73 magazine - february 2002

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Page 1: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Page 2: 73 Magazine - February 2002

I THE TEAMEI Sup remo & FounderWayne Green W2NSO/1

Associate Pub lisherF. I. Marion

Executive Ed itor

Jack Burnett

Managing Ed ito r

Joyce Sawt ell e

FEBRUARY 2002ISSUE #495

~!:'A 111ateu rI ~ Radio Today

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Techn ical Edito rLarry Anton uk WB9 RRT

Contri but ing CulpritsMike Bryce WBBVG EJim Gray IIJack Heller KB 7NO

Chuck Houghton WB6 1GPAndy MacAllister W5ACM

Joe Moell K00VSteve Nowak KE8YN/ODr. Rick Olsen N6NR

Ad verti sin g SalesEvelyn Garriso n WS7 A21704 S.E. 35th St.

Issaq uah WA 98029425-557-96 11

Fax: 425 -557-9612

Circul ati onFrances Hyvarinen

FEATURES10 Weather Sat Trackin g is Awesome! - VK 2BXX

Real science means real fun for 8- to 12-year-olds!

16 Not Simply Anoth er Keyer! - W2GOM17That's right! It's better.

21 Direct-Mount " J" Antenna for 440 MHz HTs - W4JCIf you're looking for better performance ...

24 New Life for a Pierso n KE-93 - W6WTUPart! of 3.

28 Lamps from Tub es - WA20KZFor fun and profit - and gifts!

31 LOPs to Think About - W1ROI7Come aboard for a great surplus find.

35 The Saga of Archie & Tillie - AA2JZ... otherwise known as Elmer,

DEPARTMENTS49 Ad Index64 Barter 'n' Buy42 Calen dar Event s51 The Digital Port - KB7NO45 Homing In - KOOV

4 Never Say Ole - W2N SD/148 New Products50 On the Go - KE8YN/O60 Pro pagati on - Gray44 ORP - WB8VGE

1 ORX63 Radio Boo kshop

E-Ma il..... [email protected]

w eb Pagewww.waynegrccn.com

Data Entry & Other StuffNorman Marion 37

Business OfficeEditorial Advertising Circulation 38Feedback - Product Reviews

73 Amateu r Radio Today Magazine

70 Hancock Rd. 56Peterborough NH 03458 -1107603-924-0058Fax:603 -924-8613

ORP Internet Computing - KCOIZIFast, powerful, secure ...

Inkjet OSLs the Easy Way - KE8YN/OBasic techniques for basic cards.

Your Own Own er 's Manua l - AA2JZAre you recording project accomplishments ina logical fashion for future reference?

CO VER : Dan Smith K4BES ,Birmin gham AL, sent in thisshot of his 2001 Field D aysire. What you don't sec arehis two 3-foOl balloons aboveat 300 feet. A ttached to ISO-lb .

construction cord. , they sup­ported a 65-ft. W3EDP antennamade of #26 wire .

Reprints: $3 per art icleBack issues: $5 each QRH • •

73 Amateur Rad io To day (ISSN 1052-2522) is published monthly by 73 MagaZine, 70 Hancock Rd.,Peterborough NH 034 58- 1107. Th e en ti re co nte nts <Cl2002 by 73 MagaZ ine . No par t of this pub lication may bereprodu ced witho ut writt en per mission of the publ isher, which is not all that diff icult to ge t. The subscript ionrate is: one year $24.9 7, two years $44.97; Canada: one year $34 .21, two years $57.75, Including postage and7% GST. Foreig n pos tage: $ 19 su rface, $42 ai rmail addi tional per yea r, payab le in US funds on a US bank.Second class pos tage is paid at Peterborough, NH, and at add it iona l mall ing offi ces. Cana dian seco nd classmail regist rat ion #178 101. Canadian GST registrat ion #125393314 . Microfilm edit ion: Univer sity Microf ilm, AnnArbor Ml 48106 . POSTMA STER: Send address changes to 73 Amateur Radio Today, 70 Hancock Rd.,Peterborough NH 03458 · 1107. 73 Amateur Rad io Today is owned by Shabromat Way ltd. of Hancock NH.

Printed in the USA

Manuscripts: Contributions forpossible publication are mostwelcome. We'll do the best wecan 10retum anything you request, 00t weassume no responsibility for lossor damage. Paymern for submittedarticleswill be made after publication.Please submit both a disk and ahard copy of your article (IBM (ok)or Mac (preferred) formats], carefullychecked drawings and sctematcs.and the clearest, best focused arclighted photos youcan manage. ''Howto write for73"guidelinesare availableon request. US citizens, pleaseinclude your Social Security numberwithsubmitted manuscripts so we cansubmitit to vou know who.

Fat Birds Fly BetterAbout twice a year, we bring you stories aboutra­

dio tagged migratory birds. In most cases, it's thoseever-elusive burrowing owls. Now we have a totallydifferent kind of bird story. It still involves radio track­ing, but this time to seeif bigger birds or smaller.birdshave a better chance to survive in flighl.

Europeanscientistshavediscovered what seemslikea contradiction aboutmigrating birds. They found thatthe fatter the bird, the more efficiently it appears to fly.

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden havestudiedseveral small species includingthe Red Knot.Inourhemisphere, these20-ouncewadingshorebirdstravel 18,000 miles every year, to the tip of SouthAmerica and back to the Arctic. On the way north,they stop on the shoresof NewJersey to feaston theeggs of horseshoe crabs, to build up energy for thelast 2,000 miles of their northward trip, which theymake nonstop. On these binges, the Red Knots candouble their normal body weight.

Continued on page 6

Page 3: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Page 4: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Page 5: 73 Magazine - February 2002

NEUER SRV DIEWayne Green W2NSOl1w2nsd @aol.comwww.waynegreen.com

Th e people I' ve talked withwere main ly worried aboutsurviving a hioterrorism at­tack. Few had co nsideredanything bey ond their andtheir families' immediate sur­vival. But. if there is a seriousbio attack, it cou ld kill mil­lions of the unp repared andthat would br ing the countryto a halt. Withou t railroadsthe power grid would shutdown. Without daily truck de­liveries there would be nofood or fuel. How preparedare we for that? Echoes ofY2K.

Should we gamble that thisscenario is so preposterous

Con tinued on p ag e 8

Ra m ifica tions

Radio Bookshop ad in page63 for an inexpensive sou rceof the silver, a little kit of thebattery and alligator clips,and a repri nt of Mill er 's ar­ticle . The three items arc $25 .

Th e result of my talkingabo ut this was a deluge of or­ders via my Web site [www.wa ync green .com ], by fax,telephone, and bushels ofmail orders for both myhealth guide and the silvercolloid making kit. Whew!

I also explained how theblood purifier could help bycleaning any virus or germout of the -blnod, generat ing'orders for the Blood PurifierHandbook and a big demandfor Plant Gro wth Stimulators.

Naturally I went into thebig need there would be foramateur radi o for emergencycommunicatio ns-and that re­sulted in our getting hundredsof new subscribers.

deal with bioterrorism . Ipointed out that the best de­fense is to he very, veryhealthy, In eve n the worstplagues there have beenpeop le who didn't get sick,and others who survived thesickness while others weredying by the thousands.

Healthy? Acco rding to theDepartment o f Health about1.5% of America ns arc trulyheal thy.

Th e details on how anyo necan recover from any illnessand be totally healthy arc inmy Secret Guide to Health.The secret is simple, as I' vebeen trying to hamm er intoyour co nsciousness: Stop poi­soning your body. My bookdiscusses the poisons.

However, i explained, untilyou achieved health, you'rego ing to wan t to have someda mned good antibiotic onhand. Lots of it. And , wait ingunt il people around you arcdropping is not the time toqueue up at your doctor 'swaiting room to get a pre­scription. Of course, hopingthat what you get, if the drugstore hasn ' t run out, hasn' tbeen compromised by thepat hogen (as most have).

The answer, of course , issilver collo id, which no germor virus has been able t(; sur­vive , And for tunately, this isridiculously inexpensive, evenif you buy it at a health roodstore. But the cheapest way isto make it yourself. You candig out the 1997 73 artic le hyTom Mill er on the history ofthis ancient antibiotic, how tomake it, and how to use it.Then you need a source of99.999 pure silver wire (livenines in the trade). Sec the

changed co urse and stoppedco mmunica ting . And howcome in these day s of packedplanes, these particular Ilightshad so few passengers'!

Cover-ups'!

Thanks to the persistenceof Robert Stinnett (Day ofDeceit ) we now know thatthe co nsp iracy nut s o f sixtyyears ago were right. Rooseveltrea lly did pla n the PearlHarbor attack. If you can finda COllYof Fred Goerner 's TheSearch for Amelia Earhart( 1966) in your local librar yyou' ll find out about the hugegovernmen t cover-up in hercase.

Anyone who has bee n soisolated from facts that theybelieve the government isn 'tcovering up on UFOs needsto get a copy of Col. Corso 'sThe Day Aft er Roswell.

T he Anthrax Scare

He).•AR RL, Wake UIl!

Conspiracy Mongers

If you read The New Yorkeryou know that the anthraxdeaths have bee n caused by awcaponizcd variety of anthraxwhich started with a deadcow in Ames, Iowa. It has alot of folks afra id to allentheir mail. but it seems un-

I' d try harder to ignore con- likely that it has been spreadspiracy theorists if history hy any foreign terrorists.hasn't proven them right so On Saturday eve ning. No­often. In the \VTC case, one vember second, I was invitedof my readers called to say to he a guest on the Coa st-to ­that it was a smart move to Coast AM radio show, withground all commercial Flights Barbara Simpson as the host.immediatel y afte r the attack. This show is carried by overHe said box-cutters were 500 stations nightly and has afound hidden in the seats of huge aud ience, despi te its2 1 of the grounded nigh ts. weird time slot from I to 6 a.m.Then I got E-mails asking Eastern time.why the FAA didn't respond One of the first questionsimmedia tely when the flights that came up was how we can4 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

My reactioo to the 9111 at­tack was that this was just thebeginning. As I' ve been writ­ing for a couple of years, it' sjust too easy to usc germssuch as anthrax to wipe outmillions of people. Now welearn that the worst virus yet,ebola, has been aerosolizedby scie ntists, who since seemto have rece ntly either disap­peared or met untimely ends,and is in terrorist s hands.Great.

Since our gov ernment seemsto be busier cover ing thingsup than deali ng with newthreats, we don't have any na­tional communications backupsystem in case the power goesoff. Except us. and we' ve beentaking our cue from Ethelredthe Unready, aka Newingtonin thi s incarn ation .

I have 10 admit as to not be­ing totally surprised at my notgettin g letters or photos fromham clubs abo ut their effortsto se t up emergency commu­nications systems or to try toactivate the inactive hams intheir area .

Page 6: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Our Bearcat Trunk'Iracke r BC245XLT, is the world' s fir st scan­ne r d esign ed to tra ck Motoro la Type I, Type II , Hybri d,SMARTNET, PRIVACY PLUS and EDACS" analog trun king sys­tems on any band. Now, foll ow UHF High Band, UHF 800/ 900MHz trunked public safety and public service systems just as ifconventional two-way commun ications were used , Our scanneroffe rs many new benefits such as Multi-Track - Track mo re lhanone trunking system at a lime and scan conven ticret and trunkedsyste ms at the sa me lime . 300 Channels - Program one fre-

quency into each channel. 12 Band s, 10 Banks - lndudes12 bands. with Aircraft and 800 MHz. 10 banks with 30 chan­nels each are useful for stori ng similar frequencies to main­tain faster SCilnning cycles or for storing alllhe frequenci esof a trunked syst em. Smart Scanner . Automatically pr0­

gram your BC245 XLT with enthe freqUEK1eies and trunkingtal k grou ps for your local area by acce ssing the Bearcatnabal data base with your PC. If you do not have a PCsimply use an external modem . Turbo Search - Increasesthe search speed to 300 steps per seco nd whe n monitor­ing frequency bands with 5 KHz. step s. 10 Priority Chan-nels - You can assi gn one priority channel in each bank.Assigning a prior ity channel allows you to keep track ofactivity on your most important channels while mon itoringothe r channels for transmissions. Prep rogrammed Ser vice(SVC) Sea rc h - Allows yo u to togg le throughpreprogrammed poli ce, fire/emergency, railroad , aircra ft,manre, and weather frequencies. Unique Data Skip - Al­

lows your sca nner to sk ip unwanted datatransmi ssions and reduces unwanted bird­ies. Memory Backup - If the batte ry com­pletel y discharges or if power is discon­nected, the frequencies progra mmed inyou r sca nner are retai ned in memory.Manua l Channel Access - Go direct ly toany channe l. LCD Back Light - A n LCDlight remain s on for 15 seccoos when theback light key is pressed . Alltolight - Au­tomatically turns ire backhght on whe nyour scanner stops on a transmission. Bat­ter y Save - In manual m ode , theBC245XLT a uto ma tica ll y red uce s it spower re quueme nt s to extend thebattery's charge .Atl enuatOl'- Reduces the

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wil h AC adapter, one rechargeable long iife ot-ceo batt ery pack ,belt clip, f lexible rubber ante nna, earp hone, RS232C cable,TrunkTracker frequency guide, owner's manual and one year limitedUniden warranty. Not com patible with AGEIS, ASTRD, ESAS orLTR system s. Hear mo re action on your radio scanner today.Order on-line at www.usascan .com lor quick delivery.

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The Bearcat 780X LT has 500 channe ls and the wid estfrequency cove rage of any Bearcat scanner ever . Packedwith features such as Trunktracker III to cover EDACS ,Motoro la and EF Johnson syste ms, cont rol channe l onlymode to allow you to automa tically trunk certain systemsby simply progra mming the control channel, SAM.E.wea ther alert. full-frequency display & backlit controls, built­in CTCSSIDCS to assign analog and digital subaudibletone codes to a specifi c freq uency in memory, PC Controlwith RS232 port, Bee p Alert, Re cor d fu nction , VFO con­tr ol , menu-d riven design , to ta l channel control and muchmore . Our CE I package de a l includes te lesc op ic antenna,AC ada pte r, ci ga re tte ligh er cord, DCco rd , m obi le mo u nt­ing br ac ket w ith sc rews , owner's manua l, trunkin g fr e­quency guide a nd one-year lim ited U nide n fa cto ry w a r­ranty. Fo r m ax imu m sc anni ng enjoym e nt , order m a g net icmount antenna pa rt number A NTM MB NC fo r $2 9.95; T heBC 780X LT comes wi th AC a dap te r, telescopic a ntenna,ow ne r's m a nual an d on e yea r lim ited Uniden warranty. Notcompatib le w ith AGEIS, ASTRO or ESA S sys te m s. Fo rfa ste st del ivery, order o n-line at www.usascan.com.

Bearcat'" 895XLT Trunk TrackerMfg. suggested list price $499.95Les s -$320 Ins tant Reb ate I Spec ial $179 ,95300 Channels -1 0 ba nks 0Bui lt -in CT e SS 0 S MeterSize : 10 1lT W id e x r rr D e e p x 3 J1r H i g hFrequency Cove rage: 29.()()()..54.000 MHz., 108.000-174MHz., 216.ClOO-512.000 MHz.. 806 ,0Cl0-823.995 MHz., 849.0125­868.995 MHz., 894.0125-956.000 MHz.

The Bea rca t895XLT is superb for intercepting tru nked com ­moocauons tran smissions with featu res like TurboScan'" tosearch VHF cha nnels al100 steps per second . This base andmobile sc anner is also ideal for intell igence profess ional sbeca use it has a Signal Strength Mete r, RS232C Port to allo wcompu ter -control of you r sca nner via optional hardware and30 trunk ing Channel ind icator annunciators to show you rea l­time tru nking act iv ity for an entire trunking system. other fea­ture s include Auto Sto re - Auto mat ically stores al l active fre­quencies w ithin the speci fied bank(s) . Aut o Rec ording - Le tsyou record channel activity from the sca nner onto a tape re­corder. CTCSS Tone Board (Continuous Tone Co ntrol Squel chSystem) allows the squelch to be broken dur ing scanning o nlywhen a co rrect CTCS S tone is rece ived. For ma ximu m sca n­ning enjoyment, ord er the fo llowing optional accessories :PS001 Cigarette lighter power cord for temporary o perationfrom your veh icle 's cigarette lighter $14 .95 ; PS002 DC powercord - ena bles permanent operation from you r vehicle' s fus ebox $14.95: MBOO1 Mobi le mou nting bracket $14.95; EX7 11Externa l spea ker wi!h mounting bracket & 10 feet of cabl ewith plug atta che d $19.95. The BC895XLT comes with ACadapter, te lescop ic antenna, owner's manual and on e yearlimil ed Unid en warra nty. Not compatible with AGE IS, ASTRa,EDACS . ESAS or LTR system s.

Page 7: 73 Magazine - February 2002

QIIN. • •

&

con tinued j rom page 1

Over the past few years a number of Euro­pean Red Knots were radio tagged and trackedby the Swedes as theyprepared for a similar tripbetweenthe British Isles and the RussianArctic.The study indicates that building up of fat de­posits to be burned as fuel during the migrationis more than worth the energy that it takes tocarry the additional weight. The heavier birdsapparently use their muscles more efficiently.Just why this is so remains a mystery. Evenstranger is that the results seem to "fly in theface" of a central theory of aerodynamics - nopun intended of course.

So what does this have to do with ham radio?Well, it points out that research always seems toyield unexpected results, and it givesusa chanceto remind you that dozens of ham operators inwestern states were listening for the VHF radiotags on endangered Burrowing Owls this winter.You could help out, too, next time. Find out howby visiting [www.homingin.com]. Who knows,maybe a ham will make a similar startling dis­coveryabout themigrationhabits of theseuniquecritters. That's homingin - one word - for theWeb site: [homingin.com].

All of this really does go to show that the moremankind uses science to discover the secrets ofMother Nature, the more amazed man is at whathe learns.

Thanks to Joe Moett KOOV ("send no jokesaboutbirdbrains,please") andEcologyToday, viaNewsline, Bill Pasternak WA6tTF.

Hamvention 2002: ForumsSchedule Announced

If you are thinking about attending the 2002Dayton Hamvention, then go to its Website andclick on the Forums area. Forums Chairman JimEbner N8JEsays that the initial schedule forMay'sDayton Hamvention group discussionsessions isnow on-line.

As previously announced, the theme of the2002 Hamvention is Emergency Communica­tions. In keeping with the theme, some of thehighlights include Gordon West WB6NOA ex­plaining how to use the Global Positioning Sys­tem. Gordo will also show how it offers hams theability to know where they are and describewhere they are to better than a foot. That's veryimportant information to have on hand whenworking an emergency situation.

But that's not all. Also on hand will be JohnMcHugh KU4GY, the Coordinator for AmateurRadio National Hurricane Center, W4EHW.McHugh will show the volunteer public serviceworkof the gangat W4EHW,andthe insidework­ings of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

KU4GY will also detail two exciting projectscalledCARMENand CWOP that they areworkingon in conjunction with NOAA. What are they?

6 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

You will haveto attend his sessionat Hamvention2002 to find out.

Vermont's Mn:ch Stern W1SJ, willalsobethereto talk on techniques used by the best operatorsinvolved in emergency communications. Thissessionwillalsoincludeinformation on the properway to communicate during emergencies. Alsohosting a session will be Mid-Cars on the impor­tance of mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-basecommunications during emergency times.

Amateur Radio News!ine will also be thereonce again hosting the Live Town Hall Meeting.Bill Pasternak WA61TF, will moderate a sessionon Ham Radio Emergency Communications inthe 21st Century titled "Looking to Apply WhatWe Have Learned from the Past."

And also look for other popular sessions, in­cluding Carole Perry's Youth Forum and JoeEisenberg K0 NEB with the latest in kits and howto build them.

Want to know more? The latest informationon Hamvention 2002 is always on the Web at[www.hamvention.org].

Thanks to DARAand DonWilbanks KC5MFA,via Newsline, Bill Pasternak WA6ITF, editor.

America at War:FCC GettysburgChanges Mail Address

At least for package deliveries, the FCC'sGettysburg, PA,office has announced that it hasmoved its mail handling facilities off-site. .

The reason is the same as reported for theFCC in Washington - simply a precaution incase some of the strange people we all call ter­rorists decide to target the Gettysburg licensingfacility.

It's all fairly simple. Effective immediately, allovernight couriers, United Parcel Service, andFederal Express deliveries have to go to a newlocation. That address is the FCC Gettysburg,Rear Entrance, 35 York Street, Gettysburg PA17325.

The change does not affect US Postal Ser­vice deliveries. At least not yet. They will con­tinue to be accepted at the office's physicaladdress on Fairiield Road and diverted to theoff-site mailroom.

Thanks to the FCC, via Newslin e, BillPasternak WA6ITF, editor.

National AntennaITowerConsortium Formed

Members of a newly formed "Antenna/rowerConsortium" madetheir debut at Shoreclif Com­munications' 2001 Tower Summit. The Consor­tium was formed to promote a consistent and fairnational antenna policy.

After a year of preliminary work, the NationalAntennafTower Consortium was incorporated inWashington DC and members made their firstpublic appearance October 29th, at the TowerSummit in Las Vegas.

The National Consortium was formed as a re­sponseto increasing difficultiesantenna and towerusers, whether broadcast, public safety, cellular,radio-common-earner,private radio, two-way,ama­teur, or others face in siting, constructing, andmodifying antenna systems.

MemberBarry Umansky described the currentsituation as "a patchwork of inconsistent andsometimes irrational local regulations that resultin a slow and expensive approval process andneedless litigation." Fred Baumgartner explainedthat the goal 01the Consortium "is to bring to­gether antenna users to develop a fair and rea­sonable set of guidelines for antenna regulation,with the intention of advocating adoption of anational set of standards."

The pair explained that they "believe an FCClicense should bring with it some assurance thatthe licensee can actually build, modify, and op­erate the radio,-facility." They noted that DigitalTelevision, cellular, and routine expansion of ex­isting facilities are being held hostage to a grow­ing number of antenna restrictions basedlargelyon aesthetic concerns. They pointed out thatantenna regulations and bans are fast becominganational epidemic, '--_

Unlike public policy decisions that are basedon safety, security, or as part of an overall plan­ning process that balancesconflicting objectives,antenna-regulationstoo often appear to bebasedexclusively on vague aesthetic concerns unsup­ported by hard evidence, the Consortium mem­bers explained. The Consortium-also believesthat policies that would encourage co-location,antenna-reuse, aesthetic design, and other ac­commodations should be part of an overall setof national standards.

The Consortium is in the process of recruitingand serving members representing a wide arrayof communications.technologiesand companies.The new organization is raising public and in­dustry awareness, attracting funds and othercontributions to support the enterprise, and so­liciting volunteerassistance needed to make theorganization an effective voice. Mr. Umanskynoted that "anyone who has ever fought an an­tenna battle will tell you that there is somethingdreadfully wrong with the way the processworks. It now is time to get groups with differentagendas to work together lor the success andadvancement of over-the-air communications."

The Consortium can be con tac ted at[[email protected]],and maintains aWeb site at [www.antennatowers.tvheaven.com].

Thanks to Fred Baumgartner, Parker CO.

Say You Saw it In 73!

Page 8: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Tune In the Universe is a new book on CD­ROM by SETI League Director H. Paul ShuchN6TX. The book is unique both in that it is in­teractive with the reader and because it can bereadusing anyWebbrowser. No special readersoftware is required.

Why a book now? N6TX saysthat it's kind ofoverdue:

Shuch: "I'vebeenonthelecturecircuitforSETIfor the past seven years, and everywhere I gopeopleask if I havea bookaboutall of this.Well,we have a Web site but not everybody has anInternet connection and some other people'sdownload speeds are a bit slow. So I took thebest material from seven years of running theSETI League and tried 10 put it together in oneconvenient place."

And that's exactly what Dr. Shuch has done.Calleda hamradiooperators' guidetothe searchforextraterrestrial intelligence, thebookis dividedinto six sections that cover everyaspect of hamradio's involvement in SETIas well as theongo­ing search itself. Also included are a mix of pho­tos and even some songs that Dr. Shuch saysshouldeducate as well as entertain. Whymusicyou ask? N6TX says that it's a fun way to learnaboutanything:

Shuch: "As any teacher knows, memory isenhanced and multiple learning styles are ac­commodatedby invoking as many different sen­sorypathways as possible.That is, we educatorstry to stimulate the students auditory, visual, andtactile systemsall at once to maximize the learn­ingexperience. Whydo you think we are alwayswriting on a chalkboard and asking you to takenotes while we drone on in a monotone?

"Somewhere along the line in my teachingcareer I figured out that music was another sen­sorypathway worth stimulating.And, just maybewould makemy lectures a tad less monotonous.So I began introducingsongs as learning aids."

Tune In theUniverse;spublishedby theArneri­can Radio Relay League and is priced at under$25. Formoreinformation visit theLeague's Website at [www.arrl.org]. More about the SETILeague is also to be found in cyberspace. It's at[www.selileague.org).

Thanks to N6TX and the SETI League, viaNewsline, 8i11 Pasternak WA61TF; editor. ra

73 Amateu r Radio Today · February 2002 7

Page 9: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Lying

continued Jrom page 4NEUER S R I' DIE

that there 's no need for us toorga nize an am ateur radi oem ergen cy sys tem? Are youcomfortable with waiting un­til something happens andthen hoping that we cansomehow get organized ?

If you've read Duncan Long'sBioterrorisni (see the reviewon page 34 of my W;"do",Guide) you know how easyand inexpensive it would befor an enemy to kill a hun­dred million or more Ameri ­cans wit hin a few days withtoday's biowcapons. And youknow that the terrori sts havebeen taking flying lessons andchec king on cro p-sprayingplanes.

If yo u've been followingthe testim ony of bio expertsin the media you know thi s isa lot more than an exercise inmed ia gloom and dooming.

Arc yo u set up to make sil­ver co llo id? Have yo u boughtor built a blood puri fier yet"I ' ve p ublished th e circ ui tsfor bo th . Wha t p lans haveyou and yo ur local ham cl ubmade to prov ide eme rgencyco mm unica tions for yo urtown ?

College? No, Thanks!

You know, I have n' t hadone critical letter abo ut myclaim that co llege is a hugewaste of time and mo ney asfar as be ing successful in lifeis concerned.

Rudi M an gold HB9 BUkind ly sent me a six-page ar­ticle from Forbes ( 12128/98)which backs me up .

Yes, there are a few careerpaths for wbieh a sheepskin ismandatory - architects. phar­macists, elem entary schoolteachers, lawyers, doctors, andpbysieal therapists. Around30% of the wor kforce requ iresa college degree .

In the main, a co llege de­gree will help get you a jobwit h a large corporation orthe govem ml;}}t. If all you as­pire to is a j ob' with a largeco rporation or the govern­me nt, yo u' ll never be morethan a small cog in the wheel,never a wheel. Well . makethat a spoke these da ys.

1'111 urgi ng yo u to shoo thigher in life. To be success­ful. To contribute to makinglife be tter for others. To helpmove ci viliza tion ahead alin le .

The Forbes article pointsout that the figures showingthat 'co llege grads make moremoney than high school gradsis a d isto rtio n of reality. Th eyshowed that real estate bro­kers (no degree) average morethan double tbe pay of gradswith biolog y, soc ial sciences ,liberal arts, education, and homeeconomics degrees.

My recommendation is tolearn to be an entrepreneur ­to own your own business.Here. the ex tra fou r years ofnonco llege education givesyou a huge ad vantage overgrads.

If it' s a litt le late for you to

to so me sort of g a lac ticfederation .

If a ll this is unr eal to you, itmeans that you ha ven ' t both­ered to read much that's beenwritten by some outstand ingresearchers. My 55 Sec retGuide TO Wisdom reviewssev eral boo ks whi ch wi ll helpyou co me up to speed.

Con tinued on page 59

wait for seniority to moveyou up the ranks. Thu s, ourgen era ls and admirals go t tothe ir places on the JointChi e fs of Staff by never hav­ing any creative ideas whichmight get them in trouble.

As the Ad miral of theQueen 's Navy put it in Pin­af ore, "I polished up thehandles so care fully. that nowI' m the ruler of the Qu een'sNavy." Queen Eli zabeth wasnot amused.

It wa s thi s mass stupidi ty atthe Joi nt Chiefs level thatmade such a mess of our warin Vietnam. And Somalia. AndHaiti. And Kosovo,

I had a close brush withAdmiral Bru ton, who was incharge of our forces in Eu­rope. It' s been a while sinceI' ve told tha t story - I' llha ve to do it again. It' s a grea tsto ry. Wh at a j erk he was!

All iL takes to tape theCoast-to-Coast AM show is aradio and VC R. You plug acable into the rad io 's ear­phone j ack, and the other endinto the AU DI O IN jack on aVCR. Th en you program it totape the audio (LINE) . Th eshow is o n fro m 1- 6 a.m ,here in the Ea st, and it co me sin on ab ou t 20 stations up anddown the dial.

I listen to the show whi leI' m fixing and ea ting meals,"fast-forwarding through theprostate commercials and news.and also any time wast ed onlistener call-ins before the 'gues ts come on, usually inthe 2nd hour o f the show.

Since there are so manyelectrically challenged people,I' ve put togeth er a little VCRtaping kit which I' ve beenselling for $5, complete withprogramming instructions. It 'sa good sell er. It' s in mycata log as item #8 3.

Yes, the UFOs are real. Yes,ETs are here and have been,possibly for thousa nds ofyears. Yes. they co mmunicateby telepa thy. And yes, theymay we ll be infl uencing whatwe' re doinz. No, there 's noindication th at they me an usharm. Th e conse nsus is tha tthey' ve been watching us de­velop, per hap s nud ging usnow and then , and that even­tua lly, when and if we growup. they will be we lcoming LIS

often ridi cul ous mili tar y ef­tor ts to cover it up. fueledthe urgency for indepe nde ntinvestigation. The endless lyblacked -out papers from gov­ernment agenc ies respondingto Freed om of Informationrequests on the subjec t havenot inspired confidence .

Art Bell has aired severalinterviews with peopl e \.....hocla im they' ve seen salvagedUFOs at the Area 5 1 base inNevada, and their storieswere consi stent and credible.Then there was Col. Cor so'sboo k, The Day Aj ier Roswell,which claimed he was theman in the Pentagon who fa­cilitated ali en technology re­covered from UFO crashesbei ng used by industry tohelp them develop transistors ,pri nted circuits. lasers. nightvis ion, and othe r new tech­nologies. Corso died soon af­ter the book was published ,and his son is convinced thathis fath er wa s murdered toshut him up.

Th e main co ncern is thatthe mili tar y, alo ng with pres­sure from co ntractors, aregetting Congress to fund morestar wars developm ents. Th epurpose of these is not to pro­tect us from Saddam or No rthKorea, or ev en from what'sleft of Russia. bULto be ableto co mbat the ETs.

I keep trying to ge t you to Governm ent reports so fartape the Art Bell show (Coast- uncovered make it clear thatto-Coast AM) every night. so our mili tary are we ll awareyo u won 't miss it when Art that we are being, and havehas so me outstanding gues ts. been, vis ited by several ETYeah, I know, a lot of the time grou ps. These visits steppedit' s like read ing the National up significa ntly whe n weEnquirer, but now and then he went nucl ear in 1945 . Thathas guests which mak e thc seems to ha ve ru ng a ga lactice ffort worthw hile . alarm he ll .

Steven Greer and some The ETs arc so far ahe ad ofothe r recent guests who have us technologically that theythorou gh ly . researched th e co uld. at any time, stomp usUFO-ET situation recen tly out. But, they seem more in­held a nat ional press co nfe r- tcrested in monitoring our ac­encc, co mplete with the testi- tivity and, perhaps, he lpi ng inmony from some very high some subtle ways to guide us.military and govern me nt off i- So , why are the militarycia ls, explaining how the se- thinking in terms of attackingcret govern ment beh ind our ETs? Th at 's an easy one.governm ent has been cover- If you know anything at alling up the reality o f UFOs about the military - or gov­and ETs. Did you read abo ut ern ment - or eve n big busi­it in the papers or hear about ness, you know that the on lyit on the TV news? You bet way to get ahead is to notyou didn' t. caus e troub le . Report for

Th e many leaks abo ut the work, look like yo u ' re bu sy,Roswell crash, alo ng with the file the required reports, and

8 73 Amateur Radio Todev » February 2002

Page 10: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Page 11: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Charle s M. Wa lker VK2BXX21 Wylds Rd.Arcadia, NSW 2 159Aust ralia[chilla @tig .co m.au]

Weather Sat Tracking isAwesome!

Real science means real fun for 8- to 12-year-olds!

In January 1993, I happily retired from work as an engineer in the telecomm unicationsin dustry . I was soon surprised tha t I missed th e social side of work. I missed theday-to-day contact with people who understood what I did, the technical conversations,and (al though I hate to admit it ) som e of the m eetings. I also fou nd tha t I had fewlocal friends, sin ce my work h ad reaIly prevented m e fro m being an active par t ofmy comm unity.

- - "

H ere in Australia. or at least inSydney, our prima ry (elemen­ta ry) schoo ls arc small and lo­

cally based . Support from the pareIlls isencouraged. with Mom s mainly help­ing out with reading, music. schoo lspor ts. ca nteen, and the like . Few dadsare available during the day. and whenthey retire . primary schoo l kids arc fardo wn their list.

Some months after I re tired . I fo undmyse lf at my local primary school'sorientation meeting (presented mainly

for the parents of new incoming stu­dents) , and heard the usual appeal forhelp from the principal. Afte r themeeting. I corne red the principal. to ldhim I was a retired engineer. and askedhim if he wo uld like for me to "do­nate" a hands-on science program forhis sc hoo l. He agree d . hut I could tellhe had heard it a ll before and expectedme to appear mayb e a couple of timesand then fade away. Litt le did weknow at the time that in the followin gyears I would he lp give the same tal k

to pa rents. and would actuall y out lastthe princi pal and attend his retirementparty'

The scho<?l was for grades K through6. had an enrollme nt of about 115 stu­dents. and had a staff of 5 teachers.The se tting was in a semirural env iro n­mcnt with small market gardcns orho bby farms surro unding the area. andmost important. was only abo ut 3 min­utes fro m home. so I could duck in andout.fh~ principa l was a teaching prin­cipal in addition to his administrative

Photo A. Julian and Daniel orienting and setting up The antennapedestal.

10 73 Amate ur Radio Todev » February 2002

Page 12: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo C. Olivia and Julian O1l a high eleva tion pass - it's goingright overhead!

workload, which made him really ap­preciate any assistance or relief fromthe same o ld routin e. The ove rall "mis­sion" was to expose the students to asmany areas of science and technologyas I could - such as chemistry. elec­trici ty, some electronics. computinghistory, binary math. computer pro­gra mming (QBAS IC). curre nt theo­ries on the origin o f the un iverse. oursolar system. space mechanics. andaccident prevention and ana lysis.(Hidden agenda : Showcase varioustechnical career paths!)

The big project for the school yearwas satellite tracking !

Ear ly on in the year. I announced

Photo E. Kate and Janel do ing a d!fficlIltoverhead azimuth reversal.

that later we would he playing with afew billion dollars worth of toys inearth orbit. I explained that what wewould he doing is probably at the uni­versity level and certainly no other pri­mary schools in Australia would bedoi ng live satelli te track ing. I empha­sized that this project would NOT be ademonstration. They would he trained.and they wou ld do it, not me, The ywould be expected to "walk the walkand talk the talk."" (Hidden agenda: Takethe students well outside the prim aryschool cnvclope.)

As an absolute minim um. two lec­ture sess ions are needed to prepare thec lass . It is extremely usefu l, however.

to present a number of other sciencesess ions to build credentials and get tokno w the students and teachers. The setwo essential sess ions are a nonmathversion of orbital mechanics and a ses­sion on space industry jargon. It is ex­plained thal ja rgon is a shorthand wayof speaking so as to minimi ze COIll ­

rnunication time and the possibi lity ofmisunderstanding. Typical items wouldbe AOS, LOS, rise time, look angles,AZ, EL apogee. The students werealso drilled on compass directions andhow. to minimi ze confusion by sayingAZIEL in a standard way with indi­vidual numbers for direction (two threenine) and words for e levation (up

February 2002 11

Page 13: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo G. Janel tracking while using live telephone data / rom theacquisition creH:

Ld;";"'._~'-'= ,~:.,c:",-,

Photo H. Kiara on the tel ephone link. passing WINTRACKpo inting data to the antenna cre"':

twenty-two), Handouts of all lecturesarc prepared in advance and passed outafter each session, This in itself is un­usual, with the students treated asadults, complete with printed reviewnotes, Well-prepared handouts alsotend to und erli ne that this project isreally special and important.

There arc a number of other thingsthat should he done in adva nce to pre­pare for the satellite tracking exercise.Antenna construction is the first sub­project. This should he started earlybecause of the time it always seems totake, The students can do this any waythey like, individually or as teams, aslong as the antennas are electricallysound, essentially correct in the di­mensions, and we ge l a few antennas.It is primarily a recycling proj ectwhere the students arc given detailed

measurements to construct a three- orlive-element yagi antenna for 137 MHz(or 146 MHz in the earlier years), Theintention is to use as many of the"good" antennas as possihle. When theantennas finally appear, they are pre­pared with a tail of coax and drilled sothat they can he easily swapped on andoff the antenna mount. It is also wiseto put Styrofoam, corks, or tape on theends of the elements to avoid aoy eyedamage. They are then tested at schoolhy car against a local Morse practicebeacon, or some other stable signal, toroughly check gain and directionalcharacteristics. One of our best-per­forming antennas also takes the prizeas the ugliest - split and crackedbamboo with fencing wire taped to thebamboo as clements. (Hidden agenda:Recycle.)

While all this is going on, the stu­dents are being assessed to identify thebest and most interested, They will heselected as the team leaders or "passcontrollers." The pass controller willbe in charge of a team and will deter­mine the pass times, downlink fre­quencies, and look angles in advance,supervise the daily equipment setupand breakdown, run the pass, and heprepared, during a livu ass, to takeover any other student's jo b if neces­sary. It is sometimes surprising as towho the pass controllers turn out to he.They' arc not always the hest students,but can be kids with reading problems,classroom clowns, or other unlikelychoices. In any case, being a controllerhas status. and in some cases can be achild 's first real success. (Hiddenagenda : New opportunity to succeed.)

Photo 1. Cathe rine ami backup , Kate, at AOS Oil MET 3-5.

12 73 Ama. teur Radio Today· February 2002

Photo ./. Catherine with WXSATvideo output ofa large low pressurearea.

Page 14: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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The first few years , objects trackedwere various Oscars, and MfR . A num­ber of contacts were made with MfRon their packet BBS. Although it wasin the "gee whiz" category, I am notsure the studen ts always understoodthe significance of uploading a packetmessage to the MfR BBS and down­loading it on the next rev along withany rare replies. We gave up on the RSseries after 10 meter RF in the computerroom zapped a modem in one computerand also damaged the motherboard inanother. Next time, we will have aproper ground system. I seem to re­member the damage was blamed onlightning over the Easter school break.Three years ago, we migrated to the137 MHz weather sats, using WinOrbitand WXSAT software, both free overthe Internet.

The equipment used for the lastcouple of years has been : a scanner(Voiden UBC9000XL1); WinOrbit andWXSAT software; a panning and tilt­ing camera tripod tied to a triangularframe placed on the ground to preventmovement; a large cardboard circleabout 2 or so feet in diameter, withcompass directions heavily markedevery few degrees; a home-made incli­nometer to measure elevati on; a qu ickmount on top with wing nuts so thatantennas can be swapped easily; and apocket compass to set up true northagainst magnetic north. Last but notleas t is a communica tion system toget pointing information from the ac­quisi tion and track ing compu ter tothe antenna crew. Handhelds could beused, but we have always used somesort of telcphone system. The easiest istwo old telephones connected by a bitof twisted pair with an addit ionalheadphone jack at the antenna end.This is powered by four D cells in se­ries with the line. Phones arc best, asthe students like to play with them butdisconnect when hung up betweenpasses. This could be another subprojectin itself, and handled in a similar way asantenna con struction.

The inclinometer is basically a heavypointer mounted on a home-made scaleof degrees elevation. As the antenna is

Con tinued on page 14

73 Amateur Radio Toasy » February 2002 13

Page 15: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo K. Daniel and Julian at A OS 0 /1 RESURS usingIVINTRACK.

Ph oto L. Tom studying WXSAT video of (/ fro nt moving acrossAustralia. This is the downlink video.

Weather Sat Tracking isAwesome!conlinued J rom page 13

tilted , the pointer points straight down,indi cating the amount of ti lt on thedeg ree scale .

The pass controller selections areannounced as soon as possible. Thenew controllers are first trained on thesoftware and taught how to set up thecomputers for thc day. and then dr illedon quick shifts from sate llite to satel­lite and how to pred ict future passes. Itis important that the inbuilt computercalendar and clock is checked everyday, as other students seem to like totinker with the settings . Take specialcare with the AM and PM settings!(Hidden agenda: Good result, rely ongood preparation .)

Next, the contro llers learn how to setup the antenna mount, Iecdlincs, andtelephone link. Parti cular atten tionshould he paid to sell ing the comp assrose to true north. Our compass rose hasmagnetic north lightly marked in ball­point pen to help in aligning the compassrose with the magnetic compass.

Finally. the controllers complete theirtrain ing with a number of live trackingexercises . All controllers are rotatedthrough all of the positions. Six or sopasses seem to he adequate. (Hiddenagenda: Project lcadcrship/managcmcnt.)

A typical class of about 30 wouldmake up five teams consisting of onecontroller and a gro up of five students.The controller selec ts their team withthe help of the teacher. If the teams tumout to he uneven. put the shorthanded

teams near the end of the schedule.Thi s will allow any students who weresick or absent to get their chance. It isthen the jo b of the controller to trainhis learn. Occasionally one controllerwill help ano ther with the train ing.Surprisingly, the learns choose to do alot of their training on recess time and"lunch lime!

The team assignments are one passcontroller .as overa ll manager, two onthe tracking acquisition computer run­ning WirrOrb it. two on antenna point­ing, and one on the WXSAT radiodow~fi"ilk computer. I usually overseethe WXSAT computer so as to adj ustfor Doppler and do video ' restarts ifncct;s~~ry. The extra person on thetwo-person positions is to observe,prepare to rotate in, and constantly

Photo ,\1. Daniel and Julian during a "tnidtrack " change to anothersatell ite. Photo N. Sat tracking is f un!

14 73 Amateur Radio Tooev » February 2002

Page 16: 73 Magazine - February 2002

monitor the other person's work.Some job rotations can safely be donemidpass. (Hidden agenda: Teamworkis the only way this exercise can bedone.)

The controllers are instructed to tryto set up approximately six weather satpasses per day for their team's turn.Choices will be made from the NOAA,Russian MET, and RESURS satellites,with advance checks to determinewhich of the satellites are active andtransmitting on 137 MHz. Not quite soobvious is that passes must workaround school hours, assembly times,and overlapping passes, althoughquick changes to switch satellites in amarginal midpass can be fun with agood team. Work through recess orlunch has not been a problem. Caremust also be taken to select passeswith reasonable elevations to extendtrack times, and if possible, to makesure that pointing angles will not belooking through buildings.

The srudents are amazed to actuallyhear the satellite at AOS and see live

pictures from space being painted ontothe screen of the WXSAT computer asthe satellite tracks overhead. Picturequality using the Uniden scanner issurprisingly good. Cloud patterns andcoastal outlines are seen clearly. It isalso important to prepare the receiverso that the satellite can be heard overthe loudspeaker. Remember, a team isputting on their show and wants to beheard. My setup used the line audiooutput to drive the computer sound­card. Since the receiver vol ume controlhad to be turned down very low toavoid overdriving the soundcard, Iadded a variable resistor in the re­ceiver-to-soundcard patch cord to at­tenuate the soundcard input and achievea decent level of speaker audio.

A good yagi allows tracking rightdown into the weeds. Many times, theteams would be pointing at the horizonwaiting on rise time. At the instant ofrise time, we would hear the satelliteand get AOS. Nondirectional antennascould be used, but steerable antennasgive longer pass times and be lle r

results, and allow a grea ter level ofunderstanding in where the satelliteacrually is in space.

The four to six picture segments perpass are printed out and glued togetherto make a large mosaic record of thepass. Occasionally, a later pass can bejoined onto a previous pass so as to geta current picture of most of our conti­nent. The false color option onWXSAT makes the printouts evenbetter.

About halfway through the exercise,I listened to a schoolyard argument be­tween some kids during recess. Onewas saying that he got a bad deal be­cause he only got a "low EL" pass. Theother agreed that he did get a betteroverhead pass but his "look angles" at"rise time" had him pointing rightinto the school audito rium with itstin roof. It seemed to me that thesetwo had learned something and re­ally knew what it was all about. Theyactually sou!1ded like a couple of

Continued on page 57

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73 Amateur Radio Today • February 2002 15

Page 17: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Parker R. Cope W2GOM /78040 E. Tranquil Blvd.Pre scott Valley AZ 863 14[pamaco @mwaz .com]

Not Simply Another Keyer!That 's right! It 's better

Radio opera tors can send high -speed CW with a sp eed key similar to the Vibroplex"Bug," but it's even easier when th ey use a keyer with self-completing dots and dash es.

I n a strict sense, a keyer is just theswitch that is closed to turn on thetransmi tter, but usually it includes

more: It ge nerates dots and dashes.The keyer described generates a self-completing dot-space or dash-spacesequence with the momentary closureof a key. Se lf-co mp let ing means thata momen tary closure of the do t keygenerates a full dot-space sequence. A

---1 DO'

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(')

~S3 4011 yJrc

R

_v~

.,Fig. 1. (a) The keyer is built with 1110 110 -

stable multivibrators. (b) The monostablemulti vibrator uses CMOS ICs.

16 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

momentary closure of the dash keygenerates a full dash-space sequence.That is, when a dot or dash is initiatedit cannot be interrupted . The keye r re­quires an SPOT key: one contact tomake dots and the other to make dashes.

T he keycr uses two inexpe nsiveCMOS gates: a C0 400 l , a quad dua l­input NO R gate, and a C0 40 II , a quaddu al-input NA ND gate, and aMOS FET switch. A run-of-the-mi ll N­channel power MOSFET can key any­thing from a low-power QRP trans­mitter to a California kilowatt. I used aTO-220 style MOSFET to key a 15 kWcommercial transmitter.

This keyer has speeds adjustablefrom about 25 words per min ute(WPM) down to about 10 WPM. Ofcourse, you can selec t any other speedrange that suits your fancy by chang­ing R2, R3, and R6, or C I, C2 , and C3in Fig. 2. The speed co ntrol gets prettytouch y at the slow end of the co ntrolrange - that '5 why the range is lim­ited to about 2: I. Ao audio taper or logtaper pot will ease the problem of mak­ing small changes to the speed controlvoltage for obtaining slower speeds.

I suggest that for slow-speed opera­tions the cha racters be sent at 10 orIS words -per-minute, but with letters

spaced to suit the receiver 's speed.When a friend of mine went to take thetest, she couldn' t haodle 5-word-per­minute characters, so !~ VEC uppedthe speed to ten and she had no prob­lems. At 15 WPM or so you begio tohear the sound pattern tha t represeots aletter, -not the dots and dashes thatform the letter. At 5 WPM the charac­ters are so slow that you don 't hear apattern. Or at least I don't.

Thiskeyer ca n be built for less thanSIO and an evening's construc tiontime. A printed circuit board is not nec­essary; point-to-point wiring or wire­wrap wire on perfboard is just as good.While I used wire-wrap sockets, it' scertainly not required.

The keyer can run on a 9-volt tran­sistor battery or four AAA 1.5-voltcells. A power MOSFET like theIRF630 can switch a final amplifierwith 5 A of peak plate current and acuto ff voltage of 200 volts. TheMOSFET needs a gate drive of lessthan 6 V, and the current is negligible.Battery drain is less than 0.1 rnA.

The fuoctional block diagram isshown in Fig. l (a) . The timing blocksare three monostable muh ivibrators:One mono sets the time for the dot,one for the dash, and the third ooe for

Page 18: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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garden variety power MOSFET likethe IRF630 will do the job. For otherMOSFETs, choose one with VDSgreater than the tube's cut-off voltageand ID capable of carry ing the tube'speak cathode current. For solid statetransmitters, the voltage to be switchedprobably will be less than 24 volts andthe current probably a few mils. Thiscan be done with a small TO-92MOSFET like Motorola's 2N7000.

The monostable multi vibrator isbuilt around the CD4001 , a CMOSquad dual-input NOR gate, and an in­verter. The inverter is actuall y aCD401 1, a quad dual-input NANDgate, with both inputs tied together.The truth tables for the ICs is given inTable 1.

In the stable state, the inverter's in­put is Vo' When V, is greater than theIe's threshold voltage, 0.55VDO' theinverter's output is zero. The inverter'slow output is fed back to the NOR 's

CD4001 CD4011

A B C A B C

0 0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

0 0

Table 1. Truth tables.

the space. The basic monostable multi­vibrator is shown in Fig. 1(b). Timing isset by the RC product and the controlvoltage, Vc. The inverters used in themonos should all be in the same pack­age so that the timing of the three willtrack as the control voltage is varied.The spec sheets for the CMOS showsworst case threshold voltage varyingas much as ±IO%. However. when thegates are on the same chip , the thresh­olds track much better than 1%.

An N-channel power MOS FET isused as the keying switch. A common

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 17

Page 19: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Fig. 3. A MOSFETcan key the cathode ofa vacuum tube amplifier.

KEYER 4-.- - - -

inpu t. In the stable state both inpu ts tothe NOR arc low. In the tim ing state ,the inver ter 's outpu t is high and theNO R's outp ut is low. Th e "high" fedback to the NOR' s inp ut keeps theNOR' s output low after the trigger isremoved. Subse que nt triggers durin gthe limi ng period then have no effec t.

The multi vibrator is triggered by amomentary high from the key. The armof the key is high after the space fo l­lowing eithe r a dot or a space and lowduring the space period and whi le thetransmitter is " key down."

Taking the trigger inp ut of the NORgate above the threshold makes theoutput go low. This change III theNO R'$ o utput fro m VDJ.) to ground iscoupled thr ough the capac itor C to thein verter 's inp ut. Th e inverter 's outputthen goe s high to VDD' and is fcd backto the inpu t of the NOR gate whichholds the NO R output low. This co ndi­tion prevails unt il the capacitorcharges to VTH through R at which timethe inverter switches to irs stable state .

The diodes from the inverter's input toV~ clamp the maximum input voltage toV

cand per mits the inver ter 's inp ut

I Part No. Value Mfr . Part No. 1Ict. C2, ess-e 0.11lF Kernel

±10% C320C104K5R5CA

I C4 1,OOO p F Kemet±10% C315C102K5A5CA

I D1- 4 1N4148 or 1N9 14 II 0 1 IRF630 or sim ilar, see text I

Al , A7 500' Piher PT150 -504 I±20%

I A2, A3,R6680k

RC07GF684J or equal I, 5% I

I R4 20k ±5% RC07GF203J or equa l IA5 100k

AC 07GF104J or equal I±5%

A8 50' Mouser 31CN40 5 or I±2Q'o/. equal

1A9 47k ±5% RC07GF47J or equal

1

I Rl0, A l l1 meg

RC07GF 10SJ or equal I±5%

I S1 SPOTMouser 533- M201201 or

Ieoua'

S2 SPSTMouser 633-M201 101 or I

equal

I U1 CD4001Harris CD4001BE Q(

Iequal

IU2 CD40 11

Harris CD40 11BE or Iequa l

Table 2. Parts list.

18 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002

voltage to returnto V before the

c

next trigger ar-rives. The di odesca n be any smallsilicon diode ­either the IN4 148or I N 9 16 arcgood inexpensivechoices.

The tim e re­quired for the ca­pacitor to chargeto the thresholdvoltage is:

t = RC x In(l ­

YTI/V)

whe re t is the time in seconds. In is thena tural logari thm. VTH is device thresh­old, and Y, is the speed co ntro l vo lt­age. V~ mu st always be greater than

VTH'

If you' re co mfortab le wo rking withlogarithms you can skip the nex t para­graph, but if a little refresher isneeded, read on.

A logarithm is the exponent towhich the base must be ra ised to yieldthe numher. Fo r examp le, the commo nlogarithm is base ]0 and is writte n aslog, hut so metimes as log lO- Thelog 1000 =3. That is, the base 10 mustbe raised to the 3rd power to produce1000, 10' = 1000. Th e base of the natu­ral logarithm. denoted as epsilon e andwritte n as In, is 2.7 1828. To convertfrom the base 10 to base e, multiplythe common logarithm hy 2.3026, InN= 2.3026 x 10g 1ON . Most calc ulatorshave e ntries for both common loga­rithms and natura l logarithms, Just incase yo urs doesn' t, reme mber that yo ucan co nvert from com mon to natu rallogarithms by multiplying the commonlog by 2.3026.

The period of the shor tes t time, thedot or space . occurs when the contro lvoltage is VDO. The shortest tim e deter­mines the maximum keyi ng speed.

The period of a space or dot can becalculated from the standa rd word"PARIS" which is made up of 43 spaces.25 words-per-minute equates to 1075spaces per minute or 17.9 spaces persecond. Th e time of a 25 words -per­minute (WPM) space or dot is about

- v eo

56 X JO.3 seco nds. Since the multi­vibrator's minimum peri od is 0.69RC ,RC is about 80 x 10-' seconds (0. 1 ~F

and 800k) for 25 WPM. If your normalhighest operating speed is 15 WPM ,the time of a space is 93 x 10-3 secondsand RC can be changed accordingly toabout 133 x 10"3(0. 1 ~F and 1.3 mego­hm s). Th e do t and space monos ca nuse O.I ~F mult ilayer ce ramic capaci­tors . For the dash mono, a 0 .3 IlF isneeded. Three 0.1 IlF 'in-parallel arc anecono mical choice, but a 0.33 ~F ce ­ramic and an R of nOk works, too. TheRC product is the import ant concern.

A posi tive-going inpu t to the NORgate from the key triggers the "key­down" mono, dot or dash, "and startsthe timing sequence . Th e negati ve out­puts of the dot and dash NO Rs arccombined in U2D, a NAND ga te usedas a negative input OR ga te to producea positive pulse to drive the N-channelMOSFET. Frein Ta ble 1 it is seen thatU2D's output will be high if either in­put is low. Th e output is low whenboth inputs arc high - that is, whenthe monos are in their stable states.

The output of U2D is inverted inU ID whose outpu t goes high when thekey is "up" after eithe r a dot or dash.The posit ive transition of the output ofU ID is differen tiated with C4 and R5to trigger tbe space mono. Th e outputof the inverter U ID also clamps thearm of the key to gronnd du ring key­down so that neither the dot nor thedash can be triggered unti l after thefu ll sequence is completed.

Page 20: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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simple 2N3904 bipolar transistor oper­ated as an emitter follower as shown inFig. 5 can easily drive them .

F ig. 3 shows how the MOSFET cankey a typical vacuum tube final ampli ­fier. When keying a tube 's cathode, theMOSFET will be switching a voltagein the range of a hundred volts . Forsafety's sake, the switch should be lo­cated near the tube to keep the highvoltage away from the operator. '

Since the temperature near the tubeis probably high, some nominal heatsinking of the MOSFET switch maybe needed, The dissipation in theMOSFET is I cath2RDsoo" For most kilo­watt transmitters, the final's peak cath­ode current is under 3 A and theMOSFET's drain/source voltage is un­der 2 volt s, so the dissipation is a fewwatts.

Even though the duty cycle of CW islow the transistor 's thermal time con­stant is short, so that the transistor'sjunction temperature follow s the peakdissipation.Tn any event , the MOSFET

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"key-up" to "key-down" is what's im­portant. The "Tune" switch keeps thekey down to get the "key-down" voltagereading.

Adjusting the keying weights off theair with a code practice oscillator iscon siderate of others on the band. Acode practice relaxation oscillator thatcan be gated with the keyer is shown inFig. 5. The simple code practice oscil­lator shown is built around two sec ­tions of a CD401l that are keyed withthe output of the keyer U2-11. The os­cillator is gated "on " when the inputfrom U2-11 is "high" or "key-down."The frequency of oscillation is ap­proximately 1/(1.4RC). For 700 Hz Cis 0.01 JlF and R is lOOk. The unusedsections of the IC should be tied toground or VDD "

The edges of the oscillator wave ­form are very fast and can get into al­most any AM radio, so that a separateaudio ampli fier won' t be needed, usethe radio to monitor your fist. If youwant to use separate headphones, a

Fig. 2 shows the schematic of thecomplete keyer. The component valuesare given in Ta hle 2. The parts usedare commonly availahle from any elec­tronics distributor. Radio Shack Un­limited is one source and MouserElectronics is another. Fig. 4 shows thewiring of 14-pin headers that hold thepassive components. Wire -wrap head­ers and sockets for the ICs make itconvenient for wire-wrapping. Ofcourse, sockets aren 't really necessary,just convenient.

The period of a dash is the referencetime. The dash period is ideally equalto the period of three dots or spaces .The trimmers R I and R7 are adjustedto account for component tolerancesand to make the three-to-one timing, orto change the weight of keying.

Adjusting the trimmers is a piece ofcake: Connect an average-readingvoltmeter from U2-11 to ground: Putthe key in the dash position and adju stthe space trimmer R7 so that the meterindicates exactly 25 % of VDO' Thedash is "key-down," VDO' for three pe­riods of time and "key-up," zero volts, ~-----------------------------

for one period of tim e for a dut y cycl eof25%.

Adju sting the dot trimmer is equallysimple. Put the key in the dot position,and since the dot is ideally equal to aspace, adjust the dot trimmer R1 tomake the meter reading half of VDO'

That's it. The dot trimmer and spacetrimmer are set-and-forget.

It 's a good idea to make the adju st­ments with the speed control set forthe highest speed so that the meterdoesn' t try to follow the keying. Whilethe adju stments described are for theideal 1:1 dot -to-space ratio and 3:1dash-to-spaee ratio, the keying weightcan be changed by juggling the trimmersto suit your preference.

In passing, note that all digital DCmultimeters do not necessarily indi­cate average. In that case, you' ll need alow-pass RC filter between U2 -10 andthe meter. An R of I meg or more inseries with the meter and a C of 0.1 JlFor more acro ss the meter will smoothout the fluctuations and keep the meterreading steady. While the indicatedvoltage depends on the voltmeter's in­put resistance, the absolute indicationis of no concern. The relati ve value of

Page 21: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Fig. 4. The passive components can be mounted On three I-t-pinheaders for wire-wrapping.

. 6

ur-e

U1-1

U1-5

2N3904

1K

+Vdd

"" " U1-11 "' [ ra .JU1-10 ~

C3< - "4 ~ C3b

, 4 ." "s5 5 toe N ~

6 . 7

V,D4

02-

KEY

100K

O.01MF

CD4011

NOTE: PIN 7 TO GROUND; PIN 14 TO Vdd.

,--=.!....

R

0 '

4 02 ,R'

J6

C2,I

KEVE R

V<

UH

U1-J.,

Fig. 5. A code practice osc illator can be built with a CMOSCD40/ 1.

To place your ad in73ri~ 'l!?a4i6 7~

call Evelyn Garrison at425-557-9611

case should be kept below finger-t oler­able hot . Blisters aren 't desired . Asmall heat sink should keep things inbounds. The tempera lUre of the collec­tor can safely be sensed (touched)when the key is down, but when thekey is up, the transistor tab (drain)voltage is high. I feel more comfort­able touching the transistor immedi­ately after the transmitter HV is turnedoff and the HV shorted to ground witha gimp stick or shorting bar on the HVbefore reaching in to touch thctransistor's tab . Gro unding thc HV is asmart move when touching thetransistor's tab. The temp erature of thetab won' t change that much while theHV is being shorted.

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Keying a so lid state amp lifierdoesn 't require switching hig h volt ­ages and the MOSFET switch can belocated wit hin the keyer. The powerdi ssipation is a few rnilli watts, so asma ll MOS FET like Motorola'sMP E7000 is fine.

Add ing a "Tune" switch SI to keepthe final on co ntinuously while tuningcan be accomplished with an SPOTswitch that connects the gate of theMOSFET to V~o.

When the keye r is enclosed in aminibox, the front has a "Speed" controlpotentiometer R8, an "O n-Orr' powerswitch S2, a 'Tune" switch SI , and ajack or contacts for an external key.

This keyer can complement the CWfan 's station without upsetting the bud-

L- --j get or seriously det racting from oper-

ating time. The parts are avai lab lefrom Radio Shack Unlimited (RS U) atI (800) 843-7422, or Mo user Electron­ics, 958 Main St. , Mansfield TX76063, phone I (800) 346-6873. If youdon' t have the ir catalog, they' ll be gladto send you one. III

20 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

Page 22: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Iva n T. Lore nze n W4JC343 N. Tropical Trail - A205Me rritt Island FL 32953

Direct-Mount "J" Antenna for440 MHz HTs

If you're looking for better perfo rmance ...

The much-maligned rubber du ck aIltenn a is widely popular simply because it is ahandy item and is ade quate for working local area repeaters. In situa tions where y ouneed more push in your signal, a "J" aIltenna is often the most precticet solution.

ThiS usua lly requires the pres­ence of a tree or some portab lestructure to support it. On the

440 MH z hand, a simp le and very ef­fecti ve answer to the problem is a 'T'antenna that can be mou nted direc tlyon an HT. thus maki ng the system asportable as the HT itself.

Photo A. The constructi on of the matchingsection portion of the antenna,

While not as small as a rub ber duck .this antenna is not undul y cumber­some, and it gives substantial lift to theoutput of an HT. Th e overa ll length isabout 24 inches. It weighs about 5ounces. In fringe area operat ions, youcan expec t pract ical imp rovem en t overa rubber duck from poor or no copy atall to usable or maybe even solid copy.

An AEA model SW R- 12 IVfU An­tenna Analyst was used to arrive at thedimensions and for the SW R and re­turn loss data shown in Table 1. Re­turn loss is a relatively rece nt conceptin evaluating loss in antenna systemsand is defined in the ARRL Handbook2IJIJ / (page 19.4) as the reciprocal ofthe reflection coefficient in dB . Sincereflected power is always less than for­ward power, return loss is a negati vevalue , Hence. the larger the return lossfigure. the smaller the powe r loss. Itwould seem more logical to define re­turn loss as the ratio of reflected powerto forward power, expressed in dB .The standard form ulas for SWR anddecibels seem to confirm this. It willbe noted that the dim ensions of a "J"anten na do not a lways coincide withtextbook formulas . The "J" antenna isa derivative of the old "Zcpp" antenna.which used an ope n-wire tran smi ssion

line feeding the quarter-wa ve match-mg section. Everything was prettymuch straightforward and copacetic -the balanced transmission line fed aquarter-wave matchin"g"Secti on whichwas also balanced. The only departurefrom this consistency was in connectingthe matching section to the antenna,

I Freq. SWR _Return MHz ILoss, dB

- .I43. 1 5 -1 3.8

I 44. 1.4 - 15 1 II 441 1.3 - 16.6 I

442 1.2 - 20,01

443 1.1 - 26,3 I

444 I. -50,0I

445 I .o -50,0 I446 I . - 50.0 I

I 447 I .o -38,7

I 448 1.1 - 26.3

I 44' 1.1 - 24.0 II 45. 1.2 - 18.2 I

I 451 1 3 -16.6 II 452 1.4 - 15 .1 II 45 3 1.5 - 13.8 ITable 1. S WR and return loss data fo r thedirect-mount "J " antenna.

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 21

Page 23: 73 Magazine - February 2002

!!]:Ll2..SCAl{

( Su l u t l

1 _1/ 4' J. 3/ 4·

Fig. 2. Coax assembly measurements . Usea soldering iron 10 melt the insulating ma­terial. Do not pull. (Drawing not to scale.)

1 - 5/6"

Fig. 3 shows the initia l plot of an an­tenna with such random length c le ­ments, before doing any trimming . Theradiator clement was 14- 5/8" and thematching section leng'tlr was 7- 1/8 ".Th e feed po int was 1-1311 6". This in­format ion is gi ven just in case some­one may have an interest in the lo wend of the hand. You ca n trim the cle­ments later. very carefully and in smallincrem ent s. to arrive at the desiredresonant frequency.

--;;' 1~

Fig. 1. Form the "J " of no. 14 solid copper

14· 11 16"

thinwall PVC pipe with a weathe r­proof cap at the top and a PL-259 fit­ting at the bottom. The PL-259 plugsinto an SO-23 9/BNC adapter (RadioShack 278- 120). which mounts di­rectly onto a hand-held 440 MH ztranscei ver.

Spacers arc used to keep the wirecentered in the PVC: these are madehy breaking off two 3/8" x 13116"pieces of unclad perfb oard . Each piecewi ll have three holes by seven ho les.Th e hole in the ce nter will be enlargedon one piece for the radiating c leme nt.On the other piece, two holes. about13/32" apart. one on each side andequidistant from the ce nter hole. willbe en larged for the matching stub. Usea 1/16" dri ll to enlarge the holes in thespacers. pushing the drill back andforth a few times so that the # 14 wireis a snug lit. Snip off the co rners andthen snip off the pointed ends of thespace rs so they will fit ve ry loosely in­side the PVC pipe. No fil ing will henecessary unless you wish to smooththe rough edges.

Straighten a piece of # 14 solid cop­per wire about 3 feet long, by hand, sothat it is reasonabl y straight. aod thencla mp one end in a we ll anchored viseor some solid object. Then. with ahefty pair of pliers at the other end.give it a sharp tug. and that will fini shthe straightening. Make a V-be ndabou t 7 inches or so from one end. bylayin g it across the shank of a 5116"drill bit. Use a pair of diagonals to cutthe radiator leg about 2 ft. from the V­hend . Use a file to round and smoothenthe ends of the wire to facilita te install­ing space rs. Before yo u make the otherce ntering bend s, push the spacers forthe ma tchi ng stub and the rad iator ele­men t onto the wire. On the matchin gsection. place its space r abo ut 5- 1/2 "fro m the Ll-be nd . On the rad iator ele­ment. place its spacer about '19 inchesfrom the U-bcnd. A snug lit is desi r­able so that the spacers w ill remain ina horizontal positio n on the wire andnot flop aro und. After the spacers arcin place. make the double bend in theradiator e lement for ce ntering justabove the match ing sec tion. Next,measure and cut the matching sectionand radia tor lengths slig htly longerthan the dimen sions shown in Fi g. 1.

which was a half-wave wire co nnec tedto one side of the matching section.The other side of the match ing sec tionwas le ft floating. A lthough no bal­anced -to-unbalanced transfo rmer de­vice was used. the antenna worked andserved its intended purpose .

In 'T ' antennas. amateurs generallyuse coax, which is an unbalanced line .to fee d the matching sectio n which is abalanced quarter-wave line. and oneside o f this line is connec ted to an un­balanced load co nsisting of a singlehalf-wave wire end fed. In some appli­cations. s uch as this particular antenna,physica l co nstraints do not permit us­ing a balun to provide properdccoup ling. The resu lt is that co mmoncurrents intermin gl e and neither the ra­diator nor the matc hing section, noreven the coax line . knows where thecurrents of one stop and the ot her be­gin. Co nsequently. the physical dim en­sions of the three elements of thesys tem become interdependent. Th atbeing the case . varying co mbinationsof dimen sion s will resu lt in varyingresonant frequencies with varying S\VRbandwidths.

The antenna is made of no . 14 solidcop per wire formed as shown in F ig. 1.The wire is enclosed in II2-inch22 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002

1'11 010 B. The pe rfb oard before and oftersnippin g off the comers and ends so theywill fi t loosely inside the PVC pipe.

Page 24: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Continued on page 5 7

The PVC goes over the knu rled re­tain ing collar on the PL-259 connec­tor. In Fig. 1 the p lastic tuh ing and thePVC pipe arc shown alongside the an­tenna assemb ly for clarity. A RadioSh ack #2 78- 120 adapter fi nishes theco nstruction. Dcpending..u pon the par­ticu lar PVC pipe you usc. it may ormay not fit snugly onto the PL-259

Photo C The coal; assembly. spot-solderedto the matching section.

Ph oto D. The finish ed antenna mou nted onthe HT.

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 23

440

i :1-·....--! . _ -

' 50

viny l. It is imp or­tant that you use asoldering iron tomelt the insu la­tion material fromthe wire. If yo utry to strip andpull on the insu la­tion this close to

the PL-259 fit­ting, yo u run thever y rea l risk ofdislodging the cen­ter conductor from

the pin on the PL­259. Sec Fi g. 2.Slip the 7/8" pieceof clear plastic

tubing over the braid and the centerco nductor leads. aud push it tightagai nst the meta l sho ulde r on the PL­259. You ma y ha ve to stretch the holein the tubing by using a tapered rod.tool. or ballpoint pen so that the tubi ngwill fit tight against the PL-259. Laythe Ll-bend of the ma tch ing section onthe black viny l that covcrs the coax.and butt the V-bend of the match ingsection against the end of the plastictubing.

Watch carefully for any loosestrands . and check spac ing so therewon' 1 be unwanted shorts. Orient thecoax so that the center conductor isvertically above the braid where it ex­its the plastic tubing. Bend the bareends of the ce nter co nducto r and thebra id Icad to for m right a ng les about3116" from their ends, so they willtouch the matching sec tion reed pointsat li ght angles at exactly 1-13/16"abo ve the bottom of the U'- bcnd. Just a

spot-solder connec­lion is advisableand adequate.

To ensure thatthe spacers willstay put in theirrespective posi­tions on the # 14wire, usc a tooth­pick and apply asmall da b of clearsilicone caulk ontothe wire where itpasses through theholes in the spacers.

435

...

430

FREQUENCY . "'H z.

'46FREQUENCY . MHz .

...

425

'4Z

I i,

1.8

1.4

1. 6

1. 2

1.0

420

'"' .0 n.,",,-.----r~-,-,--,__,__,_rT--,---,--,-...,--,--,

- ' - tj ~ i ! iril l' li -H-+: ' :I., f- ' " I I '-1 I I I R' 1-

--1; i : ; I- 1-1 1-: 1- r · .. .1. 6 - -~- ~ j.__j4 'r r i 111- . :

"i I-- ~ -:. ~ ~-t ' T ; tl1~ . .1.4 K::i - - , , . i I I I I : I- j I / '?N- - . , I' I I ' ~_.J _1.2 +-+-~~' i ' . , I ' .- I j t <-- ~ ~ • -r- : rl t~;' . .

~'~l - r ·T ·· ··- ; - -......:-" t '1.0

'40

Fig. 3. Initial plot 01 1 an a lltelllla, before trimming elementlengths. See text.

Fig. 4. Plot ofSWR val lies ill Table 1.

The co ax asse mb ly co nsists of ashort piece of RG-58 with a PL-259co nnector attached (cut fro m one endof a Rad io Shack #278 -968) , and ashort piece of nylon-mesh-rein forcedplastic tubing. This particular tubing isused for high-pressure lines and is soldat PVC supply stores. The inside diam­eter is about 1/4 "; the outside diameteris a little over 7/16". In cutting andtrimming the RG -58, be very carefulwith the knife and co nstantly watch forloose strands . Cut the coax at a po intso that the overall length from the tipof the center pin to the cut is 3-314".

Th is is the fina l dimension of the over­all leng th of the PL-259/R G-58 coaxassembly. Remo ve the black viny louter covering to a point 5/8" from themetal shank. Comb the braid OUI.

straighten the strands. and twist theminto a stra ight. round lead. Carefullyremove the insulation on the centerco nduc tor to within 1/2" of the black

Page 25: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Hugh Wells W6WTU14 11 18th Sl.Manhattan Beach CA 90266-4025

New Life for a Pierson KE-93Part 1 of3.

Once upon a tim e, th ere was a miniaturized m ultim ode com m unica tions receiverdeveloped for h am radi o durin g th e 195 7 tim e period. It was calle d a KE-93, de ­sign ed an d built by Pierson in Burbank, California. This receiver had little competitionin size and capability , an d yet it sold for $199 (power supplies were ex tra). This pricewas very competi tive with those of other receivers within the field at the time.

My friend, Johnny WB6HYR,loaned me his Pierson KE­93 to see what [ couId do

with it since the receive r had been outof service for many years. As rccei vedby me. it was bad ly wea there d and ap­peared to be an abandoned orpha n.Having seen them years back, but nothaving worked with one, left me with

the feeling or"w anting to examine thebeast." Workin g with the Pierson hasbeen quite an experience and one that Ihadn' t anticipa ted at all. Since [ amquite familiar with tubed recei vers ofthe era. I reall y expec ted the Pierson tobe comparable. What a surprise ' Itturned out to be BEITER than the run­of-the-mill I 950s-era communications

,recei vers. In fact, in running compa­rable tests on it versus the newer solid­state receivers, the Pierson performedat very clo~c to the sam.c....[>arameters asthe newer gear.

I had no information on the Pierson,so everything had to be "discovered"as I ;vorked my way thro ugh it. In ad­dition to the receiver, I also received

" " "I'''' '''' ''' '"'' ~_ I"""'",," ".~" '" ,... .~.,,"'" h"'-..""""~... ~

......, ~ ...,,,..'".....""-",,_...,,,.- .".;>" " "~"""'r<\

" ""~"""'k~ '"~' ''' ''' .,. • •• t,'' , ...,l l .. .,".. ... r~'. ,~"":',~_.--~ ......o:..,a...

. "'.... ~1i">1 _---

.,...._..........­~, .. "'<"' ,,~~

.,.. ~-",..""""""''''", '''''':," "~'" ..... '''''''"',

. h ;2., ' '' 'O> Ul;.-"""---.""' ....-........_.,

\"';: , ", ,,,,, , ,,"'·,~.,,b'lr ,~ .,,,,,,,,·,,,,

"".' F."""'b ,.;I<'" I,~.~, . ~.;~.. " ,~. ,~" ," .....~.

f:.,,'"'.~,·_""''''''. ,''''.''''" ..K''''1Wo.,.j"" " ....~.... , " , ~ .... ;".~""'''

,"""'" ,_..."" I ' .. ~ .., _~ .-••~"" · _.~IU.I".""."",......J _>uf! ""_ ,....<.<l.l., ~" ...,...,,~_ .....~ -- _ ~

.-..-.. .,...,. ~.u. ..~. ..~,.,..,. ... ""'_ ."' < :s,.....~ ""..l.-=-.,._ I __~....

".,.. ~L>'''''''. , ~... ,.~-... l & "'>!"''''-

communication s rece Iver

Ahll-n~l~~ lH.h~ AII-hldtfl!*lJ~C<IIIOaS Imite! k1 ~ S111~. "~~i Pamlt!

new, Improved

PIERSON KE-93

Fig. 1. A 1957 advertising page for thePierson KE-93 communications receiver: Photo A. Front panel vie,v of the "VIPAK" Pierson mobile power supply.

24 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

Page 26: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo B. Inside top view of the mobile powe r supply.

Ph oto C. Inside bottom vieH' of the mobile po wer supp ly.

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 25

and app eared on the transformer's sec­ondary as spikes . A sma ll value bu ffercapacitor was se lected (s imilar to tU I1­jng) to reduce the overshoot, or spik­ing. condition, Voltage spiking is hardto filler. so smoothing it aided the out­put filtering process . In-addition to re­ducing the spiking on the secondary. thebuffer also reduced the sparking that oc­curred ..between the vibrator's primarycontacts. Contact arcing wou ld destroy avibrator in a short period of time. somaking sure the buffer capac itor was

crea te a ncarsquare wave ofAC power for thetransformer pri­mary. Sharp cor­ners were devel­oped by the vibrator

synchronous VI­

brator whic h notonly chops theapplied OC power,but a lso has theseco nd se t ofcontacts synchro­nized to "rectify"the output , so tospeak.

Judging from thedesign, I suspectthe supply was de­signed as a uni­versa l type suit­ab le for lise withmany applications.As designed, thesupply's Ilexibil­ity allowed it tobe used with ei­ther a positi ve ornegati ve baueryground system inaddi tion to operating on either a 6- or12-volt system.

To increase the application flexibility,it appears that a built-in connector couldbe used to change the DC output volt­age parameters as well. I didn 't inves­tiga te that possibility, howe ver. For usewith the Pierson, no connections orjumpers to the connector were required.For the Pierson KE-93 application, thesupp ly co nfig urat io n wa s accom­plished through the two 6-pin Amphenolconnectors mounted on the front panel.

The vibrator par-ameters arc shownon the schematicfor reference. Vi­brators were avail­ah le from twosources, James andRadiart , and theywere interchange ­able in this sup­ply. Of interest isthe fact that thevibrator operatedalliS Hertz to

Power su pplies

I' ll open the discussion with the mo­bile power supply (sec Photos A, B,and C) becau se it is available as par t ofthe original equipment. However, it' sunlikely that anyone would usc eitherthe mobile supply or the receiver in amobile application in today's ham en­vironme nt. Studying the moh ile sup­ply prov ides some insight into thedesign thinking that look place in the1950s era:

The schematic for the mob ile powersupply is shown in Fig, 2. Two rectifi ­cation types were used in mobi lepower supplies during the period , withone type using a lube rectifi er. Theother type, as used in this supply, is a

the mob ile and base power suppliesthat were sold as compa nion items,The biggest challenge for me was todevelop as much information regard­ing the receiver as migh t be needed 10

gain an understanding of it as well asrestore it to an operational state. I didlocale one of the or iginal publ ished ad­vertising pages for the Pierson andhave included that here - shown inFig. 1.

My approach to the restoration pro­cess was to open the power suppliesand make sure they were operat ionalsince the base power supply, al least,would be required to opera te the re­ceive r. I drew up schema tics for bothpower supplies as a statl er and willshare them dur ing the discussion of thesupplies. Drawi ng up a schematic forthe receiver tur ned out to he nearly im­possible because of the very compactnature of the physical design. I wasable to obtain sufficie nt inform ation tobecome comfor lable with the knowl­edge obtained. What I learned aboutthe recei ver will be shared du ring thediscussio n of it.

Before starting into a discussion onthe power supp lies, let me say thatanyone ow ning a Pierson KE-93 com­municati ons receiver is very fortunate.Yes, the receiver is worth its weig ht inperformance. True, it uses " fire bottles"and it gets hot. but it still performs mar­velou sly well for its age . Though I'measily impressed, the performance ofthe rece iver speaks for itsel f.

Page 27: 73 Magazine - February 2002

contro l circuit co nsists of a 6BJ6 tubeused as a variable resistor in one leg ofa bridge circuit. The meter will readzero when the hridge is balanced. Thecontrol gri d (pin 1) of the tube is con­nected to the AVC circuit within the re­ceiver. With an increase in incomingsignal strength, the AVe voltage willswing in a negative direction, increas­ing the tube 's resistance and causingthe meter to swing up scale.

One of the things that I discoveredwith the Pierson was that the "S" ­meter responds quite accurately to thestrength of an incoming signal that Ipro vided from a calibrated signal gen­era tor. The meter rises one "S"-unitfor each 6dB of signal voltage levelincrease. I checked the meter indica­tion at both S-9 and 54dB over S-9 tosee how well it tracked, and the meterindications did track .

Whil e bringing up the power supply,the two wircwo und calibration potstha t set the meter limits were dirt y, cre­ating an interm iuent meter operation.Rotating the pots back and forthslightly eleaned up the contacts andstabilized the meter. Of course, mov­ing the pots upset the meter 's ca libra­tion, so I had to repeat the S-9 and54dB over S-9 calibration to restorethe ac:cu:~acy.

Before leaving the base power sup­ply, let me describe brietl y the processthat [ used to prepare the supp ly for theapplicat ion of AC power. As I' ve al­ways said, it 's more than j ust a littlescary to apply AC power to a supplythat hasn 't been powered up for seve ralyea rs.

The one techni que I' ve found thatwork s nearl y every time follows thissimple procedure that is perform ed toprotect the supply:

(I) Measure the DC resistance of theB+ line. A resistance value of 10kohms or higher is desired . (a) If the re­sistance is higher than 10k, then thechan ces of damage occurring is mini ­ma l with the application of power. (b)If the resistance is lower than 10k, ex­treme care must be taken . The outlinedprocedu re deserihed here can be at­tempted, but monitoring is definitelyrequi red . Changing the filter capaci­tors may be a necessity if they fail to

'"'50"+ 3~~i v-: t S-A saIt" ~ ell. 1B

."

F 'LT fI~u •• ", r

'SO..A. "s"Mt TfR _C .. WNfH:TOlt •

-szaev

47K

"K

, .. ,,~ c ... . " .. ........,.,..,.,..

measures near 220V and is provided tothe receiver through a power cable at­tached to the power supply. AC powerand heater voltage is switched at thereceiver through the power cable.

For ham applications, the receivercan be placed on standby during trans­mit through the connector mounted onthe rear of the supply. Typically, trans­mit re lay contacts were used to sw itchthe HV center-tap to gro und during re­ceive. A switc h mounted on the frontpanel of the power supp ly is used toperform the standby function manually.

Included within the base power sup­ply is the speaker along with the "S"­meter and its control circuit. The meter

~o

IISw"t

t. )v...c +:-- -'

."

~ q~', ~

o R.£A R Qlti t.:

1\£110)"[ STl;II3t

."

~Y .. (I<"'.",~os ",6•. ,, 10'.I. V~Ll H Yl ....~' f,U Fol .· ,- ,T Y115 Ii i:10 A c" .. TIl(T:;

,J",..,U J' I. S I"'!hOl~ 'T s"u~ , r.rr ---,

P~''''UY<c ,' UeT,

r--1=;:::l:=W't::=-

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram fo r the KE~93 companion mobile power supply. This supplyI\'OS design ed for 6- and l Zsvolt operation, and it accommodates a positive or negativebattery ground system. Connec tor "A" is a female and connecto r "8" is a male.

The base power supply designed foruse with the Pierson KE-93 is conven­tional, as shown in Fig. 3 and PhotosD, E, and F. AC power is transformedfrom 115VAC to 500V for the center­tapped HV secondary, 5V for the recti­fier filament, and 6.3V for thereceiver 's tube heaters. With the re­ceiver as a load , the B+ supply voltage

Base su pply

"tuned" properl y was critical. Becauseof the noise created by the vibra tor, ex­tensive filtering was imperative to pro­vide a nearly pure DC output for thereceiver. Shielding was required to keepthe emitted RF noise to a minimum.

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram f or the KE~93 compan ion base powe r supply. A speaker and"S"-meter circuits are included withi ll the supply.

26 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

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Photo D. From panel \'iew of tile Pierson base power supply. Tile"S "-rne te r and manual transmit standby switch are sllO\I'II.

PIERSON K£ 93

reform pro perly using the followi ngprocedure.

(2) Conne ct a HV DC voltmeter tothe B+ line. Be sure the receiver is d is­co nnec ted from the pow er supply d ur­ing th is procedure.

(3 ) Using a light bulb connected inseries with the power line to the po we rsupp ly to act as a "safe load; ' use aVariac to contro l the amount o f ACvoltage applied .

(4) Raise the line vo ltage in small in­crements un tiI the vo ltme ter hegins tosho w a value of abn ut 50 vo lts for thePierson supply.

(5) Without rescuing the Variac,monit or the B+ vo ltage value whileobserv ing for any vo ltage change. Asthe fi lter ca pac itor's dielectri c reforms.

the vo ltage acrossthe capacitor shouldrise.

(6) W hen thevoltage stabilizesafte r a rise, in­crease the Variacto ohta in anothe r50 volts and moni­tor the value for sta­hilization at somehigher level.

(7) Continue thesteps outlined in4 thro ugh 6 un tilthe B+ voltagevalue reaches about+250 vo lts for thePier son supply.

(8) Allow the B+voltage to remain

at 250V for at least an hour beforeconnecting the supply to the receiver.

(9) With the recei ver attached and he­fore applying full B+ voltage to it. moni­tor the B+ 1ine voItage and ra ise thevo ltage slowly. The objective is to deter­mine that the recei ver is capable of han­dling the voltage without damage.

P roblem s found

During the pro cess of bri nging upthe power supply and the receiver, Iran across a number of problems.Eachhad to be resol ved before thc receiverwas deemed "good" and rea dy to go .I'll list the items here and d iscuss themfurther as they apply to the subject.

( I ) Po wer supply filte r ca pacitorsrequired reformi ng.

(2) Dirty and corroded plug connectors.(3) The power switch attached to the

vo lume control failed .(4 ) Heaters of tub es V3 and V4

fa iled to light.(5) Fou nd a cut 2W resistor lead

connected to the heater circu it of theVFO oscillato r (V 3).

(6 ) A crac ke d 12J.1 F/25V e lectrolyticcapac ito r connec ted to V9 's ca thode.

(7 ) Dried out filter capac itor in thecathode of V 12.

(8) One 4.7k resistor had changedvalue tu 9k ohms.

(9) Th e d ial cord path was dirtycausing the dial cord to jump track.

(10) Chassis was bad ly rusted .(I I) Exterior of the cabinet and di al

fac e were dirt y and part iall y corroded.( 12) T he meter S ET pots were

d irty.(1 3) 11,e tun ing capac itor and turret

sha ft bearings requi red lubri cation .(14) All of the po tentio mete rs we re

noisy/dirty and requi red cleaning.

C omments

Starting with a piece of unknownequipme nt such as the Pierson KE-93 ,with its complexities, ~asqu i tc an expe­rience ami challenge. Nea rly every steptoward restoration had to go throug h a"discovery" process where sufficient in­forma tion could he developed to en­hance an understand ing QLwhat wasgomg on.

Pari 2 of this series will con tinuewith the problems encountered andpreparing the receiver to ope rate, fa

Photo E. Inside top vie\\' of the buse pOlve r supply. The two "S "­meter calibration pars are visible.

Pho to I,: Inside bottom view of the base pow er supply. Note theneatness oj the assem bly operation.

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 27

Page 29: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Ke nneth Pietrueha WA20KZ610 Spri ngfield Ave.Cranford NJ 07016[wa20kz@ya hoo.eom]

Lamps from TubesFor f un and profit - and gifts!

I ha ve alway s had a spot in my heart for tubes. You know that old saying, "Real radiosglow in th e dark." I k now that transistors are h ere to stay, b ut I do de rive somepleasure from looking at a large tube, seeing the big graphite plates, an d looking downfrom the top at th e grid wires. Try doing tha t with a transistor.

My shack already had many ofmy favorite tuhes mountedon nice pine wood bases.

These were conversation pieces to saythe least, especially with the youngerset (which at my age seems to includeeverybody).

Photo A . My fi rst lamp - Gild my fa vorite- is madefrom (/// 813 tube.

28 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

Walking through the electrical de­partment at our local Home Depot, Ispotted a "Make-A-Lamp Kit forBottles," and it dawned on me that Imight have a better way of showing offthose tubes sitting in my shack. I wasgoing to make a lamp.

Getting sta rted

A Philadelphia company namedAngelo distributed the kit that I startedwith. I wasn't sure how I was goingto do this, hut at least I had a start ingpoint. The kit came with the elcc tri­cal fixture and line cord, as well as

Photo II. A beautiful RCA logo Oil m )" 8 /3tube.

d ifferent- size rubber plugs that weresupposed to hold the assembly in thebottle. Of co urse, I wasn't going to usc

it this way. so I had t"""adapt things abit.

The first lamp that I built used my8131ube. I was already displaying thistube in the shack. If you look at PhotoB, you will see that thc.uube has a

Pho to C. The tithe mounted 011 the ba seinside the harp .

Page 30: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo G. Lamp made fro m a 3-500Z

Continued on page 3 0

fix ture. the, wire passes out the hottomthrough the threade d insert. and in the.case or a regular lam p it fina lly goesout the bottom or the base. If you don 'tbuy the kit , you will ha ve to drill asmall ho i!, and add' .Jl_ small rub bergrommet. I found a large selection of

Photo H. Lamp made[rotn a ll 8 /4 tube,

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 29

some how the ligh t soc ket and shadeabo ve it. I dr illed anoth er two holes inthe base about I inch from eithe r sideof the tube and po shed the ends of theharp into the wood. Looking at P hotoC , you ean see how the harp fits o icelyaround the tube. Each step brou ght mea little closer to my lamp '

I wasn ' t exactly sure of the best wayto mou nt the ligh t sock et. In the lightki t was a brass 118 IP thread locknutand a small piece of thread ed pipe . Itook a heavy-duty soldering iron andso lde red the locknut to the top of theharp as shown in P hoto D. The pipeconnected the ligh t fixture to the top ofthe harp . Nex t, I slipped one of therubber plugs that ca me with the kitover the pipe to hide the expo sedthreads. Also incl uded in the ki t was anice-looking gold piece wi th a hole inthe ce nter that was referre d to as achec k ring. It 's a litt le larger than aqu arter , and it fi ts nicely over the sol­dered nut on the top . I used the ch eckring to hide the solde ring job on thenu t.

You could probabl y make tbe lampby going into an y good lamp depart­men t and jus t buying wha t you need.O ne of the th ings the lamp kit give syou is a light fixture with a small holeon the bouom for the line cord 1<) passthrough . If you j ust buy a regular ligh t

II

I

IrI

I

beau tiful RCA logo. The base of thetube has a unique se rial number, andthe date of manu facture was Apri l194 1. With its hea vy-duty co nstruc ­tion a nd graphite p lates . it was qui tea conve rsation piece.

Cons tructing the lamp

W he n I bought the lamp kit , I alsopurch ased the metal frame that out­lines the tube . In lamp circl es , thisframe is known as a harp What I visu­alized was the tube inside the harp . an d

Photo D. Solder the nut 11';111 the threadedpipe to the top of the harp.

Photo E. The light fix ture mounted to theharp. Photo 1': The completed lamp.

Page 31: 73 Magazine - February 2002

' NT' IRIi

.'

Pho to I. The author j' shack is well lit in more ,rays than OIlC. Photo J. WA20K2.

Part number 70220 is a n 8-inc htwo-pi ece detachable lamp harp . 1ad ded a package o f fo ur brass lock­nuts . lI8 IP thread. Angelo part nu m­ber 70620. a nd an 8-p ieee a ssorte d1/ 8 IP threaded stee l nipp le . number70 150.

The bottle kit , the harp. a block ofwood. a light bulb. the lamp shadc , andyour favor ite tube is all that you willneed .

What d id it cos t?

These lamps arc a ll un ique . If yo uhave a co llection or o ld tu bes, youcan make some nic e g ift s__.! he lampkit is less th an $6. a nd the price of aharputiout $2.

Add SOITIC ex tra nu ts and some ex ­tra thread ed pipe and yo u' re in the$ 12 ran ge . If you have to buy thebase . we ' re talki ng o f anothe r $ 1.50.tops . The mos'i ex;c nsive sing le itemwa s th e lampshade at $7. You shouldbe able to keep the fina l cost un der$20.

I know th at there arc m an y ta lentedpeople out there who will figure outa better way to make tube lamps. orma yb e ev e n a better way to di sp laythese relics of the past. W hen youfi ni sh your lam p. please E- ma i l m e api ct ure .

I hope you have as muc h fun as Ihave had in build ing these lamps.They go toge ther qu ickly. So even ifyou don ' t need m orc th an one, youca n give the rest away as gifts. fa

Har dware

W he n I was ready to drill the holes forthe tub e pins. I go t a piece of carbo npa pe r from one of the sec retaries. Iplaced the tube on top of the carbonpaper and ge ntly pu shed do wn . leavingnice marks where the pins were togo. I used an old piece of pine to d rillout first so that I could get the d ia m­eter of th e holes correct on the fina lpie ce .

Rem ember that you do not have tobuild yo ur lam p exactly as I did. Takea chance if you sec something a litt led ifferent. You can' t really lose any­thing. The parts arc relatively chea p.and as long as you don' t drop the tube,you can play all yo u want until you getthe lam p to look the way yo u wa nt.

We pay SCASHS

(well. check)for artic les!

SEND FOR ··HOW TO WR ITE FOR 73··

As I said ea rlier, 1 found AngeloBro the rs by accid en t. T he company islocated at 12401 McNulty Road.Ph iladelphia PA 19154. Wh en I co n­side red writing this article. I wanted tomake sure tha t the parts wo uld beavailable. I sent E-mail and inquired ifthey so ld direct. 1 was told' that if 1wanted a local di stributor. I should ca ll(800 ) 999-22 26. Th eir Web site is atIwww.angclobro thers .com ].

The kit that I purchased was their---------------1 part numher 700 15. "Make-A-Lamp

Kit for Bott les" The kit comains theon-off light socke t with a line co rd , aset of hott le ada pters . which plug in tothe mouth of the bou le, a steel nipple .a lock nut, and a check rin g.

Som e helpful hints

When you arc ready to mount yourtube on a wooden base. visit your localcraft shop, I go t nice clean pine base sfor anywhere fro m 50 ce nts to $ 1.50.

Lamps from Tubescont inued from page 29

Angelo kit s and accesso ries at Ho meDepot and Ace Hardware.

Harps come in different sizes oflengths and wid ths ~ ge t the dimen­sions of the tub e that yo u want to usebefore you go to buy the parts. I alsobought extra brass locknuts becausethey we re larger than the on e thatca me with the ki t an d 1 th ou ght itwould be eas ier to sol de r it to the to pof the harp.

To co mplete the lamp. a lampshadeis needed. The type of shade yo u needis the one that clips over the light bu lb.I bought mine at a local Target storefor ab out seven doll ars.

My shack has three lamps. Thelamp in P hoto G was made fro m a 3­500Z and was the most interesti ng. Ihad to c ut the harp where it bends.The o ther lamp . in P hoto H. wasma de fro m an 8 14 tub e th at alsogives a neat appea rance .

30 73 Amateur Radio Toaev » February 2002

Page 32: 73 Magazine - February 2002

J im Bassett W1RO/77420 Silver Leaf WayLas Vegas NV 89147[w1 [email protected]]

LOPs to Think AboutCome aboardfor a great surplus find.

Navy CW star ted out with its own operating sty le an d furniture. Qui te a while ago, Iwas lo oking for an old U.S. Navy ship board CW opera ting table to possibly add to myham shack. Having been a Navy radiom an for 20 years, I'd stacked lots of stu ff on topof these old tables. I th ough t it would be practical for s tacking equipment while stillallowing me the freedom to operate below the equipment.

Photo A. This is the condition the table was in upon arrival at its new home.73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 31

W here to start? My first orderof business was to researchwhere one of these tables

could be located. Since there are sev­eral Navy salvage yards around theworld, it would not be easy to checkthe catalogs of each one every monthuntil such a table appeared. TheInternet provided no leads at all. Thelocal library was no better.

Next choice was QST. Yep, [ sent ina Stray looking for information [romanyone about such a table. The day be­fore I received my QST in Nevada, myphone rang with the first touch of in­formatio n. A ham in Maine called meto tell me he might be able to get acopy of the U.S. Navy blueprints forme so I could have one built. Wow.what a break! It seems he had been ashipyard worker there in Maine andknew exactly what I was talking about.Within a week, a copy of the plans ar­rived. The official Radio OperatingDesk Plans are now in my ham shack.

Within a week of QST hitting thewestern states, my E-mail was floodedwith all kinds of offers of informat ionabout this desk. Sai lors or former sail­ors all over the country were sendingme E-mail, cards, and letters. Sometold me about their experiences during

various wars. Some sent pictures ofNavy and Coast Guard operators eithersending or copying code. It was like afloodgate had opened for about amonth. The E-mail that topped it offcame from San Diego, Cal ifornia."I've got one of those LOPs (LocalOperating Positions. as the Navycalled them) that's been in my garagefor 30 years. I f you want it. come getit. " Paydirt!

After a few E-mai l exchanges, it wasdetermined that this was exactly what Iwas looking for. In March 2000, Icombined a business trip with a pickupof this great little desk':-

The story. as I have it, goes like this.The desk was LOP # 1 on the USSBunker Hill CV-17, decommissionedin 1947. Apparently it had been ac­quired and moved to this garage toserve in his ham shack. :Others I' ve

Page 33: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo H. The tieadphone jact:box is located 011 the right table leg.

tal ked with te ll me that this ship. al­though decommissioned. had beenused as a test bed for various projectsin San Diego for man y years .

None the less, the table ends up in mytrailer and heads up interstate 15 toLas Vegas. Nevada. and its new home.

First stop is in the garage for clea n­up and possibly to be refurbished , See­ing how it had been in a seas idecommunity garage for 30 years , it hadobvious green stuff growing on thedra wer handles. and the paint on top

wo uld oeed to bereplaced. The greenlinoleum. used forthe desktop, needodto he cleaned or re­placed. as it hadtape residu e andwas covered withyears of usc . Thewiring had to bechecked and tested.

First I had tom atch the paintas c losely to theori gina l as pos-sible. The Nevada

desert ob viou s ly doesn ' t have a Navysupply store anywhere handy and Iwa nted to make sure the paint was ex ­act ly the same color. The solution wasa simple trip to the local hard warestore with one or the small she lvesfrom the desk for them to match, Theypu t the she lf und er the spectrographand within minutes we had a match .

Let' s sec . we have the desk . paint .elec tric dr ill with wire brush, spraypainter, m ulti me ter, paint rem over,ro ll of plasti c d rop cl oth. screwdriver,

wre nch, Pine So l" , brown paper withmasking tape, and a ga rage to hold itall du ring the project.

Next step is to clean it up to sec whatwe are working with. Pine Sol thc en­tire desk. Seco nd, rem ove the top sec­tion from the desktop . With the twopieces separated, it will be eas ier towork with.

Workin g with the top sec tion only. itwas a mat ter of cleaning and scrapinglonse pain t off. Fro m the picture,Photo A, you can see the top has al­ready lost some or its paint over theyea rs. Ha ving removed all thc easystuff, it was time for the paint removerfor the very top she lf only. All thepaint on the sides and supporting wallswas le ft alone. Taking the top down ( 0

bare metal, prepp ing it. and then re­paintin g it on ly too k a couple of da ys. Ipain ted the top section except fo r theback. which was in perfect conditio n(so [ le ft it alone) .

Th e lower desk portion looked like itwas going to be a real job, Th e rightside linoleu m had some of the old ee l­lulo sc tape rema ins imbedded into it.Wha t to usc" Well, whe n in doubt startwith full strength Pine Sol and elbo w

'--

Photo C. Table Ill/assembled, taped, papered, and readyf or painting.

32 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

Ph oto D. Reinstalled Bakelite control panel with USSMississinewa straight key and bug plugged ill .

Page 34: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo E. Finished table with equipment installed ill the radio shack.

MAliAHeil

PATCO JIMRAM SEY

PO WERPORT;\I IRAC LE

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of equipment, spraygun in hand. Painton the first coatwas finished in30 minutes. Then ,next day, anoth er30 minutes of paint­mg and it wasnearly compl eted.

Th e Bakelitee lectrical panel/keymount (Photo D),which was re­moved pnor topainting, was veri­lied to be in work­ing order, with theexception of theOn/Off switch.Thiswas not required,so it was not re­wired. It was usedto remove high

voltages from thekey when not in usc. Clean theBakelite with good 01' Pine Sol. Usccontact cleaner to shine up the electri­cal work ing parts and the speed keyjack. Headphone j acks mounted on theleg of the desk (Photo B), worked per­fectly, Interesting to note: Upon open­ing the headph one jack box the insideslooked brand-new. The only addi tionto the wiring was a plug to fit into theback of the radio speaker jack. It wasnecessary to repl ace the straig ht keythat was not the original, with a keyfrom the USS Mississinewa, AO-144.In 1970 , while I served on the USSMississinewa, the CW desks in radiotwo, the transmitter room, were bein grem oved and thr own ove r the side intothe Mediterranean. The First ClassRadioman in charge of the projectasked me if I wanted the key. Ofco urse I did. I was going to ge t myham license someday. Now the key hasa good home.

After fini shing the painting and wir­ing, I moved the two pieces of the deskto an upstairs ham shack. The deskwas too large to fit through the door inone piece. We had to tum the bottomsection on its side to [ i t through thedoor. Once inside the shack, it was re­asse mbled using all necessary hard­ware (P hoto E). The miracle came

grease. Hey, what do you know" Itworked. Both sides were cleaned thesame way. Sometimes the tougherstains had to have the Pine Solon themfor 30 minu tes or so, but it worked.

The handles or the drawers, being anice moldy gree n co lor, were simplywire bru shed using the elec tric drillwith an adapter. The green new otT thehandles. Inside the drawers was just amatter of scraping paint to smooth outprevious scratches. Original modelshad an ashtray built into the leftdrawer. This drawer did not have one. Ibelieve it was there originally. Thisdesk, bein g from an aircr aft carrie r,also did not have the eyeho lts for thestrap on the legs. Th e strap was used tohold the operator 's chair in place. Itwent from one leg, behind the chairand back to the leg on the other side.During high seas this kept the operatorin fro nt of the desk. The strap was a re­quired item on destroyers and otherships accu stom ed to rocking and roll ­ing at sea . Th e only other option wasfor the operators to wrap their legsaround the legs of the desk to keepfrom m ovin g.

After all the prep work was done, itwas time to paint. As show n in PhotoC, you can see paper and masking tapein place, drop cloth under every piece

73 Amateur Radio Todey » Februa ry 2002 33

Page 35: 73 Magazine - February 2002

when every nut, bolt, and screw wasback in place, with no extras and noholes left unfilled.

You' ll note only one radio in the pic­ture at this time. Tha t is because it wasthe only gray radio in the shack. Thebug in the picture is from 1979 and hasnot seen naval service. I also use a1964 Champion the Navy gave me,complete with Na vy stock numberimprinted on the base.

The typewri ter is a communicationmill, all capital letters. It was acquiredusing the same research method. AStray in QST produced another floodof E-maiI, letters, and cards. I hadmills offered to me for fair amounts ofmoney all the way down to this one ­free, j ust pay the shipping fromFlorida. To my surprise, this Royal isthe same model I used on active dutyin the '60s ahoard ship. It is sitting ona sliding shelf. This sliding shelf al­lows the operator to pull it to him forease of use, or push it all the way to theback. With the mill pushed all the wayto the back, the operator could pull

down a folded cover to make a small,n at desktop in the front. I do not havethis cover, yet. The slots that hold theshelf needed to be cleaned out andsprayed with a light lubricant. To keepthe mill shelf from coming completelyout of the table, there are two leverlocks located 6-1/2 inches in from thefront edge on either side that contactthe stops mounted on the rear of theshelf.

Although this desk is over 50 yearsold, it came back to life very easily.There is one other type of CW tableused by the Navy that allows the millto disappear into a well area. givingthe operator a na t desktop workingsurface all the way to the back of table.Other changes to today's table are thatthe top section is not installed and thekey is a covered, explosion-proof de­sign. This type was still in use in theNavy as of 1988, when I left the ser­vice. Either tahle would make a niceaddition to the ham shack.

This unit is of aluminum, hut youcould con struct one of wood also.

Aluminum was used to keep theweight down and because it is a non­burnable substance.

The idea of mounting the headphonejacks on the leg of the table is moreconvenient than having a cable run­ning across the top of the desk you areusing to copy code. Yes. it works wellfor listening to SSB nets, and copyingtraffic as well. Using multiple jacks al­lows for friends to listen in withoutdisturbing the rest of the nonhams inthe house. A multijaek box is a goodidea for Field Day when using anotherperson for logging.

The key being mounted in the cub­byhole allows the operator to have theentire forearm on the desktop to re­duce fatigue. It proved to be useful onSKN 2000. There is enough room toslide the bug into the cubbyhole hutthe forearm is not complete up on thedesktop. Bug operators are not asconcerned with the glass arm complex.

This has been one of those projects

Continued on page 5 7

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34 73 Amateur Radio Today · Februa ry 2002

Page 36: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Carl Herbert AA2JZ43 South Plank Rd.Newburgh NY 12550

The Saga of Archie and Tillie... otherwise known as Elmer.

As do many of us, I sometimes reach back into my past to reminisce about eventshaving significant meaning in my life. Of ten I've thought of the man and wom an whogave to me the opportunity to begin my lifelong career. Archie and Tillie were my"EIm ers," th ough I didn 't know that at the time.

Let me tell yo u of how my lifewas affected by my "E imers."and then imagin e for yourse lf

how your assisting future amateurscould begin end less ad ventures forthem.

In the late 19505. a teena ger 's life ina rural community wasn't exactlyfilled with available technica l opportu­nity. Or if it was, I sure didn 't kno wthat it was out there! One of the mostintriguing event s for me during tho seyears was a visit to my gra ndparents'hou se. and that upright Phi1co in theliving room. I would spend hours listen­ing 10 stations from "who knows where,,­daydreaming all the time of what it waslike to be able to und erstand what allthose noi ses meant.

The summer of 1957 arri ved, schoolhad been successfully accomplishedfor one more year, and the lazy days ofsummer were the order of the day. Butnot for long!

Up the road from our place is a smallsummer camp that was commonly re­Icrrcd to as 'T he German Camp." No­body paid them much mind: Tbey werequiet folk , remaining very much apartfrom the happenings in our commu­nity. Th e only notic eabl e eve nt hap­pening with the lodge was the rattling

of the lodge station wagon deli veringpa ssengers from the train station onSaturday morning to the lodg e, and re­turning them to the station on Sundayevening. When I asked my parent sabou t these people. they informed methat they were "cit y folk" looking forsome rela xation, and that 1 was to"lea ve them alone."

Nee dless to say, this guidance, whilebein g "hea rd," wasn' t a complete ex­plana tion of the question! Once , whilewa lking past the place . the peopl e out­side were re lax ing and chatting, but rcouldn' t understand wha t they weresay ing. Th e German language wasn' tspoke n in our hou sehold.

Family visits to the grandparents ona weekend evening were oft en amem orabl e occasion . Th e living roomheld great fasc ina tion for me, and theuprigh t allhand radio there intriguedme for hours. I wou ld sit and listen tostra nge signals emanating from thespeaker. wondering what magic cre­ated them, where it came from andwhat it meant. This would go on untilthe adults decid ed that they had heardeno ugh noise, and that the unit wo uldhave to be "s ilenced."

Rat s !

Passing the lodg e one summe r's day,I aga in heard the sounds of radio com­munication from one of the buildings.Antennas were strung,-.through thetrees, with coax leading into the build­ing. Th e door was pr opped open , al­lowingthe summer heat to esc ape andthereby letting the sounds be heardout side.

It was more than an inquisiti ve teencould endure . Summoning inner cour­age and ignoring the instructions of myparents, I approached the "forbidden"and knocked at the open door.

"Ja, may I help you'!" came the repl yfrom within. '.

Words "s tuck" in my throat, hut Imanaged to say. " I want to see yo urradio, please."

And with that a friendship was be­gun which has lasted for years. I intro­duced myself, told about the radio atmy grandparents, and how there wasn' tanything like that around here for myinterests.

Archie pro ceeded to show me hisvintage conve rted wartime radi o, nowopera ting on "ham" frequ enci es. Hequ estioned me ahout what I hadwanted of him. and what I thought Iwould like to do in the future. I'm sure

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 35

Page 37: 73 Magazine - February 2002

he knew all along what the "lure" ofsignals and glowing tubes mean t to a"budding" mind, but he was patientlysetting the stage for my entry into theworld of electronics.

"Ja, I gif to you von hour on Satur­days, ven I em here. You sveep myvalk, shovel snow ven vinter comes ,"he stated with his German accent."You study hard! No fool around. Venyou are ready, I gif to you the test. Venyou haf ticket, you promise to teachothers who come along. Ja, is good ?"he spoke very seriously.

I could hardly believe my ears! I'mgoing to be a radio amateur, with alicense and everything! WOW !

I promised to leach when I was able,not fully und erstanding what thatcommitment would require, but at thattime I would have agreed to almostanything.

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36 73 Amateur Radio Tcdey » February 2002

Archie was wn tmg a copy of theMorse code for me on paper as my firstlesson, when his wife Matilda (Tillie),appeared from the main house. Archieintroduced us and explained to Tilliewhy I was there. Tillie smiled, wishedme welcome to their weekend horne,and wished me luck in my studies.

The days of the week passed slowlywhile I studied the code and other ma­terial Archie had given me . Days werefar too long, waiting for the "toot" ofthe hom from the ancient stationwagon passing our house. That was thesignal that Archie and Tillie had onceagain arrived for the weekend.

Finally, the day of reckoning had ar­rived ! Those were the days when theNovice exam was given by mail ­provided of course , that you could findan amateur willing to send for the ma­lerials and administer the test. Theexamination papers had arrived . I pre­sented myself to Archie to test whetherthe time had been well spent or not. Ineed not have worried!

It took weeks for the Bureau to pro­cess applic ations . I had almost forgot­ten (yeah, right!), almost given uphope for a passing score, when mymother called to me from the kitchen.

"You' ve got a letter here. It's fromthe FCC," she said.

With trembling fingers I opened thesmall white envelope . Not knowingexactly what to expect, I read thedocument over and over again.

"Hey, I passed !" I exclai med.My Novice call was KN2UZF, good

for one year, 75 watts maximum , etc.,etc .J was elated beyond belief! I didn' thave a radio, nor antenna, nor moneyto buy one, but I was a "ham"!

Since that wonderful day much hashappened in my life because an oldman and his wife gave of themselvesto an inquisitive teenager. Shortly aftergaining my "ticket,' Dad was ordainedinto the ministry. This required that wemove to another town. The promi se Ihad made lingered with me as wesettled into our new community.

As with many a young man, with thecomp letion of schooling, I elected to"join the Navy and see the world." Ijust had to see what the world had tooffer. And wouldn' t you know it, one

of the tests given at basic training wasMorse code! It was a breeze to passthat one! And with Amateur RadioOperator' s License listed on the back­ground forms , doors opened to a fieldcalled "Cryptologic Technician." Ihadn 't any idea what that was, but thenneither did the person assigning me tothe schooling!

As it turned out, four years of Secretstuff being a Radio Operator was ter­rific ! Still wondering what the worldwas all about, I enlisted in the AirForce. The offer of a yearlong schoolfor Basic Electronics through Ad­vanced Circuitry was hard to dismiss.My amateur lice nse, together with"c ryp to" expe rience (which theycouldn 't equate to anything) ensuredmy selection.

Twenty years of military servicelater, I finally retired. Not wanting tobe unemployed, I applied for workwith "Ma Bel l." Yes, they had a posi­tion for me, but the starting pay wouldhave to be increased, considering allyour training and all !

More money! Oh, well, if I have totake it, I guess I will.

That lasted for 17-mure years, untilthe offer ·was made for early retire­ment. Now I work at West Point, theU.S,. Military Academy, where I repairequipment used for cadet training.

The promi se made to Archie hasn'tbeen forgotten. Now I perform VE ser­vicesat testing sessions, give demos ofhomebrew QRP gear , help new hamsto get their "kit" projects up and run­ning, etc. Whenever I' m asked for as­sistance, I hear Archie 's voice saying:

"Ja, you leach all who come along,remember."

Yes Archie, I haven't forgotten. Andso I teach. Some are young minds,filled with awe; some are not soyoung, looking for inspiration andchallenge. Never mind - they all re­ceive the same "hour" given to me solong ago.

Thanks, Archie K2ANB (SK) !Thanks, Tillie K2AUM (SK) ! Withoutyour help, who can tell where theminister's kid would have gone ?Thanks for a wonderful start on a life' sadventure.

Got an Elmer or two you 'd like tothank ? Let us know at 73. - Ed. I!lI

Page 38: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Bill Boas KC01Z11409 Allison Street #53Lakewood, CO 80215-5064[[email protected]]

QRP Internet ComputingFast, powerful, secure ...

For the last 20 years, ham radio, personal comp uters, and th e In ternet ha ve beenrunning along parallel circuits that sometimes miss or forget important connections.

W hat's hee n overlooked. orforgotten , is that it doesn 'ttake a high-powered, Mi­

crosoft-Wind ows-based computer toeasily and speedily access today'sInternet , E-mail, and Wor ld Wide Wehwith its wea lth of information for theham community. Any older DO S­based 8088, 286, 386, or 486 computerwill do it all - and very quickly .

For example, I'm writing this with a1984 Compaq portable , running an8088 CPU at 4.7 MHz, and an ASCIItext editor of only 3116 bytes. It has2S6Kb of memory, no hard drive, twolow-density S.2S- inch 360Kb floppydrives, and an intern al 2400 baud mo­dem. It 's opera ting from one floppycontaining system Illes of MS-D OS3.3, the little editor, and a dial-upco mmunic atio ns program.

When I finish the story, I will usethis machine to log on the Internet,check my E-mail, visit some reg ularWeb sites, and then E-mail this story to73 magazine. It 's "Q RP Computing" atits best.

To put your old DOS computer backon-line, find an independent InternetService Pro vider (ISP) who is able andwilling to provide you with a UNIX or

LINUX "she ll" acconnt. She ll ac­counts are a legacy of the earlyIntern et and the 32-year-old UN IXoperat ing sys tem. LINUX, developedin 1991, is a PC and MAC clone ofUNIX. LINUX's recent popul arity asan Internet server almost guaranteestha t your local community has an ISPwilling to set you up.

Using a shell account is like dialinginto a BBS of the 1980s, where youuse the keyboard not the mouse. Youneed to brush up on, or learn, so me el­ementary DO S and a few simpleLINUX commands to earn your way toan Internet ticket for that old computeryou were abo ut to trash.

The benefits are sig nificant.By dialing into a she ll acco unt, any

computer becomes a remote terminalto the LINUX server, and isn't direc tlyconnec ted, or vulnerable, to theInternet. This means you're protectedfrom direct attack hy computer vi­ruses. That appli es to "cookies" andother hidden "temporary Internet files"as we ll, since they never reach yourcompnter - only the server - whichautomatica lly deletes them when youlog off.

A LINUX server between you and

the Intern et is a formidable pri vacyand security firewall. However, whenyo u dow nload files or programs toyo ur own computer, you- need to takethe usual sec urity precautions .

One of the best things about aLINIJ2I; or UN IX she ll acco unt for theInternet is that it's all text, with no in­truding graphics or ad vertising ban­ners popping np dnring your on-linescssron

The text-only Intern et is very fast.For hams looking up on-line callsigninformation, or accessing the ARRL ,QRZ, or other amateur radi o Websites , the Wode Wide Web 's graphicsoften just get in the way of the essentialinformation you're seeking.

This 17-year old Compaq is oftenfaster at retrieving text informationfrom most Weh sites than my friend'sPentium 300MHz machine with a S6Kbmodem pushing graphics throngh Win­dows 95 via Americ a Online . Onceconnec ted to an ISP 's LINUX server,perfor mance primaril y depends onthe spee d of your modem - notCPU. Ho wever , mo st peopl e can' tread text faster than just what a 2400

Conti nued on page 58

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 37

Page 39: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Steve Nowak KE8YN/016717 Hickory SI.Omaha NE 68130-1529[[email protected]]

Inkjet QSLs the Easy WayBasic techniques for basic cards.

Ham radio is not just a hobby, but more like a whole collection ofhobbies. This meansthat when one part of the hobby loses a little of its novelty, you can play with a differentarea. Tired of chatting on the local repeater? Maybe y ou should work a contest or two,or maybe build some accessories to make life easier in the sha ck.

Fig. 1. My basic QSL card for contacts made from the home QTH as designed Oil mycomputer: I like to have all of the information on the front of the card so (f the otheroperator mounts cards Oil the wall, it doesn 't have to be moved to read the contact infor­rnation. l] you enter your information by hand, a "Sharp ie " type permanent markerworks pa rticularly well.

38 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002

Report:R .S T _

Contact with : _

_I do not always have up-to-date QSLcards available. Alth ough over theyears I have used my share of stockcards, I admit I prcfec.ro ha ve some­thin g just a little different. I have madevarious efforts to design my own card,although being artisticall y cha llengedit takes more than a bit of effort.

When I' ve had to mo ve or there hasbeen some other change. T ve tried tosave a .few bucks and use up my stockof existing cards by placing stickersover the incorrect information. Thi s isless than optimal, especially for some­one like me who has kept his old calland has cards with a 15 and 14 to indi­cate my (current ) home QTH . I hatethe idea of thro wing out a couple hun ­dred perfectly good, albeit incorrect ,QSL cards when busily packing for amove.

On the other hand , I do believe that aQSL card should he accurate. Yes, I'veused postcards and other substitutes,hut I' ve alway s been less than pleasedwith this approach . Besides, being acheapskate T reali ze that postcards areone of the more expensive methods ofconfirming a contact. The fact or thematter is that I eventually had to admitthat I need QSL cards on an occasional

tHE NEWI

'7'!:>AmateurI ~ Radio Today

time . When I do find the time, thou gh,I enjoy it greatl y, but often have aslight problem with a lack of QSLcards even though I do believe that aQSL card is the fina l courtesy of agood operator. Add to that the fact thatmy day jobs have involved frequentmo ves ami it sho uld be 110 surprise that

Date : Time : UTC

BY 10Steve Nowak16717 Hickory St.Omaha, NE 68130-1529 U ADouglas County(Gr id Square EN11VF )N 41'14'5&" W 96~10'50"

+e·'·le>~..+T ;~..".. ..-:

I n my case, for example, since Itend to concentrate most of myhobby time on publi c service and

disaster communications, chasing DXis not my most common area of in­volvement. I do enjoy spending tim eon the low bands, but other duties,kids, etc., compete for the avail able

Page 40: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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including some who elected to changeth eir ca llsig n to re flec t the ir ne wstatus.

This year, as the bands opened up Ibegan working more DX stations, par­ticularly from the car. I began to thinkof how neat it would be to not only re­plenish the stock of QSL card s but alsoto have some special QSL cards spe­cifica lly for mobile opera tions. Likemost ham s, practicality is not my de­fining virtue, but even I had to admitthat this presented a few problems. If amin imum order of cards lasts me forquite some time, then a doub le orderwou ld indeed repre sent overkill. Theidea of using the computer to generatethe cards once again seemed to beworth entertaining.

While visiting that great Americaninstituti on (Wal-Mart), [ came across apossib le approach that might meet myneeds. In the stationery aisle was aprod uct labeled "Glossy Photo QualityPostcard s for Ink Jet Printers." Thi sprod uct, manufactured by Avery labels(product number 3248 ) included teushee ts, each of which co uld be used toprint two post cards. The sheets wereperforated so that once the print ingwas completed, the cards could be eas­ily separated. Since the card s includeda border that extended beyond the cardedge itsel f, if desired I could print allthe way to the edge of the card. Th epackage also included twenty enve­lopes. I prefer to use envelopes for di­rect mail in most cases to keep thecard s as neat as possib le. Since inkjet­prin ted card s would not be waterproof,this seemed espec ially important to en­sure that the cards arrived in acceptablefashion.

I took the pac kage home and bcganto play around with vario us ideas. [mentall y sketched an idea as to what [wished to include. Since I tend to writemy columns and articles in my mind,this is my preferred app roach, butmore practical peopl e may want to jottheir ideas down on a sheet of paper. Iblatantly stole ideas from the QSLcards I've received over the years,picking and choosing the best of otherpeople 's ideas. Here are some of theitems that I considered:

1. General layout, I lik e to have

basis rather than stacks of them on aregular basis. I knew there had to be abetter way than to throw away a co upleof hundred old cards and order athousand new cards each time I moved.

I had tried a few methods of generat­ing QSL cards on my computer in thepast but was less than thrilled with theresults. In some cases I was satisfiedwith the design but not satisfied withmy ability to produ ce them on any­thing heavier than typing paper. I triedcopying the results onto card stock byuse of a photocopier. This seemedfairly economical but I was limited to asingle co lor (black) for the type andany graphics or illustrati ons I wishedto include, although I could use a vari­ety of colored papers to make the cardsmore interesting .

When I got a color printer I expl oredthe idea of print ing cards in color.Whi le this might not be the most ad­vantageo us method for people who arebig-time contesters, the price of ink isre latively reasonable (especi ally if yourefi ll your own cartridges) if you onlyplan on printin g small quant ities. I hadone major problem, though, in that Ihad a very low success rate in gett ingthe card s cut to the size that I wished.For some reason, my ten matchedthumbs ensured that the cards wouldbe cut uneven , misali gned . or in someother manner less than acceptab le. Myelem entary school teachers were neverable to adeq uately correct my deficien­cies in penmanship or my abili ty to cutand paste correctly.

Like many of the great ideas I' vehad, the one for the computer-gener­ated cards was shelved on several oc­casions. Instead, periodically I bit thebullet and sent an order off for anotherstack of cards, many of which foundtheir way into the trash rather than intothe mail.

[ suspect that many other ham s arein a similar situation. We arc a particu­larly mobile society, with many of usenduring moves as a part of our careerpath . Then there are those who havedecided to take advantage of the vanitycall system and have changedcallsigns. Finally, with the restructur­ing of the ham radio license system,many of us upgraded in the past year,

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 39

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Fig. 2. Since much of the time the only DX time ! get is when I' m on the road, it onlyseemed appropriate to have a separate card for mobile operations. For this card Iused a table to format the contact information. The large comments box is to remindme to always add a briefpersonal Hate.

I Mode RST

Brevard CountyGrid Square EL980A

U A

stauon

to the ARRL. Check the Web pages re­lating to your favorite acti vity to sec ifthey have the logo you seek. If youplace the cursor on the picture andpress the right mou se button, youshould see a dialogu e hox with onechoice bein g "Save Picture As." Scrolldown to that choice and clic k the leftmouse button. Thi s will let yo u savethe picture as a fi Ie tha t you can insertiuto your QSL card later.

5. Other graphics. If you or a fam ­ily memher is arti sti call y inclined , yo ucan use a scanner to import a ske tch,dra wing, photo, or oth er art form andincorporate it into your design . Digitalcame ras ha ve bec ome quite reason­ahle, and for small-size pictures eve n thebasic ones can provide a satisfactory im­agc. While sta ndard photograph s can bescanned, the digital pho tograph can hedirectly imported into the design. Inci­dentally, many word processing orother programs have a se lec tion of"c lip art" -picturcs included , and yo ucan purchase CD -ROMs of clip art

_very reasona bly at offi ce supply stores,discount stores, etc. You may find thegraphic you seck in these locations.

6, Contact info r mation, You 'll needto include space for the other station'sca llsign, their signal report , and ofcourse.the date and time of the contact.Some people like thi s in a table or boxformat, others as a filI-in-the-blank.

Mobile in Florida @ I

KE8YN·/4

Date UTC Time UTC

10 11 Peacock Ave NEPalm Bay, FL 3290 7-137 1'

Steve Nowak

,1 Comments:

I

also include thecounty (or pari shor borough) andmy grid squaresince some ham sfocus on workingstations based onthese. If you don 'tknow your gridsquare, yo u canfind it by gett inga maidenhead map,or by looking upyour own calls ignon [httpz/www.qrz,co rn].

4. L ogos. Arcyou active in ARESor RACES? Howahout MARS orSK YWARN ')Maybe there's asignificant nonhaminterest yo u havesuch as Scouting.If so, you canadd the appropri­at e logos to yourcard to make itmore person al.

While you ma y cho ose to scan these inyourse lf, a littl e bit of Web surfingma y save you some tim e. Th e league 'sWeb page [http.z/www.arrl .org] ha s asec tion for logos and pictures relevant

~~__ -r

zocems aod eeveicoes2 card$/sheel · 10sheets

Glossy Photo QualityPostcardsfor Inkjet Printers

Photo A. Avel)':S' Glossy Photo Quality Postcards for Ink .letPrinters.

every th ing on the front of the card sothat the information can be read if thecard is tacked to a wall. This alsoleaves the back free for comments or apersonal note to the other operator.

2. Calls ign. Althoug b I like graph­ics, I prefer that the call sign be themost prominent feature of the QSLcard. To me the callsig n is the key fea­ture, since it defines who I am on theair. Like man y hams, people withwhom I talk on a regular basis couldpass me on the stree t witho ut knowingwho I was. My face and nam e may notbe imp ortant, but to oth er hams myca llsign sure is . In my case, since Ihave chosen to keep the same ca ll I' vehad for a number of yea rs, I like to in­dicate the callsign area in which I amcurrently living, so I want my cards toread KE8YN/4.

3. Demographic information . Whilethis may seem ob viou s, it's a good ideato make a list as to what informationyou are going to include. Obviou slyname and address are important, butdon 't forget to include your country! I40 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

Page 42: 73 Magazine - February 2002

7. Station infor mat ion . You maywant to include a description of yourstation equipment. We hams all love tocompare our toys, so the type of rigyou' re using or the specifics of the an­tcnna can be important, or at least inter­esting. If you' re only printing a fewcards at a time, it is very easy to changethe station description if you changeequipment.

8, Comments. I alien like to write afew words to the other ham , so a spacefor comments is helpful.

There are many computer programsthat can be used to develop your QSLcards, but I decided to usc a word pro ­cessing program since these arc so com­mon. Many computers come preloadcdwith Microsoft Office , so I decided touse Word , Microsoft's word process­ing program. If you use a different wordprocessor, most of the procedures I de­scribe will he similar. The one advantageof Microsoft Word is that Avery make s asoftware add-on for Word ca lled AveryLabel Wizard that can he downloadedat no charge from their Web site [http://www. avc ry.corn]. Th ere are multipl eversions available, so mak e sure thatyou choose the one appropriate foryour version of Microsoft:Word.

The downloaded file is self-extract­ing. Once it is run , the Avery Lab elWizard becomes a choice in the Toolsmenu of Microsoft Word and formatsyour work to fit the size and shape ofthe card . In some versions, the #3248card is not shown on the list of sup­ported formats. Instead, choose prod ­nct number 8389, which is the exactsame product as it is packaged andsold without the enve lopes .

If you do not usc the Avery Label Wiz­ard, there arc several other methods touse to properly format your QSL card.Enclosed in the package with the cardstock is a page that has the borders andmargins indicated. This can be used toset up your particular program to printproperly on the card stock. It may heuseful to make a couple of extra copiesof this page so that you can test your lay­out once it is completed. I have foundthat in some cases the printer may seesome things slightly different than theview on the screen, and extra copies-willallow you to tweak the layout to makesnre that it is just perfect

The directions that come with thecards recommend that you set the pageup as a table. Thi s works out prettywe ll for many people in most postcardapplications. If yon want to have atable or box for the station, date , time,and signal report, I recommend thatyou not choose this option. I ha ve yetto find a way to permit me to put atable inside another table. It probablyis possible , but if it takes too man ysteps, I ju st tend to look for an easierand more logical approach.

In my case, I decided to set up apage which matehed the layout of oneof the two cards on the shee t. I figuredthat I could print one card, reve rse theform , and then feed the other endthrou gh the printer. In this way, if Iwish to customize the card with equip­ment information or type in the contactinformation , I can print each cardseparately. In order to do this, I ini­tially set the left, right, and top mar­gins at 1.25 inches and the bottommargin at 5.75 inches. After printing atest I realized that I would have tomodify the margins slight ly, which iswhy the test page can be so useful, Inmy case all of the margins needed tobe readjusted except for the bottomonc . The large bottom margin is actu ­ally the seco nd card, of course, butthatcauses the card stock to be ejec ted bythe printer when the top card is doneprinting.

One of the things I like abou t thisapproach is that I can make changesbetween the two cards, such as one fora mobile card and the other for confir­matio n with my fixed station. If I savethe basic layout of the card as a tem-

, plate, I can type in the actual contactinformation or specify which equip­ment was used for that parti cular con­tact. On the other hand , if you runmore than two cards at a time, parti cu­larly if you plan on filling in informa­tion with a pen , you may wish to take aslightly different approa ch and theLabel Wizard may he the best bet.

As I mentioned, I do like the factthat the Avery cards com e with enve­lopes, which help s ensure the deliveryof a clean er card to the other station. Itwould be possible, of course, to designa postal card format for the other side

and mail the card at the lower postalrate. If you arc using the card for OXconfirmation, though, and send yourcards throu gh the ARRL's outgoingQSL bureau , the envelope would notbe essential. For same-country use,and if you are really ambitious, youmight elect to take the process one stepfurther and use the computer to ad­dress and eve n embellish the en velope.You might choose to add a graphic or astatement about ham radio to the re­turn addre ss. If your handwritin g is asnotoriously bad as mine is, you maywish to offer the postal service a leg­ible address for a better chance at de­livery. I recommend using the bar codeprinter to add the ZIP code of the re­cipi ent , since this will allo w the enve­lope to be routed most qui ckly. If yoursoftware doesn 't offer this, the post of­li ce system will nsually read a typedenve lope and add the har code as it isbeing sorted, but I figure that every step Ican handl e myself is usuall y better.

Whil e using this technique was in­spired by the need to make a relati velysmall number of QSL cards, even ac­tive operators may want to design theirown cards and then for\inrrd them to aprinter. I' ve been told that printingQSL cards is somewhat of a spec ialty,so you may he advised to pick yourprinter with care. Man y QSL printersare ham radio operators them selYes, sothey understand what a osi, card isand 'how we usc them. Keep in mindthat multi color QSL cards can be sig­nifi cantly more expensive than single­color cards.

I recentl y found a printer that willprint 200 cards"for only $ 17. If you do,you may need to modify the marginsju st a bit, since standard printed QSLcards are three and a half inches bylive and a half inches, ju st slightlysmaller than the Avery cards. Youmight consider designin g your owncard and ha ving a quantity printed in asingle color from your design, but forspecial contacts printing up a lull-colorversion of the card.

Hopefully these ideas will he helpfulto you. If we meet on the air and Italk ed you into designing your owncard, make a note on the card whenyou send it' fa

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 41

Page 43: 73 Magazine - February 2002

CRLENORR EUENTS

Listings are free of charge as space permits. Please send us your Calendar Event two months inadvance of th e iss ue you want it to appear in. For example, if you want it to appear in theMay issu e, we should receive it by February 28. Provide a clear, concise sum ma ry of theessential details about your Calendar Event.

FEB 3

LORAIN, OH The Northern Ohio ARS wil lsponsor Winterfest 2002 at Gargus Hall, 1965N. Ridg e Rd.. Lorain OH , 8 a.m.- 1 p.m.Directions from the East - Take 1-90 or theOhio Turnpike West to the Rt. 57 exit. Go northon Rt. 57 to the first light and turn left. Get inthe right lane.The hall is on the right sideabouta half mile down. It is after the first light andright before Marco's Pizza. Directions from theWest - Take 1-90 or the Ohio Turnpike East tothe Rt. 57 exit. Go north on Rt. 57 to the firstlight and turn left. Get in the right lane. Thehall is on the right hand side about a half miledown. It is after the first light and right beforeMarco's Pizza. From the South - Manyroutescross Rt. 57. Take 57 North through Elyria. Turnright when 57 goes north to Lorain. Pass theturnpike and 1-90 to the first light past 1-90 andturn left. Get in the right lane. The hall is onthe right hand side aboul a half mile down . Itis after the first light and right before Marco'sPizza . Free pancake breakfast. Talk-in onNOARS rptrs. 146.700 (·) and 444.800(+) .Ample all indoor commercial space , reser­vations required. Tickets $5 each at the door;includes 1 admission and 1 breakfast. Break­fast will be served from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m.only. 6 ft. tables are $10 each . All workersrequire an admission ticket. Set up for vendorsbegins at 6 a.m., doors open to the generalpublic at 8 a.m. For info contact John SchaafK8JWS at 2 16-696-5709, or write NOARS viaE-mail at {noars @qsl.netl, or write to NOARSWinteriest, PO. Box 432, Elyria OH 44036­0432.

FEB 4

SUN CITY, AZ The West Valley ARC willpresent an Amateur Radio Equipment Auctionat St. Clement of Rome Catholic Church SocialHall , 15800 Del Webb Blvd., Sun City AZ (1/2mile south of Bell Rd.). Free admission . TheClub keeps 10% on equi pment sales. Talk-inon 147.30(+). Contact Jerry W9JIF at 623-214­8136, or E-mail {[email protected].

FEB 9, 10

MEMPHIS, TN "Dixiefest 2002" wi ll be held atthe She l by Coun ty Bld g ., Mid So uthFairgrounds, Memphis TN, Sat. 9 a.m.- 5 p.m.,Sun. 9 a.m.- 2 p.m. A special forum wil l beconducted by Ril ey Holl ingsworth , FCCSpecia l Counse l fo r Amate ur Rad io

42 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002

Enforcement. Other forums will also be held.Dealer tables $40 ea. (up to two weeks befo rethe event), 545 each the last two weeks . 550Feb. 8-1 0. Flea market tables 520 ea., powercosts extra. Setup Fri. night or Sat. morning.VE exams both days. Food available inside thebuilding . More info at [www.dixiefest.orgj, orcall Ben KU4AW at 901-372-8031; or MelindaKE4DXN, at 90 1·744-1737.

FEB 10

RICH MO ND , VA The Showplace , 3000Mechanicsville Tpke.. is the location for theRichmond Amat eur Radio Telecommu nica­tions Society ARRL VA Section Conve ntion!HamfesUElectronics show, "Frostfest 2002."Na ti ona l and loca l vendo rs . Majormanufacturers. Flea market, forums . Handi­capped accessib le. Parking, refresh- ments .Talk-in on t46.88. Tickets $6. Online tickets andgenera l info available at [www.trostfest.com).Special VIP tickets may be purchased beforeJan . 21st for early admissi on and specia lentrance. To make reservations call 804-330­3165; or write Frostfesl 2002, P.o. Box 14828,Richmond VA23221-0828. For general info call804-790-0077 opt 4.

FEB 23

LaPORTE,lN The LaPorte ARC Cabin FeverHamfest wi ll be held at Laco rte Ci vi cAuditorium, 1001 Ridge St ., 7 a.m.-1 p.m.Chicago time. Admission 55, tables 510. Talk­in on 146.52 and 146.61(-) PL 131.8. Contac tNeil Straub WZ9N, PO. Box 30, LaPorte IN46352, phon e 219-32 4-752 5. E-ma il[nstraub @worldkey.netj. The club Web site is{www.geocities.comlK9JSII].

MILTON, VT The Northern Vermont Winte rHamfest and ARRL Vermont State Conventionwill be held at Milton High School , Route 7 inMilton ,S miles north of 1-89 Exit 17. Sponsoredby the Radio Amateurs of Northern Vermont,this event will be held 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Featuresinclude a flea market, dealers , book sales ,forums, demonstrations, and refreshments. VEexams will be given at 9 a.m . and 1 p.m.Commercial exams begin at 1 p.m. Admissionis $3, free for under 18 years. Tables are freewhi le they last. Call for large setups. Checkthe Web site for the forum schedule and vendorsetup info {http://www.ranv.org}. Talk-in ont 45.15 rptr. Bulletins on t 46.67. Contact WISJat 802-879-6589, E-mail {wlsj @arrt.net].

MAR 2

CAVE CITY, KY The 26th annual MammothCave ARC Hamlest will be held Sat., March2nd , 7:30 a.m.- 2 p.rn . CST , at Cave Ci tyConvention Center (1-65, Exit 53). Admission56, tables 57 . Tailgating, ARRL torums , Bingo,3 .960 MHz mee ting . VE exams at 9 a .m.Contact J im Erskin e KD4GNN, [[email protected], or P.O. Box 187, CanmerKY42722.

MAR 2, 3

ANNANDALE, VA WintertestSM, Metro DC'sfirst and best harntest, will be held by IheVienna Wireless Society, Sunday, March 3rd,8 a.m.- 2 p.m. at Northern Virginia CommunityColleg e campus, Annandale VA. VE examsSaturday, March 2nd at 9 a.m. All act ivities

. indoors. Directions: In northern Virginia, 1-495(Capital Beltway) to Exit 52A (Rte. 236/LittleRiverTpk. westbound). NVCC is 1 mile on theleft. Admi ssion $6, Vend,qu ables $20. Forvendor info,' contact Terry Hines N4ZH, 703­560- 1824. Additional info can be found onlineat {http://w int er test.h om e.att.ne tlj. E-mail{wintedest @atl.n etj ,

MAR 9

sconSDALE, AZ The Scottsdale ARC, Inc.,will ilast a hamfesl March 9th , starting at 6a.m., at Scottsdale Community College , 101North - Exit Chaparral Rd., in Sco ttsdale .Parking $2. Tables $10. RV parking , selfcontained. VE exams. Refreshments. Talk-in on147.18. Contact Ed Nickerson WU7S, 902 N.73rd Place, Scottsdale AZ 8525 7. Phone 480­949-5162, E-mail {Bnickers @qwest.netj .

MAR 9, 16, 23, 28, & SEP 24

ST. LOUIS COU NTY, MO Thr ee alt -da ytraining Severe Weather Observation seminarsare planned at various locations around St.Lou is County MO . At most locations SKY­WARN Level 1 training will be presented in themorning, and classes resume in the afternoonwith the SKYWARN Level 2 Program. Trainingwill be held as tallows: Saturday All-DayClasses: March 9th, March 16th and March23rd. Evening classes (Level 1 only): March28th and September 24th. For locations callthe Severe Weather Information Line, 314-615­7857, for a taped message and add itiona linformation. There is no charge for the training.

Page 44: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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MADISON, OH The Lake County ARA, ofPainesvill e OH, will hold its 24th annualHamfestiComputerfest, 8 a.m.-2 p.m., at theMad ison High School, 3100 Burns Rd.,Madison OH. This event will feature new andused amateur radio, computer, and variousather types of electronic equipment. TheLCAR A Hamfest w i ll a ls o fe ature craftdemonstrat ions , and VE exams for thoseinterested in earning an amateur radio license.Admission $5 , tickets may be purchased at thedoor. 6 ft. tables are $8 each or $15 for two. 8ft. tables are $10 each. For table reservations,call Roxanne at 440-209-8953.

BRAMPTON, ONTARIO, CA NAD A TheBrarnpton Fall Fairgrounds wlll be the locationfor "HAMEX 2002," co-sponsored by the Peeland Mississauga Amateur Radio Clubs. Thisevent will feature amateur radio equipmentmanufacturers, major commerc ial vendors,new and used equipment and parts. VE exams,seminar s , exh ibits an d demon st rati on s.Vendors are admitted at 7 a.rn. The generalpublic can enjoy this event from 9 a.m. to 1p.m. Admission $6; 6 ft. tables $25; 8 ft. tables$30" includes one free admission per table.Talk-in on VE3PRC at 146.880(-), and VE3MISat 145.430(-). For more info contact JasonSiaines at 416-878-0576; or Lome Jecksoi),905-858-8594. E-mail ca n be se nt to[va3ngv @rac.ca} or [ve3cxt @rac.ca). Foronlin e inf o, set yo ur browser to [www.peelarc.org).

Activity Center, Highway 18 West, JeffersonWI. Vendors will be admitted at 7 a.m., allothers at 8 a.m,only. Vendors only parking willbe provided for unloading. Talk-In on the 145.49rptr. Admission $4. Table space for 8 ff. tables@ $6 each. For further info, contact TCARC,2 13 Frederick St., Fort Atkinson WI 53538.Evening phone 920-563-6381, Fax 920-563­9551 ; or send E-mail to [ tricountya rc@globa/dialog.com}.

MAUMEE, OH The Toledo Mobile Radio Assn.(TMRA), will hold its 47th Annual HamfesVComputer Fair, 8 a.m.-2 p.rn., at the LucasCounty Rec. Center, 2901 Key St., MaumeeOH. For details, send an SASE to TMRA, P.O.Box 273, Toledo OH 43697-0273. For voicemail call 419-535-6594. Web [www.tmraham­radio.org}.

MAR 17

MAR 16, 17

JEFFERSO N, WI Th e Tr i-County ARC willsponsora Hamfest Sunday, March 17th, 8 a.m.­2 p.m., at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds

MIDLAND, TX The Midland ARC will hold theirannual St. Patrick's Day Hamfest on Saturday,March 16th , from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and onSunday March 17th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., atthe Midland County Exhibit Building. Hugeinside flea market with many dealers, largetailgate area, T-h unt s, and a full serviceconcession stand with hot meals, are some ofthe features. VE exams will be given at 1 p.m.on Saturday. Pre-registration is$8, $9 at thedoor.Tables for non-dealers are $12 each for the firstfour, and $20 for each additional table over four.Formoreinfo, contact the MidlandARC, P.D. Box

4401, Midland TX 79704; or contact Larry Nix 1-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ­NSTOU by E-mail at[[email protected]}. Youcan view the hamfest flyer online and downloada registrafion form at [http://www.w5qgg.org}.

MARI ETTA, GA Th e 49th Annu al Ken­nehooche ARC Hamfest and 1st EmergencyCommunications Expo will be held at Jim MillerPark (formerly Cobb County Center Park), inMarietta. A map is available on the Club Websit e at [h ttp ://qsl .asti.com/hootch/KARC­HamF.html]. This event is open Saturday 8a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.rn, Vendorsetup Friday, March t 5th, beginning at 1 p.m.Admission (good for both days) $5 at the gate.Children under 12, supervised by an adult atall times, are admitted free. Along with all theusual hamtest trappings, a one-day (Saturday)Technician Class "Boot Camp" will be held onsite. The onslte exam for 'boot campers" willbe held at 5 p.m. Saturday.All other VE Examswill be at 9 a.m. Saturday only. Bring a copy ofyo ur li cen se , there is no co pier on th epremises. The Emergency CommunicationsExpo will feature exhibits and static displaysfrom local and state emergency teams, vendorbooths, and informational seminars. Outside(under cover) bone yard and tailgating spacesare avai lable. Talk-in on 146.880(-) PL 100(KARC reptr.) from Friday, March 15th at 1p.m., all day Saturday, March 16th; and until2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 17th. For moreinfo contact Mike Fisher KG4DPF, 770-971­3610; or Bob Butler W4RBB, 770-579-9420,before 9 p.m. EST. You can send E·mail to[w4rbb @arrl.netj. Send written inquiries toKARC, P.O. Box 1245, Marietta GA 30060.

All are welcome including those from outsidethe area. Free parking. Certification providedfor R.A.C.E.S. and SKYWARN, all at no cost.Attendance by members of the amateur radiocommunity is encouraged, however, one neednot be a ham operator to attend and participatein the program. Come and be a part of thelargest SKYWARN program in the area, andmonitor our SKYWARN nets during seve reweather on 146.940 or 147.360 MHz.

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 43

Page 45: 73 Magazine - February 2002

QRPLow Power Operation

Ten-Tee's Century 22

Michael Bryce WB8VGESunlight Energy Systems955 Manchester Ave. SW

North Lawrence OH 44666[[email protected]]

[hltp:/lwww.theheathkitshop.com]

Many of us got our firs t taste of QRP operation using the Ten-Tee Argonaut 505 or Argon aut509. However, there 's anoth er rig made by Ten -Tee tha t feel s very m uch at home in th e QRPopera tor's shack. It 's the Cen tury 22.

Ten-Tee told the world that they startedwith a clea n sheet of paper when they

set out to design the new rig as a follow-upto the Century 21. What they ended up withwas a radical departure from the Century21 , while s till holding ont o most of itscirc uits from the Century 2 1.

The Century 22

The Century 22 covers the lower CW seg­ments of the 80-, 40-, 30-, 20- and IO-meterbands. It' s a CW-only rig, but you can lis­ten in on SSB. The Century 22 operatesfrom an external lz-volt power source andrequires about five amps from the supply.You ca n operate the Cen tury 22 from a 12­volt ba ttery, makin g the rad io ideal for usein the field. (Remember that the Century 21also operated 12 volts. but the supply wasbuilt -in . It was possible to operate the Cen­tury 21 from an external power source byback-feeding the power into Ihe AUX jack.)

The Century 22 uses an analog dial witha band segment indicator. T he radio alsofeatures a built in SWR /power meter. Themeter doubles as an "S't-rnctcr on receive.Of course, the Century 22 sports the famou sTen-Tee QSK keyi ng .All of this is wrappedaround a solid aluminum chassis with a plas­tic bezel for the front panel. T he Century22 weighs in at six pounds.

While Ten-Tee did not set out to buildanother QRP transceivcr, the Century 22 caneasily operate at the QRP power level. TheCentu ry 22 has an input power of about 50watts. So, figure on about 20 plus watts ofRF into a 50-ohm load . For QftP operation .the ALe is simply adjusted to what evervalue you want, down to abou t three watts .

The receiver in the Century 22 is a doubledirect conversion type. Now, you may berolling your eyes aroun d, but the receive rin this radio is truly a work of engineering.

44 73 Amateur Radio Todey » February 2002

It does not suffer from micrcphonics. drift,or eve n the howls and whistles one wouldnorm ally assoc iate with a di rect conversionreceiver. Instead, you get a radio with plentyof audio, a stable PTO , and an adju stableaudio bandpass.

Inside the Century 22

The top half of the Century 22 case isjustabout empty. The only "stock" PC board isthe final amplifier. There arc two spacesreserved for the only two opti ons, the 679keyer and the 226 calibrator. Either of theseop tions is easy to install. JU Sl screw theboard down and plug it in .

The bottom half of the rad io holds themajority of PC boards. All the band switch­ing is done wi th a mult iposit ion waferswitch that passes though the various PCboards. The transmitter output filter board isalso located on the bottom half of the radio.

Operating the Century 22

Un like ,1superhet receiver in which youhave single signal reception. in a direct con­version receiver, you have a tone on eitherside of zero bea t. To ensur e you have theproper sideband, tuning the Century 22 is ahit, well. differen t.

The best way is to center the RIT controland then tune in a station with the main tun­ing knob until the station is zero beat. Thenmove the RIT control unti l you hear a beattone. Now you can transmit and the otherstation will hear you.

One of the nice things about a direc t con­version receiver is the ability to tune to theother side of zero beat. If QRM is reallyheavy on one side, simply move the RITcontrol to the other side of zero beat.

Once a station is tuned in , you can adjustthe audio fil ter to help reduce QRM. Thefour -pole audio filter is adju stable dow n to

200 Hz wide. This audio filter is centeredat 750 Hz and provides up to 24 dB per oc­tave. lfyou like to listen in on your favoriteSSB net, opening the audio filter control fullcl ockwise effec ti vely remo ves the filt erfrom the audio chain.

Adding some features

Out of the box , the Century 22 has amplespace on the inside top hal f to house the 679kcyer modu le and the 226 calibrator. Un­fortunat ely, for us, both of these options arcno longer being made by le.E-Tee. Howeverthere is a work-around available. The gutsfrom the 679 keyer itse lf will work. So allyou need to do is locate a broken K5 kcyerfrom-Ten-Tee and strip out the mod ule. Itwill bo lt directly inside the Centu ry 22.

The calibrator is a much harder item tofind. If you' re lucky. the same'calibrator isused in the Ten-Tee Argosy. You might beable to find one inside an Argosy if you finda part s-out Argosy.

There is another option, and that' s to buildone yourself. I have built two prototypes ofthe calibrator using surface mount parts . Notan easy proj ect if you have never workedwith surface mount IC and transistors. Rightnow, the stumbling block has bee n locatinga 7490 IC in an SMT packa ge. When I canget all the loose ends together, I'll presen tthe proj ect here.

Some odd and ends

The other day I was trying to work someDX on ten meters when the radio just upand died . The rece iver went dead and thetransmit SWR was out of sight. After check­ing the antennas , I found the problem to bea bad coax j umper cable. The center con­ductor had broken off ins ide the connec tor.

Continued on page 58

Page 46: 73 Magazine - February 2002

HOMING INRadio Direction Finding Joe Moell P.E. K0 0 V

P.O . Box 2508Fullerton CA 92837

[[email protected]][http://www.homingin.com]

Helping Your Community With RDF

/

Some years ago, English writer Sh i rley Conran rewrote Parkinson's Law into her own Law ofHousework: "It exp an ds to till th e time availabl e, p lus a halfhour. " Her law could just as easilydescribe the feelings of m ost hams, especially those who enjoy r adio direction finding (RDF) .

Ph oto A. Owners of a mining company in central California were surprised when twohams tracked down this illegal data tran smitter in theirfacili ty: (Photo by Paul Shinn)

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 45

T ime really does fly when you' re busilyfinding transmitters. Ma ny a time I have

glanced at the clock on a Saturday night hun tfor multiple transm itt er s and have beenamazed to see that it had become well pastmid nigh t! RD F fun has mad e the yea rs flyby, too. "Homing In" is now in its 14th ye arin 73 Amateur Radio Today magaz ine.

I' m sure there arc still some regular read­ers who haven' t tried RDF contesting yet.Why no t'?If you' re athleti c, you co uld be­come a champ ion at on-foot fox hunti ng ,also ca lled radio-ori enteerin g andARDF. Ifyou prefer to sit while yo u enjoy ham ra­dio, try a mobile Tih unt for a new adven­ture . Who knows whe re you' ll end up andwhat you' ll find!

Beating th e Buzz

As I have pointed out many times overthe years, ham radi o hidd en transm itterhunts, both mobil e and on foot, are excel­lent pract ice for real -life RDF situationssuch as trac king aircraft Emerge ncy Loc a­lor Transmitter s an d sources of uninte n­tional interference to both ham and nonhamfrequencies. If your work involves comm u­nica tions , thi s knowledge can even helpwhen you' re "on the clock: '

Paul Shin n KG 6AOH of Stockton CApractices his RD F skills on ham transmitterhunts in the San Francisco Bay area, thenuses these skill s in hi s work as a broadcastengineer. Besides ham and broadcast radio,Paul is act ive on the UHF GMRS band. HeE-mailed to tell of some of his RDF effort son those frequ encies.

Working with Do ug Smi th WA6GON ,Paul loca ted a data tran smitte r on 462.7MHz at a mining co mpany in Lone CA(Pho to A). A fanner owner of the facilityhad a license for voice operation on that fre­quency, but digital data on GMRS channels

is not allowed. Later, the two tracked aninven tory co ntrol system transmitter at astore in nea rby Jackson (P hoto B). It putou t spur ious emis sions coveri ng almos t300 kH z in the GM RS repeater input band.

Paul prefers dop pler RDF method s forthi s type of hunting because such sets workover wide frequency ranges. His rece iver ofchoice is a Mo del 1200 Com munication sServ ice Monitor by IFR , Incorporated, ofWich ita KS [http://www.ifrsys.com]. Cov­ering 100 kHz to 1000 MHz, it has a m uch"tighter" receiver than a typical hand-held or

mobile scanner. It also ineludes a spectrum

analyzer, deviation meter, and a host of otherRF servici ng and troub leshoo ting instru­men ts that he can use to co nvince ownersof interferin g equipment that they need tomake repairs or adj ustme nts (Phot o C ).

"I usc the IFR 1200 all the time on mybench," Pa ul wrote . "The recei ver is ex ­ce pt io na lly selec tive and also qui te sen ­sitive. I can perform RDF in FM narrow,me diu m, or wide modes, even in reallystrong signal cond itions such as those athigh level radio sites . Also, I can dem odu­late in AM, AM wide , and SSB mod es.Of co urse , whi le DFing 'anAM signal, I

Page 47: 73 Magazine - February 2002

.~'"~ ..~~"

""

Photo B. This inventory control system in the ceiling of a store illcentral California caused QRM to CMRS operators. Two l 'O/UIl­

teer RDF-equipped luuns found it. {Photo by Paul Shinn)

hav e to use one of the Hvlmodes 10ge l thedoppler tone effect."

Delinquents Disc overed andDeterred

Whenever a radio is stolen or lost there 'sa good chance that it will show up on theair in the hands of someone using it to causeinterference. Hams with RDF equi pmentand skill s can per form a valuable publicservice by helping to recover the radio andstop the QRI\l . Such a story carne in recentlyfrom John Munsey KB3GK o f OrmoodBeach FL.

;'0 11 June 2 1. I was in Jacksonville whena ce ll phon e call alerted me that there wasinterferen ce on o ur schoo l board repeater,"John wro te. " Upon ret urn in g ho me. Ilea rned th at so meone had brok en into aVolusia County School Board wareho useand taken at least two hand -held radios.co mplete with chargers. No w there werevoices on the school's communica tion sys­tem. interru pting tran sport ation communi­cat io ns and reporting false emergenc iesinvo lving school buses. The stolen radio shad little value and were headed for recy­cling. so the major concern was the inter­ference they were causing .

KB3GK continues. "My hunt partner. BillThomas KE4HIX. and I went on alert. wait­ing for the tran smis sion s to resum e. I in­stalled my doppler set, packed hunt gear inthe trunk of the car. and we were ready. Thefrequency was453,425, not in a hand normallyused for hunting in this area. so new antennasand antenna spacing were required.

46 73 Amateur Radio toaey » February 2002

"All \vas quiet for several da ys. with onlyan occasional key-up or short comment. Theperpet rators appea red smart enough to limittheir co nve rsa tions to qu ick transmissionsso as to not be fou nd, This continued unt ilJuly 19.whe n we were alerted that two boyswe re talk ing on the frequ ency. I was about30 miles away. so I qui ck ly return ed andpicked Bill up. The hunt was on.

" \Ve decided to hunt only one of the twosig na ls. because that ope rator was.doing80% of the ta lking. He also had the stron­ges t signal. Following the doppler headings.we drove almos t directly to a loc ation wherethe sig nal peaked and the display pointedclearly at one part icular house. We circ ledthe block. noting that the doppler headingco ntinued to cross over the same locati on .To co nfirm. we drove beh ind a loca l busi­ness where we were direct ly in back of thesuspect location. Again. the doppl er pointedd irectl y at it.

" \Ve d ro ve the s tree t in fron t o f thesuspect's hou se several times in both direc­tio ns . Each time, the do ppler ga ve a stronglock on the same ho use. Noting-that all win­dows were covered , we pulled into the drive­way to the right o f the house. The readingshifted to a sol id 270 degrees. pointing sol­id ly at the side of the house. Signal strengthpeak ed and we were satisfied that the targethad been found .

"A rrangeme nts had already been madewith the Daytona Beach Po lice for support.so a c a ll w as m ad e to S teve S za boWB40h1M, a supervisor in the DetectiveDep artmen t. In a few minutes, we were

joined by three mark ed police cars. This areawas not in the best part of to wn. so resi­dents like ly suspec ted a drug bust or othersuch ac tivit ies. Severa l of them were look­mg out of windows 01 standing 111 doorways.A few were bra ve eno ugh to venture OUl ontheir front steps.

"Without a se arc h ",,:; rranl. the po licecould not legall y ente r the suspect house. Itwas decid ed that officers would surroundthe house and then knock on the door to

question the occupants. Afte r several min­utes. an older lady carne to the door and,upon questioning. insisted that there wereno.children in the house. After some dis­cuss ion. eve ryone left. Of course. we sus­peer that the delay in answe ring the doorwas time used to hide the boy and his rad io .

"The poli ce o llice r in charge had littleco nfide nce in .Rfrf tec hno log y. He de­scribe d him self as a 't echn o-ph obic ' andwas proud that he didn't own a computer.He suggested that we had bee n misled byan IS-inch satellite TV dish on top of theho use and perha ps we had been trackingthat. With (hat atti tude, it was not surpris­ing that questioning of the resident was notpre ssed harder.

" In the boys ' co nversations. thcy hadmad e plans to ta lk again at 2 p.m. the fol­lowing day. aft er o ne got out of school.When tha t time roll ed aro und. we were inposition abo ut two miles away. where wesuspec ted tha t the other hoy lived , Nothingwas heard. and at 3:30 we called it a day.We gues sed that the previous da y' s activityhad given the boys the scare of thei r lives

Page 48: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Photo D. Dave Reeves AC6PP uses a small yagi and his scanneron the SuperSystem 440 MHz. transmitter hunts in Orange CountyCA. Such a setup is easily adapted to [exhuming on the FRSband.

band. The best response, if published here,will earn an autographed copy of my co­authored book Transmitter Hunting - Ra­dio Direction Finding Simplified (publishedby TAB McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-8306-2701-

and

Continued on page 59

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antenna for a veryeffec tive on-foo tRDF setup (PhotoD). A lightwe ight440 MHz yagi suchas the Model 440-3by Arrow Antenna[hltp: //m cm­ber s .ao l.co m/ ar ­row I46/] is a goodca ndida te , if yo utrim about a quarterinch from each endof each element.

Active attenuatorssuch as the one atmy Web site shouldwork just fine withthese receivers. Formobile RDF, dop­pler sets such as theRoan ok e Dopplerarc wcll sui ted foruse wit h a sc anner or other wide -ra ngereceiver on FRS frequencies.

On the other hand, attcmpting to use thoseinexpen sive "d rugs tore" FRS rad ios forRDF in place of a scanner prese nts twoprob lems. First, FRS radios don 't have S­meters. Second, they have perma nen tlymounted ante nnaswith no provisionsfo r attachment ofcoax.

The waveguide­below-cutoff attenu­ation technique is apossibi lity. Usingthe strap to lower theFRS set into a foil­covered cardboardtube will gradua llyattenuate the RF go­ing into the case andWhip antenna , al ­lowin g you to usethe c lass ic " bo dyshield" maneuver toge t the in comingsignal direction. Tryit wit h a tu be ofabout 3-inch diam­eter a nd 2- foo tlength.

Now, here's yourhomework assign­ment: Come up withmore original, sim­pl e , and effectiveways of using those"bubble-pack" FRShand-helds for por­table RDF on that

and that they would either be off the air fora long time or get rid ofthe equipment. Sureenough, no addit ional transmissions havebeen heard.

"We did not recover the radios, but it wasa fun hunt and demonstrated to the schoolboard that volunteers doing RDF can be ef­fective in such a situation. If the problemrecurs, we will have the cooperation of theboard and administration. We will rema inon alert ."

Nice work, John and Bill ! It was wise tomake contact with the police ahead of time.When you go after jammers and stolen ra­dios, you' re probably not going to be meet­in g candida tes for Citi zen of the Yearaward s. A recent E-mail from Tom LewisAB5CK of North Richland Hills provideda vivid reminder of that. Tom told of an in­dividual that was tracked down by T-hunt­ers in Lewisville TX afte r two weeks ofmalicious interference on a local repeater.

"It was later discovered that this personhad 51 leg al offenses and 7 convic tionsagainst him," AB5CK wrote. Then he wenton to point out that this case reinforces theneed to use extreme caution on this type ofhunt. "Never approach anyone who will­ingly breaks the law," he concluded. 'Thi sguy is bad news! Fortunately, I was not theone who discovered him."

How to RDF on FRS?

Several "Homing In" readers have E­mailed about the problems of getting RDFbearings on the new Family Radio Service(FRS) frequenci es . There are 14 FRSchannels, half near 462.6 MHz and theremainder near 467.6 MHz.The letter fromRalph Milnes KC2RLM of Chatham NJ wastypical:

"Rece ntly, our RACES grou p tried totrack a signal in the FRS band. Our premisewas that we might be asked to find a losthiker with an FRS radio. \Vc tested in a two­mil e square park with lots of trees tha thadn 't leafed out yet, and surrou nding lowhills.We weren' t very successfu l using time­diff erence-of-arrival sets, yagis cut for 462MHz, and body-shielding techniques. Wehad trouble attenuating to the right amountand may have been experiencing multipath .I wonder if there are special tips or tricksfor RDFing in the UHF range."

Ralph, first it' s important to rea lize thatmult ipath will always be a greater problemon 462 MH z at a given site, compared to146 MHz. That's because more objec ts willreflect UHF signals than VHF.If you own ascanner or wide-range handi e-talki e thatcover s the FRS frequ encie s, you can useit with a built-to-frequ ency yag i or quad

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 47

Page 49: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Page 50: 73 Magazine - February 2002

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Page 51: 73 Magazine - February 2002

ON THE GoMobile, Portable and Emergency Operation

To Change and To Serve

Steve Nowak KE8YN/016717 Hickory St.

Omaha NE 68130-15 29(ke8yn @netzera.net]

There is no doubt that our perception of the world undenvent a significant change on September11, 2001. Before the terrorist atta cks, who would ever have expected tha t the National Guardwould patrol our airports? The concept ofAir Force figh ters patrolling th e skies over New YorkCity and Washington DC was formerly reserved for science fiction.

QUf views as individuals, as citizens, andas a nation have been altered. But as

amateur rad io op erators, how must wechange to continue to serve our nation, ourconun unitics, and our neighbors?

You can' t help but have noticed that am a­teur radio was there in support of rescue andrecovery operations. You may have moni ­tored some of the support efforts or readabou t it in one of the ham radio publica ­tions. In any case , it was obvious that wewere represented by ham s from all ove r theco untry who served as com municators orwherev er else they could be useful. But inthe sa me way that aft er tha t Se pte mbermorning the words " busi ness as usual"changed their mean ing, so we as hams m ustexpec t that our role and d utie s will alsochange .

I was struck with seve ral thing s as I readthe report s of ham s in act ion and comparedthem with other news sources . I have longesp oused the need 10 be involved with apub lic service age ncy long before the re­quirement for support exists. Thi s ma y bethe Red Cross or Salvation Anny or thecounty or parish di saster services depart­ment. I believe that thi s is eve n more criti­cal after 9-11. Showin g up with a radio andgood intentions will not necessarily get youinvited to help out.

Police. fire , and the Nationa l Gua rd m ustbe far more cautious in terms of who is givenaccess to the sce ne of a disaster. \Ve had theluxury in the past of being able to assumethat the dam age was due to an accident or afrea k of nature . A storm came, ca used dam­age and moved on. The threat was p~etty

much over. Now we must ass ume that if thedisaster was due to someone's effor ts, they.may intend to continue to cause hann. Thethreat may be ongoing durin g the rescue and

50 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002

recovery phases. As such, we as hams mustexpe ct to be scrutinized with a skeptical eyerath er than we lcomed with open arms. Itneeds to be clear why they should allow usaccess to an area while refusing it to ot hers.

The les son to be learned here is that it iscritica l that ham operators and ham radioclub s get to know and to be know n by theagencies they ex pect to serve. They mustalso be able [ 0 be clearly identifi ed by oth ­er s. If you support a local ho spital, yo ushould not expec t to be permitted to enter itwitho ut having adeq uate iden tification. Inthe past, it was common to report to a cen­tra l location and then be escor ted to one 'sduty locat ion. Thi s is lime-consuming andineffi cient, to say the least.

Ifyo u arc assigned to a part icular agency,they may be able to provide the approp riatecredentials. Th is may invol ve undergoing aback ground check and then rece iving anidentifi cation card or badge from the agencyyou will support. Thi s wo n' t nece ssa rilyrepla ce the Am ateur Radio Em ergency Ser­vice (ARES) or Radio Amateur Civil Emer­gency Service (RAC ES) card you may carrynow, but will be in addition to it. I recommendhaving your age ncy identification , ham li­cense, dri ver 's license, and hospitalizationcard on your person when responding.

Of co urse, there arc also other benefits tobeing involved in advance with the agencywith which yo u expect to work. It can meanthat you will be better prepared to provideassistance because you will have an under­standing of what is to be expected. You mayeven have the opportunity to practice yourduties a bit and develop some of the skillsbefore they are actuall y needed .

September 11th a lso ca n be ex pec ted torequ ire cha nges from the way we havetrad i tionall y provided suppo rt. APRS,

for example, ma y no longer be the modeof choi ce for many types of disaster servicecommunications. Although it was benefici alin the past to be able to identify a station' slocat ion, in the eve nt of any kind of attack,that informat ion is best kept available onlyto those who, need to know. It may be mostun wi se to id enti fy where the in cidentcommander is located, much less any key'government officia ls who might be visit­ing the area . With the adve nt of so manyso undca rd- has ed systems for recei vin gdi gital modes, packe t, APR-S, ctc., can bemonitored with a scanner, a patch cable, anda co m pute r ru nn ing sha re ware . Oddlyenough,.with the rest of the world aba ndon­ing CW as a mode ofcommunication, it maypro vide one of the most sec ure methods forhandling sensitive traffic . Computer decod­ing ofM orse code is not very effec tive, soindividual skill is needed to provide solid copy.

Anoth er big change appears to be thetypes of eq uipme nt we' ll be expec ted to

bri ng wi th us . From wha t I ' ve heard ,handheld radios with rubb er ducky anten­nas proved to be virtua lly worthless. Al­though they are often of limi ted utility, thiswas especially true since seve ral key repeat­ers were appare ntly located on or near the\Vorld Trade Center. In this type of situa­tion. expect to take alo ng a 25 watt (orhigher) dual-band mobile rig with an appro­priate antenna and power source. Not onlyare the additional frequenci es useful, butcro ss-ban d operation may thwart at leastsom e monitoring.

Finally, don 't be surprised if some of thetraditional amat eur support is moved awayfrom the ham band s. I fully expec t to seemore emphasis 0 11 Military Affil iate Radio

Continued on page 59

Page 52: 73 Magazine - February 2002

THE D/6/TRL PORTJack Heller KB7NO

P.O. Box 1792Carson City NV 8970 2

[[email protected] tt.netj

More Fun

The activity in your ham digital modes is increasing exponentially, or at least, that is the way 1view it. Just a few years ago, you might find a handful of signals on the waterfall at what couldthen be considered "prime tim e." Now, when there is any propagation and there are a fewhams awake and at the keyboard, th ere is worldwide activity . Amazes me - it is th e way itshould be - just hard to believe we are witnessing such growth in numbers.

_"'~ ~ IN·f.J<f '<'(; ~ IWc:.l'l!'~·,w... ; -i OU,'-f'!' LISl.OOfCoRRrl f Rf&I1!me ell SCCJOIDOoPT>;< ceo I AU.as''I€ tw.:~ !-lCL'ES S.H M IQ

seGo;N", ':"'1: 'h AY OF""'" SVNO CA"DS. j 00 NOTuscMFfl'j(; M'J(><Ml00 IlKEW rS>\lIf nE P l " " ,j 1Ht:A' S!<.~lCl1' MtrQ$t '....ST

'SE wm~ r-e SOVI--:O CAA'Q 'fI'!"JlE"':;1:'S>VI ff'll EAs Y"~MG raT sTAATEOOl'l !>SNQ.l..Yf !)1IJ1'I~8fP [E!<V'M> KI'l

(v"'CoQYAl..'I(3.2'ilWo:<VOO'V\"Y\iI'Qh'f$ 11"'V~W..I/...~'1r~~l~N(jm"""V~~M.l!)E" O€ J-1,,~"'l'f S C\o\'4: ' t..lSOM'IE~N-€J IT 5TIU.W'J"~:S

Fig. 1. This is a screenstiot ofZakanaka ill the RTTY mode using the MMTTY engine . Iwas simply "reading the mail" during this exercise. Note the frequency readout abovethe spectral display. Logger reads the frequency of the rig and Zukanalca displays it. Ihave the spectral display on. The contrast in the shot may not make this very plain. Thesoftware is set for reverse mode which can be controlled from several menus , the easiestis to. click the button at the top of the screen. The 36 macros at the bottom are easily pro­grammed according to the needs of the user (see text). In the middle of the top row oficons is a button for "setup." Click that and the regular MMTTY setup screen appears.Also, the Logger entry screen responds for RTTY logging automatically.

73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002 51

What this mean s to you is a great op­portun ity to find enjoy me nt as never

before -in ham rad io . The playing fie ld islevelin g as we find very few ham s runni ngany kind of spectrum annihi lating power. Asa matter of fact, most "big guns" arc run­ning less than 50 well adjusted (clean signal)watts to a good antenna. The average suc­cess ful station is running the same powerwith a trap vert ica l or equivale nt. And theyar c not j ust working stat ions around theblock. Many are wor king serious DX.

What I am saying is, you can join in thefun with relati vely no inves tme nt if yo ualready have an HF station on the air.

The rea son I starte d with these thoughtsis that I recently recei ved a request froma ham asking for specific items to gets tarted in digital co mm unications. Jud g­in g by his message, I decided he was aswell ex perie nce d as I am with CW andSSB and probab ly wc ll ve rsed in thevacuu m tub e era recent ly go ne by. (Re ­ce nt is a rel ative sta teme nt I will not getinto ju st now <grin>.)

So my answer in a few hundred wordsexplained how he could find dir ections tomake a simple interfa ce such as what 1 useat a cost of $20, plus or minus, and jus t aboutevery thing else was frec . A new digital hamcan by pass the roll -your- own cabling bypurchasing one of the several ready -to-pl ug­in interfa ces on the market which range inprice from $40 to $14 0.

Furth er, I gave him the UR L to find theDigiPan softw are, which is free, and ex­plained there were links there to find theselittl e black plug-in boxes, all of which see mto work for the ham s I run ac ross usingthem . And , the real biggie is the Help file inthe DigiPan software that is so well written

that I direct eve ryone with a need for plainlanguage explanations accompanied by dia­grams to download DigiPan and drink in theinformation . It has solved more proble msremotely for me than any other avai lablemethod . Quick , but not dir ty.

And yes, once we have become hookedon this digital stuff, it becomes ever marceasy to jus tify purch asing all the finery from

our favorite ham equipment manufac ture rs.But it is definitely not an expensive portionof the hobby. You can get your fec t wetwithou t drow ning your bank accoun t.

As you look at all the software with instruc­tions, everything you need is immediatelyavailable to gelYo~ into this most fascinatingaspect of ham radio . There are numero usnew modes to choose from, plu s a hug e

Page 53: 73 Magazine - February 2002

,. ~ Tdo- """" ~odo ....,.. _ 1 ..... ~ 0... '""W. _._ rig. lih 'lIe PSK-20 "',hom. ai,'" oIo.r hlp-po<

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(Wld 1M W<)~d "''''ll ih. "' 0<1<0 006 I, . _ , is ... ~.1y 1.... 1 ....01 0>H,.Ni>t.. d #1tl>t"",,"

•• , cmWti . G<louNm-.l ,<>J . 73 . ndt-l.ll>PI~1>4'Y~ . _· Alllit bont OX.!IlIGL '" lilt".... Yd" I<li8tDEKB7NO SK 50

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Fig. 2. This is Zakan aka ill PSK3I mode. This was at the tail endofa real QSO with. a QRP PSK station running 750 milii watts. At.first glance this looks about the same as the R7TY mode in Fig. 1.However you will notice a whole different set of captions on themacro buttons and the toolbar at the top has nothing to do withRTT Y. It is like a totally separate program for each mode. III bothmodes, there are 36 macro buttons which you can control withfunction keys from the keyboard (see text). 1 have the waterfalldisplay turned on in this mode. You can use either spectral or }va­terfatt display in either mode. Many other program s have a callbox where the other station '.'I callsign is displayed when youdouble click the call ill the receive screen. Here, in either mode,that call box is in the Logger entry screen (see Fig. 3). When youinvoke a macro that needs the callsign Zakanaka retrieves it fromLogger. The logging system is quite simple to use. If your rig willcommunicate with Logger: much afthe entry is automated.

F ig. 3. This is the Entry panel for Logger. Logger has manypanels to suit its various functions , including a full display oflogged contacts you may scroll through or search, as wel l as apre viousl y worked screen where a familiar call sign pops up onentry. This is the one you deal with the most. Af ter 1 vvas fin­ished with the QSO mentioned in Fig. 2 and had logged thecontac t, 1 double clicked the callsign again 0 /1 the receivepane and the above information displayed. By the ~vay, this"6" station was in Utah. You will note the QSO is numbered617 in the upper comer. I had used the import feature to bringinto Logger previous contacts from another file. The 600 C0 1/­

tacts took perh aps 2, no more than 3, minutes to import andsor t their lvay into organization: Excellent import feature. Ifyou are search ing for nothing more. than a full featured log­ging system and do not wish to pa y bucks for it, this is a veryuseful FREE tool [or your h.amshnck. It will print a hard copyofyour log f iles and also has a label print feature.

selection of freewa re, so you may get startedon this new feast of technology for the lowcost of a few hors d'oeuvres. The most ex­pensive piece of equipment you need is yourrig, and most rigs manufactured in the last15 to 20 years can be outfitted for dig italperformance.

What pr ice, fun ?

Do yo u need an expensive comp uter?Simply answered - no. The other day I wasworking a ham on PSK who had suffered aserious malfunction in his main computerand was operating with a $ 10 com puter hehad rescued from a thrift store. I don't knowall the story behind it, but this is a lesso n insimplicity. The big-buck machin e must nothave proved indispensable, especially if itco uld be replaced wi th something thatsounded pretty obsolete.

As for rigs, in addition to lcom, Kenwood ,Yaesu, and Ten-Tee, I work many hams withQRP rigs they have asse mbled fro m kitssuch as Elecraft , and many of the li ttle"poc ket-sized" rigs running 1 or 2 watts andpowered by dry cell s or wall-warts if theyare still at home. As an example, today's PSKscrcc nshot (Fig. 2) is the trailing end of aQSO where the other station was running

52 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

750 milliwatts. And he was truly S-9 ! Alittle less than 500 miles away, but stillexcellent print on the monitor.

So what am I really leading up to thismonth ? I know - you were likely attractedby the pictures. No wonder SSTV is so fas­cinating . Okay, no airbo rne pic tures, butwhat we have are best explained by picturesabout freeware.

You are going to see some pretty greatthings you ca n do with software yo u candow nload absolu te ly free from the Int er­net. I have do ne a few articles on theZakanaka/Logger combo in the past , butthe deve lopme nt j ust keep s on enha ncingthe produc t.

You will find the files are relatively large,some thing around a 45-min ute download ifyo u get a good con nection. Biu yo u prob­ably already know that drill and the conse­que nces whe n the downl oad slows to acrawl. These particular down loads went likecloc kwork . No, if you arc asking, I do nothave cable. Don't sec the necessity for ahome computer setup.

Several th ings att ra ct ed me to theZakanaka software this month . Thi s is oneof several programs having RTTY ca pa­b i li ty fac i li tate d b y th e use o f theMMTTY engine from Mak o JE3HHT. The

full-blown MMTTY program works like adream as a standa lone for RTTY only. Sel­dom is heard a discouraging word about thissoundcard program, even from dyed-in-the­woo l green-key aficionados.

At this time, I count three-PSK31 pro­grams that are using the MMTTY eng ineand they all perform well. The others arcHamScope and WinWarble r. I have used allthree and they arc good. I am not going topass j udgment to say which is best, butZakanaka holds an edge in this computerdue to the operating system (ME).

Why am I down on ME?

I have this new whiz-bang computer thatI have mentioned in previous columns andit has this not so whiz-bang opera ting sys­tem referred to famili arly as ME [Millen­nium Edit ion (Windows) J. I think I shouldcompile a list of the ham software that willand will not run correc tly on the ME system.

And I should do that before I take the nextstep and install the new XP Windows sys­tcm which I am led to helieve fixes most ofthese problems. The dra whack I see withthe XP, thoug h it is another uncharted terri­tory to enter, is that it is reported that if youpurcha se an over-the-counter piece of new

Page 54: 73 Magazine - February 2002

software you can install that package in I wanted to experiment with this month does to answer questions. DigiPan work s likeexac tly one computer equipped with XP. not work j ust quite righ t under ME . It gangbusters, ju st as if it was running under

That does n' t bo ther me too much, but the works, but ce rta in necessary aspec ts can- a" real" operatingsystem likeWin95 or98.principle rubs me the wrong way. I really not be contro lled. Thu s far, Window s 98 is the all-time champdon 't have need to install a single purchase By contrast, I am finding that MixW2 in my books for running ham software.program in bunches of computers but do like runs quite well under ME. And, as I was Eve rything works on 98.to outfit the laptop with the same software explaining to the aforementioned ham about So this month I was planning to give a goas the des ktop to facil itate data file transfer. DigiPan, it seemed wise to download that at the DXLab suite of programs beca use

Anyway,all thataside,I found thesoftware program and refresh my memory to be able there has been a lot of progress with these

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Interface info lor DIY digital ham s www.qsl.nellwm2u1interlace.html267 Cypresswood Drive >Sprin g, TX 77388

WinWarb ler Into and DXLab Suile www.qsl.neVwinwartJler/ 800-471-7373MFSK-related tech inlo - how it works www.qsl .netlZI1bpu/ Local: 281-355-7373

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73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 53

Page 55: 73 Magazine - February 2002

sig nal and you were immediat ely in receive

decode mode.T hat is an idea of ju st how innovat ive

some of the K4CY software has been alongthe way. T hen came the development ofZakanaka as a ded ica ted Windows-based ,easy-to-use, PSK3 1 communicat ions pro­gram that wo rks hand-in-hand with Loggerto make the bcginnings of a total package .Logger will communicate with the populartran sceiver s of today to mon itor freq uencyand contains band plans you can mod ify to

suit your needs. Makes logging as simpleas hitti ng the Enter key.

No w Zakanak a a lso supports theMMTIY engine for superb RTTY perfor­mance at no additional cos t (still freeware).Plus, if your transceiver is conversant withLogger, the recorded rrequency readouts arcdisplayed in Zakanaka, T his means you canusc Zaka naka with Logger running in thebackground, search for previou s contac tsand display them, do your automatic log ­ging, and switch back and for th betweenPSK and RTTY with the cli ck of yourmouse .

Th e dow nloads and installa tion weresimple enough. I had to do a little thinkingand research to ge t the cor rect parametersinto Logger so it wo uld co nver se with theIcom rig . Once I got past that hurdle, op­era tion was a brccl.e.-I....&>ent a little timelistening to RTTY and found the print wasexceptional on some of the weakes t signals.When I say weak. I mean the Scmeter docsnof even llicker and the spec tral display is .j ust barely alive. MMTIY is a great pro­gram, whether you use it as standalone orin one of the she lls such as-Zakanaka.

.After you do d igital modes for a whi leyou develo p so me habi ts with yo ur mac ­ros . I have several abso lute m ust macrosI write into every piece of software I usc .Both Logger (when yo u arc using the Log­ger PSK modul e) and Za ka naka pro videsimple, stra ight forwa rd macro "l anguage"that allowe d me to ge t my "crutch" macrosorganize d in j ust a few minutes.

I needed to make a change in the setup[or RTTY and found the button fo r theMMTIY engine se tup (the Setup button)bro ught up the reg ular MMTIY setup paneland I was on my way in moments.

A lso , w hile ge tt ing in to th e RTTYmi ndset , I rea lized Zakanaka macros thatyou use [or PSK arc not carried over whenyou change to RTTY. There is a whole setof macro butt ons at the bottom of each ofthe screen layouts, 36 for PSK and 36 1110refor RTTY. You will need to look at each in­dividually and he certain whether you canuse them as they "come out of the box,"

xl

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... i ~" j•,fil PorI ccen IfS~_~_....!!J.:lc!.::~; II

Yo u will find a lot o f hams using theZakanaka software combined with Logger,and they arc perfectly happy with the setup.Truthfully, I had attempted to install theseprograms on this computer when I first gotit, and the 1\11E system rebelled there as well.But I had mentioned this to a ham on the airnot long ago and he was pretty sure thesetwo programs had been modified recentl yto wo rk with ME.

So, I down loaded fres h co pies of thefreeware from their\Veh site as listed in TheChart and they installed perfectly thi s time.I co uld not ti nd reference on the \Veh siteconcerning ME com patibility, but the rumorwas true as best I co uld tel l.

Logger has been a favor ite logging pro­gram for many hams for a lorig time. It haseasy import and ex port of files and the pro­gram gained a lot of attention a couple ofyears ago when Bob K4CY added a PSKmodule to it. Th is was at a time when mostof us were strugg ling (albeit happily, be­cause PSK3l was new and a resou ndingsuccess) with the G4PLX original so ftwarethat had to be tuned oh-so-carc fully withthe little round tuning indicator. Logger hadcom e on the scene wi th a spectral displa ysuch that yo u co uld simply clic k on the

Program du jour

~~:c;:~':'~'-;-""=~~~~~---~~~--~~~~~~

~

integrated pieces of freeware. A while hackI had loaded earlier versions into the Win98machine and they wor ked ju st grea t Thismonth I tried the Win\Varb ler, which nowutili zes the MMTIY engine for RTIY andthe Com ma nder rig contro l which has beenupgraded to co ntrol not only Icom rigs butalso Ken wood and Yacsu. and. I think , Ten­Tec .

\Ve ll. wo uldn ' t yo u know". Mu rphystruc k me down . Th ey run so rt o f all rightbu t have too man y bugs whe n runnin g inthe ~,tE envi ronme nt. I j ust co uldn ' t giveyo u an honest evalua tio n. Th e MMTTYengine see med to wo rk j us t fi ne and I didha ve a Q SO in PSK a nd it looked asthou gh the loggi ng program was goi ng toperform we ll - a t leas t at fir st Th en thesituation starte d downhi ll. I know for afact tha t these progr ams are running forothers, hut the req ui remen ts say that theyca n he used on j ust abou t every ot her op ­erating sys tem Microsoft produces exceptME.

After puzzli ng at the dilemm a for a bit. Idecided tha t what I was rea lly after was acombination that would do PSK as well asRTIY, using the MMTIY engine and somesnaz zy logging all interm ingled, and possi­bly a few other goodi es . Zaka nakaJLogge ris the choice o r the day.

54 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

}JR: RST IS599 599 599:l)TH IS CARSON CfTYNY CJ>..ASON OT, toNNAME IS JACKJACKJACKjsOHOWCOFY~· IS JACKJACKJACK~O HO'W COFY

de KBmO

'R't1W RYRYRYRYRYRYffiRYRYRYRYCOCOCOde KB7I'JO KB7NO KB7NOCOCOCOde K87NO KB7NO KB7NOCOCOCOde KB7NO KB7NO

Coovefse )TH Ndl'1'; Seo:!Blif DayTrne I tlOlmal I Reifel$>!!: AMTDR HF I Pactor

Mode? 4§Jt,u t II lAM r

Fig. 4. This is the window to communicate witli your TNC. There is 1I file 10 down loadf rom the same site where you fi nd Logger: It has PK232 ill the filename. Open this fil eand it hus a Jet of instructions along with two fl ies, aile of which cOlll'errs the residentKuntronics controls to PK232 f ormat. Of course, if .YOU wa llt to lise yo ur KAM , you WOIl'tneed this . All is in place fo r yOli. Here again is a set of lIlacro buttons to config ure andedit (see text ). lfollowcd the instructions in the file and it took off and worked j ust great.Very f riendly with the PK232 at this shack. A real winner; and JlO cost. It also transferslog information TO the Logger entry screen. Howe ver; in this case, nofrequency infonno ­tion to share due to only one serial port available for the exe rcise. Have to type in the[reouency b.vliand. But the macros will search the Logger information when necessaryand pick up the info y OIl have already recorded.

Page 56: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Editing the macros is a cinch. Place yourmouse cursor over the macro butto n andright-click. In Zakanaka, for ei ther mode,you will get a screen to allow editing to suityour style. In Logger the only difference isa screen pops up asking you if you wish tocontin ue.

I say the macro language used is "p lain"language because words such as "transmit"and "receive" are used to cause just thosefunc tions. I j ust realized as I was writingthis that you will need to find a list of thecommands to put in the macros. Go to theZakanak a help file and click the Find taband type in "macro" and you wil l find sev­eral pages of info on customizing your mac­ros including instructions to make "hotkeys"for d irect keyboard control of ofte n usedfun ctions. I like hotkeys because I don ' thave to reach for a mouse eac h time I wantto invoke a macro or other control. Lots ofoptions for you to play with.

One other item while I am thinking mac­ros - The 36 macro buttons are related tothe function keys in this manner. The toprow can be activated simply by striking thefunction key corresponding to the positionof the macro. That is, for "CQ" striking the"F l " key will send that macro and so forthacross the board.

The second row of macros requi res theAlt key plus the appropri ate function keyusing the same order from left to right. Thebottom row uses the Ctrl key plus the func­tion key. This means you will have vir tualhotkeys available as soon as you define yourpersonal macros and get used to where theyare located . Hint - try to have the samefun ction key send the same macro you areused to from a previous program - savessome embarrass ing moments.

There is one othe r little goodie that willplea se some of you. Logger will controlyour KAM or PK232 TNC like a champ. Ittakes a little patience but all the piece s arein place with instru ction s to get either oneof these TN Cs working . I am sure the origi­nal need was to commun icate with thepacket DX cluster. However, if you want touse Pactor or whatever other mode fromyour TNC you can do it.

I ran into one small trick that had mewonderi ng for a minute du ring the PK­232MBX setup. The program said it couldnot open the serial port where the 232 cablewas connected. It took a bit 10 realize thatLogger was already using that port to com­municate with the leorn rig. Changing thatport confi guration tempo rarily solved theproblem and wonders could begin .

Although I did not follow through and makethe connection to the rig, the impressive part

is how well the program communicates withthe TNC. This panel, inciden tally is avail­able when you click the "Data" button inthe Logger program. See the screenshot.

Here aga in is another se t of macros todefine and redefine. The supplied macrosare okay but you will need to personalizethem to your ca ll and QTH and other data.This group of 36 macro s does not lend it­self to function key operation but I found ahint in the definit ion of the "Cmd:" button.If you put an ampersand in when yo u namethe key, you can hit Ctrl + the first letter onthe key and then hit the Enter key and it is akind of two-step hotkey that allow s you tokeep your fingers where they belong.

As well as this program worked, I stillhad a few features I could not explore whichI blame on this operating sys tem. One ofthem is the auxiliary screens . There are twoof these and they allow you to monitor asecon d and third PSK signal alo ng with theone you are working with on the main re­ceive screen. Also, I did not find the familiarMM TT Y scope.

I keep giving this ME a bad rap, and eventhough it deserves it, there are so me advan­tages such as stability. Since the time sev­eral mon ths ba ck whe n I di sabled thesleep-mode, I would guess there have notbeen more than five real system lock-upswhen it became necessary to shut the poweroff and reboot.

So, if you are stuck with the ME systemand you have software runn ing in it that fitsyour needs, it will probably just plug along,do the job and you will be a happy camper.Very likely, if I had this in an office/game!entertainment enviro nment for which mos thome co mputers are used, I wou ld not havecomplaints. About the nicest statement I canmake, but that is at least one positive votefrom your village curmudge on .

That is about it for thi s month. There ismore happening I am sure. The propagationto the inner recesses of the mind seems tobe fading so I will try it again next month.If you wou ld like to ask questions aboutthe se subjects, feel free to E-ma il me at[KB7NO @worldnet.att. net]. 73 until nexttime, Jack KB7NO. ra

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Page 57: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Ca rl Herbert AA2JZ43 So uth Plank Rd.Newburgh NY 12550[chcraft97 @aol.com]

Your Own Owner's ManualAre you recording project accomplishments in a logical fashion fo r f uture ref erence?

Your latest project has been completed, and all the planning, pain ting, an d solderingwere well worth it. The newest addition to y our Homebrew Ham Shack takes its placefor all to see, 1can see y ou beaming with pride, even from over here!

B ut, you know what ? You aren' tfinished with the project - notjust yet'

When was the last time, when pur­chasing anything of an equipment na­ture, you weren't given a pamphletexplaining all about the "widget" j ustpurchased? I' ll bet you've gotten an"Owners Manual" with just about ev­erything of value for as long as youcan remember. They do co me in handyfrom time to time, like when you needreplacement parts and such.

So why not create one for your latestendeavor' No, I don 't expect that youwould rival Homer 's Iliad, but a binderco ntaining the important documents,etc., from which the project evolved isa valuable asset.

Let me explain how I preserve theitems relating to my endeavors, andwhat the benefits are from doing this.

When con sidering a project for con­struction, I gather the necessary sche­matics and written articles at my desk.I then photocopy the schematic, EN­LARGED, for my use during construc­tion and place the original in athree-ring binder for safekeeping. Thewritten article joins the schematic alsoat thi s time, There 's a pocket on the56 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

inside cover of the three-ring binderfor ho lding the magazine presentlybeing util ized.

My reasons for doing this arc:I . I am going to "misplace" the sche­

matic and will have to make a secondcopy to continue build ing. This is theunwritten #1 law of building at mybench.

2. Drawings of electronic circuitsdevelop a "charge" from the positiveand negative circuits on the page, there­by attract ing coffee, soda, and otherbe verages , covering the circuits andrendering the page useless. This is alittle known fact of schematicology,but requires yet another copy of theoriginal to be created.

3. The art of using red pencil to iden­tify connections completed and com­ponents installed sometimes renders theschematic illegible. Yet another copywould prove to be a bonus.

4. Magazines are shy creatures,evading the sharpest of eyes when be­ing hunted. Better to confine the de­sired edition before it decides to hideamongst the sofa cushions. This is alsoa healthy approach to homebrewing, inthat it (a) keeps your blood pressuredown, inasmuch as you know that the

original is right where you left it and,(b) allows you to refr ain from shout­ing, "Whore's my copy of 73?" all thetime , thereby avoiding a sore throat,etc.

So now the project has been decidedupp~ and is underway. Parts arc eithergathered from supplies you alreadyhave, or are placed on order.

Place a copy of the order documentin.the,binder also. I have often thoughtthat I ordered a specific part, when infact I hadn't. Keeping a copy of the"shopping list" enables you to knowexactly what you requested, how many,how much, 'and when it should arrive.Six months from now, I doubt you willremember accurately all of the factssurrounding the purchase.

I sense that you disagree with me,and that your memory is unequaled !OK, to disagree is good - but I canprove my point of view !

Answer the fo llowing question,please:

What is the part number and catalognumber, cos t, and page number fromthe catalog, of the last electronic part youpurchased by mail? From which com­pany? What is their toll- free orderingnumber?

Page 58: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Can' t remember, huh?! Guess a copyof the order would be a good thing toput in thc folder should you need partslater on. It saves a lot of time not havingto do the research all over again.

As the project progresses, you' ll findthat changes to the parts are sometimesnecessary, either to acco mmodate adifferent frequency range, to includeanother added circuit, etc. Include apage in the binder for "as built" notes.The changes entered, along with anyneeded formula data, can prove in­valuable for future reference. Diffi­culties encountered and the remedyare useful.

On one page I always describe thefinish used on the cabinet and/or chas­sis. Sounds somewhat trite, but I havefound it to be one of the most benefi­cial items in the folder. The reasons forthis are because of the variations be­tween manufacturers and types ofprimer and paint used, and their namesand colors. There can also be a hugedifference, depending on which manu­facturer you use, between the types ofclear spray used to protectively coatthe finished panel and its lettering. Notall pain ts from one manufacturer willaccept the clear protective coating ofanother. The products can interact,making a perfect front panel into ametal plate covered with a soggy,sticky mess. Then you not only get toclea n the mess, but you get to repaintand letter the panel again. By loggingthe primer and color, I can match thecolor scheme exact ly when I decide tobuild the matching power supply andspeaker at some later date. Black fromthc XYZ company isn 't exactly likeblack from thc ABC company.

Now your project is comp lete! Youcan add any information you desire toYour Own Owner' s Manual.

Something nice I've seen are pic­tures taken during the co nstructionphase. Digital cameras are very usefulfor this. The pictures can be printed onregular paper and stored in the binderas a "historical document." Visitors tothe shack will undoubtedly be impressedby your finished work, and the Owner'sManual allows them to appreciate yourefforts during construction.

WARNING! This manual docs havethe capability of becoming reproductive.

One project leads to another, and toanother, etc., etc. Plan for future en­deavors by leaving enough room in thebinder for the next construction item.Dividing the binder into sections, e.g.,Receivers, Transceivers, Transmitters,Power Supplies, as your building ad­ventures co ntinue, is a good idea. Thebinder becomes a history of yourbuilding efforts.

Once again. congratulations on youraccomplishment! Ii!ll

Weather Sat Trackingis Awesome!continuedfrom page 15

NASA engineers settling some technicalpoint over a cup of coffee.

On the downside however, a numberof parents, for some reason, just don' tseem to "get it." I believe that perhapstoo many of today's activities - suchas this project - arc just put in a men­tal overload garbage pile with all theInternet , computer gam es, and otherthings of mystery, with no actual effortto try to understand. The concept thatthere is no "magical" Internet connec­tion and an antenna pointing at the skyseem to be meaningless.A demo was puton at one school open day with only mi­nor interest from the visiting parents, al­though the roaming kids wouldn't stayaway. One parent was eve n worriedthat we wouldn' t be able to sec the sat­ellite through the overcast ! There mustbe a message there somew here.

All in all, it has been a wonderfulexperience for me . I started out notknowing what would be possible withthe first group of Year 6 students aroundII or 12 years old, but the last group wasthe youngest yet, a combined class ofYear 3/4 at 8 or 9 years old. The photosare of this younger group and are fromGlenorie Public School here north ofSydney.

Although this project was not directlylinked to amateur radio, there wereplenty of opportunities to explain thehobby. I usually have a handheld withme, and after answering the usualquestion, "What kind of CB is that?",the door is open to talk abo ut whyamateur radio is different. I guaranteethat any amateur will find volunteer

technical projects such as this a lotmore satisfying than any paid job. Pri­mary school students need ham volun­teers with their practical, hands-onway of making high-tech things hap­pen. My very first class will be of uni­versity age next year. I wo nder if ourearlier projects will have any impacton their future .. . Ii!ll

Direct-Mount "J" Antenn a for440 MHz HTscontinued from pag e 2 3

rotatin g collar, and you probably willneed to cement the two together. E-6000clear adhesive works fine. This antennais not difficu lt to build, but it does re­quire care and neatness in construction.To dupli cate the antenna, j ust be sureyou do in fact do a duplicate and don'tdeviate. For example, on the coax as­sembly, don't substitute a different kindor type of coax or alter the specifieddimensions.

In doing your final trimming, youwill find that the length of the match­ing section has a greater effec t on theresonant frequency of the-system thandoes the length of the radiating ele­ment. Plug a small UHF SWR meter(such as..Radio Shack #940-0866) di­rectly into the transceiver antennasocket. Plug the antenna PL-259 intothe SWR meter without any interven­ing coaxand use the fewest adapterspossible. Obviously, the antenna shouldbe inside the PVC housing whilemakin g SWR meter readings.

I have built more than a dozen ofthese antennas, 'and an SWR of 1.2:Ior less across the voice-repeater bandfrom 442 to 450 MHz is typical. Out­side the band the SWR rises rather rap­idly, reaching 1.5:1 at about 439 MHzand 453 MHz. Ii!ll

LOPs to Th ink Aboutcontinued from page 34

that provided great satisfaction uponcompletion. After completing thisproject I was thinking how it might beof use to the computer hams of today.

Continued on page 58

73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002 57

Page 59: 73 Magazine - February 2002

QRP Internet Computingcontin ued Jrom pag e 37

LOPs to Thin k Aboutcontin ued f rom page 5 7

Curr ently I have a computcr mon itorsilt ing next to the radi o with the mousenext to the CW key. With the mill re­mo ved the keyhoard will fit across theope ning and sit on the linoleum desk­top s. The slide -out shel f below thekeyboard makes a good place for thelog or note-takin g. Th e naval engineersof 50 years ago didn 't know aboutcomputers, but it works.

In the Jul y 2001 QST, pag e 119,there is another call for one of thesetables, and oth er US N equ ipment. bythe crew restoring LST-325. I hopethey get the overwhelming responsethat I received . I must say tban k-you toall of you for offe ring great stories.pictures, and es pecia lly you two whodonated the eq uipment. You all knowwho you arc .

Does this desk get an y use? You bet !Most rece ntly it was used for Straight KeyNight 200l. It sees regular service aroundthe HF QRP frequencies, too. fa

baud modem can put on the screen.She ll acco unt access with a 33 .6kbsmodem is awesom e.

A LINUX shel l account allows youto FT P, Tclnct, and - if you wish tolearn a few more LINUX comma nds- get into the hidden byways of theInternet easier than with most popu largrap hica l hro wscrs at national ISPs.You can even teach yo urse lf LI NUXfrom the comfort of your old DOScomputer.

E-ma il, and rea din g the Interne t' sa ma te ur radio USEN ET newsgroup s,is simple because LINUX comes con­figured with PIN E, an ea sy-to-use pro­gram tha t does both. At the LINUXpro mpt, type "pine" and yo u' re onyour way with the hel p of a e1earme nu .

LYNX is the LI NUX text bro wserthat provides po werfu l hypertext link­ing on the World Wide Weh. Typin g" lynx" starts the bro wser with its sta­tus bar mcnu . It just takes a co uple ofkeystrokes and a few seconds to fill58 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

your sc reen with the Web page youwere seeking. LI NUX is case- se nsitiveand most commands use lower casco

The communications program to dialinto a shell account must support "VT­100" terminal emulation, and shouldsupport Z-Modem, the preferred filetransfer pro tocol. PINE and LYNXneed VT- I00 to disp lay co rrec tly. Vin­tage DOS communications programslike lI ayes Smartco m, Procom rn Plu s,COMIT lor DOS, and man y others of­fer VT- IOO screen em ulation and theZ-Mo dem pro tocol.

Most Weh sites are thoughtfully de­signed 10 identi fy on-line graphic fi leswith the .gif, .jpg, and .bmp ex ten­sions. If you want one of them , high­light it with the LYNX cursor andpress "d" to start a download to these rver. From there, download it to yourown computer, whe re yo u can open thefile with your favorite graphic fileviewer.

Once you know how to use a dial-u pLINUX shell account, you arc virtuallyindependent of computer platforms to

_______ _ _______-! access your files, E-mail, and the Inter­

net , whether locally or traveling. Youca n usc any computer with a modem todial into your ISP.

For unlimited use , the mo nth ly costof most LINUX shell accounts is abouthal f that of national graphical Internetaccess charges. ISPs assume : (I ) youmust be a sav vy user to ask for a shellaccount; (2) therefore they kno w theywon' t need to provide you much sup­port ; and (3) narrow band width shell ac­counts demand less resources from theirservers co mpared to a regul ar account.

T here arc even "free-nets" still around,that provide dial-in shell acco unts as apublic service. Co lorado has one of theoldest and best, with in fo rmation abou tit at [www.nyx.nct] .

It ' 5 time to rethink the notion ofco mputer "o bsolescence .' It's estimatedthere are over 250,000,000 pre-PentiumDOS computers in the world, and theham community sure ly has its share.None of them needs to he idle or dis­carded . Their efficient operating systemsand programs can easily handle the bulko f the am ateu r rad io co mmuni ty'sroutine Internet in formation task s.

Bill Boas KC0IZI is a writer whofi rst went on- line ill 1986. fa

QRPcont inued from page 44

It turned out that the coax was from RadioShack and the RG-58 cable has a solid centerconductor. Guess it took one too many bendsto break the center conductor in half. I wouldsuggest you check yourj umpers and replaceany of those made up of Radio Shack RG-58cable,

Radio Shack docs sell RG-8U cable andthe so-ca lled mini 8 cable. Both of thesehave a stranded center conductor that won' tfail if it is flexed too much.

The second edition of the HW-BHandbook

StiJl looking for mods for the H\V-7, H\V­8, and HW-9 QRP transceivers. Tbey willbe in the second edition of the HW-8 Hand­book. The mods can be as simple as a valuechange for a part. to a complete rework ingof a circuit.

I am hoping for a Dayton 2002 Ham­vention release [or the book. Inside you willfind PC board layouts, assembly diagrams,and, of course, modifications to these ra­dios. This ti me. too, the book will be full ofphotographs and drawings. Aga in, I amhoping for a Day ton 2002 release date.

QRP AM on the 10-meter band

With the solar flux being somewhat un­predictable. we have had some really strangeband openings. One of those has been onthe lO-meter band. Now, if you have usedthis band before, you know it docs not takea lot of power to communic ate hal fwayarou nd the planet on just a-few watts. Thisis the case on the AM phone portion of theband as well.

I"ve been having a ball on IO-mcter AMphone using an old Heathkit MT- I (theCheyenne) transmitter. The place to be is29.000 Ml-lz.crhe AM calling frequency. Iuse the MR-I (the Comanche) as the match­in g receiver. The pair looks good andperfor m s like gangbusters!

When 10 is open, then FM is up the banda bit My Ten-Tee Argonaut II will transmiton FM. It's really too bad that the ArgonautIl won' t transmit on A~'I ! I' ve worked upand down the westCoast from my locationin Ohio with nothing more than five wattsinto a Gap Titan vertical antenna. I' ve eve nbeen able to kerchunk. some of the repeatersthat populate the IO-mctcr band.

Ten meters is a strange band. One mo­ment it' s open worldwide, and then noth­ing.The key to working ten meters is to keepcheck ing the band. With today's broad­banded radios, checking the band for activity

Page 60: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Con tinued on page 6 1

were drafted to go ou t to ki ll and bekilled, the wo me n moved in to keep the"horne front " bu sinesses goi ng . They' venever moved o ut. By 1975. 44 % o fmoth ers were wo rking outside the horne.Th at' s up to 64% now, with day carcce nters do ing wha t littl e child raisingthat ' s bei ng do ne. Now there 's a fuss be­cause almost 20% of day ca re babi eshave overly aggressive be havior by thetime the y graduate to kindergarten.

My mother had one room for her stu­dio, whe re she painted portra its andmagazine cover art (this was beforeco lor photogr aph y had been invented) ,so she was aro und the house most o f thetim e. Wit h today's compute r and co m­mun ications systems, more and morewomen will be abl e lO telecum mutc, andthus be able to give the ir babies moreatt ent ion.

I' d be more in favor o f day care cen­ters if more of them would provide thestimuli babies need to help de velop the irbrai ns - and I don 't me an be ing hypno­tized in to docility by hundred s o f hoursof Sesame Street. I re view several OUl­

stand ing book s on the subj ec t in my Se ­cret Guide to Wisdom - like Joa nBeck's $7 How 10 Raise an Outstand ingChild.

On e of the big do wnside s of two­work er families is that the resultinghigher fami ly incomes hav e rai sed theprices of everything, Prices will always bedetermin ed by. what people'trre willing to

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Super Kid s

When I was a kid. my mo ther read tome while I was eating my lun ch , whic hprobably has so met hing to do with thou ­sands of books I' ve read since then.

WWII broke the barr ier. Before tha tmo st wo me n had kids and staye d athome to raise them. Whe n all the men

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Service (:VIARS). Civil Air Patrol (CAP).and such. Since these are directly affiliatedwith the mil itary. there may be a greatercom fort le vel in turning to known andtrained operators rather than well-meaningstrange rs . If you' ve co nsidered j oining~lARS but haven' t gotten around to it. nowmight be a good time.

Over the next few months. I'll be writingabout seve ral products that may well lendthemselves to situations such as those wemay be facing in the future. In the mean­time, if you have any lessons learned fromthe Septemb er 11th attack. or other disasterservice support. please dro p me an E-mai l.weneed to make sure we' re as prepared forthe challenges of the 215t cen tury as wewere throughout the last one . It's importantthat we share our experiences. Fa

is as simple as punching up a memory! Keepan car open for me. I'll be on 29.000 listen­ing for AM stations.

Nex t time we meet. I will try to prese ntthe Ten-Tee "Poe..-er Mite" QRP rigs.Theselittle guys started a compa ny that is stillaround today. IlIll

HOM/ N6 INconlinuedJrom page 4 7

4). I get to choose which submission is best,of course, and if more than one person sendsin that idea . the first one received earns thebook.

By the way. my book has complete con­struction plans for the Roanoke Doppler set.An impro ved antenna switcher for it is fullydescr ibed at the "Homin g In" \Veb site. Thiscombination is ideal for mobile RDF onFR S frequencies with your scanner.

I'm wai ting to hear from yo u. so sendin yo ur sugges tions for RD F with FRSradi os. alo ng wi th loca l hu nt rep orts,RD F-related pho tos , and new s. E-mail isbest. but postal mail is fine. too . Addressesare at the heginning of this artic le . HaPErhu nting ! fa

Neu£R SRI' 0 /£contin ued from page 8

bene lit hum the reality of college. may beyou can help steer your childre n or grand­chi ldre n out of a lifetime commuting toajob in busine ss or go vernment.

INC magazine published a survey ofthe top 100 entrepreneurs. Only a few

--- - --- - - ---------1 were college grads. The rest eitherskipped co llege (like Ste ve Jobs) ordropped out - as did Bill Gate s. If Billhadn ' t dropped ou t of Harvard when hedid, he wou ld have missed the gravytrain . Even one ye ar later wo uld havebeen 10 0 late . No hu ndred billion. AndI'll bet his dad was furious with him fordoing so me thing so stupid.

A note a nd cli pping fro m Roy PrinceAB6ND about a college educa tion ad­vises that "young people should avoidthe ritual gr ind on university co urseswhicb ca n be irre levant. bad ly focused .or simply pointle ss. being taugh t by lec ­tur ers who have no practical knowledgeof the careers for which they are supposedto be preparing their students."

C. Nor thcote Parkinson had very simi­lar ad vice in his wo nderfully wri tte nParkinson i' Law. If you haven' t readParkinson , for heaven's sake hie down toa library and rectify this huge gap inyour educat ion.

My ru le of thumb is simp le: If a com-pany is interested in yo ur co llege cre­dentia ls when yo u apply for work. th is isnot a place you want to waste yo ur timewo rk ing.

Be sure to tell our adverti sersthat you saw their ad in

731

Colors: white. b lue, red. and gree nD & L A n le n n a Su p p ly Co. Alte r co ntinuously being turned on for

Se cu re Orderi ng On Line at 14 days (336 hours), it was possible 10

www.wavehunter.co m read a newspaper using only the output1-800-9 65- 8880 from this amazing system. Thi s item

Pri ces from $4.95 to $59.95 sold out at Dayton !L ~

73 Amateur Radio Todsy » February 2002 59

Page 61: 73 Magazine - February 2002

PROPR6RTlONJim Gray II

210 East Chateau Cir.Payso n AZ 8554 1

[akdhc2pilot@ya hoo.com]

"Solid"

This shoul d be a solid month for DXers, wich Fai r (F) or better condiCions p revailing abo uc sixtyp ercen t of the ti me. Alth ough M UFs will otten rise above 30 MHz, there will be som e greetopport un ities on all bands, including 80 an d 160 meCers.

T he best conditions arc forecast to occur during the final weekof Febru ary. but most of the month ought to see m pretty good EASTERN UNITED STATES TO:

when compared to the same period last year. Solar flux is again G- - lis1'!!!!!rfa , ,. . ,....

enl.expected to remain very high throughout the month. so look for -~

15 (40)eo''''

20(40) ,~, '''' (ro4O' (15) 20 to-eo 10 (20) 11).17 10 (20) (10) 20

rapid recovery from ionospheric disturbances when they occur. I' ve =~(15) 20 20 (40) 2O(40) "''''' , , '1s-te l , (10) 10(15) 10 (20) (10) 20

forecast the most intense solar activity for the 4th, 11th, lSth. andE ue~m ~ ~ '" eo '"

, p l>20J 10 (20) (10) 20 (1!>-20) '''' ''''''''Urn(20-40) (40) , , , , , (10- 12) 10 (17} (12 ll7 115.2Cl) zc

25th, but only moderate geomagnetic effects should result. M""astern["" (4Cl) , , '''' , (11).20) (10) 20 '''' , x ,

To get a short-range idea of what propagation conditions arc '" .~OO" (40) (40) , , ,

" (10) (10 ·15) 15 (20 l ao (20 ) (20)ee«going to be like, I usually check the Report of So lar & Geo physi- " " , , , , , , , (15·20) , , ,

''''Pakistancal Activity found on the Space Environment Center 's Radio User's '" " (15) 20 eo (20) (20) , , I'" , , , , (10 -20)

" "Page [www.scc .noaa.gov/radio]. Their data usually includes the out ea.(15·20) , , x , , , (10 ·20) (11).15 ) x , ,

Asia

1O.7cm flux and geomagnetic-A values. When the flux index is Australia (10·17) (15 -20) , , (20) (30. 40l (2(}.40J (10) 2 0 (11).20) , (20) (l0-1S)

Alaska 15 ·1 7 20 -3Cl , , , 20·30 aoso 15 ·1] 15 ·1] , , 15 · 17

forecast to be high (above 150) and the geomagnetic index is CX- Hawai i (10 ) 15 (20) so (20) 20 (40) <0 (20-40) (20) (15 ·20 ) x (10) 10 (15)

pccted to be low (below 3), good propagation will generally result.estem

(10 ) 40 (15) 40 ae-ro (20) 40 <0 eo <0 (20 ·40) ' tfl'l>:!O) to-eo 10-20 10-20us.

Conversely, when the flux value is low (be low 90) and the geo- CENTRAL UNITED STATES TO :

magnetic value is high (above 3) then poor conditions will usually enlfat(15) 20 20 (40) (201 40 (20) 40 (20) 4{) eo '" (10) 20 11).20 11).15 10 (20) 15 -20Amenca

prevail.,

(15 ) 20 ao 20 (4(1) 20 (40l I'" , , , (10 ) to 10(20) (10 ) 20America

For lots of other interesting and useful data , visit the IPS Radioeslem

''''' <0 '" I"" , ,'''' (15) 20 (10) 15 (15120 ''''

,'"and Spa ces Services suppo rt page for North Am eri ca a t

I~tnern zo"'"

, , , , , , (1G-15 ) (10) 15 15 (20) eo,,~

[www.ips .au/asfc/u sa_hfl ]. le::..m ,'''''

, , , , , (10)20 (1G-20) _. , , ,

Unti l next time, 73 and ha ppy DXi ng! ',= , I'" "'" '''' , , , (11).15) (11).15) ''0' " (20) I

!~a~n, (15) , , .. , '''I , (15 ) , , , I

Band by Band Su mmary i . ' ,":Sli , ,'''' " ....., '''' "'" ec (15-20) , rs (15) I

~iast , , , ,

"" "'" zo (15 ·20 ) 1'5) , (15) ' I10/12 meters Aust ralia 1111j 15 rs (15-20) " ""'" eo-eo ec"OJ "", , , (1G-15).. 15-17 15- 17 , , . '''' '''' eo eo , , ,

These bands should be pretty active this month. As always. open- Hawaii (111j15 (15-201 ao eo ''''' "..."ac'''''

, 115) 115 , (15) (10) 15 1

ings start in the cast at sunrise and follow the sun westward, closing in I WESTERN UNITED ~TATES TO:

Asia by sundown. No openings arc expected at night. and daytime I~:" ""-ao, " '" «o ''''' ,'''' (10) 20 lCl(2Cl) 10120] (1Cl)20 jlS) 20 ;, to-eo to-eo 12 (40) 1

performance will begin to deteriorate somewhat toward the end of the '""""17 {4O) '''' , , . , (15 , ""'", estem , , I"" '''' ""

,'''' (10. 20 1 111ll 20 ''''

, , Imonth . Short-skip will usually range from 1,000 to 2.500 miles. 'E.;~..;;em '''' , , , , , , (I Oj (15 f 15 (20) (151 20 1

lEu.:.:', , , , , , , , , , , ,

I ,~ '''' '''' 00' " " "'", (15) (10) 15 (11).15) 1'0' '''' I

I ~a~is!an (15 ·20) , , , , , ,"'"

, , , , iFebruary 2002 I~ a, "nllSll

(10) 20 (15 -20) , ,'''' " I'" , , , (11).20 ) 11).20 I

I;: t east (15) "'", , , , ,

'''' (15)20 ''''' (11).15) lG- 15SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT ...IAustralia (11).15) (15 -20) , , , ",."', ""'. ao P5-2Oj " (11).15) m

II,o. lasl<a 10 -15 , , eo-eo eo-eo zo-ar "'"'0 , eo is , 15 ·1 7

1 F-G 2 F-G Hawaii (15) 20 «15) 20 so '''' '''' '",,,..,, (15)20 15 (20 ) (11).15) 10(1 5) (10 ) 15

~~ Am (10) 40 (15 ) 40 zo-so (20 ) 40 eu eo (2(j. 40) uoecr to-eo 10-20 to-eo 10·20

3 FoP 4 P 5 F-P 6 FoP 7 FoG 8 G 9 G Ius_~~

Table 1. Band, time, country chart. Pla in num erals indi cate bands

10 F-G 11 F-P 12 P 13 FoG 14 F-G 15 FoP 16 f ·P I which should be workable on Fair 10 Good (F-G) and Good (G) days.

INumbers ill parentheses indicate bands usually workable on Good (G)

17 F 18 F-G 19 f ·P 20 f 21 F-G 22 G 23 G days only. Dual numbers indicate that the intervening bands should

24 FoG 25 P 26 f·P 27 FoG 28 GI

also be usable, When one number appears in parentheses, that end ofthe range will probably be open 011 Cood (G) days onty.

60 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

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15/17 meters

You'll find better dayt ime o pportunitieshere than on 10 and 12 meters, especiallyinto the southern hem isphere . Signals willpeak toward the east before noon, to thesouth aro und midday, and [ 0 the west in theafternoon. Short-skip can be expected to beabout 1.000 miles.

20 meters

Shou ld continue to improve at night. andis the best ove rall ba nd for daytime op­eratio n. Openings begin at sunr ise and lastwell in to the evening hours. Short-skipwill average between 500 and 2.500 miles .

30/40 meters

Best between sunset and sunrise. Africa,the Midd le East, and Asia should providesome good opportunities since atmosphericnoise will generally be at very low levels.Short-skip will he under 1,000 miles duringthe day but beyond 700 miles at night.

80/160 meters

I expect these hands to yield some verygood opp ortunities this month, espec iallywhen atmosph eric static is low. Short-skipon 80 will he 2,000 miles or more, whileskip on 160 should average only fro m 1,000to 2,000 miles. These numbers, of co urse,apply only to nighttime operation. fa

NEUER SRY DIEconlinuedJrom page 5 9

pay for things, so this has fed inflation.Pen ny postcards arc now 2 1¢. First-classmail has gone from 2¢ to 34~, and nicke lice cream co nes are now how much?Two buc ks for a co ne! Th at 's crazy.

Unt il I get the time to finish my bookon how any pare nts can rai se their

. baby's IQs by 40 10 50 points. just byknowi ng what to do when. you' ll have tomake do with my so urce material ~most of which is reviewed in my wisdo mguide .

\Ve arc in desperate need of geniuses.Artists. co mpo sers, performe rs, wri ters.and in business. In politics? It' Il neverhappen .

W hat to Wr ite

Henry Hampel KA0TUP asked forsomeone to write an article about theFists Club [www.fi sts.org], which hasover 8,000 mem bers. Any volunteers '?

I 'd like to see a whole lot more onPSK3 1. the 3 1-haud phase shirt keyi ng

sys tem. Get those word processors intoaction, please , and gel me so exci ted Ican' t help bUI ge t invo lved.

~Iore?

I was putting my editoria l essays thatco uldn' t fit into 73 on my Web site for aco uple o f weeks and then deleting the m~ until the Novembe r 2nd deluge ofbook orders. Th at stopped me for almos ttwo mo nths. Now I'm back in gear, so ifyou want more o f my stuff you ' lI findmore of it under "Way ne's Wei rd World"on [www.waynegreen .com] .

Schools

In 1983, A Nation at Risk was pub­lished , warning that our school sys temwas so poor that it was threaten ing thefuture of the country. In 1989, an ed uca­tional summit set the goals to eliminateilliteracy and make American studentsNo .1 in math and science.

Tod ay, less than half of oor 4th-. 8th-.and l Zth-graders can rea d at grade level.For 4th-grad ers, it' s 32%, with blackstudents 12%. By the 12th grade, ourkids score well below the teenagers inalmo st eve ry other developed country inmath and science tests.

The re medies sugges ted by the teacherunions are to pay teachers more and havesmaller classes (thus more teachers ).The se sound good , but there are almost noexamples o f these moves incr ea sin gstudent test results .

Fortun ately, technology will, I believe,come to our rescue.

If you' re interested in co ming up tospeed, I recommend Lieberman 's TheTeacher Unions - How They SabotageEducational Reform and Why; EncounterBooks. ISBN 1-893554-2 I-X. 32 1pp.,517 , Laissez Faire Books. 938 HowardStreet. SF, CA 94103 . Also from LaissezFaire: The Homeschooling Revolutionby Isabel Lyman. Bench Press lntema­tional, ISBN 0-967().j30-6-9. 142 pp.•S12.

The more you read about our schoolsystem. the more you ' re going to like mysolution.

Distan ce Learning

For over 2.500 years, teachers and stu­de nts have met face-to- face for discu s­sion and lectures. Techn ology has beenchanging that.

Fir~t , i t was books. T hese enable thebest brain s in the wor ld to reac h peoplean ywhere. Technology has been steadilyloweri ng the co st o f book s. enabling bil­lions of reopie to share what only dozensco uld just a few generations ago .

Plu s we now have radio, telev ision(with a couple hundred satellite-inducedchannels), magazines, audio and video

tapes. and (yes) the Internet. Ooop s, I al­mo st forgot what I co nsider the currentmajor contende r, DVD .

Kid s no longer have to walk "threemiles throu gh the snow" 10 ge l to class.They're either home schooled, or a busgoes by their house and pick s them up.

Until the Intern et is wirelessly avail ­ab le via satelli tes (wh ich wi ll be co mingsoo n), I see book s and DVDs (d igita lvideo disks) as the knowledge de live rysys tems of choice.

Books and DVD s make it possible fotpeop le to learn whe n it 's most conve­nient for them, not at the co nvenience ofthe teacher. For working people, this isusuall y nights and weekends - unlessthere 's an "important" ball game,

With America n colleg es and uni versi­ties already offering over 6,000 accred­ited courses on the Web, we ' Il be seeingth is movement spreading worl dwi de asthe Internet goes wireless, enabling peopleanywhere to participa te.

Until the Web goes wireless, I see DV Das the media of choice. With professionalactors as teachers, aided by stale-of-the-artgraphics and the ease of using stock filmor setting scenes to demonstrate ideas, it'sa very flexi ble and inexpensive media.We'll be seeing interactive lab experi­ments in every field o r science. No morefire in the chemistry lab when you makea mistake~ except on your DVD screen.

The inexpensive availability o f edu ca­tion on any subject and irr-any languageis a revolution on the order of the print­ing press. This enables peop le anywhereto rise from poverty and ignorance. It'llraise net}· with the current political andreligious sys tems, which re ly on igno­rance to co ntrol minds and cou ntries.

The one th ine that' s been -tacking sofar has been some sys tem of evaluatingthe wor th o f distance-learnin g prod ucts.I' m doi ng my best with my reviews ofbooks I say you arc crazy if you don' tread. That's my 55 Secret Guide to lVis­dom. But that needs to be expanded toembrace all di stan ce-learning media andwith inp ut from milli on s of peo ple, justas I did with my CD Review magazine.

I' d love to get such a publ icationstarted ~ first as a magazine ~ then asboth a magazi ne and a Web resource .Twen ty years ago , it cos t about S500,(){){)to star t a nationally distributed maga­zine. Now it's c lose lO S IM. If you knowanvone with an ex tra milli on to invest inchanging the whole world, please advise.

Am I being extravaga nt? It cos t meabout 5250,000 10 start Byte in 1975, thefirst pe rsonal co mputer magazine. andlook at the impact it' s had!

Wireless

Nothing yet is wha t you've see n. Sure ,100 mill ion Am ericans arc slowly fr ying

73 Amateur Radio Toasy » February 2002 61

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what little of their brains they have leftafter going to publi c school with cellphones, for which we hams can take fullcredi t. We can proudly brag that we didthat. We developed the cellular technol­ogy which Motorol a and G.E. then builtinto a ne w indus try - for Nokia.

Today, wireless networks arc beingbuilt all around the world. Soon we' llhave cell phones and Web connectionsvia satellites accessible from anywhere.High speed wireless data connections tohusinesses and homes will replace fiber,cable, and wire . New cars will call forhelp when the air bag is deployed orsomeone tries to steal it. Heck, ourHonda van has a global position systemwhich tells us where we are and how toget anywhere we want to go - with acheery Japanese-accented woman warningus before every route change .

While kids in Pak istan are out tendinggoats, our kids will be sitting in the backseat of our vans watching any of 200 orso video channels or enjoying their new­est DVD-delivered educational pro­grams. Or they may be talking withfriends anywhere in the world via theirpager-cell phones, complete with a videocamera built-in.

Outing the Ineffable

When I wrote to Jim Lovelock, the au­thor of Gaia, suggesting that the Earthitself might have a collective conscious­ness of all its inhabitants. just as each ofus has a consciousness that's the sum ofthe consciousnesses of our cells, hewrote back that he preferred not to discussthe ineffable.

Ineffable = indescribable, undefinable.Well, damm it, it' s ahout time to take

the wraps off the ineffable and make iteffable.

But my big prob lem is getting acrossthe concepts I have about all this, sincewe don ' t have words for them. Yet.

Now, what's ineffable? This is goingto take a while, but everything I' m goingto discuss is tied together. And all ofthem are choice targe ts for skeptics ­skeptics who have not bothered to dotheir homework. Ignorant skeptics.

Psy chi c Communications

Can we really communicate with thedeparted? You bet your bippy we can.Hell 's bells, psyc hics have been doingthat for all of recorded history, and along time before that. And yes, the valid­ity of these com munications have beenconfirmed endless ly.

Rather than me writing a book toprove this, I suggest you find a librarywith Mae Scwal's Neither Dead NorSleeping. I' ve reviewed this 1920 hook62 73 Amateur Radio Today · February 2002

in my Secret Guide to Wisdom (p. 14).My grandmother, seve ral years after shedied, guided my mother to this bookwhen my mother asked one day, "Netta,are you trying to tell me something?"

Mae was a world-known speaker onwomen 's rights, not a tea leaf reader. Inher book, she describes how her recentlydeparted husband contacted her and car­ried on a series of experiments from theother side. Fascina ting book .

Konstantine Raudive (Breakthrough!)discovered that he could contac t theother side using a tape recorder. Thereare groups in at least a dozen countriesdoing this. You can read my review ofVoices From The Tapes on page 25 of myWisdom Guide to find out how you cando this, too. On page 19, I review Dr. PatKubri s and Mark Macy's ConversationsBeyond the Light, where their Time­stream Laboratory has made contactwith Edison, Einstein, Madam Curie.Werner Von Braun, and even Paracelsus.Heck, they even got a computer-printedphoto of Paracelsus.

To learn more about the reality of theso-called spirit works, read hooks byMoody, Monro e, Montgomery, Brinkley,and others. It's all very well documented.

The spirit world does not experiencetime as we do, so there's no problemwith contacting anyone out of the past.

Dowsing

Yes, dowsing is real. No, scientistshaven't a clue as to why or how. And,yes, I' ll tie all this together eventually.Don' t be so impatient. It 's tough dealingwith the ineffable.

The big probl em is that you haven ' tbeen reading the book s I' ve reviewed inmy Secret Guide to Wisdom. It' s theleading a horse to water, but not gettinghim to drink syndrome.

Step one is to read Chris Bird' s TheSecret Life ofPlants. This will show youthat plants are in tune with us on somelevel. They can in some way sense ourthoughts.

Th e nex t step is to read The SecretLife of Your Cells. Thi s shows that ev­ery cell in our bod y, eve n if separatedby thousands of mil es, is still in instantcommunicatio n with eve ry other cel l.

Then you should read J. Allen Boone'sKinship With All Life, which explainshow you can communicate with any livingthing - even a fly.

One more homework book is RupertSheldrake's The Presence ofthe Past, hisintroduction to morphic resonance.

Now you' re ready for Dean Rad in'sThe Conscious Universe, wherein heshows that precognition, telepathy, andpsychokinesis have all been thoroughlyproven by scientists to be real phenomena,

no matt er ho w much the patho log icalskeptics complain.

After this inculcation into the world ofthe weird, you'll be in a posi tion to graspthe concept of a sum of all conscious­nesses. I call this Sigma, ju st to have aword for it. Sigma can create universes.Scientists have marveled that the physi­cal constants are such that if any of themwere different by eve n the slightest therewould be no universe.

Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer, in hisEvolution From Space (p. 11 in my Wis­dom book), likened the accidental con­struc tion of the DNA molecule to theliklihood of a tornado blowing through ajunkyard and constructing a 747. Itdidn' t happen by accident.

This is the power that we tap intowhen we wish or pray for some thing. ArtBell fans will rememb er when he had hislisteners pray for rain in Texas andFlorida, and both stales were floodedwithin hours.

In my Wisdom Guide I review thebook by Maure y, The Power afThought,and Scott Adams The Diibert Future.Both hooks explain how you can makethings happen by wishing for them.

Since coming to understand how thesethings work I'm very alert to serendipity.

-When oppor tunity knocks I'm rightthere at the door, Welcome mat out. Andit sure pays off.

So, yes, dowsing -works. It 's beenprove n endlessly. The best book on thesubjec t is Chris Bird's The DiviningHand. Radionics and psychometry alsoare real. Read William Bennett 's How toCommunicate With Plants and Animals.

How can dowsers find anything andanyone by dowsi ng a maps-Because ev­erythipg and everybody are all connectedon a nonphysical level.

Scientists, instead of shoveling all thepsychic data under their enormouslybumpy rug, need to take off their blind­ers and learn more about the metaphysi­cal. I almost said world or universe. Themetaphysical isn 't physical, so theseconcepts don 't apply. Let' s call it Sigma.We honor God with a capital G. Perhapswe should spell it SIgma, with two capi­tal letters. The Greek lett er for it is L;.

As we know from psychometry, evenrocks have .. . well, it isn 't conscious­ness . .. we don ' t even have a word for it.But we can contact even the "spirit" of arock.

If we can break scientists loose fromthe physical, there's a whole new area forinvestigation. Quantum physics has liftedthe carpet a bit. Or, perhaps, drawn backthe curtain ju st a tad, which is separa tingthe physica l from the metaphysical.

Con ti nued on page 64

l

Page 64: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Box 416, Hancock NH 03449

any thing else I think you ought toknow about. $ 10 (#76 )2000 Editoria ls : 76 pages (thinnerma gazine as a result of our slowly dy­ing hobby) $5 (#77 )Silver Wire: With two 5-in. pieces ofheavy pure silver wire + three 9V bat­teries you can make a thousand do l­lars worth of silver co lloid. What doyou do wi th it? It docs what the antibi ­otics do, but germs can' t adapt to it.Use it to get rid of germs on food, forskin fungus , warts, and eve n to drink,Read so me books on the uses of silvercolloid, it's like magic. $15(#80)Silver Colloid Reprint April 97 articleon a silver colloid maker,history,and howto use the stuff. $5 (#98).Colloid Kit. Three 9V battery clips, 2aligator clips & instructions. $5 (#99).Wayne' s Bell Saver Kit. The cableand instructions enabli ng yo u to in­expensively tap e Art Bell W60 BB' snight ly Schr radio talk show. $5 (#8 3)73 Wri ter 's Gu ide : It' s easy, fun, canpad your resume, and impress the hellout of your frien ds . $0 (#78)Cold F us ion Six-Pack: Six Cold Fu­sion Journal back issues to bring youup to speed. $20 (# 19)NAS A Mooned America: Renemakes an air-tight case that NAS Afaked thc Moon landings. This bookwill convince even you. $30 (#90)La s t Skeptic of Science: Th is isRene ' s boo k wh ere he debu nks abunch of accepted scientific beliefs ­suchas the ice ages, the Earthbeing a mag­net, the Moon causingjhe tides, etc.$30(#91)Dark Moon: 568 pages of carefullyresearched proof that the Apollo Moonlandings were a hoax-a capping blowfor Rene's skeptics. $35 (#92)Dark Moon Video: 222-minute exposenailing NASA with their own photos.If you 've watched the N-ASA films ofthe as tronauts walking on the Moonyou wo nde red at thei r weird gait.Wait' II yo u see it speeded up. It looksexactly like they're running on Earth !They catch NASA in dozens of give­aways that the photos and film s had tohave been faked. $46 (#93)

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the Amelia Earhar t inside story?Jfyo u' re near Mobi le, please visit theDrum. $5 (# 10)Wayne's Caribbea n Advent ures: Mysuper budget travel stories - where Jvisit the hams and scuba dive most ofthe islands of the Caribb ean . You'lllove the speci al Lia t fare which let mevisit 11 countries in 2 1 days, divingall hut one of the islands, Guadeloupe,where the hams kept me too busy wit hparties. $5 (# 12)Cold Fus ion Over view : This is botha brief history of co ld fusion, which Ipredict will be one of the larges t in­dustries in the world in the 2 1st cen­tury, plus a simp le explanation of howand why it works. T his new field isgoing to generate a who le new bunchof bill iona ires, just as the personalcom puter industry did . $5 (#20)Cold F usion .Journal: The y laughedwhen I predicted the PC indu strygrowth in 1975. PCs are now the thirdlargest industry in the world. The coldfusion ground floor is still wide open,but then tha t might mean giv ing upwatching ball games. Sample: $10 (#22)J ulian Schw inger: A Nobel laureate' stalk abo ut cold fusion---confinning itsvalidi ty. $2 (#24)Dow sing. Yes, do wsing reall y doeswork. I explain how and why it works,opening a huge new area for scientificresearch with profound effects for hu­manity. $2 (#84)Improving State Go ve rnment: Hereare 24 way s that state governments cancut expenses enormousl y, while pro­viding far better service. I explain howany government bureau or departmentcan be gotten to cut it' s expe nses by atleast 5090 in three yea rs and do it co ­operative ly and enthusiastica lly. I ex ­plain how, by applying a new technol­ogy, the state can make it possible topro vide all needed serv ices wit houthaving to levy all)' taxes at all! Readthe book, run for your legis lature, andlet's get busy making this country worklike its founders wa nted it to. Don' tleave this for "someone else" to do . $5(#30)Mankind's Extinc tion P red ict ions: Ifany one of the experts who have writ­ten books predicting a soon -to-comecata strophe which will virtually wipemost of us out are right, we're introuble. I exp lain the vario us disasterscenarios, like Nostra damus, who saysthe poles will soon shift (as they haveseveral times in the past), wiping out97%of mankind. Okay, so he's made a longstring of past lucky guesses. The worstpart of these pred ictions is the accu­racy record of some of the expe rts ­like Hapgood, Einstein, Snow, Noone,Felix, Strieber. $5 (#3 1)Moondoggle : After reading Rene ' sbook, NASA Mooned America , I readeve rythi ng I could find on our Moonlandings. I watc hed the NASA vid­eos, looked carefully at the photos,rea d the astronaut's biograph ies, andta lke d with read ers who worked for

T h e Secret G u ide to Health : Yes,there really is a secret to regaining yourhealth and addin g 30 to 60 year s ofhealthy Jiving to your life. The answer issimple, but it means making some se­rious lifestyle changes. Will you be ski­ing the slopes of Aspen with me whenyou 're 90 or doddering around a nurs­ing home? Orp ushing updaisies?No, I' mnot selling any health produ cts, but Ican help you cure yourself of cancer,hea rt trouble, or any other illness. Getth is n ew, 20 01 expanded edition(156p) $10 (#05)T he Secre t Guide to Wealt h : Just aswith heal th, you' ll find that you havebeen brainwashed by "the system" intoa pa ttern of life that will keep you fromever making muc h mo ney and havi ngthe freedom to travel and do what youwant. I explain how anyone can get adream j ob with no college, no resum e,and eve n wit hout any ex perience . Iexplain how yo u can get some one tohappily pay you to learn what you needto know to start your own busi ness . $5(#03)

Th e Secret G uide to Wisdom: Thisis a rev iew of around a hundred booksthat will bogg le your mind and helpyou change your life . No , I don't sellthese books. They' re on a wide range ofsubjects and will help to make you avel)' interesting person. Wait'Il you secsome of the gems you' ve missed read­ing. You' ll have plentyoffascinating stuffto talk about on the air. $5 (#02)Th e Bioelect r ifier Hand book: Thisexplains how to build or buy ($155) alittle electric al gadget that can he lpclean your blood of any virus, microbe ,parasit e, fungus or yeast. T he processwas di scovered by scientists at theAlber t Einstein College of Medicine,quickly patented, and hushed up. It's cur­ing AIDS, hepatitis C, and a bunch ofother serious illnesses. It' s worki ngmiracl es ! The circuit can be built forunder $20 from the instruc tions in thebook. SIO(#0 1)My ''''W II Submarine Adventures :Yes, I spen t from 1943-1945 on a sub­marine, right in the middle of the warwith Japan. We almost got sunk severaltimes, and twice I was in the right placeat the right ti me to save the boa t.Wh at's it rea ll y like to be depthcharged? And wh at's the daily lifeaboard a subma rine like? How about

Here are some of my books whichcan change yo ur life (if you'll let'em). If the ide a of being healthy,wealthy and wise Interests 'you, startreading. Yes, you can be all that, butani)" when you know the secretswhich I've spen t a lifetime uncover ­ing.

..... .Wayne

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Page 65: 73 Magazine - February 2002

Barter 'n' Buy _

Turn yo ur old ham and computer gear into cash now. Sure , yo u can wait fo r a hamtest to try and dump it, but you know you' ll ge t a far morerealis tic price if you have it out whe re 100,000 active ham potential buyers can see it, rath er than the few hundred local hams who come bya flea market table . Check your attic, garage, cella r and clos et shelves and get cash fo r your ham and computer gear before it's too old tose ll. You know you're not going to use it agai n, so why leave it for your widow to throw out? That stu ff isn' t getting any younger!The 73 Flea Mark et , Barte r 'n' Buy, costs yo u peanuts (almost) - comes to 35 cents a word for ind ivid ual (noncommercial! ) ads and $ 1.00a word for commercial ads. Don' t plan on tell ing a long story. Use abbrevi at ions, cram it in . But be honest. There a re plenty of hams wh o lov eto fix things , so if it doesn't work, say so .Make you r list, cou nt the wo rds , inc luding yo ur ca ll, address and phon e number. Inclu de a check or yo ur cred it card number and exp iration .If you're placing a commercial ad , inclu de an additional phone number, se par ate from your ad.This is a monthly magazine , no t a dai ly newspaper, so figure a co uple months before the action starts; then be p repared . If you get too manycalls, yo u priced it low. If you don 't get many calls, too high.So get busy . Blow the dust off , check everything out, ma ke sure it still wo rks right and maybe you can help make a ham newcomer or ret iredold timer hap py with that rig you 're not using now. Or you might get busy on yo ur compute r and put together a list of sma ll gear/parts to sendto those interested?

Send your ads and payment to: 73 Magarine, Barter ' n' Buy, 70 Hanc ock Rd., Peterborough NH 03458 and get set fur thephone calls. The deadline for the April 2002 classified ad section is February 10. 2002.

220 MHz Award ; see W9CYT on WWW.QRZ.~ for information. BNB645

K8CX HAM GALLERY [http://hamgallery.com).BNB620

TELEGRAPH COLLECTOR'S PRICE GUIDE:250 pictures/ prices. $12 postp aid. ART IFAXBOOKS , Box 88, Maynard MA 01754. TelegraphMuseum: [http://wltp.com]. BNB113

New.miniature oscillato r modules are now avail­able ... all under $20 '" plus our great referencebook is sti ll for sale. Write to RMT Engineering,6863 Buffham Road. Sevi lle OH 44273 or seeour Web site at [www.ohio .neV- rtormeUindex. htmll] . BNB640

RF TRANSISTORS TUBES 2SC2879. 2SC1971.2SC1972, MRF247, MRF45S, MB8719, 2SC1307,2SC2029, MRF454, 2SC3133. 4CX250B, 12006,6KG6A, etc. WESTGATE, 1-800-213-4563.

BNB6000

METHOD TO LEARN MORSE CODE FAST ANDWITHOUT HANGUP S Johan N3RF. Send $1.00& SASE. SVANHOLM RESEARCH LABORATO­RIES, P.O. Box 81, Washington DC 20044 USA.

BNB42 1

Cash for Co llins: Buy any Collin s Equipment.leo KJ6HI. Tel.lFAX (310) 670-6969 .([email protected]]. BNB425

Br owse our Web site and check out the"Monthly Special. " TDL Technology, Inc. [www.zia net.com/tdl]. BNB500

MAHLON LOOMIS. INVENTOR OF RADIO, byThomas Appleby (copyright 1967). Second print­ing availab le from JOHAN K.V. SVA NHOLMN3RF, SVANHOLM RESEARCH LABO RATO ­RIES, PO, Box 81, Washington DC 20044. Pleasesend $25.00 donation with $5.00 for S&H.

BNB420

Ham Radi o Repair, Quali ty workmanship. AllBrands, Fast Service. Affordabl e Elecl ronics ,7110 E. Thomas Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251 . Call480-970-096 3, or E-mail [HAM SERVICE@AOLCOM]. BNB427

64 73 Amateur Radio Today· February 2002

SATELLITE TV - l arge selection of items atreasonable prices. We specia lize in Big DishTVRO C & Ku Band equipment. Check us out at[www.da veswebshop.com]. BNB646

HEATHKIT COMPANY is sell ing photocopies ofmost Heathkit manuals. Only authorized sourcefor copyright manuals. Phone: (616) 925-5899,8- 4 ET. BNB964

"MORSE CODE DECIPHERED" Simple, el­egant. inexpensive, comprehensive, logical, easylE-maiI [email protected]]. BNB428

Elect ricity, Magnetism, Gravity, The Big Bang .New explanation of basic forces of nature in this 91­page book covering early scientific mecries and ex­ploring latest controversial cond usions on their re­lationship to a unified field theory. To order, sendcheck or money order for $16.95 to: American Sci­ence Innovations, P.O. Box 155, Clarington OH43915 . Web site for other products (http://www.asi_2000. com]. BNB100

COLLOIDAL SILVER GENERATOR! Why buy a"box of batteries" for hundreds of dollars? Currentregulated. AC powered, fully assembled with #12AWG suver electrodes, $74.50. Same, but DC pow­ered, 554.50. Add $2.50 shipping. Thomas Mill er,216 East 10th St., Ashlan d OH 44805. Web ad­dress [www.bioelect rifier.com]. BNB342

COLD FUSION ! - FUEL CELL! - ELECTRIC BI­CYCLE! Each educational kit (Basic - $99.95, De­luxe - $199.95, Information - $9.95.) CATALOG ­$5.00. ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILE BOOK - $19.95.KAYLOR-KIT, POB 1550ST, Boulder Creek CA95006-1550. (831)338·2300. BNB128

ANT ENNA SCIEN CE: Why do antennas radiateelectromagnetic waves? Learn for yourself fromthis enlightening paper by MA X RESEARCH.Gain an understanding of the radiation mecha­nism of antennas! 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.

BNB426

DWM COMMUNI CATIONS - Neat stuff ! SASEbrings catalog! POB 87-BB, Hanover M149241.

BNB641

Exoti c 2002 Caribbean Hamboree -- Jo in us inmeeting with Caribbean hams, visiting interest­ing Georgetown, Guyana, operating from grea tOX location. March 29-31/02. For info rmationcontact KK4WW, 8R1WO or [www.public.usit.net/dlarsenl. BNB640

FOR SALE - DRAKE TR-7/R-7 13 ExtenderBoards and Digital Jumper Card for servicing.See htlp://users.atnet.neV- rsrolfne . $63.50 in­cludes postage. Bob W7AVK, 2327 MalagaRoad NE, Moses Lake~A 98837, email:w7avk @arrl.net. BNB647

,.IEU·CR SRI' DIEcont inued f rom page 62

A hundred years ago- -TheosophistsBess-ant and Leadbcatcr used medit ationas a microscope to see the makeup ofatoms. They descri bed wha t we nowca ll quarks and subquarks in Iheirbook, Occult Chemistry. You ca n readabout their amazing work in StephenPhil lips ' EXTra-Sensory Percep tion ofQuarks (I' . 10 in my Wisdom guide) .

If scientists were n' t so blind to thesethings, they could use this same tool asa telescope which would make theHubble look like a toy.

Alas , poor old Loveloc k is so fright­ened of wha t the react ion would befrom the scientific world that he is un­able to start effab lizing the ineffable.But he sure opened the door with hisGa ia concept of the world act ing as aliving thing. Dunno why not . sinceeach of our ce lls demon strabl y has anawareness of what's go ing on aro undit. The total of our ce lls has an aware­ness. So why shouldn' t the total con­sciousness of everything that makes 1lUthe Earth have an awareness? fE.i