and refreshments. VEexams will be given at 9 a.m . and 1 p.m.Comme rcial exams at 1 p.m. Admission is $51$3. Tables are free while they last. Check theWeb site {http:// www.ranv.orgj for for umschedules and vendor setup info. Talk-in on145.15 rptr. Bulletinson 146.67. Contact W1SJat 802-879-6589, Emailto {w1sj @arrl.net].

FEB 23

ANNANDALE, VA The Vienna Wireless

already recognize me, so I saved $30rig ht there. For $50 I' d get a lapel pin.My hamfest hat is covered with " lape l"pins that nobody notices. For $ 100 I' dget a coffee mug . Wow!

Look, guys, if you're really interestedin defending our frequenc ies, how aboutdoing so mething whic h will get moreyoungsters into the hobby? And maybefind out why around 85% of the li censedhams arc inactive and what it would take10 get them back on the air.

Society's Winteriest will be held at the NorthernVirginia Community COllege , 1 mile West onRt. 236 of the Beltway, 8 a.m . to 3 p.m.Admission at the door is a donation of $6.Plenty of tailgate spaces, and free generalparking, Indoor tables $20 each. Call DaveK3MV, 703-925-0584 for reservations. VEexams at9 a.m. on Saturday. February 22nd.Walk-ins permitted. For further info check theWeb page at [www.viennawireless.org].

MAR16

JEFFERSON, WI TheTri-County ARC will host"Hamfest2003", Sunday. March 16th, at theJefferson County Fairg rounds Activity Center,Hwy. 18West,Jefferson WI. Open to thepublicfrom 8 a.m. until 1p.m. VE exams startat 9 a.m.Vendors will beadmitted at 7 a.m. Vendors-onlyparking will be provided for unloading. Food andbeverages will be available. Talk-in on the145.49 rptr. Admission $4, 8 ft. table space@ $6 each . Reserve your space early!Contact TCARC, 2 13 Frederick St., FortAtkinson W/53538.Call 920-563-6381 evenings.Fax 920-563-955 1. E-mail [ tricountyarc@globa/dialog.com]. The Web site is at [www.cmd/ine.com/tcarCl].

APR1 3

STOUGHTON, WI The Madison Area RepeaterAssoc. will host the Madison Swapfest onSunday, April 13th, at Mandt CommunityCenter, Stoughton Junior Fair Grounds, onSouth Fourth SI. Doors open at 8 a.m. Talk-inon 147.15. For more infocontact Madison AreaRepeater Assoc., Po. Box 8890, Madison WI53708-8890. Phone 608-245-8890. For fastaccess to more info. check the Web site at[http://www. qsl.net/maral}. fa

If we use our bands we're not as li kelyto lose them. but we've been coastingalong for years, us ing about 3% of ourbands, so we 're sitting ducks for anymoneyed lobby,

T he League' s long history ofma intaining the code ba rri er to kee ppeop le out o f the hobb y hasn 't led toa cli mate o f trust , so I mi g ht fee l ali ttle more ge nerous if I though t a

Continued on p age 6 1

RBOIJE I> BEYONDVHF and Above Operation

The Laser Communicator

c.L. Houghton WB61GPSan Diego Microwave Group

6345 Badger Lake Ave.San Diego CA 921193[C1hough Opacbell.net]

What is all this talk about beam expanders for lasers? Are they necessary. and why on God 'sgreen E1rlh would I want co expand illJ' laser beam?

W e ll. all this talk is a continuation ofthe laser communicator that was pub­

lished (3 pan s) in 73 Magazine in Ju nethrough August. 2CX)(I. The original articleused an LED-based Iransmi ner and wasupgraded 10 include a small 650 n~t redpocket laser. Thi s provided greater outputpower, and while not a bambumer, was quitea simple step up in sys tem abili ty perfor­mance and range. We used the laser hare­footed without any accessories when weupgraded to the laser from the LED system.The next system upgrade was to add the"beam expander:' The design of th is entiresystem and the beam expander is the effortof Kerry r\6IZW. It was his vision and dedi­cation thur have brought this project for­ward. There lIlay be new de ....elopmen ts onthe horizon . hut fo r now let's describe thebeam ex pander.

The very name "expander" seems counterto wha t the joh of a beam expander actua llyis. Its joh is 10 collimate the beam into avery condensed foc used spot of near paral­lei light energy, minimizing the di vergenceor spreading out of the laser beam. For ex­ample. ar rhc distance of. say. 10 10 15 mile s.the bare laser spot size co uld be in the rangeof 200 feel in diameter. Even with shortertests at 100 fee l in di stance the laser spothas grown significantly large r and is spread­ing out like a flashligh t beam of light. Wi ththe addition of a beam expander 10 this verysame poc ket laser. the spot at the 100 foottest point is focused 10 one of approx imatelythe same size remotely as it is at the objcc­tl ve lens . What is happening is thai thefocused laser light is not diverging as muchand is being more parallel in nat ure . COll1 ­paring it at 10 to 15 mi les, the bea m ex­pander is mak ing an observed spot siresomething less than 10 feet in diameter.

Beam e xpanders and the difference inlase r light be tween a stock lase r and o newith a beam e xpander at 100 fee t is ve ry

noti ceable. The bare lase r light is not fo­cused sharply and is a very dull . spread-outdim projection. while the same laser with abeam expande r is quite focused. bright. anda ncar duplicate 10 the transmitted image- sharp in detail. defined even during day­light at 100 fee l. what. then. does it take 10construct a beam ex pander? See Fig. I andPhotos A and B for beam expanders thatKerry constructed.

A be-am expande r can be co nstructed fromIWO lenses spaced to foc us the lase r diodeoutput. (Reference articles can be found onthe Internet. I searched in Yahoo for "beamexpanders" and got a wealth of informa­tion.) The laser is cen tered from the firstlens, be it a small diame ter double convexor a su rplus ball lens (looks like a marble)of short foc a l length (approximately 8 mm),to an objective of some 30 mm diameterwh ose focal lengt h is about 80 m m. Thefecallength of these lenses is a good matchfor construc tion of hcam expander materi al.The ba ll lens is quite easy to mount. as ithas a surface outside edge of about oneeig hth of an inch fla t - allowin g easymounting in PVC pipe whose diameter iscut to fit. (Ball lens used. from Surplus Shed.part #Ll 729.~ cacb.)

A beam expander produces a di vergencered uctio n to the laser beam re lated 10 themagnifi cation factor of the system. In th iscase. the system magnification factor is 10and the normal spreadi ng out of the laserbeam. when used with such a beam ex­pander. is red uced by the factor o f 10.(Magnifi cation factor equa ls main objec­tive focal length di vided hy fi rst objectivefocal length. in thi s case the [ball ] lens .We then have 80 m m R . di vi ded by 8 111111

FL = magnification factor of 10.)Testing a beam expande r is not difficu lt

at all. but a test range j.; needed . It can heeither a short range or a very long distan cerange. For shan optical test benches within

a garage. a measurement of laser spot sizeat the objec tive is carefully measured witha caliper. and the spot dimensions shouldhe about the same at a distant target. Forapproximate positioning . space your fi rstlens and objective some 4 10 6 inches apart(by experi menu and watch the laser spotsize. T his s im ple handheld range candemonstrate the effect of the system. By vary­ing the distance between the lenses. a veryfine spot can be observed remotely. This isnOI a correct adjustment. Vary the distancebetweenlenses carefully to project remotelya foc used spot size ncar the size of the spot0 11 the face of the objective lens.

Once you get your optics somewhat fi xedin place. the experiment ca n take a moreexac t form than simple handheld optics.Adjust the obj ecti ve focus (di sta nce be­tween fi rst lens and objective) for samedi mensio ns at the remote targe t and objcc­live face. This is not perfect but should ge tyou in the ballpark of ascertai ning the re ·duction or expansion in di vergence of thebeam on the di stant target. Observation viaa spotting :>.cope can make some furthe revaluation desirable . Use a IC:>.t range of se...•cral hundred feet and view the target with aspott ing scope for spot size eva luation.

Adj ust the target spot size 10 the same sizeas at objective (focus adjustment refinement).You want the output of the beam ex pander10 he essentially flat OUIofthe objective lensand the same image size a t the remote testtarget. T hat's close to minimum divergencefo r the syste m. The laser drivi ng the beamex pande r can produce e ithe r circular orsomewhat rectangular patterns of laser ligh tou tpu t de pendi ng on optics inte rna l to thelaser pen selected.There wiII he di tfcrcnccsbetween the large variety of pocket lasersin the market. JUSI purchase a few differen tbrands inexpensive ly and sort ou t wha t you

Con t in ued 011 page 44

73 Amateur Radio TOday • February 2003 43

Fig. 1. Parts assembly diagram showing components of our laser beam expander andgeneral idea ofassembly using PVC pipe and pipe adapters to fit laser and first opticallens into [ocuser assembly. Adjus table side offocu ser assembly holds objective lens.Layout is the same as Photo A.

Mount construction

Rsou£ I> BrvoNocontinued from page 43

have to something usable for modulationcapabi li ties and ease of modification.

A simple mount for a beam expander canbe fabricated from PVC plastic pipe fitt ingsand short sections of PVC plumbing pipe.The objec tive we used was 31.S-mm in di­ame ter ( 1.240 inches) and fit s into a l -inchthreaded adapter with some turn ing on alathe.The ball lens used is 10.30101; 0.590 inch00 and PVC fittings can be mac hined 10 fitthe lens and components of the tocuser.Similarly the Laser Pen can be made to tit Continued on page 58

adj ustmen t for proper system focus oncewe determined the approximate dista ncere quired between the firs t primary balllensand second objective lens.

It 's best to experimen t first, with a simpleoptics test benc h and some simple PVCholding mounts, to determine lens position­ing dimensio ns. Then a final system can beassembled with on ly small changes neededin fina l foc us for desired reduction in laserdi vergence. Once completed, it ca n bemounted and permanently fixed with themounting for our tel escopic sigh t as oneunit. A llow for adj ustment for vertical andhorizontal positioning - to align both therifle sco pe and laser together. Use the tar­get I constructed in last mon th's column (Jan20(3) to accomplish this task .

A lathe could be used to great advantageto cut precise mounting inse rtion diametersin the soft PVC pipe and fittings for the lenselements so that they will insert tightly intoeac h other. The lenses are then held by com­pression or glued in place inside the PVCelements holdi ng them in place. Besidesbeing inexpensive, PVC is soft and easy tocut, es pecially if you have access to a lathe.Then you can custom fit the plastic partsinside each ot her by machining them toexact to lera nces.

The laser pen is modified by removingthe bottom battery holder and making elec­trical connection to the spring and case lO

replace the batte ry connections with leadsto the power supply driver. The on/oil switchon the side of the laser diode assembly isjammed "ON" by a tight wrap of elec tricaltape. Most laser diode pointe rs are about

Focuser r-threaded

upper unitto adjust

distance toball lens

/ and focus 'jFoeuser and objective lens

tight into a selection of suitable PVC fit­tings and adapters, allowi ng the laser pento he inserted at the end of these fi llings.This end section will house the laser andball [ens together much like a collapsiblete lescope of short leng th. Bush out the farend and make an assembly for holding theobjective lens spaced some 4 to 6 inchesfrom the first lens, depending on optics used.For a first cut, position the objective in as implest mo unt o r othe r hol der andhandhold the hall lens and laser to obtain astarting separation distance between lenses.

Whi le visiting a local su rplus store , Ifound a mount that allowed the laser andball lens to be held in one end of a foc usi ngmou nt, and the objective in the adj ustablefro nt sect ion . T his gave us fine tu ning

Section ofPVC Pipeassemblyto fit focuserand laser balllens

Laser Diodeand Holder

\.

BallLens

Photo A. Picture of components of our beam expander beforeassembly andfi tting . Para machined to tight fit in metal black fo­cuser assembly we obtained surplus. Component parts laid outleft to right: laser, baJI lens, PVC pipe, focuser, objective in PVCbushing to fit focuser:

44 73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003

Photo B. Picture of another beam expander using old objectiveportion ofspotting scope with the laser and first lens in PVC pipeat fa r left showing diversity in construction that also works well.It 's the optics, 1I0t the construction methods.

THE D/6/TRL PORTJack Heller KB7NO

P.O. Box 1792Carson City NV 89702

[KB&NO@an.nel][http://kb7na.home.an .nef

New home of The Chart

The Code Mode

You bear a lot of talk about what programs work best [or certain purposes. As one ham men­tioned recen tly, this is akin £0 discussing religion. The iuter is detinitety a ham no-no, but theformer can really bring an on-the-air discussion alive. Usually everyone leaves in a good humor,because, regardless of the opinions expressed, it is understood lhill they are simply opinions.

I write some of this ope ning sta tement be­cause I reali ze you readers each have your

own thoughts o n hamming wi th CWoFo r along time. that was my favori te mode hc­cause I found great success with a modeststation and it has always been a n easy modefor me. Thai last part sets me apart as oneof the more fortunate hams who sim ply d idnot have 10 struggle 10 pass all those coderests.

Thai asldc. thtngs have changed. I gOI intoand became instantl y addicted to these d igi­tal soundca rd modes. and lei the CW slide .Still. 10 me. it seemed folks should do CWthe old-f ashioned way. That is, with ea r­phones. sharp filter. penci l, lois of paper anda manual log . I had looked at a fe w key­board CW pro grams and was 1I0t overlyimpressed. Th e decoder be twee n the carsalways won the rece ive end.

Why CW software?

Then I got to wondering why there are so

many pieces of software written tncly toperform this ta sk. and suddenly it came tothis old ragchcwer there is another side toall this . Some hams engage in a sport ca lledcontesting and they do that o n CW a lso! Itsurprises me what comes to mind when I

engage the brain cells.We ll, 10 get into this and gel it said, the

CW software thai seems 10 receive the mostacco lades that is stric tly written to be usedfor CW is CwGet and CwType. a vailab lefrom the DXSo n Web site fo und via 711eChart on the web.These two progr•rms worktogether and also with the AALog. which isfo und at the same Web site. You get all these.and yo u ha ve abo ut as good a setup forworking modem-day. soundcard CW as canbe fo und .

I am o nly d isplaying the receive portion

(CwGet) for the article because tha i, 10 me,is the critical part o f the SCIUp. The CwTypeis the transmit prog ram. as you probablyguessed. a nd it ha s the expected macros. 36in all . and the necessary parameters to ad­just the sending speed as you would expect.In fact. a screcnsho r of the CwType andAALog wo uld be very reminiscent o f theDec ember shot o f TrueTTY and AALog.

The AALog is an excellentlog prog ram. asI mentioned in thai a rticle.

CwGet is qu ite a work o f art in its ownright. It looks sim ple in the screenshot. Iadd ed co lo r to two of the backgrounds j us t

to break up the large white are a. Co lors arefully selec table by the user.

The simplicity fooled me for a minute . Iti red this up o n a day when the re was verylittle activity in this mode . I ran acro ss asmall OX pile -up and a few ragchew QSOs

a nd mostly very weak signals. Eve n thepi le -up was ed ucationa l. Yo u will see a fewbutto ns thai are labe led "Go'Ioxtax" and" AuloGTM" - ve ry wctt tho ug ht out.

These two controls are very useful whentrying to keep an eye o n the q uick inter­c hanges. Since C W o pe rators a re not so

oriented as PSK ops to be ing exactly on fre­quercy, it is very handy to have the CUN)r leapautomatically from o ne strong signal 10 theo ther Instead of you try ing 10 do it mechani­c a lly with the luning kno b o r mouse. 1no­ticed the change would usually take placeand lose maybe two c haracters from thebeg inning of the ne xt sta tio n's text. Scoreo ne for the softw are.

Most of the signa ls were registering aboutS-nothing to S-2 so I fe lt this was a goodlest day. Often, I ha ve tried CW receptionwith other soft ware and the o nly th ing Icould copy was "perfectly" sent machine

code such as from WIAW. Today, I gOI to

obse rve signa ls that were a lill ie " jffy" fo rea r detection plus I got to see what thai

T hreshold se lli ng was used for in theasci llog raph at the bottom of the screen.

Actually, that thresho ld seu ing was myvery fi rst learning experience with the soft­ware. l tuned across a fe w signa ls that were

q uite well defined in my ear and saw theywere nOI pri nting o n the monitor. Eventho ugh I had read the rather bri ef mstruc­

lion.. in the Help File. it d id nOI matter - Istill had to pUI the brain in gear and thinkabout wha t had bee n said .

The screcnshot has the AutoThres bu ttonactivated so yo u canno t observe the line that

was drawn in the middle of the oscillographbefore' that button was clicked . I cxpc ri­mcnrcd at fi rst with moving th is line downbe low the pe aks of the decoded sig na l. and" Bingo !" - print magica lly appeared.

Even though the author docs not claim theAuto Threshold control 10 be as accurate ashe would like, I found it docs amazinglywell dividi ng the good stu ff from the bad ,as the print was doing pretty well towardthe bo tto m o f th e re ce ive pa ne in thescreenshot. And. by the way. the signal wasreadi ng 52 on thai last few lines. I believe

the speed was about 22 wpm.I also found a station send ing CQ at about

15 wpm with an SO read ing and the decode

o n that was about 80 percent. I think someof it was liming , probably using a padd leby the sounds of it. plus there had to be somenoi se fuctor. What was happening in thatc ase was some of the dits and dabs we rebeing swapped 10 adjacent let ters and ccn­fusing the issue . But, even so. this was prcuy

good cons idering the marg inal conditions .All in all. this is excellent CW receive

software and it has its place for the mod­ern -day ha m who uses other such software

73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003 45

last month. I bit o n o ne of the litt le cheapocom puters fro m \Val -M art on -li ne . T heyhave (h ad'?) a litt le Micmtel unitloaded withthe Lindows operati ng syste m fo r $200without a moni tor or modem. Ifyou buy oneof these. believe me. yo u need the modem.It is the heart of (heir serv ice (sales) plat­

form.Also. I fo und I needed a fairly late-model

mo nitor capable of at least 800 x 640 (bestwi th 1024 x 768) resolution. l tricd two old

monitors here and had 10 settle in with swap­pi ng the new 19" monito r back and forthwi th this com puter. BU I it is worki ng . Some­

times this ham shack resembles a used balingwire reposi tory. If the governme nt lookedin here they mi ght suggest this as a candi ­date for the nuclear waste dump. Gona cleanup my act <gri n>.

T he story on the modem is thai there areso few modems that are Linux-compatib le

that it is besr 10 o rder the computer with itins ta lled to get the right o ne. I installed thewrong one and had to pay extra to get themto send the correct versio n. Later, I ranacross a Li nux info sheet of about five pagese xplaini ng w hy thi s was nece ssa ry. No tworth repeatin g here, just take thei r wordfo r it.

T he real thrust of Lindows appears verygood on the surface fo r an average wannabecomputer user who kno ws he has to have a

computer " because everyone 's doing it" butis not su re what to use it for once he gets it.T he Li ndows folk have an exte nsive libraryof "free" (wcll. read on) Linux so ftware they

have con fig ured for download to thei r cus­tomers thai incl udes au tomatic installationat the end ofthe do wnload. Yo u simp ly startthe down load and w hen it is done you arcready to usc the software . Ve ry slick for aLinux projec t.

Now the dow nside - it is not for hams. Idow nloaded a few of the Li ndows packages,

because you get your first te n do wn lo adsfree . and was really impressed. Then I tri edto install K PS K. w hic h is not fro m the

Lindows arsenal. The be st rcan sec, it cannothe done. I veritied this with an ex periencedham Lin ux user when I sen t him a copy ofthe fail ure execution lines.

I sho u ld men tion the cost of the freeLinux so ftware from Lindows. After the firs]samp ling of free downloads, you arc invitedto purchase a mem bership for about $130that includes capability to dow nload any­

th ing in their libra ry plus some updates andothe r bene fits. It is a pretty good deal forthose fo lks men tioned above , hut sti ll won' thel p you o ne bit wi th the ham app licat ions.

Continued on page 58

Now that we are past the fun part, I willte ll you of so me o f tbc thi ngs that arc inp rogre ss and their atte nda nt cha llenges.Different areas seemed to fa ll apart the lastwee k o r so and I have not fo und all the fixesfo r them as yet.

O ne sil ly little nagg ing problem started aday o r so ago when, ou t o f the blue, thiscomputer stopped communicating with itsmodem. At th is writing I am having to useanother computer to get on-line . Sometimesthat ca n be q uite an incon ve nie nc e. bu thopefu lly I will find a so lu tion for thi s mi ­nor annoyance in the next day or so . Butthat is small stuff - not to sweat. as theysay.

T he Linux ordeal proceeds.As I mentioned

checked. and it has a price posted of $49 . Ifyou recall from the December article , I wasable to get AALog up and stru tt ing i ts st uffwith an unregistered copy. Today 's CwGetscrccnshot is also unreg istered. T his meansyou can give this co mbo a pretty fa ir testbefore you spe nd you r hard-e arned h amdollars .

New stuff

1Dfa"··'·

Where is:

and wants ] 0 get in o n some of the C\Vaction . keep a log, and do it the easiest waypossible . You sti ll need to kno w the Morsecode. but the re again. if yo u use this pro­gram lo ng enough. I guarantee you will in­crease your sk ill in this area and enjoy it al lthe more .

Lest I forge I to mention (and I was) , theCwGet is shareware ar$35. hut the CwTypc.with a ll its atte ndant bells and whistles isfree for the download! T he AALog: I just

bttp:lltb7Do.homo.att.or:t

Fig. 2"

46 73 Amateur Radio Today · Februa ry 2003

Fig. 1. CwGet - This is a receive-only program that integrates with Cwlvpe and AALog(see text). I f ed the receive software is the most critical and this program receives thehighest praise from users. It does a pretty f air job ofcopying en' under marginal condi­tions. YOIl see readable prim on the last few lines and this was about an 52 reading 01/ theSsmeter. The oscillograph at the bottom is a necessary pane. That allows a manual ad­iustment of the threshold (indicator does nOT show here because it is ill auto mode). It is alot ofThe secret ofgetting good prim . The author has built ill some vel} well-thought-autfeatures. You will notice the "blank" spaces where the print does /lOT exist. When ullrec­ognizabte code comes into the program, it displays the dits and dahs so you may Try TOmake sense ofit if it is critical, such as a cattstgn. Also the Go To Maximum Signal optionis very handv (see Text). You COil download this software and girl' it a try before registering.This copy is unregistered.

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ON THE GoMobile, Portable and Emergency Operation

The Ham in Winter

Steve Nowak KEBYNf7804 Bonanza Trail

Cheyenne WY 82009{ke8yn@attbi.com)

Wintertime offers a tew sp eciti t op p ortun ities [ or the radio amateur. I t 's too cold an d gets darkroo early to spend m uch lime outside, so climbing rowers and adjusting an tennas is o ften notroo practical. Likewise, [or many of us, this is not th e lime of year to be instnlling a new rig inr11C t tnnily' automobile.

I f we lake those off the list. what arc theopportunities for the ham in winter?I. Spend some time with the local ham

club. With the em phasis on amateur radio 'ssuppo rt for emergency or public servicecommunications. winter is an excellent timeto have a face- to- face QSO. Gel 10 knowthe people in your local cl ub so thai youcan be a better asset in case amateur radioplays a part in a local event. If you' ve gOI­ten out of the habit of attending meet ings,you may be surprised at what the club isdoing these days. There may be special sup­port for the loca l w eather Service office orsome other specia l event .

2. AI.' an Elmer - While the loca l d ubmay run a class to help people get their li­censes, many new hams may have diffi cult),using thai license once they get it. In theevent of all eme rgency we will need everyopera tor to help OU1. 1\1any new hams neverdevelop the proficiency they need for ev­eryday operations, much less 10 help out inan emergency. Remember suffering fro m abad case of "mike fright" when you first gotyour license? II's as normal for new hamsas it was for us. When I got my license, acouple of local hams held my hand throughmy fi rst QSO.As a Novice class ham, I waslimited 10 C WoOne of the guys was at hisrig across 10" 'n with his two-meter a t hand.Another was at my station. They used thetwo-meter rigs to make sure we were on thesame frequency and correct any problems.The QSO wen t without a hitch, even fromthe perspective of a brand new ham , Aftergetting past that first contact, I was muchmore confident and had no nervou snessabo ut gelling on the air for my second time.Contact the instructor for the license classesand offer to help some of the current stu­dents or recent licensees. In some cases, this

will he lp a ham get active rather than justbeing a listener with a license. Likewise,some new hams never ge t past two metersbecause they never gel a chance to see thefun of HF operations. Invite these folks over10 your shack and act as control operator sothey can make a DX contact and get bittenby the bug .

3. Do an equipme nt Inventory - Gothrough the treasures of your ham shack andtake a good hard look at what you' re notusing. Some hams would then se ll thoseitems no longer bei ng used, bUI let's face it- the rest of us arc pack rats. However, thato ld item ma y be able 10 getsome good uscin someone else 's hands. Perhaps the cl ubcould act as a lending library so that newhams could borrow a piece of equipmentfor a few months to help them get experi­enced with operating. If the rig hasn 't beenused for a while it may need to be cleanedand adjusted . If you need to do that. whynot have the intended borrower work withyou so you can explain the features of thatparticular radio and why certain tests or pro­cedures need to be done. If you are one ofthe more tech nically advanced club me m­bers and/or have access to a wider range oftest equipment, perhaps you could be theperson to coordinate this.The old-timer withan unused rig in the basement get s his rad iochecked OUI, the new ham gets some greattraining and the usc of a rig. Besides. you' 11have a much better idea as to what equip­ment ma y be available for use for a specialevent station or in the eventof an emergency.

4 . Join a net or two or three - Besidesthe AR ES and RACES emergency ne ts.many repeaters host swap and shop nets.o ld-timer nets , weather nets, e tc. If yourrepeater is quiet too often, why not thinkabo ut starting a net that wou ld benefi t the

local community in some way. If nothingelse, the re should be a net to keep peoplefamili ar with net procedures. While mov­ing to Wyoming, I had a hiatus from netprocedures , particularly with regard to Navy!loIARS. I like to think that I'm a fairly com­petenr operator, but I was appalled at howrusty I had gotten and how I had forgotten alot of things. Smooth operating is like play­ing a mu sica l instrument - it takes con­slant prac tice to stay at the top of your form.

5. Monitor the local eme rgency frequen­cies - There are procedures for LiTZ (longtone zero) in the repeater direc tory so thatsomeone in need of ass istance presses andholds the zero key on their two-meter rigfor about four seconds to signal that theyrequire ass istance . This was originally setup for the simplex frequencies but now somerepeate rs arc se t up to respond to the LiTZcode. T his docs no good if no one is mom­toring the frequency. Find out the LiTZ pro­cedure for your area and monitor tbosefrequencies on a regula r basis so that ifsomeone needs hel p. we'H be there 10 lendassistance.

6. Le ar n something new - Take a tech­nical course at the local community college.Many adult education courses are offeredas non-credit as a lmost a form of entertain­ment. More and more educational opportu­nities a re ava ilable via the Inte rnet as"di stance learning' courses. The AmericanRadio Rel ay Leag ue (ARRL) is o fferingcontinuing education courses on-line for amodest fcc , starting with emergency com­municat ion s [hltp://www.arrl .org]. Na tu­rally I recommend this one, hut if the lasttime you used Ohm 's law was when youwere studyi ng for your license exam in

Continued 0 11 page 59

73 Amateur Radio toaev » February 2003 47

HRMSRTSAmateur Radio Via Satellites Andy MacAllister W5ACM

14714 Knights Way DriveHouston TX 77083-5640

2002 AMSAT Space Symposium

Every year AlvlSA T, the Radio Am ateur Satellite Corporation, holds a symposium and annual meeting.It 's an opportunity to review the events of the past year, discuss current operations, and plan forthe furore. This year's event was held in Fort IV011h, Texas, at the Lockheed Martin Recreation Area(LMRA). AMSAT1',1st Vice President ofOperations, Keith Pugh WSIU, was the Sy mp osium Chairman.

Photo A. AI \Vtml W5 LUA tests another 2.4 GH::. preamp whileFred N5JXO and Andy W5ACM watch at the 2002 AMSAT SpaceSYIIl!HJSium ill Forr Wo rth. Texas. (K5ENG photo)48 73 Amateur Radio Today. February 2003

Satel lite en thusiasts began arri ving at theAmerisuttcs Fan WOlth Cityview Ho­

tel carty on T hursday. November 7th . Nopresentations we re scheduled, but it was agreat opportunity to regis te r, and check o utthe Electronic Surplus Stores tour of theDallas/Fo rt Worth Met roplex .

Friday

T he AM SAT Symposium and An nu alMeeting is no t a hamfest , hut is similar to agathering of profess ional e ngineers that justhappen to he hams with a passion for cut­ring-edge. space-based communications. Afew d isplays were in evidence just outs idethe main mee ti ng room fo r Th e SETTLeague (Searc h for Ex traterrestri al Inte lfi­ge nce ) a nd A MSAT. Bob K5 GN A ha d2.4 GH z downcon vcrt cr systems andcom po ne nts for sale . A few other electron icd ist ributors were al so in atte ndance with

esoteri c microwave gear and hard-to-findparts.

An antenn a test range was se l up in anearby softba ll fie ld . Many UHF and mi­crowave an tennas were tes ted by KentBritain WA5VJB. Al Ward W5 LUA wasinside with gear to measure preamp anddownconverter noise fig ures and conversiongain . For those who remembered to brin gthei r favorite homebrew or commercial an­

tennas and e lectronics, it was a great opportu­nity 10 get some acc urate measurements bythe pros.

Robin Heighton VE3FRH provided open­

ing remarks for the beginning of the 20thAnnual AMS AT Space Symposium a ndG ene ral M ee ting at the LM RA . Robinstressed that the fu ture o f AMSAT's projectsis di rectly related to donations from theA!vISAT membership. Robin also congratu­lated the designers and buil ders of AMSAT-

OSCAR-7. The re ­birth o f AO-7 was

a n amazi ng hig h­lig ht of 2002. PUlGo wen G310R wasthe first to report themyste rious sig nalsun 145 .975, whichwere later identifiedas te lem etry fromAO-7 after over 20years of silence .

Keith Pugh W5IUand Doug Ho wardKG50A welcomed

those aucnding tothe "boner half ' of

t he Da ll as / Fo rtWo rth M e tropt cxa n d g a ve s o mesymposium updates

prior to the first presentation by AnthonyMonteiro AA 2TX.

Tony has built some simple Scband dis­posabl e antennas fo r AMSAT-OSCAR-40reception . Us ing such exotic materi als ascardboard bo xes and alumin um foil. Tony'spyramidal horn creations work well. Tools

needed arc as si m ple as the materia ls :single -edged razor blad es, a tape measureand some marki ng pens . Left-over fo il and

cardboard. a fter the initial ho rn construc­tion, can he used to make a disposable trans­mit antenna. A corner reflector and dipole

fo r the 70-cm uplink o n AO-40 takes careof any remai ning material. Tony pointed outthat if you have a lot of leftove r materials.you can make a rea lly big comer re llectorfor more gain. While the o rig inal cornerreflec tor had about nine d B of gain, the large

version had 14 dB , thus providing good­quality contacts out to apogee (60,000 kill).The results have been g reat. Easy DX andquality contac ts with not hing more thanhousehold ma terial s for the antennas haveinspi red a number of curio us variations .

Gould Sm ith WA4SXt\.1 fo llowed Tonywith an informati ve talk aboutthe effec tso f e nv ironme nt a l facto rs on AO~40 S­band receptio n . The bottom Ii ne was avoidbuildings and tree s. T he at tenuation causedby foliage i s subst anti al at microwa vefr eq uenci e s .

Dr. Pau l S huc h N6 TX of T hc SETILeague provided some thought-p rovokinginsight into the usc of sma ll 1O-foot surplusd ishes to monitor 1420 MHz for the pos­

sib le reception of ex traterres trial signals .Projec t Argus wa s begun in 1995 in anattempt to coord inate 5000 receive stationsc o ve rin g th e sky. Paul ' s ne w fo cu s o n

Contin ued on page 5 0

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Photo B. Kent Britain WA 5V1B checks thegain on a circular-feed dish for AO~40 re­ception on the alltelllW test range at theLockheedMartin Recreation Area.

HR/o1SR TSonvmueairom page 48

the Very S m a ll Array (VSA) desi gn isa prototype sys tem that incorporates eightt .x-meter dishes complete with mo untinghard wa re a nd othe r co mpone nts. Pa ulshowed photos of the instal lation of the dish

array ami discussed plans to fin ish theneeded electronics to put the VSA into op­oration. More info rmation about The SETILeague and the ir projects can be found onthe In ternet at lwww.setlleague .orgl .

After lunch, Doug KG50A introducedthe AMSAT-OSCAR-7 team and paper pre­se nte r Mike Seg uin N IJEZ. M ike has been

working to send control commands to AO-7using gear that ha s been lying do rmant forover two decades . He disc ussed the longhisto ry of AO-7 since launch in No vember,1974. AO~7 had a design life of three years.It lasted 6 .5 ye ars in its first incarnation.Jan King W3GEY, Perry Klein W3PK, TomClark W3IWI, Di ck Danie ls W4PUJ, andArt Fe ller W4 ART provided fi rs t-hand an­ecdotes and perso nal insig hts while M ikeshowed slides of the vario us componentsinside AO-7. This still-functioning antiqueha msat is the o ldest functioning satellitebu ill wit h CMOS (Complementary MetalOx ide Semicond uctor) in tegrated circuits.It is also a shining example o f what can beaccomplished by dedicated vol unteers .

Gene Chaplinc K5YFL followed wit h his

presentation on " How Kids Can Talk toSpace People (W ho are Abo ard the Inter­national Space Station)." Gene described

the process of scheduli ng and successfullycompleting school contacts with astrona utsonboard the ISS . It' s not a trivial process,

but Gene did a great jo b distilling the e vents

into a succinc t desc ription.Ken t Bri tain WA5VJB captivated the au­

d ience with his tal k on the fads and fa lla­c ies o f antennas. Metal booms and coaxlines have very litt le effect o n sate llite an­ten nas when the antenna elements are notparallel to the supporting boom. Varnishedwood is better than PVC for antenna con­

struction . Kent put an end to many piecesof antenna misinformation.

An intrig uing ground station was recentlyconstructed by Bruce Paige KK5DO andJerry Brown K50 E for use by Ed P5/4L4FNin North Korea. &I has been operat ional onthe HF bands, but wi th the new gear, Edwo uld ho pefully be able to pro vide someexcellent DX for satelli te enthusiasts. Thestation consis ts o f a typ ical BBQ gri ll-style

antenna with do wncou verter fo r the Scbanddownlink and a short linear yagi for the 70c muplink. Bruce showed photos of the systemthat was configured to he small enough to ship,yet still be effective for AO-40 communica­tions. Bruce is the QSL manager for Ed whilehe is in North Korea. Unfortunately the NorthKorean government recently to ld Ed to packup all of his ham gear and take it out of thecountry - not to return . Ed hopes to operateagain on HF, and sate llite, from a new rareloc ation in the ncar future .

N ick Pug h K5QXJ descr ibed his expe­riences us ing su n no ise to verify the per­fo rman ce ofan S-hand antenna and rccci vcrsystem. Use o f the sun as a signal source iseasy, repeatable, allo ws for result compari­sons. provides a way to measure incrementalimprovements to a system, and recognize ssystem degradatio n over time . Measure­men ts arc made with an AC vol tmete rconnected to the recei ver' s speaker outpu twith the AGC deactivate d . Us ing straight­forward eq uations to com pare sun to no-sunread ings, the system's performance can be

computed. Nick made it look easy.

Jerry Brown K50 E has done e xtensivetest ing with d ual-band (23 and 13 ern) dishfeed systems fo r AO -40 ope ration . Fo l­low ing the high ly successful use of Jerry 'sdesign in front o f a surplus fi ve-foot d isho n Field Day 2002, he has optimized hisdesign for better perf ormance. More infor­mation ca n be fo und at Jerry 's Web site

[hllp://mcm hers.ao J.com/k'iocl-Jerry invited Robert Suding W0L11D to

prov ide furt her in fo rm at ion on other mul ti­band circular feed designs. Robert has a very

interesting d ish feed design that covered 70.23, and 13 ern simultaneously. Robert en­couraged those at the symposi um to visi this Web site for construction de tails ­[www. ultimatee harger.eom/dish.hlml ].

I

.-Photo C. Roh Sevdter K5GNA brought plenty of "plug-and-play "2.4 GH: gear for sale at the AMSAT meeting.

50 73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003

Photo D. A MSAT President Robin Haigluon VE3FRH andAMSAT VP of Huma n Space Flight Frank Bauer KA3 fln O at theAMSAT Space Symposium.

Saturday

Robin Heighton VE3FRH got things starte d o n Saturday mom­ing with more we lcomi ng remarks and a financial status report.Like many volunteer o rganiza uons. A~1SAT had difficulty wi thdonations in 2002 . In order to kee p bo th Projec t Echo a nd Ea glemoving forward. Ro bin ha s initiated ne w programs to encouragedonations fo r these two ne w satelli te programs.

Richard Hambly W 2GPS reminded the atte ndees that it has been12 years since AMSAT-NA built the microsats. There haw beenversions o f these small hamsats built by groups in Italy, Mexico.and else where. A~JSAT·OSCAR-E. o r just Echo. is the ne xtsmall-sate ll ite project .

Echo will be about 10 inches o n a side. weigh 22 po unds. ha vesolar cells on all sides. and of course a number of antennas o n atleast two sides. Details o f the satelli te have been presented be fore[http ://ww w. arnsat.org]. but Rick pro vided a review of the basiccapabilities. The sa tellite has two lz-wau. 7O-cm FM transmitterswith four tw o-meter FM receivers . An add itiona l receiver ismu lti band and multimodc . The sate lli te ca n be config ured forsim ulta neous voice and data. or any combination desired .

On the digital side. data rates up to 56 kil obaud are supportedwith new encoding sche mes. but the sa telli te will also run the popu­lar 9600-baud packet format found o n current digital satellites. andsupported by TNCs (Terminal Node Controllers) found in many oftoday 's advanced radios.

On the analog side, the recei vers will have two crcss decoders tohopefully keep out some of the noise and no n-ham transmission..

tha t ha ve plagued o ther FM satellites . The multiband. muhimodereceiver is more like a super-high-end scanner that can be programmedfro m the ground for a lmost limitle ss e x per imen ts includingonboard voice recording .

Echo will use six Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd) batteries with 4.4 Ahcapacity for a nominal eight vo lts. The so lar pa nels are high-effi ­ciency triple -junction. Galli um-Arsenide (GaAs) units runn ing at27 percent e ffi ciency. They are some of the best so lar cells avail ­able. Comple te copies of Rick 's AMSAT symposium presentationswith backgro und infonuution c an be found at [www.gpstime .com).

On a related top ic. Rick cont inued with the to pic "MicrosatDesig n - What Do People want?" There ha s al ways been a riftbetween the use rs and the builde rs. Users typically want thingsthat they ha ve had in the pa st while builders want to do somethingne w. Fo rtunately for users. "ne w" can be ad vanced versions of Pre­vio us successful and popular modes and bands. but there will al­ways be a ne w mode or band that will keep everyone mo vingforward with technology. The 70-cm upl in k. o n AO-7 was certainlya stretch for many hams in 1974. Now it's easy with o ff-the-she lfgear.

Stan Wood WA4NFY and o the r members o f the Project Eagle

staff presented updates o n the systems to be included in ProjectEagle. While the overall features are the same a... the original pro­posals. detail work has been done o n the power system. structuredesign. and the internal modu les .

The final orbit for Eag le will he a modified GTO (GeostationaryTransfer Orbit) . An in terna l fuel tank and rocket motor will be usedto raise the GTO perigee (low pol nn fro m 200 km to nearl y 1.000km. Remai ning fuel will be available for adjusting the orhit forgood satelli te availabi lity around the world . and also to dcorbn the

satellite at its end of life .Frank Rauer KA3HDO fin ished the morning with an ARISS

(Amateur Radi o on the International Space Station) status report.Nine countries are now involved with ARI SS. The c urre nt sys temson the space station include lo w-power VHF and UHF voice and

1'11010 E. Doug Howard KG50A models a sri-band circular feeds.ntem. built by Robert Sliding WOLMD. during Jerry K50E jtalk 011 dual- and triple-band dish feed systems.

Plwlo f ; AJ/SAT l 'P of US/'r Services. bruc e Paige KK5DO, describesthe portable AO...JOground stationthat he and Jerry K50E built forpossible IUt' in Nortn Korea and other remote DX locations.

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003 51

-•

Photo G. SYIIII'0.1;1II1I Chairman and past AMSAT VP ofOperations.Keith Pugh W5/U. makes a cO/Ifact via AO-·H) using the u x'klleedMartin Amateur Radio Club station during the AMSAT Symposium.

Photo H. Howard G6LVH listens for AO-27 using (Ill Arrow an­tenlla and a small dual-band HT outside the main hotel for the2002 AMSAT Space Svnipasiusn.

packet gear. SSTV (Slow Scan Tele vision )is to he implemented soon as part o f the sec­o nd ph ase of the ham ra d io sys te m.O the r ne w items incl ude hig her-powerVHF a nd U H F rad io s and HF opera­ti on s . Future e ffo rts will include FSTV«Fast Sca n Tel e vi si on ). more imagi ngoptions . im proved packet syste ms. a ndeq ui pment to be mounted on a n ExpressPallet unit.

Followi ng yet another mea l. J im WhiteWD0E and Bdale Garbee d iscu ssed thehi st o ry of R UD AK (Rcg e ner utl ve r

Umzc tz ur f u r Dig ita l Ama te ur f un kKcmmu nikauon j. i ts Germ an roots. andthe current stat us o f th is digi tal co mm u­nicatio ns system as co nfig ured for AO~

40. The fi rst RUDAK was onbourd theno w silent AMSAT-OSCA R-21 . AO-40'sve rsio n prov ides a com municatio ns linkto the ex periments o nhoard AO-40 in ad­d ition to a d igi ta l store-a nd- fo rward BB Sand d igita l repeater. A few of the e xpe ri­ments that operate throug h RUDA K in­cl ude the radi at ion mon itor CEDE X .numerou s temperature se nsors. a pair o fNA SA G PS rece ive rs. a pa ir o f color CC Dcameras called SCO PE. and an HF sca n­ning rece iver kn o wn as t.toNITOR . TheRUDAK system is completely operationa lwi th o n ly a few exceptions. It takes mo reup lin k po we r t ha n ex pec ted to us cRUD A K. a nd so me cx pernucuts li ke~lONITOR cannot be used until the satelliteis reconfigured fo r three-a xis stabilization.

Ph il Kam KA9Q followed with his pro­posal for all FEC-code d (forward errorcorrec tion ) A0-40 telemetry link. The uscof this transmissio n fo rm at would work

d ra m a t ic all y bcucr t han t he c urre n t

Sa You Saw It in 73!52 73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003

un eoded system d uring fades, and whe ndownlink signa ls are weak but wi thout fad­ing . While the curre nt effec tive te le metrydata rate is 400 bps (hits per seco nd). us­ing Phi l's proposed forma t will y ield aslower apparent rate o f 160 bps. bu t thee ffec tive throu ghpu t will be much morerobus t under d ifficult cond itions. Whileth e throug hput will appea r to be o nly 40percent that o f uncoded for e x tre mel ystro ng rece ptio n ( lO d B signal-to- noiseratio), whe n sig nals fade. the coded vig­nals will co me through with much betterre su lt s (2 d B s ig na l- to- no ise rat io ). IfPh il' s system i s used OIl AO -40 . thecha nges to the c urrent use r telemetry soft­wa re A040 RCV wo uld he a simple up ­date , and it woul d continue to work wel lwith the user ' s PC soundc ard. Phil rec­om mends that the FEC-coded fo rmat heimplemented o n a ll futu re AMSAT space­craft. Open-so urce code fo r Phi l' s syste mcan be fo und at Ihu p:llwww.ka9q.netJ .

Jerry Bro wn K50E presented the la..tpaper o f the sy mpos ium. " A K-B and Re­ccivcr for AO-40 (For Less Than a King ' sRanso m )." T he re are two full y functionaltransmitte rs o n AO-40. o ne o n 2,4 GHz(the most popular) and o ne o n 24 GHz .While receive gear for 2,4 GHl is eas ilyavailable. it's not so easy lo r K-hand 24 GHlre ce ption . Even Jerry co uld n' t make itlook easy. bu t he certain ly remo ved a loto f hu rdle s that most hams e ncoun te r whenmo ving up to 24 GHl .

Satu rd ay co ntinue d with the AMSATGeneral Meetin g a nd AM SAT banq uet.The keynote speaker this year was ChrisImlay W 3KD, the American Rad io Rel ayLe ag ue General Counse l. Chris provide dinsig ht into the political and legal circ um­sta nces su rro undi ng the future o f manycomme rciall y desirab le ham bands. The

e ve ni ng concluded with a wards presen­tat io ns and prize s. Ranging from coffee

mugs to ex pe nsive radios. the drawingswere g re at fun . The Lockheed Mart ing ro up did a fantastic job.

Sunday

Once again activities got o ff to an earlysta rt. th is tim e with a Fie ld Operation sBreakfast hosted by the A~tSAT VPof Fie ldOperations. Barry Baines WD4ASW. Thi s

was soo n follo wed by a tour of the LockheedMartin Aeronautics Company, Securi ty wastig ht. hut any inconve nience (no cameras)

wax overshadowed by the inside r's view ofthe place whe re F. l fi fi g hters are horn.Componen ts for F·22s and the ne w JointStrike Fighter (YF-35) will also he made atthe facility.

Fo r those that wi shed to stay a fter thetour. it was tim e for the AM S AT Board ofDi rectors Meeting . With the exception ofa short time o f closed-session d iscu ssion .the Board mee ting was o pe n to A~fSAT

members, and was qu ite interestin g asfuture projects we re prese nted , financesanalyzed and problem s solved . The pro­cess la ste d thro ug h M onday. A com pletetransc ript is p rinted in the AMSAT Jour­110 1 that is sent to a ll A M SAT members.M any of t he pape r s p re sented a t theA1\1 SAT Space Symposiu m a re pri nted inthe proceedings, a vailable for $20 fromAMSAT and the ARRL.

Start pla nning no w to attend the 2003

AMSAT gathe ring in To ron to , Canada.Proje c ts like AMSAT-N A' s Ec ho. a ndAMSAT· DL·s Ph ase 3·E sho uld be wello n the way to launc h. Reports O il o therinternationa l and educational institutionharnsa t program s will he pro minent. Don 'tmiss it. fa

HOMING INRadio Direction Finding Joe Moell P.E. K0QV

P.O. Box 2508Fullerton CA 92837

[Homingin@aoLcom][www.homingin.com}

Doppler Fun, from Austria to Your Hometown

The Dopp ler Princip le wasn 't discovered by a ham. Its originator died two decades beforeMerconi was born. But when most hams think of high-tech radio direction finding (RDF), Dopplersets come to mind. This first installment ofa new "Homing In" series traces the developmen t oftechnologies that began with a scholar whose 200th birthday we celebrate this year.

Photo A . Mo zart wasn 't the only fa mous perso/1 born in the"Sound of Music" cit)'. This p laque on the house at Makartptat: 1ill Salzburg notes that Christian Doppler entered the world here onNovember 29, 1803,just across the riverfrom Mozart 's birthplace 4 7years earlier. (Photo by Joe Moell KOOV)

73 Amateur Radio Today • Fe brua ry 2003 53

It was the director of the D utch RoyalMeteorological Institu te who staged the mostvivid verification of Doppler 's hypothesis. onJune 3, 1845." Christoph Buys-Ballot wasactuall y a disbeliever in the principle andthoug ht he could disprove it by using soundwaves. He enlis ted help from a ha lf-dozen

of many novel optical inst ruments, bu t hisgrasp of mathematics wasn' t first-rate . Heinsisted that light waves were longitudinal,like sound, instead of transverse as Frenchphysici st Augustin Jean Fresne l had co r­rectly theorized in his landmark paper of182 1. But Doppler did successfully predictthat his principle would someday providean im portant method fo r determining themovements and distances of stars.

,,

Trumpeters on a train

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CH RISTIAN DOPPLERENlUECKERS DES NACJ1 IHM BENANNlfN"., ASTROfHYSISCHEN f RI NZIFS· ".,GEB·29·NOVf MB.ER,1803·GEST-ltMP.Rl l853

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m utually orbiting each other) shou ld displaydiffering colors. The star rotating towardEa rth at a given time should appear moreblue to an earthhound observer and the onero tating away should he redder.

There was no way to measure tiny shiftsin apparent color from stars in those day s,so Doppler couldn' t di rectly prove his hy­pothesis by experiment. Most astronomerspoch-poohed it. Six years later. Doppler setastronomy aside and took on a ne w scien­tific interest, studying the Earth's m agneti cfield as a teac her at the Academy of Minesin S lovakia. Hi s publication topics includedchanges in Earth 's m agnetic declination,ano ther subject of interest to hams who aremobile T-hunters.

Political unrest made him dec ide to re­turn to Austria in 1850, and he soon wasfortunate enough tobe selec ted as thefi rst director of thenew Ins t it u te ofPhysics at the Uni­ve rsity of Vien na .Bu t by November1852. hi s health haddeteriorated to thepoint that he soughtrelief by moving tosunny Venice, Italy,where he di ed fo urmonths thereafter.

If you read some­where that Dopplerw e n t to greatleng ths to validatehi s principl e, take itwith a grain of salt.He was a visionarywith a love of sci­ence and an inven tor

A great deal has been wri tte n aboutCh ri s tian Doppler and the effect

named after him, bUI much of it is inaccu­rate. Man y so urces even ha ve hi s givenname wro ng, sta ling it as Johan n Christian,or the reverse. Dr. Alec Eden , himself a pio­neer in the usc of (he Dop pler principle formedical app hcatt on s, fo und Doppler ' sbaptism al re cords at a sma ll ch urch inSa lzburg. I Dr. Ede n di sco vered that theAustrian physicist/in ventor 's full name wasChristian Andreas Doppler.

Christian Doppler was horn into a familythat had built a successful stonemasonrybusiness for 125 years, but his health wasalways too bad for that arduous occu pation .After studying mathematics and astronomyat two institute s in Vien na, he sought a careeras a professor. Despite being quite ambi­tious and ha ving a lready publi shed fou rpapers in mathematics, he was turned downfor several positions.

To make ends meet, Dop pler spent almosttwo years keeping the books for a cottoncloth factory. becoming more despondentas the months went by.At one point, he soldhis possessions and wen t to Munich to ar­range a permanent move to Am erica. Heended up not going, because shortly there ­after he was offered a position at a technicalschool in Prague, then part of Bohem ia.

Some have claimed that Do ppler ascribedhis principle of motion affecting pereeivcdfreq uency only to sound waves, and thenothers extended it to electromagnetic waves.Not so. His 1842 work was titled "On theColoured Light of the Do uble Stars andCertain Other Stars in the Heavens." Hegave an oral presen tation to the Royal Bo­hemian Society of Sciences at the PatrioticHall of Carolin um on the same topic . Hetheorized that light from double stars (stars

T he train-like situation of an object mo v­ing at a constant rate toward the o bserver,passing, and then mo ving away at the samerate is rarely fo und in VHF radi o di rectionfi nd ing . The on ly e xample that come s tomind is the Search a nd Re sc ue Satell iteAided Tracking (SARSAT) system. Each ofthe USA's fo ur SA RSAT birds , in near-po­

lar o rbit at 528 miles altitude, passes overevery point on Earth several times a day. Eachone carries a Search and Rescue Repeater thatrecei ve s and retransm its 12 1.5 MHz. a nd243 MHz signa ls to g round stations .

As a sate llite passes over a squawkingbeacon transmluer,' its freq uency appears

galaxies to deve lop theories of ho w our so­lar system was fa n ned and what its future

will be .The average non-ham citizen connects

Dopple r with j ust two thi ngs, speedingticke ts and severe we ather fo recasts. Apatrolman ' s radar se t puts o ut a microwavesignal and me asures the frequency d iffer­ence of the re turn signa l that results fromthe vehicle mo ving toward or away from theradar. T he greater the diffe rence. the greater

the speed.Joe Citizen might not realize that ground­

based radars track ing aircraft and boatsmake use of the principle, roo. T hey dis­

p lay o nly the pips from Doppler-shiftedmoving targets and ignore all the no n-mov­

ing reflectio ns (clutter) from land objectssuch as buildings and hills. T his Doppler­pro cessing trick works especia lly well inairborne rad ars, which e limi nate groundcl utier on thei r displays by suppressing theechoes that ap pear to have e xact ly the samevelocity as the ai rcraft.

Does this mean that a Doppler weat herradar measures the speed of the clouds totell which ones carry severe storms? Notexactly . C louds usually move LOa slowly to

create e no ugh Doppler frequency shift. sothe best way to determ ine cloud density and

precipitation intensit y is to simply measurethe magnitude o f the signals bounced backto the radar. That produces the multi-color"reflecti vity" displays that you sec on TV.

But Do pple r weather radar has the ad­d itiona l abili ty to look at localized wind

di s t u r ban c e s suc h as torn a d o e s a ndmi cro bursts, by measuring the ve locity o fthe raindro ps, and even the blown-abo utinsects! In the "radial velocity" mode, wh ichis seldom shown on T V, a tornado producesa dis tinct Doppler "signatu re" of inboundwinds next to o utbound winds. Sometimes

there is a pocket of no wind sandwichedbetween - that's the eye of the storm.'

RDF from orbit

suggested that som eamount of Dopplersh ift co uld be ex­

pected from all starsthat are moving re la­tive to the Earth. Itwas almost two de­cades later that En­glish astronomer Si r

W ill ia m Hugg ins.the pioneer o f spec­

troscopy. made in ­struments sensitiveenough to show thi sto be true . As instru­

m e nt s imp ro ve d ,scientis ts me asuredthe relati ve mo ve ­

ments of stars and

•

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trumpeters wi t h pe rfect pi tch . Half ofthem rode in an open Rhine Railroad traincar at high speed through Maarse n stationplaying a G-note, where the other half ofthe trumpeters stood on the platform andobserved the pitch.'

The experiment was repeated on the re­tum train trip, but this time the platformmusicians played and the ones on the trainlistened. Buys-Ballot had calculated that ifDoppler was right and if the train weremoving at 46 MPH, the perceived trumpetpitch would change by a half-lone (6 percent). Over the noise of the roaring trai n .the musicians agreed that it did. Despite this

dramatic evidence , Buys-Ballot remained askeptic.

Doppler pub lished another paper furtherdescribing his principle in 1846, includi ngmovement of the observer as we ll as thesource thi s time. He likened the stars ' colorshift to a boat heading out of port into in­comi ng waves , making the wave impact rate

appear faster than to an observer O il shore .That part was right. but he didn 't realize that

the re la tive mo tion

of doub le stars is toosmall to create a no ­

ticeable color sh ift.They appear differ­ent from other starssimply because thei rlightwave spectrumis di fferent.

French physi cistArmand HippolyteLo ui s Fi ze a u per­f or m ed t he fir s tno n-as t ro no micalmeasureme nt of thespee d o f lig ht wi th

a rotat ing toothe dwhee l in 1849. He

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Photo B. This Daguerreotype of ChristianDoppler is thought to haw been from1845, about six years after that silver-on­copper photographic process 11'(IS invented.(Public domain image )

Fig. I. Movement ofa single vertical (IIltelllw ill a circular track(top) makes received signals appear to vary sinusoidally ill f re­quency (bottom! . ill accordance with the formula. This is simu­lated ill flam Dapplers by sequentially switching three or morealltenllas spaced around the track, then fil tering alf harmonicsfrom the stepped waveform induced in the receiver audio.

54 73 Amateur Radio Today. Februa ry 2003

•

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signal wavefront. The solution is to takemany bearings (hundreds per second) andaverage them as the Doppler se t movesdown the road. That effectively lengthensthe baseli ne . The averag ing is done by anarrow audio fil ter with a passband of asli tt le as 2 Hz. To keep the fi lter passbandcente red on the Do pple r tone, the sameoscilla to r dri ve s bot h the anten na se­quencing (which prod uces the tone) andthe tone fi lter.

The bask Doppler RDF block diagram( Fi~, 2) has changed little since 1978, butm:my or the functions are moving from hard­ware to software and firmware, reducing the

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diode RF sequencing sw itch to achieve aneffective rotation rate of 38,(XX) RP~1 . Manyimproved versions foll owed. including theRo anoke Dopple r, which was the mo stpopular home-built Do ppler project for adecade."

SARSAT takes measurements over thou­sands of wavelengths of distance. which iswhy it' s ca lled a wide-aperture RD F sys­tem. On the other hand , a typica l hamDopple r is narrow-ape rture because its an­tenna system is smalle r than a wavelength.n earing accuracy suffers in a narrow-aper­ture syste m because s ig na l re fl ectionsca use localized disruptions in the incoming

Fig, 2, A very simplified block diagram of a Doppler RDF set. Functions of the blockshave remained virtually unchangedfor almost 25 years. but the componellls withinthem.using hardware or software. are adapting to new technologies.

to shift lower at the point of closest approach(I'CA ). The exact amount of the frequencyshift tell s the perpendicular direc tion fromthe satellite's track at the PCA. The exacttime of the ...hift gives the PeA along thetrack . This is suffic ient data to co mputeposit ion of the beacon on land with accu­racy of 2 to 3 miles, o r better. M ultiple sat­ellite passes reline this accu racy further,Rescue Coordination Centers communicateSA RSAT fi xes to local organizations suchas the C iv il Ai r Patrol.

No matter how fas t we hidden transmit­ter hunters drive, our vehicles don' t producemeasurable frequency changes in the hid­den T's signal. So ground- based DopplerRDF sets produce such shifts by putti ng avertical receiving antenna into a very rapidcircular motion. For a signal incomi ng fromany azimuth, the an tenna moves toward it,away from it. toward it. and so on. Whenmoving toward. the apparent received fre­quency increases and when going away, itdecreases.

The Doppler equation in Fig. I gives thepeak frequency shift (S in Hz) as a fun ctionof signal frequency (Fe in MHz), circularrotation rate {Fr in inches), and radius ofthe circular track (R in Hz). Positive andnegative peak frequency shifts occur a t thepoints on the c ircu lar track where the tan­gent ial antenna velocity, relat ive to the in­coming signa l. is maximum and minimumrespect ively (b and d in the case of Ftg. I) .from the instantaneo us phase of the inducedsinusoi da l Doppler frequency shift, andfrom knowing where on the track the an­tenna is at that instant, we can de terminethe azim uth of the incoming signal.

For a practical Doppler RDF system usingtypical FM receivers, the circular rotat ionrate must be such that the recovered sinu­soida l frequency s hift i nformation (the"Doppler lone" ) is with in the audio outputpassband (about 150 to 2000 Hz). That cor­respo nds to rotation rate s of 9 ,000 to120,000 RPM . We can' t physically spin atwo-meter vertical whip at that rate, but wecan simulate the movi ng whip by puttingthree or more whips at equal interval saround along the track and connec ting themin sequence to the receiver at an audio ratewith some sort of e lectronic swi tch.

A moving antenna for Doppler-based di­rection finding was first publ ished in a 1947technical journal by British engineers C, W.Earp and R.w, Godfry, who used a mechan i­ca lly spun an tenna mount. In his May 1978QST art icle, Te rrence Rogers WA4B VYdescri bed the fi rst practical VHF DopplerRDF set for hams, employing eight whipantennas in an octagonal pattern and a PI :'Il

73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003 SS

L---_-'S::::ay You Saw It in 731

Breakdown in Cape Towncoruotuedjrom page 32

The fl ight was une ven tful and wearrived at Heathrow very carlyon theWednesday morning. surrendered ourtemporary passports to the Immigrat ionOffi cer, and caught the Rail-Air linkhome .

Despite the problems at the end ofour trip, we had a fantastic time inCape Town. Wi th the exchange ratecurrently around 15 Rand to the £ I.living is surprisingly inexpensive.

Special QSL cards have been printedand are availahle from my Callbookaddress or via the RSGB bureau. Myparticular thanks go to Vidi ZSIELand Hester ZS IESU, N4MPQ for theuse of their station; to Al ZS IAAX andKay for their hospitality and for ferry­ing us around; and to my XYL Jan forindulging me in a couple of very en­joyable and unexpected hours on theradio as ZS I/G3SWH . fa

of the low-level audio signal producedby the product detector for amplifica­tion and a comfortab le listening level.The aud io amplifier section increasesthe audio signal to a level great enoughto dr ive the speaker or headphones,thus enahling the operator to hear theincoming signals.

Art hur's signal was processed or actedupon mathematicall y hy the receiver'scircuits. By careful manipulation ofsignals and amplifica tion of the result­ing products, we can convert a signalfrom far above the audio range to asignal reproduced at the speaker (I)which is easily understood by humanhearing .

There arc other circuits that can beincorporated into a receiver to increaseits performance. Some of these are au­dio filters, notch fi lters, RF ampli fiers,AGC (automatic gain control), "S" meters(signal strength indicator ), and more.These circui ts. while not describedhere, are used to enhance the operationof the recei ver. They arc sometimesreferred to as the "he lls and whistles"of the recei ver. fa

How's That Thing Real ly Work,Anyway?ccnrmued f rom page 26

output frequency is fed to one of thetwo inputs of the product detector andis mixed with the incoming signalfrom the IF amplifier.

That's great, you say, but 10 MHzfrom the IF and 10 MHz from the BFOgives me the followi ng outputs: 10 MHz,20 MHz, and zero. Where docs theaudio part come from?

Easy. Let's tu nc the BFO slightly"off frequency" by 500 Hz, by using a"trim capacitor" in the circuit. Trimmer

capacitors could be used to bring an 1-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ­oscillator's output exactly on frequency,or in our case we will use it to movethe output frequency "away" from the10 l\.l Hz product. Now the output fromthe product detector are 10 MHz,10.0005 MHz. 9.9995 MHz. and 500 Hz.Following the previously mentionedmixer outputs. these arc the two origi­nal frequencies, the sli m of the two andthe difference of the two . By using the"difference" of the two. a 500 Hi. out­put is realized in the audio range, andis usable by the audio amplifier circuitwhich follows.

The process of adjusting stages of areceiver to meet the mathematical re­quirement of the section before and af­ter it is called alignment. Alignmentenables the sections to perform theirfunction. while being acceptable to theremainder of the receiver.

The 500 Hz low-level audio is con­nected to the audio amplifier (BlockH) by using a potentiometer (variableresistor) called the volume control. Itis often marked "GAIN" on the frontpanel of the rece iver. Its function is to 1.==::::;=::;:;::===::=;::::==supply an operator-controlled porti on

For more about SARSAT, go to[www.sursut.noaa .gov/l.

6. Complete plans in Transmitter II I/m­inx - Radio Direction Finding Simplifiedby Mocll and Curlee. published by TABMcGraw-Hili , ISBN 0- 83()6 -2701 ~4 . Thisbook also has a comprehensive explanationof how a Doppler RDF set obtains beari ngsusing the phase of the sinusoidal frequencymodulation imposed on the incoming signalby the pseudo-rotating antenna. ED

I. Children were usually baptized withina few hours of their bi rth in the early 1800s,because so many died in infancy. Based onthe date and time o rthe entry in the records.there is nodoubt that he found the right babyDoppler.

2. He had attempted it four months ear­lier, but had to abandon the effort becausesnow was blowing into the faces of the trum­peters and the cold air was detuning theirinstruments.

3. The pitch of the train whistle was notpure and steady enough for the ex pcnmcru.

4. For more about Doppler weather ra­dar, go to Ihttp://ww 2010.atrnos.uiuc.edu/(Ghllguides/rs/radJhomc.rxmI).

5. There are three types of beacons. air­craft Emergency Locator Trunsmlners(ELTs). sh ipboard Emerge ncy Position In­c lea tin g Radio Beacons (EPIRBs), andportab le Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs).56 73 Amateur Radio Today· February2003

End notes

If you go on a transmitter hunt wi th abunchof Doppler fans. you' ll fi nd thai mostof them usc four-whip antenna sets. As fewas three would work , and some have asmanyas sixteen. No matter how many whipsthere are. it' s important that they be placedso that they are all exactly the same dis­tancc from the center of the array circ le.and they are equidistant along the circum­ference of that circle. Using fo ur makesit easy to put magnetic-mount whips on acar roof. because they can be placed in asquare pattern.

Is four whips the best number for a mobilesetup'! Howis it possfbte to get accuracy offi ve degrees or better wi thonly four whi ps?What docs the Doppler-induced wavefo rmfrom a typical a-whip set look like, andwhy docs iLlead some hams to say thatit' s not a "rea l Dopple r'!" Those topic slead off the next ar tic le of this series.whic h delves into prac tical Doppler an­tcnna sets and ways to make them workbetter. Meanwhile, I welcome your storiesand photos of Dopp ler RDF install ationsand hunt expe rie nces,

How many whips?

parts count froma do/e n ICs down to aboutfive . Signal processing, analog or digital ,detects poten tially erroneous bearings andsuppresses them. Improvements arc alsobeing made to the display of beari ng in­formation. Today's Dopptcrs can be partof integrated mobile RDF sys tems that in­clude com passes. GPS. and compu ter dis­plays. as you' ll learn in later parts of thisseries.

Reprintsof

73 Jlaga:.ine urt lcles

Only $3.00 Each!Ca11 800·274·7373

For more in formation on MRCA,see their Web site [www.milrad io.org].For more pictures from the 2002 meet,I re commend [http:/ /m ywebpage s .comcas t. ne t/s m itha b l l/], which I S

K4CHE's Web site. ED

hamfest attendance more socially ac--ceptablc to our families, as well. Itmight even provide di straction to o urwives - they ' ll be so preoccupiedcommiserating abo ut what awful og reswe are , they'I l be too busy to notice thenew toys we 're stashing in the trunksof o ur cars! (The trick that must be ob­served here, thou gh. to make this workis that the other ham you' re meet ingmust also bring his wife.)

Be prepared

Regardl ess of the reason behind at­lend ing the hamfest, there are a fewthings that must he observed . The sea­soned hamfest ve teran will alreadyknow this. but for the bene fit o f thenewcomers. they bear repeating. Dur­ing ty pica l outings that we get draggedto , our wi ves or g irlfriends take care ofthese things, because they know weforget. But, since we are the ones drag­g ing [hem to an out ing instead, it fa llsto us to remember these detai ls.

For starters. I can recommend an alI­weather kit. This bo x should contain.as a 1TI1I1Ul1um, sun tan lotion , um­brella. and other such sundries to makethe Great Outdoors survivable even forthe meekest couch potato , under what­ever weather conditions we' re like ly tomeet d uri ng a typ ical ham/e st. A lawnchair, thermos, and spare change fo r ahot dog sho uldn ' t be mi ssing ei ther.

And be prepared to have some fun! fa

Radio Comm in theFrench and Indian Warcontinued from page 35

The one di splay I will ne ver forgetwas not in the bu ild ing . K4CHE rcc ­reated a forward a ircraft contro ller 'sbase he had seen III Laos . Under acamouflage parachute , a makeshi ft stoolsits in front of a ta ble made from sand­hags supporting a piece of steel run ­way lattice. S itting on this table are anR-1004A/GRC- I09 and an RT-778/PRC-7 I from which yo u hear in visibleg round contro llers ta lking to theircharges. The effec t was that o f ghostsfrom a war foug ht nearly fo rty yearsago , call ing to pi lots who will neverland.

CO Sooner Sp ringCUrH inue d f rom page 38

speci f ic areas targeted. we contactedI I countries. 43 states, and 29 O kla­homa cities and towns in 2 1 differentco unties . Other no table contacts dur­mg the event included eight otherEOCs in Oklahoma and Arkansas, theCoas t Guard. and the Salvation Army.

It occurred to us early into the e xer­cise that pick ing DX out of our min ipil e-ups wo uld be di ffic ult. We had toabandon our pub lished frequencies tosnag the DX. Our mission was a lsocom plicated by severe weathe r thatmoved across the state throughout theday. Oh. to be in Oklahoma. The equip­ment worked beautifully. It reached outnice ly, ye t was easy fo r the uninitiatedto learn to operate and usc e ffect ivelywith litt le training. Cindy and Pete kepton task and worked the State HealthDepartment, while Dave grabbed thecoveted CDC amateur station, KK5UW(David Clark). a nd fe llow operatorKR4EA (Dr. Paul Hal verson ), a majorgoal of the eve nt.

Sooner Spring proved to be an invalu ­able learning experie nce for everyo ne

1------ --------- - -1who participated. The capability of the

Department to detect and respond tobioterrorism was significantly enhanced.The util ity of a mateur radio in eme r­gency response was clearly demon­stra ted . And. the com munity IS asafer place to live , work, and raise ourchild ren. As for the EOCC , it got ag reat c hris tening . And, what startedo ut to be jus t a good idea qu icklyevolved into a necessary component ofthe Hea lth Department's public hea lthemerge ncy preparedness plan. ED

Other reasons to hamfest

Ham/est Survival Guideconlinu.edfrom pag e 33

only others make sacrifices to satisfyour hamfesting desires, let's have a bitof a reali ty chec k and look at ourselvesas well. Often I' ve found myself get­ling hold of something at a rea lly goodprice (sometimes even for free), becauseit was the idea l part or subasse m blyfor a fu ture projec t. T hen. w hen"later" ro lled around that perfect partor subassembly turned out to be out­dated or superseded by something elseentirely.

What's turned out to he a better ap­proach for me has been to buy thingson an "as needed" basis: to wail until Iac tually need the pari and buy it whenthe project actuall y calls for it. Thishas the added benefit that I'm actuallybuyi ng parts or subasse mblies that arcstill being made - a great benefi twhen someone else wants to reproducewhat I bui ld for their own use .

Also. using current parts (instead ofolder ones) increases the chances thatwe 'll he able to get spare parts for " fi x­i t" projects late r. Conce rned about sav­ing money doing this'! Don' t worry:There'll always be a ham fest comingup to fi nd bargains at. As an alterna­tive, over a decade of home-brewinghas led me to find out about se veraldi fferent so urces for bra nd-ne w partsthat arc reasonably priced. If you don'thave these places lined up yourse lf, letme know; I' ll E-mail you an Excelspreadshee t of the places I' ve found(requests can he sent to [wb9ybm@juno.com].

If spe nd ing money is a problem thatyou' d like to avoid, there are plenty ofother reasons to attend a hamfest, liketracking down all those voices youkeep hear ing on the repeater and actu­ally getting to see the faee behi nd thevo ice. Hamfcsts make a great meetingpoint for socializing. Getting the chanceto hand off an item previo usly on ly re­fe rred to in a d iscussion. or to pourover a project of mutua l interest in adirect format. are two more reasons tomeet at harnfe sts, and all it 'll cost yo uis the admission fee. Pointing this outto our wives or gi rlfrie nds can make

73 Amateur Radio Today . February 2003 57

The New Pools!

TN £ 01 G1TRL POO TcontinuedJrom page 46Incidentally, almost all Linux software isfree for the download from other sources.The attractive part o f Llndows is the auto­m ated install , and that is abo ut the onlyattractive appealing part that I can see .

I sho uld stop there, but I had some otheroperating system fa ilures that resu lted in

References and tech informati on

Amateur laser home pa ge of WB9AJZ:great stuff. including our orig inal LED com­m unicator system artic les. Constructiondetails are availab le on the Web at [http://www.qs l.netlwb9ajzJIaserfiascr.htm ].

Surplus ball lenses and objectives can beobtained fro m Surpl us Shed, Blandon PA195 10. Phone 877-778-7758; or on the Webat [http://w ww.surplusshed. co m] for a non-line cata log. The ball le ns used is part# Ll729 and costs $4. The objective usedis a 31.5 mm diameter and 80 rom focallength, part # L2076, cost = $9 each.

Edmonds Optics has a publication onbeam expanders on the Web from their techsupport at lhttp://www.edm undoptic s.comlt e c h s u pp o n i D i s p i a y Art i c Ie .c f' m '!articleid=270J. as well as an on-line catalogavai lable at the .com ex tens ion.

Well , that 's it for th is month. Not surewhat topic is in store for next month 's col­umn, but r suspect it will be test equi pment­orientated . As always, for any qu estion sconcerning this month 's topic or other re­lated materia l. please send me an E-m ai l atthe address of [clhou gh @pacbell. netJ, andr will answe r promptly. Best 73, ChuckWB6IGP. fill

re si stor. Eithe r la se r will function as adrivcr for a beam ex pa nder - it 's just thatthe on e with a resistor to limit cu rrent canbe mod ulated .

Severa l pocket laser pens were purchasedfro m differen t vendo rs at sw ap meets andsuch to find o ut which pe ns had the serie sresistor between the ba ttery and laser diode .Many other types used morc complex powersupply regu lator schemes that make modu­lati ng the d iode fa r too complex . It's mucheasie r to buy se veral and de termine whichbrand/vendor has the poc ket laser pens us­ing the series resistor current lim itingscheme . The cheap ones arc the most likelyto be resistor-limited . These arc vcry easyto modulate with ou r system described inthe LED transceiver doc umentation. Mostlaser d iode pens we purchased ran in the $3or slig htly less category.

Roou£ c- BHONOcontinuedJrom page 44

112 inch in diameter o r slig ht ly larger. Thelaser then will be inserted into the fro nt ofthe PVC pipe section that it has the ball lensat the far end. The spacing between the laserdiode and ball lens should be touching whenthe laser is inserted into the holder for lensand laser. The laser poin ter is jam-fi tted inthe pipe or suspende d in the PVC pipe by 4each mo unting screws spaced 90 degreesabout the front and rear of the laser pointer.Thi s last method will allow some adj ustmentfor non-centered laser diode pointers muchlik e adj us table spo tt ing scope mou ntingrings. By slight loosening o r tightening ofeach screw, the laser d iode can be centeredinto the PVC pipe . Either way can work well- even the jam-fit laser.

The o bject ive is mounted into a PVCthreaded adapter bushing to accommoda tethe objective d iameter and the focusing el­ement inside diameter. A setscrew can holdthe plastic hushing ho ldi ng the objecti velens in the foc us mount fro nt adj us tablecompartment .Then the job is to locate PVCplumbing pipe adapters 1O bush up the laserand ball lens to the size of the fi xed portion ofthe focus adapter. If you can fi nd a focuser itwill make things caster to construct and ad­just. The lascrlba1l 1ens assembly was insertedinto a surplus focusing element bushed outby other short sections of PVC pipe to adaptthe assembly to the adju stable section hold­ing the main objec tive . If there is serious in­terest in construction-d uplicating what wehave done . I might be able 10 obtain a fewmore focuscrs from o ur local surplus store .

So me othe r alternate possibilities arcbroken o r junk small spotting scopes - secPhoto B. A n e xce llen t one can be con­st ructed o ut of the tube and front objectivelens. Just insert to fit the PVC hou sin g thehall lens and laser and yo u're on the way totesting a beam expander.Sliding the PVC pipeholding the rear ball lens and laser forwardand backward will demonstrate the beam ex­pander qu ite well (even if handheld for anoptics test bench). Try to piece together PVCadapters and pipe sections and even somethreaded PVC sections that can be put together \--- - - - - - - - - - _to do the same job of Objective foc us.

The inexpensive laser pocket pens usedin this application sho uld be of the type thatuses a series res istor to limi t curre nt throughthe laser diode from the 2 small butto n bat­teries usually supplied . Other simil ar laserdiode po in ters use an inte rnal capacitor thatdoesn' t allow modulation to the laser and mustbe removed. All you want in the laser pe nassembly is the laser diode and its limiting

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Examination TestQuestions & Answers

I INCREASED FRONT TO BACKi INCREASED GAIN' MECHANICALLY SUPERIORELECTRICALLY SUPERIORLOWER WIND LOAD THAN COMPETITORS

,LESS WEIGHT THAN COMPETITORS!RATED AT 100 MPH WINO SURVIVALIAND OF COURSE, NO POP RIVETS r-r-_ _ ~I

58 73 Amateur Radio Today . Februa ry 2003

usi ng the Lindows resto re d isk a few time sduring the first week ofoperation. I am cur­rently running tests 10 see if there are hard­ware problems as we ll. I don't think so. 11would appear the problems will sort out onceI get the correct operating system installed.

Off in a comer of the shac k I fo und myolder version o f Red Hat Li nux and installedthat on the little machine. I am fi nding somelittle problems with that but I believe a RedHat guru could sort them o ut. There will hesome mo re changes. including an amici­pared (soo n) arri val o f Mandrake Linuxwhic h ' understand is about as user-friendlyas Linux gets. and boy do I need somethingfriendly <sm ile>.

Tbc little Microrel machine has an 800 MHzCPU and 128M RAM with a CD drive anda floppy I installed. plus a sound c hip in themotherboard. so it should become a goodham Linux guinea pig o nce I get it sortedo ut. It looks good e nough o n paper that Ifigured the wo rst case scenario is to insta llwincxsc if I can't ge t it to cooperate anyothe r way. T he hard drive is 10 gigabytes.which is a little skimpy fo r the fat programscoming oUI o f Micro soft these days. but Idon 't buy those anyway.

For tho se who are wondering. Linux isan opera ting sys tem based on Un ix. both ofwhich are used in ne tworking. Standalonedesktop operation wa...n ' t rbe original intent,but a lot of software has been developed thatis either freeware o r very cheap that. whena user-frie ndly system is de veloped can be­come a re al contender for the high bucksoftware that has to be continually upgradedfor the Windows platform.

I don ' t th ink at thi s point in time that th isis causing a big disturbance at Microsoft.but it ,..ould o nce some folks get thei r acttogether, I fel t. when' first saw it. that per­haps Lind ows was going the right way.Maybe they are. We as hams may be theo nly fo lks left o ut of their loop.

So. hopefull y b)' ne xt month. I will havea Llnux system up and runn ing and canex to l the vi rt ues o f a d ifferent p latform fo ryour ham radio adventure.

Virus protection

There are times when I do things cor­rec tly, I have the Norton Anti-Virus softwarerunning in thi s computer, and a fe w monthsago I started gelling virus hits on my E-mail.The best reasoning I could give wh y thissuddenly burst forth is my Web site whereThe Chart is posted. ( am seeing the ne werE-ma il addresses o n most o f the se fakemailings. So meth ing to keep in the hack ofyour mind if you have a Web site.

The: nex t part o f the sto ry is whe n ' d is­c overed the problem that this comp ute r

stopped talking 10 the modem. I needed toget to the E-mail by some other means. Ichose to use the wi fe 's comp uter, but thathad not been used for incoming E-mail re­cently, so I installed the anti- virus softwarein that befo re checking the E-mail and. suree no ugh. two in fec ted E-mails we re scratch­ing at the door. One good decision . It couldhave been a d isaster.

All good things run their course

I tru ly hope someone corrects me o n this.I recei ved an E-mai l inquiring about the fateo f the C hromaPIX software. It seems theWeb si te is not correct. It comes up bUI hasnothing to do with one ofour fa vorite piecesof software. I se nt a n E-mail to J im N7CX (

and it bounced as unde liverable . To ugh tolose such a super package.

I stand corrected

I took a litt le heat about a stateme nt Imade in the December column that needse xplanatio n and an apol ogy, I have a wa yo f putting wo rds on papc.=r that say o ne thingto me and can be taken another way.

The statement referred to the crummyoperating system. Millennium Edition (~1e)

fro m Micro so ft that so many of us hadproble ms with . W hat I said was many pro­

grammers were not botheri ng to wri te hamprograms for that platfo rm. I should haveadded the p hrase. "because Me is so bad : '

Having left that off, to so me fo lks it readthat the programmers could write for thatplatform if they wanted to, but were simplyre fusing to do so for some persona l inad ­equacy. To all wh o were o ffended, pleaseaccept my apology and I will try to improvemy Eng lish presentations.

Also in the mail

I mentioned ho w so few receivers had apassband to take advantage o f the wry widetuni ng pane on a program suc h as TrueTTY.Typically, we see about 3 kHz and that isplenty for mo st of us. b ut Jim WA9PYHdropped me a line that his Ten-Tee Jupite rwill stretch o ut to 8 kHL T hat is a bunch .

Just think how many PSK wou ld fit . h utseriously, th is leads 10 some possibili ties wed on ' t o fte n consider. (look a moment a ndbrought up ~1ixW which has a wate rfallzoom a nd gave it a try. The maximum dis­p lay width using this software is 6 kHz . wl tha wide passband receiver you cou ld moni­

tor nearly all o f the popular RTIY segmentcont in uously. kind of a fun contes t optio n.T he downside mig ht he the need o f a steadyhand for tuning , Ru t it is a tho ught, and he rewe have it available: with a USA product.

That ' s i t for this m onth . We'll do itagai n nex t month. 7 3 and keep the dig italfi res IiI. fa

ON THE 60conunuea frooi page 4 7

1979, an e lectronics theory course might bein terest ing . The trick is to find one taughtby someone: '01.'110 is exci ted about the mate­rial and kno ws how to pass that excitementalong.

7. Teach someth ing - That "someone whois e xcited about the material a nd kno\\'s howto P3-\S that exci tement a long" I me ntionedin the previous paragraph might be you. Ifyou have a good theore tical background anda little time. perhaps you should teach thaito others . Stan with a short presentat ion atthe local club meeting . T he prog ram chair­man is al ways look ing for a n in terest ingpresentation and wi ll probably he: thrilledto hear from yo u. If you do we ll and e njoyit. maybe help teach the lice nse preparationclass,

8. P lan so me thing - In some a reas,hamtesrs are being replaced by e Bay andother on-Hnc swaprneets and auctions. Ho w­ever, most of us have much more fun swap­ping equipment and stories (some of themtrue ) in person. Be sides. if I can see andtouch a piece ofequipment and take it ho mewith me. it is much more satisfying. Hel pwith the p lanning of your club 's harnfest.What about setting up a specia l event sta­tion fo r your community's hig event ? When

' lived in Oh io , the Doy lestown club had aspecial event station for "Skunk Day" andit was great to operate. Thai was the firstlime I was ever on the right end of a pile­up ! If you can have that m uch fun celebrat­

ing skunk day. you should have at least asmuch fun celebrating )'our community ' sspecial inte rest. Start planning for this no w.

9. Reconfigure your station - Every timeyou operate. do you complain about how awk­ward yo u have the station arranged? Now 's a

great time to take a Saturday afternoon andrearrange the: layout so it is more comfortable,In simpler times we were mainly interested inhaving the radio and telegraph key properlypositioned . Now you may have an antennatuner, external digital signal pr<X."t'ssor{DSP).a terminal node co ntroller (INC) for digitalmodes, etc. Locate the ones you need to ad­

just most frequently so they arc the easiest 10

access. Play around with the locations and try

out different configurations before you hook

every thing up.

Continued Oil page 61

73 Amateur Radio toasv » February 2003 59

PROPRGRTIONJim Gray II

210 East Chateau Cir.Payson AZ 85541

[akdhc2pilot @yahoo .comj

Unsettled and Unsettling

My charts and observa tions indicate tha t the sun will be very unsettled for most of February,so th e propagation outlook is quite dismal once again. However, solar activity should decreasedrama tica1Jy by the end of the month an d rem ain at low levels un til mid-May. In [act, mypreliminary calculations for the nex t twel ve m on th s indicate tha t this is indeed the "lasth ur ra h" for Cy cle 23 and on ly a rew briefperiods of in ten se activity will in ter r upt the steadydecline toward the sunspot minimum expected in early 2007.

ASoutli ned in my August 2002 forecast, coronal hole effectsEASTERN UNITED STATES TO:

often dominate the decl ining phase of a sunspo t cycle. ThisOM~OO-~~-04'-'oe'-'O!! 1~-12~4'-','T8-11~-'~'"

became very evident a week before Thanksgiving when high speed I """. I ~ (401 2O(40J 20 (401 (401 ,., (20-401 (15 120 10 -20 10 1201 10- 17 10 120) (10) 20

solar wi nds from a large coro nal ho le buff eted the earth and causedA ."..fICO. ,

(15) 20 20 {401 20 {401 20 {'OJ (15'20) ,'. 10(15) 10 {201 11 0) 20!A"",,,," • • •a major geomagnetic storm thai lasted several days. This occurred I •• Om • • <0 • (401 • (10-20) 10 120) (10) 20 {I5·20) ,ro, ,-,e.after a sudden decline in sunspot acti vity had man y Dxcrs ex pect- ' " (20 _40) 140) (10- 12) '0 (17) (I~) 17 (15-201 so

10.1""00 • • • 0

ing a bit more stability in worldwide propagation conditions. If I .. om ,., ,., 0 • 120) , (10-20) {I O) 20 ,ro, 0 0 ," .currently plotted coronal holes return this month we can e xpect ,",

,., ,., • , • , 1'0) {10·15 1 15 120) ro ,ro, ,ro,very high flux levels an d geo magnetic disturbances from the 1st

,.Ipakis..n

, , , , • , , (1 5·20) • • ,'''"

through Srd. 10th through 12th, and 23rd through 25th. Since these ~(15120 zc '''" '''" ,"" (1o-N )

" 0

, , • • , ,

" - , Iintervals also fall on or near days of e xpected strong fl are ac tivity ... (15 -20) 0 0 , , 0 0 (10-201 IW-15) • •A"."olio {10·'7) {15·2O) • , '00' (30'40) ~.~ (10) 20 1'0-1<)1 • '''" {10- 151'

(marked as P or F-P OIl the calendar) then we might a lso antici pate .~" 1, ·17 eo-so • • • eo-co roro 15-17 15017 • • 15 ·1]

several rad io blackouts to occur. l-1<.-..aIi 1(0) 15 "" ao ,ro, 20 (40) • (20·40) ,ro, 115-20) • 110) 10 {151..m". 110)40 (15140 ro. (20) 40 eo • • (20 40) (10-2 0) ,oro 10_20 ie-ee

Because the sun makes a full rotation approximately every 27days, existing coronal ho les reappear with the same frequency. I CENTRAL UNITED STATES TO:

" (201 OIl I(201OIlgenerally do no t include them in my forecasts but these features Amo""•115) 20 20 140) ,,," . • ,., 1' 0) 20 'oro 10-15 101201 i s-so

•ofte n las t for months and can have nottccable and predictable ef- Amorico

(15) 20 00 ro,~ 20 (401 '''" • • • ITO) " ,,,. {'OJ 20

~",., ~ ~ ,~ '00' (15J 20 ITOI 15 115) 20 ,00,

fccts on propagation cond itions. It may be worthwhile for you 10 • • •"" om 00 '00, • • • • • , (10-15 ) 110) 15 " 120) ro

track them if you prepare yo ur own forecast or want to improve on .~

~• ,., • • • • • (10J 20 110-201 • • •

the accuracy of my calenda r. Since the Earth is most susceptible to • ,., ,ro, ~, • • , ('0-15) 11 0- 15) ,ro, ac ,ro,high speed coronal out flow s whe n holes are located near the ccn- E.'t

o ,{151 ,"" (15)P. -;."," • • • • • • • • •

Ier of the so lar disc you can estimate the strength a nd timing of " • ,ro, ro (20·40) ,., '''"" • • so (150lO) • " (15),the ir infl uence by studying the 284 angstrom x-ray photographs ' '"' ... ,ro, '00'MO • • • • ao ( 1 50~0) (101 , (151 •taken by the Extreme ultraviole t Imagi ng Telescope (ELT) carried ""ot"" ;o 110) 15 " (15·201 ro 20 140) - 20 (401 '00, 0 , • 11 0-10)

aboard the SOHO spacecraft. Go to [http://sohowww.nascom.nasa .~,. 15 ·17 15·17 • • • ,~, (40) eo eo , • •flo"",. 110) 15 (15· 201 ro eo ,., ,-, 20(401 • 1' 0) ( '5) {I 51 (10) ' 5

gov/data/realtimcJrealtime-eit_284 .htmlj for the b lest series ofEl'T WESTERN UNITED STATES TO:

photos. Keep in mind thai high speed solar winds take 2-3 days to 0" co ,-, • • ,., (20) (10) '10~",o rico • • '0(201 10(20) (10) 20 115120

reach our magnetosphere after a coronal hole rotates into the centralI~"'.<ico 17 {40J ,ro, • • • • • 115) '2 120) 10-2 0 10·20 ra 140)

third of the sun .~

• • (401 ,ro, ,"" • ,ro, 110-20) (1012O '''" • •73 an d happy Dxing! !~I"''''.m ,ro, • • • • • • 0 ". (15) 15 120) (15) 20

~, • • , • • 0 , • • • •e.

lfo",ro, (40) '''" ro ro ,ro, • {15) (10) 15 (10- 15) '00' ,ro,

011 5 -20 \

Pa~..." • • • • , , ~, • • • •February 2003 •• (10) 20 (15-20)

" • • 1401 • ,~ • • • {10-20) 'oro0

" . (' 5) ,00, ,"" {15) 20 ,ro, (10-15 ) 10-'5SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT ••• 0 , , , •10..." 01;. 11 0 ,15) (15020) • • • 120-401 ,ro~ 00 (15·20) " (10- 15) ".~. 10·15 , , zo-so roro rooo ro<o • eo " , 15·17

1 P 1-1<._; (15\20 (1 5120 ao ,ro, ,., eo ,ro~ (15) 20 """ 0 0-15) 10 {l SI (10J 15

IW5A " 110140 (15140 00 . (20) 40 eo • {2O.40) (1 0-~ 10-1<) 10-20 ,oro 'oro2 P 3 F·P 4 F 5 F 6 F·P -~ ~.

7 P 8 F Table 1. Band, time, country chart. Plain numerals indicate hands

9 F 10 F-P 11 F·P 12 P 13 F-P 14 F 15 F which should be workable 011 Fair to Good (F-G) and Good (G) days.Numbers in pare ntheses indicate band s usually workable on Good (G)

16 F 17 F-P 18 F 19 F 20F 21 F-G 22 F-G days only. Dual numbers indicate that the intervening bands should

23 P 24 P 25 F-P 26 F 27 F 28 F-Galso be usable. When one number appears in parentheses. that end ofthe range will probably be open 011 Good (G) days only.

60 73 Amateur Radio Today ° Februa ry 2003

me mbers ' expense? Oh yes, a nd evenpaying for a ny lost salaries?

Ye s, o f course the Leag ue could hel pto protect o ur bands by do ing some lo b­by ing , b ut as far as I kn o w. whic h ispretty far, the y ' ve ne ver bothered to dotha t. I' ve bee n rec ommend ing th is ap­proach fo r the la st . .. um ... 43 yea rs.

Not that this was my o riginal idea. Iwen t to the trouble to go to Ge neva a ndvisit the Secre tary Ge neral o f the IT U,who at the time was a n A merican ham . Iasked him what he thought o ur best betwould be to hold o n to o ur bands . Hepointed o ut what a bad taste several o four DXpeditions had left w he n the y op­erated fro m the smaller cou ntries andig no re d the ir ru les on power lim itation sa nd third party traffic . He suggested wesend ham ambassadors to visi t the sma llerco u ntry offic ia ls to po int o ut the ben­e fi ts to the ir cou nt ry of s uppo rti ng a ndp romot ing amateur rad io.

A fter returni ng home I talked w iththe Le ag ue General Mana g er aboutthis . He cursed. saying tha t he d id n'tneed any fxxx-ing ad vice o r fxxx-i nghelp in running a mateur ra d io ... andhun g up.

If yo u do dec ide to d o nate a nd get apin or coffee mug , a t least try to get theLeag ue to provid e you with a n account­ing o f ho w the y ' ve spent the Defe nseF und . Heh, hch ... good luc k.

The time to start d efe nd ing o ur fre ­q ue nci es is rig ht no w w it h a team ofhambassadors visi ting third world gov­ernment offici a ls , rather than waiting fo rthe deleg ate s to the rru confe rence,who w ill be arriving with orders in handfro m the ir govern me nts o n ho w to vote .

Poison ing Our Children

Our bel o ved govern ment is a t itagain. Big s urprise . U n ti l I re a d ap iece in Forbes I wasn ' t aware that thegovernment has been providing schoolbreakfa sts fo r need y ch ildren .

T he fuss was o ve r the d e mands ofdo-goodcrs. led by Rep. Lyn n Woo lsey(DiCalif.). to provid e all schoolchildrenwi th b re akfasts. T he idea is no t to makethe 'needy ch ild ren feel st igmatized. Itwasn' t u ntil [ we nt off to sum mer choircamp tha t I was e xposed to food likethat. My mother ne ver fed me any coldcereal, nor a ny white bread . j am , or j e lly.No pea nut bu tter a nd jel ly sandwiches. Igot ho t cereal, w ithou t any sugar, a ndeggs fi xed dozens of ways . No D anish .Instead I had fre sh oranges, bana nas,and m e lo ns.

T he se d ays I mai nly stick to fresh fru itfor brea kfa st. I stiII love ha l cereal,tho ugh I k no w that cooked food is muc h

Continued on page 6 2

73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2003 61

find the best opportunities in Europe andNorth Afric a from early evening to m id ­night. Midwestern operators sho uld find theCaribbean, Centra l Ame rica, a nd SouthAmerica available all night. whi le DXerssituated west o f the Rockies will fi nd de ­cent paths to the Americas, the So uth Pa ­cific, and the Far Ea st. Expect skip to mn~

fro m 1,000 to 2,000 miles at night. fa

NW ER S RV DI Econtinued from page 42

0 ", THE 6 0con t in ued from page 59

10. Ge t o n the air - Wint e r 's lo ngerperiods o f darkness mean better operatingconditions for twenty meters and below. We

still are enjoying good propagation, andwinter kee ps us rel atively free of sta ticcrashes caused by lightning. Try a mode thatyo u are set up to use but haven ' t operatedin for a wh ile. Have FM and an antenna thatcan tunc ten meters? Try some quick con­tacts through ten-meter repeaters. W hen wasthe last time you operated CW? Why notdust 011' the key, give yourself a litt le prac­tice and fi nd a s low station calli ng CQ?Morse code was once the great stumblingb lock for many prospective ham s. With thatonus gone, let's sec if we can j ust have so me

fun wi th it as a great mode .Winter is truly a great time for the ham

operator, with so many things to do . Beforeyo u know it, spring will raise its head andthe XYL will have you out in the yard witha list of c hores a mile long . Whi le winter 'shere, let's take advantage of it. So finish the

magazine, pour a fresh cup of coffee. andhead for the shack. And for goodness ' sake- have fun! fa

donation would he p ut to a p rod uctiveusc .

The begging bo wl ba ng ing this timehas to do with o u r possib le freq uencylosses at the upcomi ng InternationalTelecom municatio ns U nion conference .This is not a ne w s ituation . Nor is thefundi ng for the protectio n of o ur fre­quencies a ny th ing ne w. Seems to me rremember someth ing about a Leaguepresident who ran through arou nd$50,000 o f the p rotection fund vacation­ing with a girl friend in the Caribbean .Let's lift the c arpet and sec what's un de ri t.

And what is the bene fit to us mem berso f the Le ag ue fly ing directors over toGene va to atte nd lavish parties at the

Fai r worldw ide DXing can be found d ur­

ing daylight hours. Openings wi ll begin towiden with the approac h of Spring but win­do ws to each region will st ill be limited toone or two hours . T he Caribbean and Cen­tral America will provide the most rel iable

openings. but east-coasters should have some I-----------------~luck in Eastern Europe and Russia whi lewest-coasters will do better in the South­west Paci fic . Mid-We sterners are likely tohave the best luck finding "exotic" co ntactsin Central or West Africa. Daytime short­ski p will range from I,(XXI to approxi mately

2,000 miles.

Band-by-Band Forecast

10-12 meters

T he se bands sho uld be exce llent fo rworldwide DXing fro m su nrise thro ug hmid-evening. Operators located in the west­em U.S. will have trouble with Eastern Eu­rope and the Mediterranean, but everyoneelse should fi nd most of the world at theirfi ngert ips on Good (G) days. Asia and the

Far East will be the most difficult to reachbut gray- line propagation may provide aviable solution . Short-ski p will average

from 1,000 to 2,200 miles.

15- 17 meters

20 meters

30-40 meters

Look for good a ll- nigh t o penings o n"twenty" when Iluxes are above ISO. Peakswill also occur just after sunrise, d uring the

late after noon, and again in the early evening .Europe and Africa will remain open duringmost daylight hours while the Caribbean andthe Americas should be workable at all hours

except during sunrise. The South Pacific andAustralia should present fai rly easy pickings 1------ ----------­but Asia and the Orient are a different story.Try the ho ur after sunrise and the hour beforesunset for weak opportu nities there.Short-ski pcan be as little as 500 milcs during the day butover 2,000 mi les at night.

Some worldwide DXing will be availablefrom sunset through sunrise. Easterners can

80-160 meters

Fair to good opportunities can be found onthese bands but geographic opportunities willbe limited . As usua l, Central and Sou thAmerica will be the most promising areas, butpaths to Europe, the Midd le East, and theSou th Pacific are also WOJ1h checking. Skipdistances will be 750 to 2,000 miles at nightbut under 1,ammiles during the day.

NEUER SRY DIECOnfinuedJrom page 61

more difficu lt to digest and is far lessnourishing than raw.

Let 's see what you ca n do 10 get yourSenator or Congressman to put an end tothis government poisoni ng of kids. It'shad enough they're doing it to us withtluorides in our water and mandatory in­oculations . This is supposed to be theland of the free. so how call we ge l thosegovernment hoots off our nec ks?

The First Answering Machine

Joh n Williams W2BFD. the father ofham teletype. ran a radio repair businessOUI of a small shop in Woodside. Queens.New York. I don't think he spent muchof his lime fix ing radios-he was toobusy inventing. He not only designed allo f the first ham teletype circuits, he builtone of the fi rst ham repeaters (which Ihelped him SCi up on top of the NewYork Municipal Building), and he hadwhat I'm sure was the first telephoneansweri ng machine.

It was a Rune Goldberg system, usinga 78 rpm automatic record player to pro­vide the answering message. This was in1948, before inexpensive tape recorders .He used a webcor wire recorder torecord the incoming messages, with thewhole system mounted in a six-foot 19"relay rac k. Ma Be ll was furious abou t it.

In those days Ma Bell ruled supremeand she didn't allow anyone to connectanything to nne of her lines you wererenting. Ma's detectives tried everythi ngthey could think of to get into John'sstore and confiscate the offending equip­ment. Hu t John was wi ly. He used acarrier-current radio system to hishome, a mile away, which provided hi mwith an alarm when anyone messed wi ththe door to the store.

At the time I was working as the chiefcameraman at WPIX, the Dailv Newsstation. I had my 2m station set up on thetop tloor of the Neil'S skyscraper, com­plete with a 16-c1ement Bill Hoisington\V2BAV beam. Bill , who half his stationon a fire tower up in Westchester, had alegendary 2m signal. Hmrn, I'll have towrite about Bill one of these days - hewas another fasci nating ham, and aninventor.

But what was that strange needle-de­becdle signal up at the high end of theband'! Someone said it was ham teletypeand I should get in touch with W2BFDfor information. Which, of course, I did,

John got so interested in ham teletypethat he arranged to be an official outletfor used teletype equipment. which be­fore that had always been destroyedwhen taken out of service. This was atthe time that their old 1920s workhorse62 73 Amateur Radio toosy » February 2003

Model 12 machines were being replacedby Model 195. I got a machine fromJohn and built a copy of his RTIYconverter. This had about 20 tubes(6SN7GTs) and had control circuits so itcould be turned on and off by incomin gsignals. This was my introduction todigital electronics and, li ttle could Iknow, a major turning point in my li fe.

John was an electronic wizard, but hewasn't a marketer. He had little interestin promoting ham teletype; he justwanted to experiment and design newcircuits. I remember one day when anFBI agent visited me, asking what Iknew about John . I wasn't very helpful.Later, John said the visit probably wastriggered by hi s buil ding and installi ng ahidden microphone and transmitter inthe Israeli embassy limo so Arab agentscould fo llow the car and listen to theconversations. John wasn't politicallymotivated; it was fun for him to designand bu ild the hugging system.

I tried and tried to get John to do aham teletype newsletter, but he wasn' tinto writing and publishing . If he couldn' tturn it out on his teletype machine, thehell with it. So, whe n I got a job as a TVproducer-director at WXEL in Clevelandin 1951 and found they had a mimeo­graph machine, the first issue of aTeletype Bulletin went to "press." Andthat was my entry into the publishingworld. I loved it

John died in 1960, just as I was start­ing 73. Alas, he smoked (a 1(1), and thisrobbed us of aroun d 50 years of hiswizardry.

Today, thanks to the Code-A-Phonelaw suit against Bell, we can connectanything we want to our phone lines.We' re allowed to own our own tele­phones. Today most of us have answer­ing machines, but50 years ago there wasjust about one of those in the world-outin Woodside, Queens.

011, yes. For any of you who are tooyoung to know about Rube Goldberg, hewas a famous cartoonist a generationhack. Ask your grandfather about Rube'scartoons. Rube was a good friend ofmine. I was the cameraman on his showand we often went out for a late di nnertogether after the show at the local $ I.29steak di nner restaurant. This WU'i backbefore videotape had been invented, sothose programs are foreve r lost.

Videotape. If Gore can claim fame fo rinventing the Internet, I can claim with­out exaggerating as much for helpingAmpex engineers develop their firstsuccessful videotaping system.

I got together at a television confer­ence over coffee with the Ampex engi­neers who were working on the projectand described the work John Williamsand I had been doing with filte rs for ham

teletype developments as a way to get awider band signal on their tape. Sureenough, a few months later they demon­strated a videotaping system using thisapproach.

The British Arc Coming!

A new tax law has been estimated bythe British government to drive over66,000 small business out of their coun­try. The new tax rate will he 74.5%, forsmall companies, but not for lawyers(naturally). Many of the more enterpris­ing Brits are understandably packing upand heading this way.

Golly, that immigration is about whatwe're eeuinu every three davs from00_

Mexico, hut the quality is higher, Weneed all the small business people we canget these days - especially in informationtechnology. engineering, aerospace, andother high tech services.

And just to make sure that theInternet-involved leave the country, theBrits have implemented a Removal ofPrivacy Bill 2000 (RIP), which requiresthat all E-mail and Web traffic be routedto government agents for monitoring.Se rvice providers are required to instal]a box on their network for thi s. An en­crypted tile can get you two to 11 ve years• •ID prison.

This wi ll help drive international com­panies out of Britain, si nce they suredon't want the government snooping ontheir E-mail with their other divisions.

Where can small businessmen go? TheUS provides cheaper gas, food, housing,and computer equipment. The British arccoming, but this time they arc refugees.

(Thanks to Jim Kocsis WA9PYH for aclipping from Electronic Design .)

Reinvent ing Government

Communism, despite the convictionsof many supposedly great minds, hasn' tpann ed out. It's failed everywhere it'sbeen tried. The old Soviet Union is amess. North Korea is a mess. Cuba is amess. And only the power of newly un­Icashed capitalism in China has savedthat country from the same fate. It failedin everyone of the Soviet-controlledEastern European countries. I've visitedChina, Russia, the Ukraine, Poland,Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and NorthKorea, so I' ve seen communism upclose, not just from the newspapers ortextbooks.

Socialism, as well, has failed in everycountry where it's been tried. I' ve beenthere, too.

Government control of business hasbeen a failure. As Michael Medved said,

ConHnued on page 64

Ad d rn.s

Sn ver w tre: With two 5-in, piece, ofheavy pure silver win: + lhn.-e 9V bauer­ies YIlU can make a thousand do llarsworth of silver colloid, What do you dowith il? II docs what the antibiotics do.bUI genus can ' I adapt to n. Use uro getrid of g<."I1TlS on food. for skill fungus,warts, and even to drink . Read somehooks 011 the uses of silver colloid. u'slike magic. SI5 (#801Colloid ReprinL April 97 article on asilver colloid maker. history, and how10 use the sruff. 55 (#981Colloid Clip"- Three 9V battery clips.2 alligatorelips& irlS1fU<.1ions. !l5 (#991AC')M»I ered Colloid Kit :12V powersupply'. vilver wires. reprint. includingpriority' mail o;hiPIl~"ll1. 537 (11821Four SmaD Bouklrts Cumbo: SupaOrgaric food: a trillim OOIIarnewindu s­try : Schools in 2020: another S tril ­lion inJlL~try. Anrhrax. a simple cu re.Dowsing: .... h) 'ard how' itv.ul.s. 53 (#&6)

~I )' 1992 We T he People Decl areWar! On O u r Lousy Gowr nml'ntOOok- 36O pages and packed withideas lhat" II get you a ll excited.Wa.s SnWhile lhey last SIO. Just a few left.found in the " arebouSl'. Last chance forthis c1a."ic.(#06)

Sturr I d idn ' t wri te, bUI you..nn'd.:.1"ASA !\loont"d Am eric:a : Re nemakes an ai r-tigh l case lha l NASAfaked Ihe ~loon landings. This hookwill co nvince even you. $.';0 ( #90 )

La st S kep tic of Sch' nce : T his isR elll~ ' s book where he dehun ks abu nch of accepled sc ientific beliefs ­such as lhe ice age s, lhe Eanh beinga ma gnet . lhe Moon ca using lhe lides.clc. $30 (#9 11Dar k ~Ioon: :'i68 page s of carefullyresearched proof thaI til<: Apollo Moolllandings were a hOilx-a cappmg blnwfor Rene's skeptics. $25 (#92 )1982 Gener al Class LieellSt' St udy-'G uides. Teaches the fundullen lals ofradio & el<:e tricilY. Was $7. I found afe..... in the warehouse . $3, whi le Iheylast Grt"al book! (#831

.\lCI\I.,... foroNen OWO' i iO. • [ <pUl:' _

...... ....~r-'J~etlllI• p/l<>-e oNen, oo}.sn --<l l07 • fox: flO}.S !~- 3:!1.1S ' "';>n"".ooI-,,,-

o Y.. ' Pul me 00..11 fur . l'Q' ol 73 kJrOllly S2.'i l&...aH. c.ada liSSJ~. F-ornp l'SS-U by ....

D I -.l IIldu>lnaI .....IIIA «rna mIuI.:I_ 10 ...,.:I .... yourAdS~ lD .'.l :!<i< CD '"3UlOIA1I<Jw ~ ,." doh..,.,. ~lap< 11ft" .........p _I/}' to "" roooI ord<n ""l'I"d '" & day Of 1_Y(Q e-m.&1I~ _

~lImC' Call _

~ad<~'8~nux 4 16J1anelX"k :\ H 03449

Cla ...... iclll l\ lu.sic Guide : A lisl of 100CDs which wi ll provide you with anou tstandi ng collecnon or the fi nestclass ical music ever written. Th is iswh at you need to help you reduceslress C la ... s ical mu sic a lso ra isesyo ungs ters ' IQs. he lps plants growfaster; and v. ill make you heahhi...r. Justwail' lI you hear soeue of Gotschalksfabu lous music! 55 (11331The RlId ar Ce verup : Is police radardangerous? Ro !!>!> Ade)' K6l:1. a worldauthority. confi rm s Ihe dangers (Ifradio and magncnc fi elds. includingour HE and ce ll phooo:s. S3 (#3-$ 1T ht"l't' Gallo Ta lks: A prize -winningteacher ex plains what's wrong withAmerican schoo ls and why o ur kidsare lIOI being educated. Why are 5"00­ish youngsters, who start school al 1years of age, leaving our b ds in thedlLsr~ Our lr;id<. are inlentionally beingdumbed cown by ou r school system ­tbe least effective and mosl ex pensivein the worid.!l5 (11351A"'plIr! am l': a k.a. :-;UlraSweel. thestuff in diet dri nks. "11'., can cause allki nd~ of serious hea lth problems . Mul­nple sc jerosis, flK one . Read all ahol.ltil ,",'0 pamphlets for a bock. (1I3111$ 1 ~ Iill ion Sules Vidl'o: The secret o fhow ),ou can generate a n eX ira mil­liondoliaJ'; in salo.-sjiN by using PRoThiswill be one of lhe t>.:st i nvesll1~nh }l lUor your busill.'S.~ willewr make,$-1() (1152)Reprints 01~Iy f:d itu ri llis fr om 73.\ \::ry few things in Ibis wor ldare as v. I'. \'C

bI.'cn laught, UIlII as dry appear. As articonllO.:la.'t Ihlow the whi'llc on lhe <;I,'amsaround us, such as lhe heallh l'arc. ourschool syslem. our mouey, lhe drug war.a co llege C\ hlC:llion,sUl!-'lI~ lhe foodgianls.(lur llllheallh y food. nl.lorides, EMFs.Nutm.'iwccLelC.19W.IUO F.ditm;lll ":s."iU)'s: $5 (#72)1991151 F,d itur iul i<:s.sll)'l': $8 (#74 )1998 192 Editur illl F.s.su)'s: $10 (#75)19'J'1 165 Edilur ial t;ssay's: $ll (#76 )2000 101 t:d iluo lli t;ssays: 55 (#77 )200 1 104 t:d ituo al t:SSIl~ 'S : S5 (#78)

- - - - ---- - --- - - - -- - -

in Poland (and the famous salt rmnes j.

Prague' . hack 10 Munich, and the firstclass fl ight home fo r IWO, all for un­der $ I,OClO'! Yes. when you know howyou can travel inexpensive ly, and sti llstay in first class hold s. $5 (# 11)Writt'r' s G uide: It's easy'. fun. can padyour resume, and impress the be ll ou tof your friends. $0(#78)wsjn e's C ari bbean Ad,'entUTYS: :'Iol ysuper budget trawl stories - .... here Ivisurhe barns and scuba di ve mosl ofthe islands of the Caribbean. You'll10\1' the special Liat fare which let mev'isil I I countries in 21 days, divingall but one oftbe islands. Guadeloupe.where the hams kept me too bus}' withparties . 55 (# 12)Cold Fusion Ov erview. This is botha brief hislOl)' of cold fusion. which Ipredic t will be one of the largest in­d ust ries in the world in the 2 1s1 cen­tury, plu s a simple explanation of how

and .... h}, il worts. This new field isgoing to generate a v.bo le new bunchof bill io naires. just as the persona lco mputer industry d id. 55 (#20)Impnninjl: Stllte Government: Hereare 24 ways that Slate governmentscan cut expenses enormously, whileproviding far be tter service. I ex plainhow any go\'emme nt bureau or de­pa rlm ent can CUt ils ex penses by alleasl 50% in lhree years and do ilcooperali \'e1y' and enthusiast ically.I ex plain ho .... , by applying a newlec hnology, lhe slale can make il pos­sih lc 10 provide all needed serviceswit houl hav ing 10 levy l illy laxes ala ll! Read lhe book. run for your leg­is lalure, and let's gel busy making thi scoun1ry work like ils founders wanledit 1o , DI.l!l ·1 leave lhis for "someOlleelse" to do, $5 (#30)I\llInkind ' s t;xtinct ion Predictions: Ifany one of lhe expens who have wril ­len books predicling a soon·to-comecalaslrophe which will vin ually v.ipe11IOsI of us OUI are righ I, we're inImunle. In Ihis book I explain aooutthe various disaster scenarios. like thatof NoslraoJalllus, who says the poleswill sonn sltift Cas the)' ha\'ese\'erallimesin the pa<o1 ). wiping 00197% of mankindOkay'. so he's made a big string of pa:>t

IlId .)' gues..-.es. 11Je wors l pan of lhesepreoJictions is the accuracy record ofso me of the ex perts . Will il be a poleshift, a ~w icc age. a massive solarflare . a comet or asteroid. a biotenuriSiatlOId;? I'm gelling ready', how about

}'ou ? 55 (# 311M oo nd oJ1J:le : After reading Rene ' shonk. NASA Moolled Aml'lica. I reade\ er)thing I could fud onoor~foon land­

ings.1 walChedlhe~ASA \~ loolcdcarefully at the~ readthe:Nn:n1lI'sbiog:raphies.~ talkaf v.i th some read­ers who v.orled for ~ASA. This bcdr;

ciles 45 good reasons I belie\\" me \\t.*Apollo program had 10 h.a\ e t..-en fakedS-.<i(#321

The Secre t G uide 10 Heal th. Yes.mere reall y isa secrer to n:j!aining yoerhealth and adding 30 10 bO years ofhealthy h ing to}'OUl" life. Tbe <I/l'>Wl'f issimple, but it mea ns making some se­rious lifl"Slyle changes. Will )'ou be ski ­ing the sfopes ofAspen with me whenyou're 90 or dodtJering around a~ing Inlk"?OrpNling updai<.ies? No. l ' mI10t selling any h..alth products, bul Ican help you cure yourself of cancer.heart trouble. or ally other illness, Get

this new. 2002 expa nded edi tio n(16{)pJ. S IO (~ )

The Secret Guide to Welllth: Just aswith health, you' ll find ehar you havebeen suck..red by "the sys tem" inlo apall..m of life that willlt'l'p Y'ou fmm..ver maki ng lU uch lIlonl'y anoJ hav inglhe freeoJo rn 10 lravel anoJ do whalyou want. I e xplai n how anyone cange t a dream job wilh no coll..ge, noresume , and cven wi lhuul any ex­perien ce . I ex plai n how yo u can gelsomeone 10 hap pil y pay you 10 learnwhal you neeJ to know 10 sIan yourown business. $5 (#03;The Secrt' l G uide In Wi...dom: Thisis a review of arounJ a hundred hooksthai will boggle your mind :lI1d helpyou change your life. No, I dun ' l se llthese books. 1"ht.'y'n: on a wille range ofsuhj<:e lS and will help to Illake you av'ery imere, ling perso n, Wait"1! yousec some of Ihe gems you've missedreading. You' II ha\'e plenly of fasci ·naling sluff to talk abo ut on lhe air,$5 (1102 )!'II~' WWII Suhmar int' Adwnlurt'S:Yes, I spent from 1943-1945 on a ~ul>­

marine, righl in the middle of the V.af

v.ith Japan. We ahn,"" j!UI sunk !-Cu:raJlimes, and twice I was in the righl placeat the righl lime 10 ~a\ e the boa!.What"~ i t rea lly li ke 10 be depthcharged? An d wha l' s the daily li feaboard a subnwilll' Iilr;e? How abuuIthe Amelia Ea rhan inside slory? lfyou' re' near ~Iobile. plea-.e visil lheDrum. 55 (#10)Tra\'e1 Diane-,;: You can tTavel amal­ingl)' inex pensively - once Y'ou lr;1lO\Ildr ropes. F.lIjoy Sh:rr}' am my hudg~1

\;s il~ 10 Europe. Ru~ia. and a bunchof other inleresti ng places. flow ahtlu la first class flighl to :'Iol unich, a renledAudi, dri \'ing to visit Vienna. Krakow

Here llre some ofmy tMNlks which (anchange ~ our life lif ~ou 'lI let 'em I. Ifthe idea ofbt'in~ health~'. weuhhy lindwist- intl'l'l"'dS~'ou , ..tIlrt ~dinl:- \ "eo..~ou can be all tha t, but only wben ~'ou

know the secrets "hich I' ve spent alifetime un(o\t·rin~.

•• ••.•way n e

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003 63

Barter 'n' BuU _

Turn your old ham and computer gear into cash now. Sure, you can wait for a hamfest to try and dump it, but you know you' ll get a far morerealistic price if you have it out where 100,000 active ham potential buyers can see it, rather than the few hundred local hams who com e bya flea market table. Check your att ic, garage, cella r and closet shelves and get cash for your ham and computer gear before It's too old tosell. You know you're nOI going to use it again, so why leave it fo r your widow to throw out? That stuff isn't gett ing any younger!The 73 Flea Market, Barter 'n' Buy, costs you peanuts (almost) - come s to 35 cents a word tor individual (noncommercial!) ads and $1.00a word for commercial ads. Dan', plan on telling a long story. Use abbreviations, cram it in. But be honest. There are plen ty of hams who loveto fix things , so if it doesn't work , say so.Make you r list, count the words, including your cal l, address and phone number. Include a check or your credit card number and expiration .If you're placing a commercial ad, include an additional phone number, sepa rate from your ad .This is a monthly magazine, not a dail y newspaper, so figure a couple months be fore the action starts: then be prepared. If you get too manycalls, you priced it low. If you don't get man y calls, too high.So get busy. Blow fhe dust off, check everything ou t, make sure it still works right and maybe you can help make a ham newcomer or retiredold timer happy with that rig you 're not using now. Or you might get busy on your com puter and put together a list of small gear/pa rts 10 sendto Ihose interested?

Send Jour ads and payment to: 7.1 Ma~azille , Ba rter 'u' Buy, 70 Hancock Rd., Peterborough NH 03458 and get set for thephone calls. The deadline fo r the April 2(X13 classified ad section is February 10, 2003.

Let's sec ho w you like this concept.Let 's cons ider sett ing up the federal gov­cmmcnt as a publicly o wned corporationwhere we're both the customers and theshareholders . Like any corporation, ithas a hoard of d irectors who macro­manage the business. They elect thepres ident. CEO, CFO, and so o n - andthey fire poor performers . We shareholderselec t the hoard o r directors. fa

Govern ment Run as a Business

N EUER SR V DI Econun uea from page 62

"The government makes a mess of ev­eryth ing it does." Amen.

Our public school system is a beautifulexample of a government-run mess.

Okay, Wayne, so what do you suggest?Gee. I thought you' d never as k.

With communism a failure, ditto so­cialism and fasci sm, the one shining staris ca pitalism. Yes, we have so me proh­lcms with capitalism. It's a great systemas long as busi nesses don' t gel too big .Unfortunately, as they ge t hig they starttilting the playing fie ld . In their direc­tion. They lend to usc their politicalpower to eliminate competition. ratherthan let the marketplace make this deci­sion. The big get bigger and bigger, gob­hling up the smaller companies , such asTime-Warner and Digital Equipment.

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ANTENNA SCIENCE: Why do antennas radiateelectromagnefic waves? Learn for yourself fromthis enlightening paper by MAX RESEARCH.Gain an understanding of the radiation mecha­nism 01antennas! Written in a clear style for radiohobbyists, inquisitive amateurs and experimenters.$4.95 ... ppd. Order from MAX RESEARCH, P.O,Box 1306, East Northport NY 11731.

SATELLITE TV - Large selection of items atreasonable prices. We specialize in Big DishTVRO C & Ku Band equipment. Check us out at[www.daveswebshop.com]. BNB646

HEATHKIT COMPAN Y is selling photocopies ofmost Heathkit manuals. Oniy authorized sourcefor copyright manuals. Phone: (616) 925-5899, f-- - - - - - - -------- -8-4 ET. BNB964

Ham Radio Repai r, Quali ty workmanship. AllBrands, Fast Service. Affordable Elect ronics,7110 E. Thomas Ad., Scottsdale , AZ 85251 . Call480-970-0963, or E-mail [HAM SERVlCE@AOL.COM]. BNB427

64 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2003

Cash for Coll ins: Buy any Collins Equipment.L.eo KJ6HI. Tel./FAX (310) 670·6969. [radioleo@earthlink.net]. BNB425

New miniature oscillator modules are now avail­able ... all under $20 ... plus our great referencebook is still for sale. Write to RMT Engineering,6863 Buffham Road, Seville OH 44273 or seeour Web site at (www.ohio.netl-rtormetlindex.html/] . BNB640

RF TRANSISTORS TUBES 2SC2879, 2SC1971 ,2SC1972, MRF247, MRF455, MB8719, 2SC1307,2SC2029, MRF454, 2SC3133, 4CX250B, 120 0 6,6KG6A, etc. WESTGATE, 1-800-213-4563.

BNB6000

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BNB421

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MAHLON LOOMIS, INVENTOR OF RA DIO, byThomas Appleby (copyright 1967). Second print­ing available from JOHAN K.V. SVANHOLMN3RF, SVANHOLM RESEARCH LABORATO­RIES, P.O. Box 81 , wesmrqton DC 20044. Pleasesend 525.00 donation with $5,00 for S&H.

BNB420

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