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Est. 1938 Club Call G4HRS

Sponsored by:

The Journal of

Horsham Amateur Radio Club

February 2017

Affiliated to:

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Contents

In this issue 3. Notes from the Editor Home phone and moving forward

5. Members night Rundown of items brought along to show

8. Circular antenna Walter describes a loop system

14. Don’t eat this! A useful mapping program

15. Listen to this From analogue to digital, DX news and a trip to the city

22. Squared eyed Nothing, a long time ago, paradise and steam

24. Diary of events Full listings for the month

Cover picture: Loop Antenna

Published by Horsham Amateur Radio ClubHARCNEWS is produced at home by G4JHI

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Using my Sony portable and after checking various frequencies all seemed to be fine. Out in the shack shortly afterwards I tuned across the entire HF spectrum and found a strong pulsating noise which was present between 15.4 and 19 MHz basically wiping out the 17 metre amateur band. I went back indoors and soon confirmed that this racket was in fact coming from the walkabout handset charger but only when the phone was fitted into the charger base unit. Oh dear!

After trying out a few things I took the entire contents of the package and put back into the box and took to the store of purchase. I was given the choice of another of the same system or the option for a refund if I preferred but took the former to try just in case it was found to different. To my surprise it was! The noise was still present but only radiated up to a maximum of 10 feet (mains wiring) although in reality it was only around 4 feet.

Out in the shack I could not find any trace of the noise so I decided to keep the system. The charger is CE marked and made in the Far East. It was presumed that either the charger had something like a core broken inside or vital EMC components had been left out. I do have various other equipment like we all do with various chargers and they have all been checked and radiate little noise.

In my household there was a requirement for a new landline telephone system to replace one of several years. Having decided on which model to go for and after bringing the package home I duly plugged everything in for charging and to programme up. The system comprises of a mains base unit with handset and answerphone. There is also a satellite DECT handset with charger. Everything appeared to be fine but with all electronic items I purchase, I always test for any possible EMC issues.

Editorial

EMC unfriendly!

Ever since I took over as newsletter editor there has always been issues getting some attachments including photos and even documents occasionally submitted for publication across via email. Therefore I have been looking at possible ways to improve the situation. The infrastructure is in fact already in place but just needs setting up and testing but also needs to be secure and relatively easy to use. In due course I will be setting up the system followed by testing and if successful will configure so some actual trials can take place. We’ll let you know further news as and when.

David G4JHI

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Copy deadline for emailed items for March edition 20th February - For written items the deadline is 17th February.

For items sent by email please send to this address:

harc.news@g4jhi.co.uk

2017 Subscriptions

Subscriptions are now due for the 2017 Club membership.

Please forward £15 to the Treasurer Paul G4TMC.Payment can be by cash, cheque (payable to H.A.R.C) or via electronic transfer.Anyone wishing to pay electronically should send an email:paul.g4tmc<at>gmail.comYou will then receive by return the HARC bank details.

Postal address: Paul Barnett, 8 Parsonage Road, Horsham, RH12 4AR.

January Meeting

Bring, Show & Tell

Rather a cold and frosty evening, but we had plenty of entertainment this evening, starting with Jon showing the updated website. It looked similar to the old one, but had plenty of subtle improvements. In particular, the diary now shows a few month by default, and there is space for much more information about the next events. Gone were most of the pictures of people taken a long time ago. Tony G3NPF’s website data is now accessible via the technical pages.

A suggestion to replace the callsign prefix pages with a link was made because it takes a lot of effort keeping that up to date. Jon asks for any relevant photos etc to be sent to him. We then saw Robin’s collection of about a dozen morse keys. Most of them were demonstrated on a variety of sounding devices from a simple electromagnet, as used over a century ago, to audio oscillators and iambic keyers. He had a Type D RAF key with silver contacts.

Apparently many of these keys were scrapped once the silver had been removed. Then an American aircraft key that was fully sealed so it would not generate sparks. On ships they often used Siemens bros. or AEI straight key, used with no sidetone. You had to listen to the Tx relays clicking. Finally we saw some paddle keys from a Vibroplex key, which sent dots automatically, to some very nice iambic keys. David brought a tape recorder with a selection of recordings about the Aspidistra site.

One was about the final closing of the site in 1986. The other was made of a transmission during WWII to German soldiers in France. The announcer, after some rousing military music, announced the station was called Soldaten Sender West. Once of the engineers who worked there complained that his shoes caught fire once! For those who don’t know, the transmitters were built in America and uprated to become the biggest in the World, so they could send disinformation to the Nazis.

The cinema has been restored last year and David is going to organise a return visit later this year. John showed us his 80m phased vertical antenna array’s switching unit, which he designed and had some pcbs manufactured. John used Eagle software. The two-layer boards cost $39 for 5, the minimum quantity, and it took about two weeks to arrive. What a bargain! The boards were in red solder resist, but one could choose from green, blue, black, red and maybe one other colour.

Paul took along a selection of his top 10 aircraft photos, from his collection of 94,860. The first was of the F35, a replacement for the Harrier. This US aircraft is able to take off and land vertically, but also has supersonic performance, and is very impressive. Then he showed another US aircraft, the Stealth Bomber. To obtain a better view, Paul had to ask the armed guards if they wouldn’t mind moving away so he could take a photo. Another rare shot was of two Lancasters. Also rare, a Hurricane and Spitfire, both sporting arrestor hooks for carrier landings.

A French Rafaele was in a very artistic shot with water vapour clearly visible. A Sea-king showed off its defence mechanism with ‘Angel Wings’. A final photo was of Prince Harry putting a chopper to bed.The cameras used for these photos do not have huge telephoto lenses, but were taken mainly with a bridge camera. But to get an interesting shot, you need to monitor the aircraft band to listen out for pilots saying key words such as ‘flares’.

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Alister ended the evening with his restored Hitachi sound bar. The duff electronics were replaced with a Maplin Class D stereo amplifier controlled by a nano-Arduino.

An infra-red detector IC picks up any volume up/down commands sent by the TV remote control, and adjusted the amplifier accordingly.

Soundbar Veroboard

Two pieces of software were downloaded for the Arduino: the amplifier controller and IR decoding. It was simple to join the two bits together. Next was a raspberry-pi used as a media centre to allow TV programmes to be watched via the Internet, e.g. BBC-iplayer, NASA, Beer Geeks, etc etc.

IR Sensor Hole for IR

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Downloading the software to a working Raspbian Pi is very simple: sudo apt-get install kodi. The NASA channel offers streamed views from ISS, and interviews with crew members. Alister bought a bread-making machine at a recent junk sale and was having great success with it. Unlike bread from the shops, you know exactly what has gone into it. The only disadvantage is that a hole is left in the bottom where the paddle stops.

IOIO Board Tablet

Raspberry Pi Best things since..

G3ZBU

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A recent piece in the Antennas column of RadCom about loops (Nov 2016) aided by the acquisition of a length of LDF5-50 Heliax stirred me into action (a rare thing these days!) to have a go at making a TRANSMITTING loop. Like most of us I've played about with receiving loops many times in the past ranging from little ferrite rod things to a full-blown Wellbrook, but the only time I ever had a go at transmitting on one was when I gave Peter, G3LDO a hand building his.

My experience then with soldering 25mm copper tube really put me off, but 5-50 is quite bendable due to its corrugated outer and wouldn’t require soldering. Before I start I must really emphasize that everything that follows is about building a TRANSMITTING loop capable of handling up to 50w at 1.8/3.5 MHz. It is definitely not a job for the mechanical or electronically faint-hearted, or for those without a well-stocked parts bin (or better still, shed!).

Receiving-only loops are a different matter, as you’ll see. After a web search (a great deal of stuff there) and a look at the "RadCom Handbook" the message came across loud and clear that it was all about minimising (rf) ohmic losses. Radiation resistance of a 3m diameter loop at 3.5 MHz is around 0.040 ohms, so if you don't want most of your RF to be spent heating up copper it is essential to keep ohmic losses down. That means large-diameter copper tubing for the loop itself and a really good wide-spaced tuning capacitor considering you may be dealing with up to 4-5 kV.

There is absolutely no point trying to make it out of 16 swg copper wire, the 9.4m required to make a 3m loop will have a resistance around 0.01 ohms so bang goes about 20% of your power straightaway - and that doesn't take into account other losses. The usual advice is to make it out of copper tubing as used in many plumbing jobs, the larger the better, 22-26 mm is often quoted. Short straight sections are recommended joined by elbow joints to make a hexagonal loop, the difference between that and a true circle being negligible. The problem is soldering the elbow joints.

Those of us more used to soldering PCB’s will find the transition to real he-man copper soldering a major learning curve. In my try with G3LDO I found a 250w iron plus a 3kW hot-air gun and even a old-fashioned blowlamp rather essential and it was plain old plumbing rather than ham radio. So much so that I decided there were better ways to spend my time and didn’t try again – until now.

What had changed this time was a kind radio techie who came along one day to replace antenna cabling on the cellphone transmitter at the end of my garden and threw some "odd pieces" of LDF5-50 over the fence when he left in repayment for the (several) mugs of tea I'd made him. None were longer than 11m and not much use as feeders so I hadn't done anything with them but it turned out 11m was just long enough to make a "small" one-turn loop for 80m of 3.2m diameter which might even work on 160m.

LDF5-50 is flexible because of the ribbed copper outer conductor so bends very neatly and needs no soldering except at the ends. Calculation showed that being nearly 25mm in diameter ohmic resistance would be well down in the 0.001 region and all-in-all it seemed ideal material for a loop.

Loopy - or what?

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The next problem was the tuning capacitor - essential if you don’t want to be stuck on one frequency. The books told me that even at 20w there would be about 2 kV across this capacitor, needing a plate spacing of around 3mm, and to cover both 80m and 160m would need a capacitance range of 150-700 pf, the loop inductance being about 10 uH. This sort of variable is not to be easily found at Maplin’s or Radiospares but a long-unopened box of bits in my garage came up trumps and delivered just such a device, dirty and dusty as it was.

It was a split-stator type each half rated at 50 pf/2.5 kV so putting the two sections in series would bring up the voltage rating to a safe margin but of course also reduce the capacitance swing to only 25 pf. That meant I would have to switch in a parallel capacitor of around 150 pf to get 80m, and one of 675 pf for 160m, with a voltage rating of 5 kV to match the variable. Further digging in the same junk shed (magic!) turned up some high-voltage ceramic doughnut capacitors that would do so I really had no excuse for not forging ahead.

Back to the loop itself. The loop would need a frame to hold it and an X-type with two crossing arms seemed the thing. A trip down to Wickes and a bundle of 10 21x34mm battens in 2.4m lengths was obtained - not long enough but screwing two lengths together to make an overall 3.2m wasn’t difficult. An X-frame was duly assembled and the LDF5-50 looped around it so I now had a basic loop. As it happened, that turned out to be the “simple” bit.

For coupling to the transceiver I followed the old and reliable “KISS” (“keep it simple, stupid!)” rule. I made a 600mm loop out of central-heating 6mm copper tubing and soldered the ends to ordinary RG-213 so that the inner looped round and joined the outer at the other end. For receiving loops coupling loops are usually placed in the middle of the big loop but I found that if I did this the SWR was much too high and the tcvr didn’t like it.

After much experimentation I moved it up to the periphery of the main loop and slid it round until when it was diametrically opposite the tuner the SWR was very nearly 1:1 and the input impedance 50 ohms according to my VNA analyser. The SWR could be altered by moving the coupler slightly sideways. Having done this the hard way I re-read one of the articles and found that was where it was supposed to be theoretically!

The finished loop

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I had calculated that the inductance of the loop would be about 9.9 uH for plain copper tubing but the 5-50 was ribbed and I had no idea what effect this might have. Using an inductance meter I found it was actually 10.1 uH – so obviously the ribbing had little effect. After attaching the split-stator and paralleling it with a 150pf fixed capacitor it tuned to 3.73 MHz with the variable at half-mesh. All this was simple enough to do sitting at a table with the ends of the loop and the tuning gear within easy reach, but how to do it remotely from the shack some 100ft away?

The usual answer is to install a small electric motor suitably geared to turn the variable through 180° - fine in theory but not so easy in practice. It’s not the motor itself – there are plenty of model-makers motors that will do the job – but the gearing. These motors turn at something like 7000 rpm but ½ rev in perhaps 30 secs, a reduction of 7000:1, is required for tuning loops. That involves meshing several sets of gears and plastic model-makers’ gears are not noted for precision of cut, so they introduce quite a bit of backlash.

However, if your other hobby is model engineering this is probably a trivial problem. The trouble is that the better the loop and therefore the higher the "Q" the more critical precise tuning becomes. On my device it needed only a few degrees one way or the other on the variable before the nice 1.1:1 SWR fell off to 2 or even 3:1, and any slight "stickiness" or backlash made it all but impossible to settle on exactly the right point.

Quite apart from the gearing, I found the variable itself was a bit “sticky” and in the end I had to go to the trouble of mechanically disassembling it, cleaning everything and reassembling with the minimum amount of bearing tension needed to hold the moving plates steady. Not all variables allow you to do this but mine did. One caution – make sure the wiper contacts between the moving vanes are soldered flexible leads and not the springy finger rubbing against a shaft type. Now I could tune accurately by hand and it only remained to sort out the motor problem.

Having discovered the plastic gear backlash difficulty I was not looking forward to sourcing accurately-cut brass gears when once again the junk shed came to my rescue - buried in its depths I found a remote tuning mechanism salvaged from a 1943-vintage receiver. Its motor was rated at 24v and it contained a set of gears and a slipping clutch so that when the capacitor got to the end of its travel the motor did not stall.

Ideal - all it needed, I thought, was a little judicious oiling and re-setting the anti-backlash mechanism but I had forgotten that there would be some 4-5 kV on the variable and it would be wise to keep this off the tuning gear. An insulating coupling was needed; eventually I found one of those flexible star shaft couplers that were popular years ago and with a bit of attention to shaft diameters it proved to be the answer. I also inserted a small potentiometer into the gear train so that I could have some remote indication of where the tuning was.

A stabilised 9v across this enabled the voltage between ground and wiper to indicate on a large 1mA meter where the tuning capacitor was. The whole antenna unit was put into a waterproof plastic box screwed onto the lower loop support, and coupled up to the remote control unit via 30m of multicore cable. For the remote control a unit capable of providing isolated DC of around 24v. via a two-way spring-loaded-to-centre switch for reversing the polarity and a stabilised 9v supply for the tuning meter was needed.

A couple of old wall-wart PSU’s were found that nominally delivered the right voltages but the 24v one didn’t have much in reserve and now and again the motor wouldn’t start although once running it was OK. This was because its initial starting current was too much for the little PSU but I found that putting a very large capacitor (100,000 uF @ 32v) across its output solved the problem. The switch was something else but eventually I found one amongst the junk of my local friendly washing-machine vendor. I have no idea why he would want such switches!

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The question then arose of band switching - I wanted to make it work on both 80 and 160m. It seemed simple enough – fiddle a fixed capacitor to tune 80m and then switch another across it to get to 160m. - easy enough with a decent relay. But wait - there was going to be 4-5 kV floating around that relay between its contacts and the coil; would any ordinary type be able to stand up to it?

None of the standard types I had looked as if they would but I rooted about in my junk (shed) and there it was – a lovely WW2 vintage antenna relay marked “1 kW; 5 kV”. A bit of cleaning up and that was that. So far I‘d built the loop with it lying flat on the ground and now it was necessary to find some way of raising it up and down. It was heavy and bulky and I hadn’t got a mast that would take it but I eventually got a rope over a convenient tree branch about 50ft up which did the trick.

This also had the advantage that I could turn the loop to check directivity by pulling on a bit of string attached to one of its arms. It was duly hauled up about 6ft off the ground and the smoke test applied. Surprisingly all worked well once I’d got the hang of the very sharp tuning and the first check was to see if height had any effect on SWR or tuning, up to the maximum height of 10m I was able to achieve.

The answer was No once it was more than about 2m high and I was quite relieved to find this since the effort required to haul it up and down was considerable. And so to on-air checks. For this sort of thing I find WSPR cannot be bettered. It gives accurate S/N values from large numbers of remote stations if allowed to run for a few hours; none of your imaginary “5 and 9” stuff.

I supplemented it by using the remote SDR stations at Hack Green and elsewhere but at present it does not seem possible to obtain S/N logs over several hours from these stations, so WSPR was better for this although SDR was more usable for quick real-time tuning and power tests. Now came the interesting stuff - checks on gain and directivity. I already had an 80m wire dipole about 20m high (trees are SO handy!) so I fixed up a simple changeover switch enabling me to do instantaneous switches from one to the other.

Using Hack Green as a remote receiver confirmed that, fed with exactly the same 5w RF power, at 80m the loop was about 6dB down on the dipole, which was pretty much what theory predicted. I hadn’t got a half-wave dipole for 160m so couldn’t do the same sort of comparison there. Instead, up went a 160ft length of wire over a tree about 70ft high and compared with this the loop was around 9-10 dB down.

I wouldn’t want to get into any arguments about the accuracy of these comparisons but at least they showed a loop isn’t going to blast the DX into submission. The next check was on directivity - were the famous nulls present? Only on very local signals and even then not nearly as sharp as I imagined they might be. Anything more than about 100 kms away was probably coming in on skywave and thus at an angle to the horizontal which destroyed the precise phase relationships necessary for proper nulling so I didn’t really expect much directivity on them.

Did I have any local noise that could be nulled out with the loop? Fortunately, no, background noise seemed much the same no matter where I turned the loop on either band, but I seem to have a fairly radio-quiet QTH. I won’t go through the rest of the results in detail – far too much data – but just give the main conclusions. Since it was WSPR I kept the power input to no more than 5w at all times, checked by keeping a power/SWR meter in line with the transceiver feed.

The next check was on directivity - were the famous nulls present? Only on very local signals and even then not nearly as sharp as I imagined they might be. Anything more than about 100 kms away was probably coming in on skywave and thus at an angle to the horizontal which destroyed the precise phase relationships necessary for proper nulling so I didn’t really expect much directivity on them. Did I have any local noise that could be nulled out with the loop?

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Fortunately, no, background noise seemed much the same no matter where I turned the loop on either band, but I seem to have a fairly radio-quiet QTH. I won’t go through the rest of the results in detail – far too much data – but just give the main conclusions. Since it was WSPR I kept the power input to no more than 5w at all times, checked by keeping a power/SWR meter in line with the transceiver feed.

On 80m there was really very little difference between the dipole and loop on reception; at night quite a number of W/K stations were heard on both (this was in the October/November period). On transmission the loop lost a few of the weaker W’s but it still managed to be heard by a good selection of East Coast W’s. Detailed examination of the reported S/N’s confirmed again that the loop was a few dB down on the dipole but still a very respectable performance.

The results on 160m were not very different. The wire antenna grabbed a few more listeners particularly in the mid-West (Arizona, Texas, etc) but they were almost the same closer in on the East Coast itself. For reception the wire heard a few more East Coasters but the loop was perfectly acceptable unless you wanted to go contesting – see screen grab.

WSPR 160m results using loop

The last check was against a mobile 160m whip, base-loaded and 3m long. I mounted it on the side of my shack and connected a fairly decent earth. My WS19 variometer did the tuning quite adequately. Here the loop turned out to be a bit better than the whip, but both were heard by numerous East Coast W’s. The only real difference was with close-in G’s (50-150 kms) where the loop was better. I had been using no more than 5w for all these tests so then decided to have a go at higher powers.

All went well until I got up to 50w on a damp day when there was a lot of arcing so I didn’t go any higher. Some “websters” warn that on 160m the bandwidth of a loop is so narrow (1.5 kHz often quoted) it is unusable for SSB. I monitored my transmissions on both a spectrum analyser and audibly and did not find this. Maybe my audio is a bit “mumbly” anyway! It was noticeable that tuning varied quite markedly from time to time, particularly on 160m, to the extent that I almost had to have one hand permanently on the tuning control on 160m.

It seemed to have something to do with the weather, although I checked that the components inside the box were staying dry. Possibly I was using the wrong type of capacitors but I had nothing else.

Thoughts about loops:

(a) Receive-only loops can be quite valuable for cutting out local interference so if you’re plagued with switch-mode QRM or similar, try one. A simple receive-only loop can be knocked up quite quickly from a few pieces of wood and lengths of wire and will tell you quickly enough if it’s worthwhile doing a proper job - there are plenty of designs on the web. You can’t transmit on such simple loops but there’s nothing to stop you using a loop for reception and a much bigger wire half-wave for transmission if you’ve got the space.

(b) If you want to use the loop for transmission, maybe because you haven’t the space for anything else, you will have to accept that unless you’re in luck and find some high-voltage components you won’t be able to use much more power at the lower frequencies than say 10 watts and you’ll probably have to keep one hand on the remote tuner.

(c) When all is said and done, transmitting on a loop won’t enable you to work the real DX; they’re difficult to work with and more expensive to install than wires; and I really don’t see any advantages except perhaps if you’re really short of space. Even then, a 10m vertical will probably prove better and will accept a lot more power.

(d) All the above refers only to the 80 and 160m bands. My loop wasn’t designed for the HF bands but other experimenters have built them for higher bands where tuning problems are not so severe and report quite acceptable results.

Walter Blanchard G3JKV.December 2016

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Web Trawl

Pizza mapping software

This program from Tonne Software will give both great circle (polar) and rectangle projections of the world. One starts by entering the latitude / longitude of the home location (From) then the target location (To) then adjust items such as the time correction and other various options then you will get the bearing to the remote location as shown below. There are a few other options one can add to enhance the results on the map.

http://tonnesoftware.com/pizza.html

Pizza map plot

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Broadcast Listener

‘NORWAY: There are times when ‘do nothing’ governments are accused of moving too fast’

Controversial switch-over from FM to DAB+

by Julian Thompson G1ODN, Monday 16th January 2017

During January, it was widely reported that Norway was the first country to have switched-off vital FM radio services. Each journalist has told a different story. What’s really going on? According to SKY News , Norway’s parliament voted to switch-off its five FM analogue stations to save itself £19 million per year. Listeners living in Oslo seemed happy, but the news had upset those living in northern areas, who were either unimpressed or turned a deaf ear to clearer sound . Nordland inhabitants wanted to continue to receive regular weather reports on their cheap and cheerful radios. Frustratingly, some Norwegians are forced to listen for adverse weather warnings announced by other countries’ FM stations. What’s been gained by the winners?Firstly, it’s a question of fact whether the assets serving the FM broadcasting infrastructure have been fully depreciated and had reached end-of-life. If there’s no capital cost, I wouldn’t die in a ditch waiting for scrap metal receipts. Secondly it concerned me that maintenance isn’t regarded by international accountants as a relevant capital cost. So you might ask why the Norwegian Communications Authority NKOM ‘suits’ have written about capital savings from ‘zero’ maintenance ? Turning to human capital, I would hope that at least some Norwegian FM broadcasters have switched their talent to become Digital TV Shopping channel presenters (to sell jewellery, kitchenware etc). Why are the losers complaining?As mentioned above, adverse weather warnings are important to hear in a country where weather can change by the minute. Anyone (irrespective of age or disability) living in sparsely populated areas (e.g.: along the fjords, mountainous coastline or inside forests) can switch-on FM radios. What Norwegians (and also Nordic White Van Man) don’t want, is to buy next generation DAB+ (or retro adaptors); if accessing Internet radio on their mobile phones is cheaper; once their personal free air time is averaged. Why have prices of FM-DAB+ adapters dropped like a stone?Before the switchover, BBC News reported that the cost-burden to Norwegian vehicle owners was 1500 Krone (£150) to go out and buy an adapter for next generation DAB (DAB+). Newspaper photo evidence contradicts this. Retail prices for TIL-BIL adapters have fallen by two-thirds (now Kr499). A plethora of mobile devices mean that these adaptors may become obsolete overnight. (See HARC News, July 2014) . But who’s to stop drivers from ignoring the radio, to listen to their favourite CDs? Which other countries will follow suit?We’re told that Switzerland and others are expected to follow suit by 2020. In the UK, BBC journalists say it’s a controversial decision needing further consideration, so ‘not to’ disadvantage consumers.

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Summary/ConclusionThe unanswered question is whether ‘do nothing’ governments can ever be accused of moving too fast? References1. Sky News 11/1/17, accessed via the Internet 16/1/2007http://news.sky.com/story/norway-warned-plan-to-switch-off-fm-radio-wil l-cut-off-millions-10719111 2. Euronews , accessed via the Internet 16/1/2007

www.euronews.com/2017/01/11/norway-first-country-to-switch-off-fm-radio 3. BBC News, Online 6/1/17, accessed via the Internet 16/1/2007www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38529435 4. Independent Newspaper, accessed via the Internet 16/1/2007www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-radio-fm-switch-off-turn-off-mw-lw-world-first-country-a7521581.html

5. See HARC News, To install, or not to install digital car radio,: that is the question? Broadcast listener, July 2014.

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Broadcast Listener

Monthly Roundup

by David Ansell 2E0NKC

All times UTC

Unusual event

I recently sent a reception report to Canadian station CBG Gander Newfoundland for 1400 kHz reception at 22:00 (see Broadcast Listener January 2017). At 17:25 on December 19th I received a phone call from the station asking if I could take part via telephone in a live radio show on CBG Gander. This would be about my DX-ing hobby which would be broadcast on December 21st at 08:10 local time (that is 11:40 UTC) and duly took place. At that time the station would not be audible in the UK but I was hoping to get a cassette tape recording via the telephone if possible.

The show was entitled the “Central Morning Show” and was heard across Central Newfoundland from Bonavista to Grand Falls Winsor and Gander. The transmitter power is 4 Kw. I was able to explain what an SWL, DX-er, and amateur radio operator was. Also I was able to mention the RSGB, the British DX Club, HARC and mentioned about our monthly club meetings. The interview could be heard online at cbc.ca\centralmorning

Long-wave

As expected France Inter Allouis closed at 23:00 on December 31st. I was listening to the final minutes. However, the carrier remains on air as PSK is sent by the transmitter which controls 200,000 clocks in France.

Short-wave

An unknown weak signal on 7195 kHz in the 40 metre amateur band turned out to be Radio Free Asia. After protests from ARRL and other amateurs it QSY-ed! SM Radio International heard Christmas Day with a special broadcast at 18:00 on 6145 kHz via Armenia with the Ronald Quinn Show. China Radio International heard in English at 10:00 on 15210 kHz via Kunming in Tyunnan Province. China Radio International also heard in English at 09:30 via Jinhua Zhejiang Province.

Radio Mi Amigo heard at 10:00 on 6085 kHz via Kall Germany. Announced as “all day music 7 days a week”. FEBC Philippines heard signing on at 10:30 on 12095 kHz in the Lu language. All India radio Chennai (on the east coast of India) heard at 16:00 on 4920 kHz with slight QRM from Tibet, Luasa co-channel. Radio Hargeisa Somaliland heard at 16:50 on 7120 kHz in 40 metre amateur band. Somaliland is a self-declared independent state in north west Somalia.

Radio Farda in Farsi for Iran heard at 17:00 on 5860 kHz via Kuwait. Radio Free Asia heard at 15:00 with English ID via Tinian Northern Mariana Islands on 5855 kHz. Vatican radio heard in English at 15:30 on 9510 kHz via relay in Palauig Philippines (Radio Veritas).

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Zambia Broadcasting Corporation Domestic Radio One heard at 21:30 on 5915 kHz with local language. Transmitter is Lusaka. Station went QRT at 21:52. All India radio, Kurseong heard in local language at 16:00 on 4895 kHz. Kurseong is in north-east India near the border with Nepal. Voice of Korea heard in English at 15:30 on 7570 kHz. Transmitter site is Kujang North Korea. Programme starts with songs to the “great leaders” Kim Jong IL and Kim IL Sung (both now dead). Reception was poor.

Medium-wave

Radio Club Romania heard at 16:35 on 1593 kHz. However, this cannot be heard now as Bretagne 5 a French station has returned to 1593 after being QRT for some time. Trans World Radio Albania has ceased now on 1395 kHz. A number of low power stations have been authorised in the Netherlands on 1395 kHz. Trans World Radio Roumoules France signs on earlier now at 20:45 on 1467 kHz.

On January 13th whilst scanning Medium-wave at 11:45 I noticed Mid Downs Radio, Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath was an open carrier (no audio). Also Premier Radio Bow, London transmitter on 1332 kHz was missing. I phoned both stations. Later all was normal but Mid Downs Radio took until the evening to restore audio on 1350 kHz.

Trans World Radio QSL card Radio Tirana transmitter site

19

The London experience

by David G4JHI

There is a social platform called Twitter which I know little about but apparently it is based on following people. It appears I have some followers myself since the feedback I have received at recent club meetings. So as not to disappoint them I have yet another true story since a recent visit to the capital city of London. It was on Saturday January 7th that I boarded the 09:50 from Horsham getting off at Clapham Junction and changing onto a Waterloo train.

Having walked round in a circle due to the confusing Google map that I had in my hand, eventually I found the street of Lower Marsh. In fact it is just down some steps outside of the station if one notices the sign to the street! I was looking for the Radio Days Shop which looked interesting having been to their website. Unfortunately it was closed! Maybe they were having an extended seasonal break. Opposite is the Ian Allan transport shop so I duly went in there for a browse.

Radio Days shop - Closed! Ian Allan transport shop

I found a very interesting book about current ships in operation but since it didn’t have anything about past ships I gave it a miss. After some lunch I headed off to Ladbroke Grove. I choose a route that would take me to Baker Street via the Jubilee Line. I knew that the eastbound Metropolitan and Circle Lines were closed from there due to engineering works but found that the westbound route to take me to my destination was also closed because of a signal failure!

I ended up getting to Paddington on the Bakerloo line and taking a bus! After a short walk from Ladbroke Grove tube station to Lancaster Road which is actually in Notting Hill, I arrived at the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. I have to admit that the name doesn’t sound that appealing to someone interested in radio but inside it was completely different to what you might expect. The museum is home to over 12,000 original items from the unique Robert Opie Collection.

One discovers how well-loved brands evolved through their creative use of packaging and advertising. Basically speaking it is a trip down memory lane into a ‘time tunnel’ from the Victorian era up to present day. It is a house of memorabilia and everything you remember as a child and over the years. Board games, posters, tins of Bovril, record player’s, Tv’s, to mention but a few. It just went on and on!

But the best part was the vintage radios, lots of them! One had a frame aerial attached to it, names of stations on the dials, valves and transistor sets. Due to copyright reasons it was only possible to take photos outside or in the café area. By the reception desk there is a shop with plenty of interesting items.

Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising Radio collection from the past - Note the Freeplay wind up radio, third row up from the bottom (yellow dial)

Radio description

Vintage radio collection

20

I ended off the day travelling to Putney to visit a friend in need of assistance since he had just purchased a brand new computer which went well. To get there I used the tube to Richmond via Hammersmith and train to Putney Station. Once the operation was complete its only 5 minutes from Putney to Clapham Junction then back to Horsham.

www.radiodaysvintage.co.uk

www.museumofbrands.com

Valve radio sets Choose your brand

Putney Railway Station which is in Travel Zone 2 and 3

21

TV Addict

by David G4JHI

Blank screen

Are you a viewer of Freeview but on the odd occasion get the No Signal message on the screen? The Editor had that on two occasions whilst trying to view from the Midhurst transmitter during the last few months and suspected that there was a transmitter fault. In the days of analogue TV it was known that if a fault occurs a transmitter can power down automatically whilst it tries to rectify the fault. It was quite obvious that the transmitter was off air but in today’s digital era this may not be so apparent.

It was later found out that the issues were nothing to do with any faults but atmospherics or as we would know it a lift in conditions. On analogue signals during a lift certainly in Horsham one would have seen co-channel interference on BBC One and ITV but today it either works or doesn’t work! However by going into the receiver menu’s signal test it was noticed that from time to time there was actually a signal present which was varying in strength during the duct. Unfortunately there is little that can be done apart from wait until the conditions settle down a bit.

A blast off into the past

If you liked Irwin Allen’s The Time Tunnel then the new American science fiction drama series Timeless could be for you. It follows the adventures of Lucy Preston (a history professor) (Abigail Spencer), Rufus Carlin (a scientist) (Malcolm Barrett) and Wyatt Logan (a soldier) (Matt Lanter) as they attempt to stop Garcia Flynn (Goran Višnjić) from changing the course of American history through time travel.

In the first episode they go back to 1937 in the days when the Hindenburg was in flight. There are in fact two time machines in the show going back and forth across the years. At the time of writing the series premiers on Wednesday evenings on E4 HD at 21:00.

The team having just arrived in the year 1937

22

A tropical trip

Hawaii Five-0 has been mentioned before in this magazine but if you like the modern series which features Lieutenant Commander “Steve” McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) the show is back once again. This time the crew are following a set of chess pieces! There is a new Chief Medical Examiner who replaces Dr Max Bergman (Masi Oka). Season 7 currently premiers Sunday evenings on Sky 1 HD at 21:00.

23

All aboard

Flying Scotsman from the Footplate was a BBC Four programme which if simply put ‘just that’ and shown around the recent New Year period. It follows the journey along the Severn Valley in the English Midlands capturing the action from the footplate via cab cameras with some views taken by helicopter. The start is at Bridgnorth finishing at Kidderminster and Roger (driver) and Ryan (fireman) explain the skills involved in taking control of the Scotsman.

Hundreds of enthusiasts watch and wave from platforms, bridges and surrounding fields. Tokens are exchanged several times along the route where there is dual track as a security measure so that only one train can travel along where there are single tracks. By the time you read this the programme will have left the BBC iPlayer but no doubt will be repeated at some point.

Officer Kono Kalakua member of the Hawaii Five-0 Task Force

Flying Scotsman

Diary

24

Feb 2nd, Club Night: Software Defined Radio - G3ZBU

Feb 5th, 432 MHz AFS 09:00 - 13:00

Feb 6th, 80m SSB Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

Feb 9th, Committee Meeting - G3ZBU

Feb 12th, Harwell Radio & Electronics Rally - Didcot Leisure Centre 10:00 - 15:00

http://g3pia.org.uk

Feb 15th, 80m Data Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

Feb 16th, Social Evening: The Star Inn - Rusperwww.thestarinnrusper.co.uk

Feb 18th-19th, Guides Thinking Day on the Airwww.guides-on-the-air.co.ukFeb 19th, Audiojumble - The UK’s largest second-hand and vintage hi-fi event - The AngelLeisure Centre, Tonbridge 09:30 (Early Entry) 10:30 (Standard Entry)www.audiojumble.co.uk

Feb 23rd, 80m CW Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

Feb 26th, Sunday Morning Fox Hunt - Robin G3OGP 10:00 - Details at February club meeting

Mar 2nd, Club Night: Junk Sale

Mar 6th, 80m Data Club Championship

For details on the above contest use this link and follow to the appropriate sectionhttp://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport/

All above times are UTC

Committee/Club Meetings and Socials start at 20:00