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RS-SSERIES

THE TEAMEI Supremo" FounderWayne Green W2NSO/ l

Associate PublisherF, L Marton

A..oelate Technical EditorLarry Antonuk WB9RRT

Nitty Gritt y Sluff

J . Clayton BurnettPriSCilla Gauvin

Joyce Sawte lle

Contributing Culprit sBIll 6Jowfl WBaELK

Mike Bryce WBSVG EJoseph E. Carr K4lP VMiChael Geter KBtuMJim Gray Wl xunJack Heller KB7NOChuck Houghton WB6IGP

Dr. Marc Leavey WA3AJRAndy MacA llister W5ACM

Dave Miller NZ9EJoe Moel l KOOVSteve Nowak KE8YNI5

Carole Perry WB2MGP

Aclvertiaing Sales

Frances HyvarinenRoger Smith603·924-0058800-274-7373Fa..; 603·924· 86 13

Circulat ion

Linda Coughlan

Data Entry & Other Stuff

Christ ine AubertNorman Marion

MAY FOOL 1999ISSUE ' 4 6 3

®A m a te u rRadio Today

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FEATURES DEPARTMENTSWB6IGP 40 Above & Beyond

10 The Card-File 40 - KC3ZQ 4' Ad IndexHere's a direct-oonversion QRP transceiver)OU can buikJ. ., Barter 'n' Buy

KB7NO 50 The D~ltarPortWSACM 43 Hamsats

16 The EZ-8Z Deck Antenna - AB2BZ KOOV 45 Homing In

A compact2O-meterdipole wffh linear loading and a bend. a Lett....W2NSOfl 4 Never Say Die

w2nsd @aol.ccm22 Home-Brewing a 3 kW+ Dummy Load - W2CQM 48 New Products

Corral some Cantennas to check out your big gun amplifier. W1XU!7 .2 PropagationWBSVGE 52 ORP

• ORX30 Networking with Thevenin and Kirchhoff - W2GOW7 63 Radio Bookshop

Helpful friends when you go into analysis. 54 Special Events

33 Triband Vertical Array for Big 1 20~ BandMdth Signal-WZSA(0: what to do with the trap beam pieces parts i1 the basement.)

REVIEW20 Our Exciting New Fox - WB9RRT

How one club settled on the Hamtronics T30 1.8 ualness OfficeE(ilorial • M.oertising • Oro.Jlalion

Feedback - Product Reviews

73 Amateur Radio Today Magazine70 Hancodl; Rd.

Peterborough NH 03458-1107603-924-0058Fax: 603-924-8613

Web Page\\ \\ ......... aynegrccn.com

E-:\ Iailde..ign73@aol.com

Reprints: $3 per artiCle

Back issues: $5 each

Printed in the USA

Manuscripts: Contributions forpossible publication are mostwelcome, We'll do the best we can toretlrn anyltJiog )00 request. but weas&me no responstlitity lor lossor damage. Payment lor Sl.tmitIedartdes ..... be made after fU:lIicabOl'tPlease StbrriI ~ a dlsII and ahard~ r:J you- artde (I BM (ok)or Mac (p'eterred) brmatst caJetlJtoIehlIcked ctawings and scre-erce,and the dearest, best IooJsed andlil;t(ed pho\05 )00 can manage. "Howto'MIle b 73" i1JidelineS are availableon request. US cceos, pleaseirdJde ycu Social 5ecunty rwroerwith submtted manuscripts so we cansubmit tt to au know wo.

On the cover: WZ8A compared his vertical to a quad, page 33. Photo courtesy of WZ8A. Weare always looking for interesting articles and cover photos - with or without each other. Yourname could be in this space next month, and our check could be on its way to you! You couldn't usea little extra cash?

Feedback: Any ci rcuit work s better wi th feedback, so pl ease take the time to report onhow much you like , hate, or don't ca re one way or the othe r about the arti cles andcolumns in this issue. G = great !, a = okay, and U = ugh. The G's and a's wil l beconti nued . Enough U's and it's Silent Keysvil le . Hey, th is is your communica tionsmedium, so don 't just si t there scratching your. .. er. ..head. FY I: Feedback "number" isusually the page number on wh ich the art icle or column sta rts .

13 Am. taur R. d io Today ( ISSN 1052-2522) is pub lished mon thly by 73 Magaz ine . 70 N202 , Pelerborough NH03 458· 1107, The en ti re con ten ts C 1999 by 73 Magaz ine . No part of this publication Marchbe reproducedwithoul wrilten permi ssion of the publisher. which is not all that diff icutt 10 ge t , The subscnpnen rate is: oneyear 524 .97, two yea rs 544 ,97; Canada : one year $34 .21, two yea rs $57.75. including postage and 7% GST.Foreign postage: $19 surface , $42 airma il addit iona l per year. payable in US funds on a US ban k. Secondclass postage is pa id al Peterborough, NH. and al add it iona l mail ing ctuces . Ca nadian second class mailreqrstrenon '1781 0 1. canamen GST reg istra tion ' 12539 33 t4. Micr ol ilm eeruon. umve rsnv MIcrof ilm , AnnArbor MI 48 106 . POSTMASTER : Send add ress changes to 73 Amateur Radio Today. 70 HanCOck Rd.,Pete rborou n NH 03458-1107. 73 Amateur Rad io Toda is owned by Shabromat Wa Ltd. ot Hancock NH.

Cont rac t : By being so nosey as to read this l ine pr int , you have just emerec into a binding ag reemenl With 73Amateur Radio Today. You are hereby obligated to do something nice for a ham Iriend- buy him a subscnouonto 73. Whal ? All of your ham tne oos are already subsc ribers? Donate a subscription to your loca l sc noot l ibrary!

NumtMr 1 on YOlH" FHdOitC* t:Md

Wayne Green W2NSOIlw2nsd@aoLcom

NEUER SHY 0 IE

Continued on page 58

Like the ants and the bees.we' re raised and taught to beworkers. The pressure comesfrom every side to convinceus that we must be workers .Is that what you wan t to be allyour life, a worker'? Blue collaror white collar, is that whatyo u want for your kids - 10

Worker

years later, head ing for 3000,and the mo ney-changers arcstill in charge.

So which establishmentsam I fighting? Well, there 'sthe $1.5 trillion "health care"industry, which would bedevastated if eno ugh peoplestopped getting sick via mySecret Guide to Health . Howman y trillio ns are involvedwi th the food giants and thesugar industry? If yo u'd readwhat I' ve discovered, or checkmy resources, these indus­tries would collapse. ReadBeating The Food Giants, a$ 10 book by Pau l Stin, andlick The Sugar Habit, a .$6book by Nancy Appleton, ifyou think I' m exaggerating.

With my Cold Fusion Jour­nal I' m trying to help upsetthe oil, coal, and natural gasind ustries, their network ofgas sta tions, p lus the powerco mpanies and their powergrid . See if you can figure outhow big those industries are .

Then there's the publicschool industry and the teacheruni ons that control it, you.and your chi ldren.

When )00 consider thai IOOSl

of the media is bought andpaid for by the giants I'd liketo upset, you can see why mymessage isn ' t popular withradio, TV, magazi nes, news­papers , and so on. They allo we their ex is tence to thetri llions of advert ising dollarspoured into the m by the cs­tablishments I'm fighting.

There is no ind ustry sup­port ing the growth and sale o fhealthy food to tum to for help.Eating raw food is a powerfulfirst step. bu t even that is be ­ing grown by food giants onminerai-depicted land, com­plete wi th pesticide s. Wherecan you be sure of gettingmeat that isn' t packed withhormones and ant ibiotics?

statis tics are not enco uraging.Medici ne is far from an e xactscience, and the odds are thatyour doctor is far fro m cur­rent in his knowledge ofwhat's safe and what's not .Studies have shown that doc­tors get almost all o f the irdata on drugs from the dru gcompany salesmen - calleddetail men - and no t fro mmedical journals.

New drugs are tested onanimal s. Well, that's the cheap­est way. The problem withthis is thai man y drugs reactdifferently in animals thanpeople. It's bad enough thatall people arc di fferent. Weall look different, have differ­ent genes, different vo ices,di fferent fingerprints , differ­ent allergies, and so on . So,just as the same dru g often af­fects di fferent animals differ­ently, it can also affect differ­ent people q uite di fferently.Vaccinations that immunizesome people kill others, or cancause deafness, as with MissAmerica a couple years back.Deaf for life from a childhoodvaccination .

There ' s much to be said fornOI making yo ur body sick inthe first place. But that's yourchoice.

Fighting C ity Hall

It doesn' t pay, right'! Well,they have that one right !

I got to thinking (hey, ithappens !). that if you'd payattention to what I' ve foundwith my research, and passthe word alo ng, that we cou ldupset some very large applecarts. But then I remembe rthat Jesus was a contrarianwho fough t the establishmen t- you know, the money-chang­ers - and here we are, 20Cl0

You Ca n Trust Your Doctor

Say, that ' s not a bad idea ! Idon' t do refund s when sub­scribers cancel in anger, sowe 'd just have to print andmail fewer magazines. Itcould save us a bundle. Let 'ssee, I've already offended allof the ARRL lackeys, gays,liberals and child molesters.Any suggest ions on whichgroup I should target next '!

" Where the hell is mydamned April issue?" you' reprobably asking . We ll, Icleaned that up a hit, sincethis is supposedly a familymagazine, but that' s probablythe gist of your response togetti ng a May and no Aprilissue of 73.

Gee, mumble, mumble, yousec, ahem, it was like this. Wewere stuck for something re­ally unusual to do for the Sure, with your life. You getApril issue that would get sick, you go to the doctor, andyour auention and give you you believe what he says.something to talk about o n Well , that's what our parentsthc ai r for a cha nge. So teach us. That's what thcyFrances, our Associate Pub- were taught.lisber, said that since our sub- My grandmother worked itscription fulfill me nt ag enc y differently. She got sick andis so scre wed up with the her doctor told her to stopY2K mess that they madc us drinking coffee. So she had tomiss our press dale for the go to two more doctors be­April issue, let's put o ut the fore she fo und one that didn ' tfirst totall y invisible issue o f say anythin g about her coffeethe magazine for April and drinking .extend everyone's subscription So I keep researching theby a month. medical industry and find ing

"But," I protested, "that' ll some gems. I' ll bet you didn 'tmean that our subscribers will know that 15,000 ne w drugsmiss seeing our first frontal arc marketed each year, andnude YL cover!" that 12,000 eventually have

"Toug h tiddled ywi nks," to be withdrawn. You knowFrances answered . they' re not going to withdraw

And, since Frances does a drug that isn' t causing seri­most o f the work arou nd here, ous side effects. According toI tend not to argue with her. the FDA 1.5 million Ameri ­So I don ' t want to hear any cans were hospitali zed in onebitching about the missi ng year alone as a result o f drugsApril issue . Permission is thai were prescribed to "cure"granted to talk about this May them. Worse, 30% o f all hos­Fool is.sue as much as you pitalized people suffered fur­want. And I' m sorry you ther damage fro m the therapymissed getting the f irst frontal prescri bed for them. Re­nude YL ham magazine cover cently, the AMA Journal re­in history, However, knowing ported that there are 180 ,()(X)how ridiculously straight-laced medically induced deaths eachyou are, it probably would year in the US . And we 'rehave offended you and you'd fussing about Dr. Kevorkian!have cancelled your subscrip- How safe arc the drugs o urlion in anger. doctors arc prescribing? The4 73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999

The May Fool Issue

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Ishmod Found?

Name Chang""e?-'-., _The American Radio Relay l eague (ARRL) is

considering the possibility of changing its nameto something more appropria te for the techno­log ical progress of the 21st century.

The subject came up at a recent ARRL Boardmeeting , when directors requested the Execu­tive Committee to submit some new name pos­sibil ities for consideration at their Ju ly. 1999,qet-toqetner.

At a time when hams are concerned aboutfuture FCC licensing privileges , competitionwith the Intern et, and overcom ing the stagna­tion in ARRL membership, Board membersbelieve now is a good time to reconsider theorganization's name and its appeal for attractingmo re membe rs into the hobby.

Itwas ARRLfounder HiramPercy Maxim whoin 191 4 suggested that the organization's nameshould be the AmericanAmateur Radio League.But he was voted down in favor of the currentname.

However. in recent years there have been a

6 73 Amateur Radio Today· May 1999

Long-time readers of 73 may recall the sagaof Ishmod Kaduk S7Z2B, a hard-luck Sikkimeseham whose DXpedil ioning story was first re­ported in these pages during 1984 and 1985 .Along with four companions, Kaduk apparentlydisappeared while investigating some strangepropagation phenomena in the Bay of Bengal

southeast of an area known as Chilka Lake(about 200 air miles south of Calcutta). Accord­ing to Indian and U.S. authorities at the tim e (oneof the compan ions was an American , ShelbyHator-Baroda), hope fo r thequintet was not great.given the savagery of local pirate gangs in thatarea of the world.

Now it seems that rsnmco. ateast. may have

made it and indeed even been found-thanks tothe recent unrest in Indonesia. Two separatereaders have sent us independent reports of anewspaper photo of someone bearing a quiteolder but st ill remarkable likeness to thephoto ofIshmod we publish ed on page 24 of our April1985 issue. We have copies of this photo beingsent to us as this issue goes to press, andIshmod's rather affluent family is en route fromSikkim to continue the investigation at the sceneof the reports. the Banjak Islands. They hope toarrive about Apri l 1, ironically the western calen­dar equivalent of Ishmod's birthday. More on this inupcoming issues (please don'tcall for updates') ...

QRH • • •

Number 6 on your Ffff/dback card

growing number of radio amateu rs whohave criti­cized the "radio relay" terminology in the name.They maintain that the era of relaying radio mesosages is ancient history, and furthermore turnsoff potential members.

This is the second time in this decade thatARRL's Board has studied the possibility of aname change. In November, 1992,a QSTmaga­zine article sou ght opinions from members onthe subject. but the Board tabled action on thepossibility in January, 1993.

The League is encouraging suggestions ..,Tnx and a don't get us started to Ed Collins

KC9RL, via the North Shore (MA) Radio Cl ubTransmitter.

Sunray=c=.e--"9"'9 _Hamradio will playa key role in Sunrayce '99.

Sunrayce is a biannual event that pits college­buil t solar-powered cars in a race across partof the United States. This year, Bill EcclesKE4VT has been appointed the event's hamradio communications coordi nator.

Sunrayce '99 begins in Washington on June20th, Overnight stops are scheduled for Char­lottesvlne. Raleigh, Charlolle, Clemson and At·lanta at Georgia Tech. Then it's on to Macon,Tallahassee, and Ocala to finish upat the DisneyEpcot Center in Orlando on June 29th. Ecclessays that a lot of hams are needed to work onSunrayce '99 communications. If you wantto takepart you can E-mail him at [William.Eccles@Hose-Hclman.edu].

Tnx and a don't forget to put your ears on tothe SERA Repeater Journal, via News/ine, BillPasternak WA6ITF, editor.

ARRL E-mailARRL members can now announce their

AR RL membership through their E-mail ad­dresses, Starting February 1, 1999, a new mem­bership se rvice was available for those wishingto have an ARRL E-mail address. and you didn'thave to switch E-mail services to do it. Not onlythat, but it is free-of -charge for League members,

The new. personalized League E-mail ad­dresses wil l consist of the member's callsign@arrl.net. Electronic mail sent to the addressautomatically will be forwarded to any E-mailaccount you choose.

As long as you remain an ARRL member, you'llneverhavetonotify peopleof anaddress change­even if you change Internet Service Providers,

Members are able to sign upquickly and eas­ily through the ARRL Members Only Web site. Ifyou are not already registered for the MembersOnly Web site, you can do so at [http://www.arrl.org/memberslj.

Members who are not registered for the Mem­bers Only Web si te may also obtain thei r Leagueaddresses, but the procedure is a bit more timeconsuming, For instructions, send a blank mes­sage to [subscribe@arrl .netj.

Tnx and a so that's what the dues increasewas for to the ARRL, via the marcKey, newslet­ter of the Manteca (CA) ARC, Cathy LedbetterKE6UTO, editor.

Heroic Texas HamsAfter nearly two weeks of flood duty last fall ,

hams in Texas were battered but not beaten .Some individual stories of dedication and hero­ism also have begun to emerge from within theamateur radio ranks .

Many residents displaced by theflooding we reforced to remain in Red Cross shelters for over aweek. More than two dozen people died. SouthTexas Section Manager Ray Taylor N5NAV re­ported that at one point, hundreds of hams wereactive in Texas, Louisiana. Oklahoma, and Ar­kansas. handling various flood-related dutiesranging from net control to shelter communication.

"We've had awful good cooperat ion," Taylorsaid. Some hams Irom as far away asNacogdoches, near the Louisiana border, volun­teered. Hams manning shelters got some reliefwhenthe Red Cross was able to get cell phones."We are beginning to secure the Red Cross nethere in San Antonio," Bexar County EC Neil Mar­tin WASFSR said after a few hectic days. Therewere stil l shelters open, but the Red Cross wasprepared to handle everything by cell phoneunless more problems developed.

Martin had said the net control station at theRed Cross was being staffed around the dockbecause they were "using a YHFIUHF linked sys­tem to communicate with shelters in Cuero,Victoria, and other areas toward the coast "

Martin singled out three San Antonio-a reahams for special recognition- Shelter Commu­nications Manager Bobby Rodriguez K5AUW.Red Cross Liaison Stan Stanukinos KA5I1D, andTeri Thomas KC5 BJI. "Bobby and Stan have beenat the Red Cross communications cente r almostcontinuously since Saturday afternoon with onlysnatches of rest," he said. 'Teri has done yeo­man service infindingand scheduling operators."

Taylor said prompt response by a ham couplein his area, Comal County, made the differencebetween life and death for some residents of aflooded mobile home park there. Taylor said hus­band-and-wife team Susan and Leo Manor,NF0T and N0ERI, went down to the trai lerpark tocheck oul lhe situation. "Nobodyhad warned thesepeople," Taylor said of the residents. Using theirvehicle, the Manors were able to pull several trail­ers to higher ground before the watergot too deep,

Continued on page 8

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O':eT 60 dB range. check and set F~1 dC\i- ters., rune transm it1e~ and filters.. Plug in ;;cope. 10. MI::I Box 49.." \ 1iss. State. ~fS 39762allon, measure antenna gam, beamwldlh. analyze: modulatIon ....-a..·e fonns, measure.audIOdls- (60 I I 323·5869; '-':lO eST. Mon-_f n.front-to-back ratio. sidelobes. feedli ne lo~ tonlon. nOlsc and mstanlaneous peak OO'13tlon. J-"AX: (60 I) 323-655 1; Add §/hin dB. Plot field slrenglh pat1ems~ posi- Cover.; 143.5 to ,1-18.5 \ 1Hz. ~eadphone J~l;l, ral' Tech Help: (60 I) 323-05-49tlon antennas. measure preamp gam, tcry check fu nction. Uses 9\ b;lt1cry. 4'12 /,x6 /, lO. Pn<.....~ IIp.,''n..',,'''• ....,,.... to <.ft.-,,",«lI9Wo "'~J£J>~.. I""

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LETTERS

Hu rt Syve r son K5 C W,Plano TX. Vct)' frequcmty inLetters 10 the Editor columns ofamate ur radio journals. we readlette rs complaining about theon-the-air ar uics of other ama­teurs whom mo st of us arcashamed of. However. thesekinds of complaints arc alsoseen in other publications out­side of amateu r radio. ones SIR'has newspapers. These may be

about klddy-por non the Interneto r other such thing s, hu t they dohave one common underlyi ngtheme. The writers of these leI­tersarc saying " 1do not like thissituatio n. I have done my pan, Igot it off of my chest by tellingyo u about it and no w I wouldlike somebody else to do some­thing abou t it. because I do notwant to my sel f."

How nice it would he if itwere just that simple. but it isn' t.In these two situa tions. ctcc­Iron ic communications j<, in­vo lved and sup posed ly thesomebody who is supposed topick up on these co mplaints anddo so mething: about it is theFCC. We amateurs have alwaysbeen taught that the FCC was a

From the Ham Shack

strict d isciplinarian with sweep­ing enforcement powers. Assuch. we regarded it with theutmost respect.

Gradually. over the last fewdecades. o ur image of it hasfadc-d some.... hat. This has comeabout as we witnessed manysituations in which the FCC did1101 react or do as we expected.This has resulted in it becom­ing known as a "paper tiger" inmany circles.

On the surface. not knowingor understanding the position ofthe Commiss ion. it wou ld bewry easy to condemn it for notdoing its job. Before we do,though. let's cons ider a fewthing... Over the same period oftime. the Commission's areas ofre spo nsi b il ity have mush­roomed into areas such as tete­phcny.tele vislon. and satellites.to name a few. Being dependenton Congress for fu nding. its pri­oritics are largely determined byrespondi ng to pressure fro mCongress.

The Hill in tum is influencedby large campaign contributors.In large numbers we could haveinfl uence. too. Ho wever. we

choose not to. Therefore. youare more apt to see a cow jumpover the Moon than a few lei­ters to a gripe column goadinganyone into action.

The Commission has anotherproblem thai by nse tf it can dolitt le abo ut. The First Amend­ment to our Constitution guar­antees the right of free speech.Over:!OO years ago.when it w a..wri tten. the distance a humanvoice could be heard was mea­sured in feet . so this was nor abad concept.

Re alizing things m ightchange in the future. our fore­fa the rs antic ipated that the Con­su tut lon wou ld need to heamended as cond itions changed.so they made it amendable. Thi shas nor been done in light ofpresent-day conditions. The rc­sult is that. in essence. we arctry ing 10 service a modem au­tomobile with a shop repairmanual for a Mode! T Ford. Asit now stands. the courts' dcct­sion s mu st abide by the stric twording of the Firsl Amend­ment. wh ich says absolutel ynothing about free speech withregard 10 communications elec­tronically transmitted. so uny­thing goes.

Nobody li kes to lose. so itshould he understandable thatwith litt le chance of winning.rnc Commission j<; nOI likely towaste its time and resourcesprosecuting violators pleadingtheir First Amendment righ ts.

Because anything less can becontested in the courts. a Con­stitutional am endme nt is theonly way of correcting this. Allthat is needed is an amendmentstaling that the protection of theright o f free speec h does notextend (0 those accused of vio­lating federal statutes governinge lec tro nically transmitted infor­mation.

You might ask. "Why doesn'tsomebody do this?" Thai is avery good question ami it de­serves a good answer or two.The fi rst one is thai no maucrhow bad ly a change is needed.a large sector of our popu lationautomatically refuses 10 li sten 10anything about it and opposesany changes to our Constitution.To them . anyone proposing sucha change is talking blasphemy,be ing un -Amc rlcan, immoral .and aga inst mot herhood andapple pie as well. The secondan swer is that we. the pu bli c.either do not care enough or arenor willing 10 take the time 10 letCongress know t whose job it isto do something) thai we do care.

I have written my representa­tive and senators several timesin regard 10 this mauer. Unfor­tunately. my lone voice appar­ently is n OI lo ud enough to

impress them. Still. it docs moregood than to write to a gripeco lumn-where it is not seen bythem at al l. II is also better thandoing absolutely nothing at all.J tried . Have you'! fa

QRHCOrllinuedJrnm puge 6

Taylor also credited Comal County EC ToddCovington N51JR with taking time away from hisown flood-damaged home to roll out the PrimeCocommunications van and press it into flood dutyservice. Two repeaters in the van aided RedCross communications.

Taylor said linked repeaters ensured widecoverage. In addition , hams in Texas made useof HF nels on 40 and 75 meters lor regionalcoordi na tion. In addi tion to helping the RedCross.Taylorsaid. ham radio operators providedcommunication and omer support fo r the Salva­tion Army. the Dalla s-based Baptist Men'sKitchen feeding program. and other outside reliefagencies.

8 73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999

Taylor himself was deeply involved in coordi­nat ing much of the flood emerg ency trafficthroughout the affected region.

Tnx to the volunteer stars who shine big andbright and to The ARRLLetter,via Chirps & Clicksand Spurious Emissions, the joint publication ofthe Kalamazoo ARC and the Southwest MichiganARTeam.

Enforcer IThe FCC's new hamradio rules enforcer, Riley

Hol lingsworth K4ZDH, is taking a proactive rolein curbing alleged rules violations. He is confront­i n~ Ihe air-tllose whom the agency con­siders to be egregious offenders.

Hollingsworth showed up unexpectedly on3.894 MHz on Wednesday, January 13th . This

frequency is considered to be one of a numberof hot spots that the rest of the ham communitywants cooled down . Holl ingsworth said he brokein on an erqumennhat was growing increasinglynasty in an effort to calm things down . He thenremained on frequency to discuss FCC enforce­ment with those hams who were interested.

However, not everyone wanted to hear whathe had to say.According to reports on the Internetnewsgroups. some operators made a seriouseffort 10 silence K4ZDH . He was jammed andsome high-power stations made rude and lewdcomments while HOllingsworth was on the ai r.Nonetheless, Holl ingsworth told those involvedin the 75-metercontact to keep in touch with himIt they have enfo rcement problems. and offereda phone number and E-mail address where he

Omlinuerl on page 3 9

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someone probablyhas it lor sale at theDayton Hamvention",A familyeventf. At Hamventioo", you areamong friends, other hams just like you thathave come to Dayton to enjoy the show.Enjoy the Alternate Activities. We haveplanned activities for those who just want todo something different. Bus tours of thearea. progressive lunches and more. Inaddition, many clubs have UnofficialActivities at local hotels and restaurants.

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After much thought, we wondered why our can find new andvisitors return to the Dayton Hamventiorr" used hamyear after year. So we asked them. Here's equipment,what they told us. electrical parts,Meet friends! The Dayton Hamvention is computers, tools,the annual event tor the ham radio operator. antique radios.There is a certain "chemistry" with so many microscopes andhams that just doesn't exist anywhere else. some realty

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The Card-File 40Here s a direct-conversion QRP transceiver you COI l build ...

David Cripe KC3ZQRR 2 Box 263

Camp Point IL 62320

While backpacking wi th thefamily th is past sum mer,the thought occurred to me

more than once that the few vacant cu­bie inches remaining within my packcould well he occupied by some hamgear. I have see n ki ts fo r QRP CW trans­ceivers advertised in the ham magazines,and thought one of these would be

PlwllJ A. The Cani-File.J() in full 5p/('II(I01:

10 73 Amateur Radio Today· May 1999

idea l. So. be ing the independent type. Idecided 10 de sign a nd build my own.

After determini ng the size con­straints o f the rig. I began by selec ti ngthe chassis box. for it. Whi le I sal at myworkbench sketching out schematicsfo r this project. m y eye fell upon a nun used th ree-by-li ve inde x card fi lebox. It was made of light-gnugc steel.

which wo uld provide RF shieldi ng, andwould be able to be machined easily,Perfect! For simpli city' s sa ke . I de ­cided the rig was to he a sing le-banddesign for -l.O meters. with U d irect-con­version receiver. From this humble start.a radio was hom-the Card- File 4-0.

Because of its simplicity, direct-con­version equipmen t has been a pere n­ni al favori te project for home brewersand QRP enthusiasts. I have seen doz­ens o f designs fo r QRP transceiverspublished in the ham magazines overthe years. and have huilt q uite a few ofthem. Just for fun. in this project. I madea de liberate attempt not to borrow fromany previously published design. so Istarted from scratch. breadboarding andtesting each secti on as I went.

By the lime I had huilt three di ffer­e nt vc rsio ns o f the ci rcui t. I finally ar­rived at o ne that d id pretty m uch whatJ wan ted it to do. The e nd result is un­conve ntional in many parts o f the de­sign. hut it deri ves more features fromfewer parts than an y other QRP rig Ihave seen. And it really works! The fea ­tures of this transcei ver include: cover­age of the full -ID meter CW NIU, 2 wattsoutput o n transmit. VSWR-tolerant PAdesign. 25 rnA current consum ption on

receive. a hig h performance CW fi lter.a sidctonc oscillator. and QSK.

But what is the price for this perfor­mance? I know first-hand what a painhome-brew projects can he. My hig­gest headaches? Winding coi ls and lo­cating parts. Since I wanted this to he apain-free project. I limited the circuitto three coi ls. and selec ted only ge­neric components to use withi n thisrig. Everything that goes into this rigcan be found in standard electronicscatalogs. and cost of the whole projectwas less than 535. Interested yet?

Take a look at the schematic. Fi~. 1.All of the circui t functions have beenlabeled . Let's take an ove rview of thecircuit to help understand how it works.

The heart of a direct-conversion trans­ceiver is its VFO. In the transmit mode.the YFO signal is amplified and coupledlo the antenna. In the receive mode. the

YFO signal drives the mrxcr to de­modu late the antenna signal. In theschematic of the transceiver. the YFOis in the upper left corner. Is that allthere is. yo u may ask'! Where arc theJFET. the buffer transisto rs. the out­put-matching transformer, and the hi­asing components one expects to findin a VFO? All of these functions areperformed in this ci rcu it. a Hartl eyosc illator using one gate of V I, a74 HC86 quad-XOR gate. as the ampli­fier. The logic gate has low input ca­pacitance. high gain. and high outpu tdrive capacity. so it works quite well ina YrO circu it, with far fewer partsthan the usua l designs.

While I ini tially considered using avariable capac itor to tune the YFO. itoccurred to me that most hams arc notgoing to have a small-value variablecapacitor and a vernier red uction drive

in their junk boxes. So. scratch thatidea! What I ended up with was a YfOthat is actually a YCO- voltagc-con­tro lled oscillator. While the re arc sometransce iver kit s that use voltage-con­trolled-capacitance diodes (varactors)to tunc their YFOs. I opted for a sim­pler and more economical approach­using the voltage-variable drain-sourcecapacitance of Q3. a 2N7(XK.l MOSFET,to tu ne the oscillator. The voltage onthe drain of this device is contro lled hya ten-tum. panel-mou nt pot. a deviceavailable though Mouser and Digi­Key, among others. This circui t coversthe entire CW port ion of 40 meters, atrough ly 15 kHz per revolution of thetuning put- a tame enough rat io for aCW receiver. For improved stability.the VCO components are shielded in a

Continued 0 11 page 12

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73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999 11

I PARTS LIST -jI R1, 47 1 M R2. 390 k

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1R14, 15, 19, 25 27 k R40 l OOk t o-tum panel.mount pot (tuning)

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IU2 lM1496 double- U4 78105 5 volt regulator Ibalanced mixer

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T1 Primary: 33T 26 T2 1 k CT 8 ohm audioAWG. Sec.: 2T 22 transformerAWG on T-50-2 core

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I" 1 A fast-blow in line with power cord I12 73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999

The Card-File 40conrmued from page I I

small enclosure made of co ppercladPC board materia l.

Using a VCO in this manner ma kesaddition o f a n RIT a simple matter. Asample of the, keyer voltage is addedinto the veo control voltage to shiftits freq ue ncy during tra nsmitter key­ing , so that a received, de modulatedsigna l o n the same freque ncy as thetransmi tter frequency \vill fall withi nthe 700 Hz ew filter.

Notice that the o utput o f the veo isindicated in the schematic as 3.500 to3.575 MHz. half that of the tra nsceiveroperating freq uenc y. The veo fre­quency ca nnot he the same as thetra nsmitter frequency. or e lse duri ngtransmit, e nergy from the RF poweram pli fier c ircuitry will enter the Yeo.causing its frequency to be pulled. So.we ge nerate our veo sig nal at half thetransceiver frequency, and usc a frc­quency-douhlcr c ireuit to keep theVCO well-be haved . This do ubler ci r­cu it co nsi sts o f XO R gate UID andphase-shift ne twork L5, C40. and R46.

T he output o f the VFO doubler UIDis co upled to the pre-driver amplifi erQ I 2N" " " " . . hi h "• a transistor. W IC In tum

drives Q2. the power amplifier transis­to r. an IRF5 10 MO SFET. To red ucethe fina l amp lifier d rive req uire ments.the induc tor in the collec tor c ircuit ofQ I is resonated against the gate ca­pacitance of Q2. The output o f the PAis lo w-pass-fi ltered by a broadbandpi -L network. and del ivcrs 2 watts into50 ohms, with the second harmonicdown 40 dB. Thc e fficiency of thispower amplifier is superb. at least 80%.so no heat-sinking ofthc PA transistor isneccssarv, Another nice feature of thisdesign is that the PA transistor docs notself-des truct if the transmitter is keyedwith no antenna attached. No one likesto have to do field repairs!

Turning now to the receiver side ofthe Card-File 40. I have see n a numberof d ifferent de vices used for the de­mod ulator o f di rec t-conversion rece iv­ers . includi ng d iode-ring mixers. dual­gate MO SFl-:.l s. ~E602 or CA3028 ICs.I chose here to use an L~1l496 mixerIe simp ly because it is the le ast ex­pe nsive and most commonly availab le

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device of tbc group. It has the advantageof possessing conversion ga in. whichacto; as lhc equivalent of one stage of RFamplification. Additionally, the LM 1496has better dynamic range than anNE602. and better rejection of in-bandAM signals than a dual -gate MOSFET.The VCO doubler drives the carrier in­put of the LM 1496. and a sample ofthe ante nna vol tage dri ves its signalinput.

One portion of this design that hasbeen used in many other QRP trans­ccivcrs is the transmi t/receive switch­ing circui t, whi ch couples the antennasignal through Cl 2 into the signal in­put of the LM 1496. Shunt diodes 01and D2 connect between C l 2 andground. During transmit. the high am­plitude of voltage applied to C I2 willbe clamped by these diodes prior toreaching U2. preventing this IC frombeing damaged hy ovcrvoltage at thesignal input. When no large signa ls a represent at the antenna during rece ive,these diodes possess a high imped­ance. allowing antenna energy to reachthe LM1 496.

Tbc output of the LM I4% is coupledthrough audio transformer 1'2. and isamplified by one section of U3. anLM3900 op amp. Those familiar withthis part will recognize it as a Nortonop amp. which is a device providingcurrent gain. as opposed to conventionalop amps. wh ich provide voltage gai n.The Norton op amp possesses low-im­pcdance inpu ts, referenced to ground.This. plus the very low power consump­ticn of the part, make it well suited foroperation from a single 12 volt batterysupply.

Filtering (If the CW signa l is per­formed by sections A and B of theLM3900. This ci rcuit is a 200 Hzwide. BJinchokoff bandpass fi lter cen­tered at 700 Hz (see my 73 arti cle "HI·PER Audio Filter." May 1994), pos­sessing very low ovcrsboor and ringingfor best intelligibili ty of the CW signal.Use o f this pa rticular active ci rcuit to­po logy allows this filter to be con­structed without requiring high-pre­cision components. Those familiar withuse of a direct -conversion rece iver willapprec iate the ex tra attention to theCW filte ring. Admi ttedly. compared

73 Amateur Radio Today· May 1999 13

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14 73 Amateur Radio Today' May 1999

to a si ng le-sideband, superheterod ynerig, a direct-conversion rece iver is atsomewhat of a disadvantage due to itslack of sing le -signal reception, whichincreases the received QRM and QRN.Addition of a high performance filtersuch as this goes a long way to makingthis a usable transceiver. In this circui t,the virtues of the Norton op amp arcespecia lly apparent. If conventional opamps were used instead. two additionalop amps and six extra resistors wouldbe required to perform the same fil teringfunction.

Section C of the Uo-f3900 buffers andamplifies the output of the ew filterwhere the output of th is amplifie rstage is clipped by diode D4 and thebody d iode of Q4 to limit noi se fromtransmit/receive transients . atmospher­ics. etc , The signa l from U3C entersvo lume-control resistor R37 on its wayto U5, an LM386 a udio dri ver IC. Thisprovides output for a pair of g-ohmheadphones. Transistor 04, a .2N7(x)()MOSFET, also serves as a receivermute . The gate of thi s MOSFET is tiedto the keying voltage from U IB, whichcauses th is transistor to shu nt the re­ceiver signal from the input of the U5to ground when the key is down. For aside tonc monitor. section D of V I isset up as a 700 Hz phase-shift osc illa­tor, which is coupled into the audioamplifier though R47.

Overall. the receiver possesses onthe orde r of 11 0 dB gain from ante nnato headphones, and if proper boardlayou t is fo llo wed, the re is no ten­dency for oscillations or microphonicsin the audio .

A nominal power supply of 12.6vo lts is required 10 operate this trans­ce iver. Diode D I and a one-amp fuseprotect the c ircuit against accidentalre verse-voltage connections. A 781..05regulato r provides a stable five vol tsfor the YCO circuit, preventing drift orchirp of the ew signal.

The radio- frequenc y coils used inthis rig are fairly simple to build-theyare all wound on Amidon T-50-2 iron­powder toroidal cures, with enameledcopper wire used for the windings. Re­member that turns arc counted as thenumber of times the wire passes throughthe center of the core . Pay atte ntion

also to the winding direction of the sec­ondary of the veo coil. Ifit is the wrongdirection, the veo will not oscillate!

I bui lt up the circuitry on a three-by­five-inch piece of coppcrclad PC-boardmaterial . cut to fit inside the card-filebox. Components were mounted usingthe "dead-bug" construction method, us­ing the PC board as a ground plane.Keeping the construction simple. thec irc uit board was mounted on the baseof the box with standoffs. J solderedbrass 6-32 nuts inside the upper cor­ners of the box to mount the frontpanel. Holes in the back were d rilled toaccommodate the antenna coax con­nector and 12 vol t power plug. Thefront panel was cut out of a piece ofcoppcrclad PC board material, withholes drilled for the tuni ng and vol umecontrols. the headphone and key jacks,and the mounting screws. Mount thefront panel coppersidc down for bestgrounding. Using a card-file box like thisprotects the knobs and jacks under thelid of the bo x when it is closed and not inusc . Also, there is e nough roo m underthe lid to store a pair of ear-bud styleheadphones, a small straight-key, ormaybe a pad of paper for logging whileyou are operating in the wilderness.

Final alignment of the transce iverrequire s a frequency counter or cali­brated rece iver. First. it is necessary toascertain that the doubled-YCO fre­que ncy covers the desired frequencyrange, from one e nd 10 the other of thetun ing control- 7.(XX) to 7.150 MHz.Trimcap C39 is used to shift the fre­quency range. If the frequency rangecannot be brought into range using C39,it is possible to add or subtract a tumfrom the toroid TI to alter its inductanceas needed.

The RIT contro l R44 must be adjustedso that the YCO frequency shifts by700 HI; between transmit and receivemodes . Wi th a 50 ohm dummy load onthe a nte nna connector, key the trans­m iner. and observe the frequency shift.If ca libra ting using a rece iver withoutti ne resol ution on its readout, we canset the RlT by se tt ing the ca librationreceiver tuning to zero-beat aga inst theYCO frequency. O n key-down of thetranscei ver, its YCO frequency shouldbe heard in the calibration receiver as a

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700 Hz audio tone-roughly F abovemiddle C if you have access 10 a piano,o r the same pitch as the sidetone oscil­lator in the transce iver. Set R44 as nec­essary and repea t unti l the RIT offse t iswhere is needs to be.

For the Extra C lass hams, the lack ofdia l calibration is not a problem- youjust operate where you hear othe r CWoperators working. But for those whoarc limited in the frequenc ies they canuse, and need to keep track of their fre­quenc y, it is a good idea to add a turns­counter knob. These are a vailable fromMouser and Digi-Key. You can then 1---- - - - - ----- -­calibrate the VFO agai nst another re­ceiver. and pu t together a conversionchart to de termi ne the actual frequencyof the rig ve rsus the positi on of thetu ning control knob. This chart mayhe mounted on the insi de lid of thechassis box.

After the final tweaking has beenperformed. paint the VCO coi l wi thclear fi ngernail polish or Q-dope tohold the tums in place , and reduce itssusceptibility to microphonics.

How docs it operate? Not too bad! Onthe receiver side. this rig is hot enough 10

hear anything I can pick up with my"real" ham equipment. The C W fi lter re­ally cuts the noise without distorting thesignal, so the audio is comfortable to lis­ten to. With a well-regulated power sup­ply. the transmitted signal was found tobe clean and chirpfrce. My first contactusing this rig was with a W4 in Florida;my second QSO was with a CU inCuba! It sure is a pleasure to receive T-9son a home-brew rig !

There is plenty of mom left withi nthe card-file box for o ther options toc ustomize your Card-File 40. Youcould add ten NiCd AA cells to makethe rig truly portable . You could add asimple keycr circ uit. perhaps a crystalosci llator calibration ci rc uit. o r any ofmany other many possibilities. Or. if youare like me, you will have so much funwith this little rig that you won' t want totake it off the air long enough to modifyit. Enjoy this project-I sure did-andI'll look for you on 40 meters !

Sources

73 Amateur Radio tcaey » May 1999 15

Number 16 on you' F.,mlnck c.rd

The EZ-BZ Deck AntennaA compact 20-meter dipole with linear loading and a bend.

Al Bre g ma n AB2BZ10 Anthony Drive

New Paltz NY 1256 1

Design and construction

About a year ago . I set o ut to designa nd build a com pact .20-meter d ipo lethat could be easi ly erected on m ydeck and quick ly dismantled at day'se nd. Ideally, its performance on 20meters wouldn't be too different fromthat of m y ha lf-size G5RY. The resu ltof my efforts is the EZ-BZ deck an­tenna. named fo r its eas y (EZ) asse m­bly and its two mam components.Bamboo stakes and Zip cord (no t tomention m y ca ll!). Long a favorite forhome-brew antenna projects. bamboocombines rigidity and light weight andIS readily available at garden supplystores. Two six-foot bamboo stakes supportthe wi re radiator: ordinary 18-gauge zip

cord. Zip cord was chosen because it isinsulated and vel)' fle xible .

At the outset, I knew that some formof loadi ng would be required. I optedfor linear loading because it is consid­ered to be less " lossy" than a loadingcoi l. In the EZ- BZ. the linear loadingconsis ts o f three lengthwise runs o f zipcord a long each six-foot bamboo slake( F i~. 1). To make the ante nna reso nantat 14 M Hz. an add itiona l six. fee t (ap­proximately) o f l ip cord are required .The six feet of zip cord simply droopfrurn the end of each stake. making theEZ·BZ a bent dipole. The bent dipoledesig n keeps the hori zontal span to aminimum (I I feet ). yet docs not causevery much signal loss.

The zip cord is fed directly by RG-58coaxial cable. wi thout a halun. The coaxis connected to the zip cord via twoscrews in the conduit portion of the an­tcnna mount (Fig. 2). The other prom­inent feature o f the antenna mount is aPVC T. T he T ho lds the two Slakes se­curd y. yet permits the antenna to he as­sembled or dismant led in just a le wminutes.

Assem bling the antenna mount

-2'-

--~-~-- -j-..,

1/2'- -

--

If you 'd like a com pact 20-meterantenna that can be erected o n yourdeck or porch in a j i ffy. co nsider

building the EZ- BZ. For an investmento f about $25 in materials (e xcl ud ingcoax) and a couple o f hours at yourwork bench. you 'Il have a 20-meter di­pole that ' s m uch sma ller than a stan­dard hal f-wave length d ipole, ye t pe r­forms very well.

The EZ· BZ gets mc good sig nal re­ports o n SSB with my Ten-Tee Argosyat 50 watts and a lso with m y 12-waumcnobandcr. an ~1FJ ~1odc l 9420.Somc DX stations are surprised tolearn that I' m us ing modest power anda home-brew loaded dipole- frommy deck!

Fig. I . Linear loading ofthe zip cord 011 a bamboo stake (not to scale]. See text f or details.

16 73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999

The parts requ ired for the EZ- BZ are

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Selecting and weatherproofing thebamboo stakes

listed in Table 1. The antenna mountconsists of a heavy-duty 1-1I4-inchPVC T attached to a length of 1-114·inch PVC electrical conduit (F ig. 2). 1used a one-foot length of conduit. butfor some installations a longer conduitmight be more appropriate. The firststep in constructing the antenna mountis drilling two 5/32-inch holes in theconduit to accommodate the screws.The screw holes should be one-half inchbelow the junction of the conduit and theT. A one-quarter-inch hole. drilled fiveinches below the scre w holes. permitsthe coax to exit the conduit.

The PVC T supports the two bam­boo stakes by their own levered we ightag ainst the inner edges of the T (F ig.2). The angle between the two stakes isabout 1500

, making the EZ-BZ a­slightly-inverted V. As an option, youcan increase that angle to about 165 0

by reducing the interior diameter ofthe PVC T. Simply insert a one-inchlength of the PVC conduit into eachend of the T until the ends of the j n ­

serts are flush with the ends of the T.

Attaching the zip cord to the stakes

In the fini shed product. the zip cordis secured to the wrapped bamboostakes wi th cable tics. Since thesnugged-up cable tics cannot be loos­ened , the zip cord is initially affixedwith twist ties. Begin the process bycomplete ly separating the two conduc­to rs in 23 feet of zip cord and attachinga split ring connector to one end ofeach. The split ring connectors will beat the fcedpoint.

Fig, 1 shows the pattern of the linearloading on a bamboo stake. The pat­tcm of the runs on the two stakesshould he mirror images. since the twohalves or a dipole should be mirror

The pair of bamboo stakes used forthe antenna should be fairly straightand have about the same diameter.Weatherproofing is done with a wrapof black vinyl electrical tape. The tapeis wrapped from the tapered end of the ,stake toward the wide end, with anoverlap of about ha lf the tape width onsuccessive turns.

Fig. 1. COtHTntCT;OIl details of ,I,e amentla mOl/nt. showing the PVC T. which supportsthe bamlxxl slakes. and the connections ofcoax to zip cord via SCn?WS ill tile Pl/C conduit.

Parts List

ely. Description

23 ft . black 1B-gauge zip cord

6 6-100t bamboo stakes

2round head 8-32 3!4-inchbrass screws

2 brass hex nuts

2 brass wing nuts

4 brass washers

2 bronze fockwashers

2 ring connectors

2 split ring connectors

4-31B-inch- long (across top) heavy­duty PVC tee, 1-1!4-inch diameter

Schedule 40 PVC electr ical conduit(gray), 1-1 /4·jnch diameter

RG·58 coaxial cable

adjusted after the antenna has beenerected on a mast at its final locati on.For a deck installati on. the EZ-BZshould ini tially he positioned so thatthe axis of the antenna is perpendicularto the side of the hou se. This orienta­tion generally gives the lowest SWRreadings.

When adjusting the length of the zipcord , trim both drooping ends aboutone-half inch at a time until the SWRis at a minimum at the desired fre­quency. Initiall y, my 20-meter EZ-BZhad an overhang of six. feet. six inches.and was resonant at 13.7 MH I. (I : ISWR). Trimming eight inches fromeach drooping end (fina l length: fiveIcct. 10 inches) increased the resonantfrequency to 14. 15 M HL (1 :1 SWR).The SWR curve is shown in Fig. 3.Since the SWR docs not exceed 1.7: Iacross the entire zo-mcrer band, I amcomfortable using the EZ- BZ withoutan antenna tuner. All SWR measure­ments .....ere made with an Autck RFAnalyst. Modd RF- I.

Twist ties

Table I , Pam list.

Black vinyl electrical tape, 314-inch or1-inch wide

Cable ties

CABLE TIE/' ZIPCORD

~

/

..1...-- - fYVCCONDUIT

The electrica l length of the EZ-BZ is

inch o f each stake protrudes fro m theother side . After you secure the splitring connectors wi th the wing nuts, theantenna can be erec ted .

The required mast height will dependon the height of the deck. For my deck. aI().foot mast seems adequate becausethe deck llour is nine feet above theground. I usc two live-foot lengths ofone-and-one-quarter-inch PVC electricalconduit, which is the same conduit usedfor the antenna mount. Electrical conduitis sold in Hl-foot lengths. with one endllared. 1strap one fi ve-foot section ( 0 adeck post and insert the other five-footsection into the flared opening of thebottom section. A PVC connector se­cures the antenna mount 10 the top of themast. To rotate the antenna. I simply tumthe mast by hand.

CAUTION: The ends of a dipolehave high RF voltages, which cancause hums. The antenna should bee rected high enough or the deck cor­doned off that the ends cannot comeinto contact with people or animals.For RF safety, the power output shouldbe limited- and antennas should neverhe erected ncar power lines.

Adj usti ng a ntenna length

BAMBOO STAKE

<,

I 'I 'I

fYVCTEE

<,

~ RING~~;a....;~ CONNECTOR WASH:;:.::E:.:..R1>..,:;; ~ r:-\ -- -,

C I , \ . ' SPUT

~CONNECTOR

fl , 3 ~".u f=A', r<:v7 SCREWWASHER i -- WING NUT

HEXNUT :,LOCK WASHER ,,,

Assemb ling and erecti ngt he antenna

images of each other. Start the firstlengthwise run by attaching the LIpco rd. three inches from the sp lit ringconnector. to a wrapped bamboo stake,seven inches from the wide end. Se­cure the zip cord with twist ties everyse ven inches (or closer). with the lasttie being two inches from the taperedend. After the third (final) run. add atwist tie one-ha lf inch from the taperedend so that the " ta il" will droop fromthe tip.

Approximate ly six-and-a-half fee tof zip cord will ini tially hang free fromthe end of each stake. The exact lengthdoesn' t matter at this stage . but itshould he the same on the two stakes .If not. adjust (he lengths of the runs sothat the overhangs are the same.

Finally, replace the twist tics withcable ties. At the turns. secure the cableties over both wires. Check that the ad­jacent runs of zr p co rd arc evenlyspaced around the circumfe rence ofthe stake and that they do not toucheach othe r.

To assemble the antenna. insert thewide ends of the ham boo stakes intoopposite ends of the T until about an18 73 Amafeur Radio Today · May 1999

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Performance

hand, just switchthe bamboo stakes.which takes onlyfew minutes.

I have used the20-mctcr HZ-HZfor near ly a yearwith considerablesuccess. Using theArgosy at 50 watts.I have comparedits performance tothat of my hal f·size G5 RV. TheEl-BZ was erected20 feet above the

ground and rotatedto the same orien-

I

tation as the G5RV.which is 35 feetabove the ground.The comparisonswe re made theo l d - f as h io ne dway- by switch­ing antennas dur­ing Q50 s withvery patient hams.In a Q50 wi thAndy VE30RE.located 200 milesnorth of Toronto.the signa l report

was 57 for both an tennas. Likewise.Did K9FA in Wisconsin could detectno difference in signal strength. withboth antennas scoring 58. An interest­ing comparison was made during a Q50with two hams, John VE6AIV in Alberta(Canada) and Larry W4ERN in Florida.John gave the edge to the EZ-BZ (56vs. 55). while Larry gave it to theG5RV (57 vs. 56). In a ll of the com­parisons. I could detect no obvious dif­ferences in signa l strength on receive .Rotat ing the EZ-BZ occasionally re­sults in a change in signal strength. butrarely is the difference dramatic .

In conclusion. the EZ-BZ has de fi ­nitcly met my requiremen ts fo r a com­pact. easy-to-assemble antenna withrespectable performance. It may be justthe ticket for those who would like to"clear the deck" and make wa y for adifferent style of hamming! fa

Photo A . The 20-meter EZ-BZ antellna erected em the author sdeck.

The basic design of the EZ-BZ canbe adapted for use on othe r HF hands .Trimming the tails to about 2 1 inchescreates a 17-mcter EZ-BZ. For a 10-meter EZ-BZ, no linear loading is rc-quired. Each bamboo stake supportsabout eight feet. one inch of l ip cord:fi ve feet. eight inches arc attac hed tothe six-foo t stake and the re mainingtwo feet. five inches droop from thetapered end. To work more than (Hr

,.11 -1.7 -

..16-

~15 -14 -1.3 -12-ll -to

1~ 114.0 142 14.3 1-4.35fIlEaJENCY • MHz

Fig. 3. The 2V-meter SWR curve.

73 Review

Our Exciting New FoxHow one club settled 011 the Hamtronics T30 1.

Larry Antonuk WB9AATP.O. Box 452Marlborough NH 03455

The storms of winter wen: just amemory. and the first signs of

spring were showing through. In someareas . the thoughts of young menturned 10 love. In our neck of thewoods. however. it was obvious ly time(0 stan planning: the curly sum merfox hums!

Wanted: a new fox

Our last year of foxhuruing had beenfairl y success ful. Still. the club hadfound itsel f in a couple o f embarrass­ing predicaments " O nce , the sma llhandheld we were using as the foxblew its RF po wer ampli fi er tra nsistor.This happened midway th rough thehunt, so by the time anyone figured outwhat was wrong . it was too late to re­s tart. A nother time . we had so me mis­communication concerning the actualhunt frequency. Normally this wouldn'thave been a problem . but we had a fewhunters with rock-hou nd rece ivers. Atthat time we were usi ng a n o lder rock­bound mobile rig. so neither the foxnor the hunters were ab le to QSY.T hese guys wound up hunti ng wi thother g ro ups. but there was a fairamount of grumbling that could havebeen averted by a freque ncy-agi le fo x.

So what do we need ?

We set a few minutes as ide during20 73 Amafeur Radio Today · May 1999

our last d ub meeting to hash over thesituation. As we discu ssed the require­mcnts for the next club purchase. sev­eral points hecame clear. We neededonly a fe w watts of output power forthe type of hunts in which we were in­terested . We needed frequency pro­g ram ming abi lity, hut it d idn ' t need tobe fancy.

(As a matter of fact. we rememberedone hunt in which the frequency co n­trol had been bumped o ne notch as thefo x was being h idde n. This wasn' t no..ticed right off. hut by the time we gethack to the starting point. the signa lwas noticeably raspy. This j ust addedmore challenge ( 0 tha t hunt, but so me­o ne remarked that it sho uldn' t be tooeasy to c hange channels")

T he reprogramm ing wou ld on ly lakep lace once o r twice a month at mostWe were also interested in a means ofreprogramming that was easy to inter­face to . We had some specia l huntswhere the fo x hider would try so mespecial tricks. such as switching be­tween two freqs during the hu nt. orvary ing the frequency plus or minustwenty kHz at vario us points in thehunt. This made the hunt more "life­like ." This was the downside of ourhobby- we found ourse lves practicingfor jamming situations more often tha ne njoying plain o ld competit ive hunts.

We a lso wanted true continuous-

duty operatio n. In case the controllerwent craz y and stayed in PTT. wed idn't wa nt the transmitter to meltdown. We also wanted a trunsmiuer wecould use d uring cl ub demos and tra in­ing sessions-c-oot continuously, but tokey-down for a couple o f minutes at atime without ge tting nervous abo ut it.Finally. we wanted something wecould lix ourselves. and that had goodfactory support if we needed it.

Steep requirements

This seemed like a fairly stee p seto f requi re men ts, hut by the timesomeo ne mentio ned continuous-d uty

operation. a fe w cl ub members had a l­ready pulled catalogs from the ir pocketThe fact that they were all Hanuronicscataloss was nei ther a coinc idence nor aeconspi racy,

Our club had used several Hamtronicsproducts in the past-their ded icatedrece ivers and transmitters were c ur­rently in o ur repeater. RF links. and acouple of APRS applicat ions. Thegroup was fa miliar w ith the q ualityavailab le as we ll as the customer sup­port. The question was no longer"which vendor" but j ust "what transmit­ter." A s it turned out. this decision waspredete rmi ned as well. Harmronicshad a uni t that til o u r req uire me ntsperfectly.

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a few minutes. Hooking up the con­tro ller (a Basic Stamp) proved to beonly a slight cha llenge . Since the T30 1is designed primarily for repeater scr­vice. it doesn't have a se parate PTTline. The unit is in transmit any timepower is applied. We simply provideda transistor switch to supp ly B+ to theexciter. operated by the contro ller. Wedid notice that there is a provision tokeep the synthesizer running at alltimes. and to cycle B+ to the RF stageson ly. T his is because there is a slightdelay as the onboard microcontrullerboots up and initializes the synthe­sizer, and there m ight be a small lossof voice or data Juring this ti me in a ­repealer installation. The so lution tothis is to keep the synthes izer poweredcontinuous ly (about 30 m/v) and keythe tran smitte r as needed via the B+(about 550 rnA). In our case. we didn ' tneed lightning-quick key-up. so wesimply cycled power to the entireboard and made sure the contro ller as­sumed a ha lf-second or so key-up timebefore it sent any Morse Code.

T he Hamtronics '1'30 I checked outquite well on the bench, and we hopeto be chasi ng it as soon as the last ofthe snow clears away. Last seen, therig was be ing sized to fit into the baseof a clay fl ower pot, with a dipoledraped thro ugh the branches of a deadshrub that was mounted right in thepOL. (Hmmm. Not sure if I was sup­posed to let that OUl of the bag or not... )

The Hamtronics T30 I comes in sev­eral model s. with band spl its that covermost ham and comme rcial hands. It isavailable from Hamtronics, Inc. , 65-DMoul Road. Hilton NY 144fi8-9535.Phone: (7 16) 392~9430. E-mail: liv@hamtronics.com ]. A complete catalogalso is avai lab le on thei r Web site[www.hamtronics.com] . fa

Checking it out

no need for cus tom crystals to beground. )

We so ldered a few wires to theboard , and were up and running in just

We ordered the T30 1 and received itjust a couple of days later. As usua l.the group me t at someone's shack tocheck it out. On firs t g lance, the ex­citer looked just like what we'd expectfrom the Hanu ron ics line. T he rig wasbuilt on a high-qu ality double-sidedPC board. with an ample ground plane.High-quality parts were used throug h­ou t. includi ng a twenty-pin surfacemount devi ce on the bottom side of theboard. Our resident repairrnan likedthe use of soc kets for the ICs. a largeheat sink on the PA transistor, and theuse of we ll-marked connec tion points.Our res ident hacker, on the other hand ,was more interes ted in ge tting accessto the circuitry. He lik ed the frequency­programming DIP switch. which gaveeasy access to the frequency select linesof the VCO-either for a set of switchesor a microcoruroller. He also seemed in­terested in the fac t that the exc iter out­put can be varied from two to overthree watts by varying the supply volt- r-- ---- ------- -­age between 13.6 and 10 volts DC(something about a variable power out­put being handy in one of the "noholds barred" hunts ...).

Applying power

A foregone conclusion

Opening up the catalog, one of themembers pointed out the T30 I VHFFM Exci ter. Two to three watts output.Continuous-duty operation . Separateaudio and CTCSS inputs. Specia l low­noise synthesizer. frequency acc uracyof 2 ppm available , and standard on theassembled version. And it was d irectFlvl-rnodulated. and could accep t datarates of up to 9600 baud.

The only argument concerned whetherto buy it assembled or in kit formSome o f the members felt that buildi na. eIt up oursel ves would give us a bet terunderstanding of the transmitter, whichwould be helpful in futu re modifica­tions. Others pointed out that theHamtron ics documentatio n is clearenough to get us through anv futuremods, and that we shou ld 'get ourhands on the thing as soon as possible.As it turned out, the T XCO opti onlipped the scale. It was pointed out thatthe high-stability temperature-con­tro lled osci llator was an option for thekit. but was included with the pre-as­sembled module. This made the costdiffe rential just $40 between the as­sembled unit and the kit with theTXCO option. Thi s seemed like asmall pr ice to pay to be up and runningas soon as we took the T301 out of thebox. (Since the T30 IIR30 1 series ofmodules no longer uses crysta ls forfrequency selection, Hamtronics cannow provide next-day service- there's

PhntaA. The Hamtronics T30/ hoard.

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 21

Numb",. 22 on r Olir FHdbllclt. c. rd

Home-Brewing a 3 kW+Dummy Load

Corral some Cantennas to check alit your big gun amplifier.

Ronald Lumachi W2CQM73 Bay 26th Street

Brooklyn NY 11214·3905

Take a look at the outpu t ratingsof the new-generation high­power linear amplifiers. and

you ' II soon know full well why the oil­filled , gallon-sized. once-veneratedHeath Carucnna" 1000 W dummy loadis now way out of its class. Even acouple of 3-S00Zs loafing along undertest will cause rhc oil to boil and over­fl ow, Imagine what a pair o f SS77swill do under lock key! You couldprobably fry some of the Colonel'schicke n to perfect ion when pushingthe pedal to the rncta l with these tubes.

There are far more economical way sto prepare these culinary delights, hutalas. then: are few inexpensive alterna­tives to the dummy load for off-the-airtesting of today's powerhouse amps .Consequently. big ticket and key-downcarriers abound on all the frequen­cies- to the consternation of the rag­chewers and net controllers.

By default. the antenna provides theonly easily accessible cheap place to

dump large doses of RF duri ng tuncups.But just because many amateu rs do it.that doesn ' t make it right! Admittedly,yours truly was brie fl y a member ofthat group . but I was not at any timeduring that period pleased with what Ihad to do to test my amp lifier decks .22 73 Amateur Radio Today · Mav 1999

Because of my uneasiness, 1 began toconside r some of the alternatives toQR~fing the world.

Here 's one idea that you might thinkworthwhile . It 's based on the adagethat olle mall \' fe ast is another IIIml :~

famine. Altho ugh I hate the usc of thi scl iche, it is tr ue and rele vant in thisproject. If you' d like to see how thisrelationship corre lates to building adummy load from Heath Cantcnna dis­cards. read on- I promise that you wi llbe pleasantly surprised.

Yes, there is a better (a nd lessexpensive) wal l

The consensus of radio amateu rs re­garding on-the-air testing is unanimousin favor of its e limi nation. However.it's not realistic to expect the averagebrasspou nder to lay nut big bucks tobu y a commerci ally built water-cooleddu mmy load. It' s simply not a cost-ef­fective purchase. Besides. the conven­tional thinking is that if you tunc up onthe air, you' re only on for a brief time.In the worst casco you' re only disturbinga couple of peopl e.

The bottom line is that on-the-air test­ing remains the cheapes t game in townand. more important. you'll get away

with it simply because no one willknow that it 's you causing the interfe r­ence . Fortunately for the majori ty ofus. most hams are more high ly prin­cipled. and always on the alert for abetter way to test the ir fi nals. I' m con­vinced that a sensible. rationally priced.easily duplicated alternative will get theboys on the ham bands to clean up theiract in a heartbeat.

No one knows how many HeathCantcnna du mmy loads arc out therelanguishi ng under benches simply be­cause they can no longer cu t the mus­tard. T he high output o f the modernamplifier. developed as a resu lt of theFCC's new definition of " legal limit: 'resu lted in the Cantcnna's demise.This old friend can no longer handlethe new power levels safely.

To prove the point that the Heathunits arc in disfavor. walk the hamfestsand chec k out the large numbers ofCantenna d iscards. the dummy loadheroes of yesterday. with $5-$ 15 pricetags on them. With that availability andcost fac tor in mi nd. think about thissce nario for a moment: What if youwere able to connect up a hunch ofthese Heath has-beens safe ly in orderto accommodate a higher absorptionlevel of RF power, for a fraction o f the

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the sanity of yourpurchase and re­peat, as often asnecessary, that youare probably mak­ing the mistake ofyour life. Croco­dil e te ars a t thi spoint would be aplus. Remember,the tailgaters area s lick bunch,and if there's anyhint of your truemotivation for thepurchase, I canassure you it willbe reflected In­s t a n t an e o u sl y(you know whichway) in the price.

By the way,bring a pocketYOM with you tocheck for continu­ity and resistance.Don 't he alarmedif the meter readsan open circuit.Heath used a ro­bust 50-ohm non­inductive resistorbut made the in­temal connectionswith some ratherthin-gauge silver­

plated copper. It 's probably thc flatstock rather than the resistor that' sbad. Use this fact to drive the priceeven lower and to demonstrate furtherthat your sanity remains in seriousquestion. What yo u want to do in thischarade is to point out that it's fool ishto purchase ham equipment that 's de­fective. Remember, it's all done in funand a success fully wrought deal en­hances the hamfest experience for bothparties.

Those who don't enjoy this style ofbazaar negot iating may thcn directtheir energies to other pursu its and ad­vertise their Cantcnna needs on theInternet, BBS bulletin boards, or re­Ilectors. I' ve been down that route , andthe number o f responses will surpriseyo u. Shipping is not really a problem.In order to make certa in that the min­eral oi l (it's harmless) doesn 't leak out,

Photo A, The 3 kW dummy load all dressed up and ready to go. Theoptional circuit with the RF (top ) and the relative output meters havereplaced the Heam minibox on the lid of the gallon container. Themett'r chassis K 'QS mounted vertically so that the rear panel could beremovedfor convenient access to the circuitry. The sensitivity controlami the 50-239 are loc ated on the top of the enclosure. The open­frame 115 VAC gearne ad motor, driving the paint stirrer at 200 rpm,is located to the rear. The two f orlorn Heath discards hare, in asense, donated their vita l organs to give their big sister a new leaseon life.

cost of a commercial dummy load?Would you give it a try '! The answer isobvious!

It can and has been done (see PhotoA). If you decide that this is a viableproject, buy as many Cantennas as youcan (for a total of four). But whi le ne­gotiating and attempting a meeting ofthe minds with the se ller (haggl ing),don', divulge the reason for the pur­chase . You' ll want to keep the pricelow. Keep in mind that the first prin­ciple of economics dictates that the de­mand for an item and it" price aredirectly related.

Here 's where some acting ski lls canhelp. Be as nonchalant as possiblewhen making you r best deal and avoidtipping your hand about what's upyour sleeve. As a matter of fact. continu­ally question rhetorically (and vocifer­ously in the Shakespearean tradition)

73 Amateur Radio Today ' May 1999 23

Photo 8 . A close-up l'in,"of the resistor support stmctllre. Note that the 111"0 threaded in­sulators are blocking the return palh to ground. The 1\\'0 aluminum supports IUlI 'e been

Cllt. drilled. and belli to shape TO accept rile insulators. If y OII an' II I/able to locate the in­sutators. snip offabout halfall inch ofaiumilll lll/ and replace that length of material witha strip of Ptex igta s' ». The porcelain [eedthrough insulator transf e rs power f rom thesource to the base of the resisto r: No((' hOIl" the U-.\ Iw ped bracket, connected 10 the baseof the resistor and centered ill the ultnninutn tube, is bo lted to the f enlthrough. Thespring-loaded bolt assembly above me insulator is the original p ressure relief valve in

the el'elll ofboilover:

remind the se ller to securely tightenthe lid and place severa l lengths ofduct tape around the perimeter of thecan as well as over the spring-loadedsafety vent. Wrap the gallon containe rin a heavy-gauge plastic hag. and pro­vide enough cushioning in the ship­ping carto n to preven t damage, Forwha tever it 's worth. mark the cart onTHIS SIDE UP! T he alternative is toempty the mi neral oil into a separateplastic containe r. The shipping chargeswill he the same . but the carton will beslightly larger.

What 's next?

After you've accumulated your HeathCurucnna stockpile. disassemble theunits by prying off the li ds. Make cer­tain you have severa l layers of newspa­per on the 110m to absorb the mineraloil drippings. Allow the resistor as­semblies to dra in. Pour the oil from theindividual Heath gallons into an emptyplastic five-g a llon pa il thats beenscru bbed clean. T he co nta ine r best24 73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999

suited for our needs once held gypsumhoard taping: compound. bur a five-gal­lon pail from paint or laundry detergen tis OK. If you 're a home hand yman.you' ve got them around . If not, checkout a new home construction site whenthe painters are j ust about finishing upand help yourse lf (with permi ssion) toone of the many in the pile . Make cer­tain you gel a lid that fi ts securely andhas a large fl at surface for mountingthe components.

Before you du mp in the oi l. ti t apiece of metal screening to the insidetop, sides, and bottom of the pail. I wasfortunate to have some remnant alumi­num decorative radiator enclosuremesh for the project. hut a smal l lengthof aluminum or copper mosquitosc reening works equally well. It 'savai lable off the ro ll at your local hard­ware store or home center. Through­staple the screening where it overlapsitse lf in order {O provide support. tomai ntain its shape, and to confine theRF. You 'll want to keep the radiation

within the pa il in orde r to comp ly withboth the spirit and the lette r of the newFCC regu lations that l imit the levelsof permissible ex posure around theshack.

You may hi: wondering why "4" isthe magic Cantenna number. Firs t, it'simpossible to lind a single mcgapowcr.noninductivc 50-ohm resistor. T he al­ternative is to usc our knowledge ofthe propert ies of resistance in e lec­tronic c ircuits to attain the powcr lev­els we need at the correct input va lue.

So, four series/para lle l 50·ohmCante nna resistors coupled with fivegall ons of a c irculating cooling me­dium (more on that later) solve theprob lem. Remember, two resistors ofequa l value in para llel reduce their re­sistivity by one half, but double thei rcurrent-handl ing capabilities. (TwoSQ.-ohm resistors in paralle l .:::. 25ohms.) Add the va lue of resistancewhen they 're wired in se ries. Conse­quently. a unit of two paralle led resis­tors (25 ohms ). connected in serieswith an identical pair of paralleled re­sistors (25 ohms) add up 10 50 ohmswith increased power handling capa­bilities. Sounds like a win/win situa­tion to r nc. All that 's left to do is todump the four of them into the pail andlire away.

J ust kidding! There's a hit more to

do ' "

Only one of the stock Hea th resistor/support assemblies will be used a lmostintact. (A variety of other mechanicalresistor mounting confi gurations maybe employed to ach ieve an identica lseries-paralle led result. If you elect an­othe r procedure. make certain the re­sistor assembly brackets extend asuffic ient distance fro m the mountingplate such that the hank of resistors isfu lly immersed in the cooling oil .)

Pick out the one that appears to be inthe best condition. Verify that the re­sistor is not open and that it reads 50ohms. Begin by interrupting the returnpath to the top of the metal lid and the50 -239 ground by CUlling the two alu­minum brackets in ha lf and insta llingtwo porce lain half-inch threaded insu­lators. Tin snips work well here. You' llfind it easier (0 drill the two holes in

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Photo lJ. The four resistors are series-par­al/eled and secured to the original gallonlid with hardware. The 1»'0 f ront resistorshave been bolted together at the top withone set of nuts and bolts. The base of thispair has been bolted to a length ofcopperand firmly attached to the lid. This is theground return, so it might be a good ideato solder all the junction points. The extralength of strapping that parallels the resis­tors in the rear has been shaped, drilled,and double-bolted into the junction of thetwo front resistors. The two spring-loadedoverflow valves wil/ be installed in the lidafter drilling a one-quarter-inch: hole forall extra margin of safety venting in theevent ofboilover:

73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999 25

primary assembly. Remember that youleft the upper V-shaped mounting strapsin place to ease this hookup. Cut a sec­ond length of copper Oat stock ap­proximately six inches long. Form acollar around the bottom end of thesecond resistor. Drill a hole and securethe collar with a nut , bolt and lockwasher. Mark and drill a ho le at apoint along the copper mounting stripthat corresponds to the location of oneof the four bottom support nutlboltlocking assembl ies. They're located onthe base of the alu min um tube thatsurrounds the main resistor.

Remove one of the bolts (along withthe locking and positioning nuts) andpass it through the hole in the copperstrip. Reinstall the assembly, makingcertain that the nuts are positioned cor­rectly. The two resistors are now inparallel. If necessary, adj ust the fourset screws to ensure that the resistor iscentered within the aluminum tube.Snug them up and tighten the locknuts. You may want to use a dab of

each support for the insulating porce­lain attaching bolts before snipping (secPhoto B). Bend each support at the markand reconnect, using some small holtsand lock washers. If locating the mini­porcelain units is a problem, snip awayabout half an inch of aluminum and re­place it with a length of Plex iglas"and some nut/holt hardware.

At this point, you're j ust aboutwhere you started from mechanically,except that you now have an open cir­cuit with continuity only from the ccn­tcr conductor of the 5 0-239 to thebase of the resistor. Remove a resistorfrom a second Cantenna support assem­bly, keeping the top portion of the resis­tor intact. Cut a suitable length ofcopperflat stock for use as both a mechanicaland electrical bridge across the top ofthe two resistors. Drill a hole in eitherend. Bolt one end onto the feedthroughinsulator, using its hardware.

On the other end of the bridg ing ma­terial, use a small nut, bolt, and washerto connect the second resistor to the

Photo C. The second 50-ohm resistor is shown placed in parallel with the main support L _

structure. The base is held in place with a short length of copper bridging bolted to thefe edthrough insulator on one end and the V-shaped bracket of the resistor on the otherend. The top support is fashion ed from a length of copper stock. Note how the resistorcollar is held in place with the hardware. Use one of the fou r threaded centering devicesto attach the top brace to the aluminum tube. When you're through with the hookups,center the resistor within the tube and secure with the locking nuts. At this point, the re­sistance f rom the SO-239 input to the base of the two paralleled resistors should readabout 25 ohms.

Photo E, The gearhead motor is visible below the plastic five-galton cover: The shaftpasses througll the lid ria a small one-quarter-inch brass bushing. Use a one-quarter­inch coupling to attach the motor shaft to the paint stirrer, Note how the metal mesh hasbeen fined to the inside of the COI'('I' to contain the RF. The (»'0 (offive ) sets ofhardwarevisible to the right secure the lIle,~1t to the cover. The three (offour) roundhead holts vis­ible ill the foreground secure the motor to the lid. It lIIay be necessal)' to trim the stirrer'slength ill order 10 f it.

Loctirc">' to keep them from looseningfrom vibration.

Take a minute to check continui tyand resistance from the center conduc­tor of the SO-239, mounted on the lid,

Photo 1-: If yOlI prefer nol 10 install thegearhead 1/1010/; pass the stirrer throughthe bushing from the inside (///(J secu re thecoupling to the shaft as a stop. USl' yourhand-held drill to circulate the oil.

26 73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999

to the copper flat stock extensio n at thefar end of the two paralle led resistors.The YOM should read very close to 25ohms (see Photo C). It may not be abad idea to solder all the connectionsat the bridging junctions.

You're well on your way!

Remove the remaining resistors fromthe two Heath Cante nna asse mblies.(While you' re at it, disassemble thespring- loaded pressure-relief overflowvalves . These units consist of a ho lt.lock nut , spring , and com posi tio nwasher. Drill a couple of quarter-inchholes in the metal lid for at least twoadditional safety venting valves, in theremo te chance of ove rflow due to boil­ing.) Remove the hardware from thetwo resistor collars and loosely boltthem together at one end using one setof existi ng hardware. You'll fi nd thatbolt ing the two collars together in thismanner is a very convenient method toparalle l the second set of resistors.

At the other end of the paired resi s­tors, bridge the two If-shaped supportbrackets with a length of copper strip

about four inches long and bolt the re­sistor supports to the stri p. Drill twomounting holes at each end of the stripand sec ure this assembly to the metallid. Keep in mind that it' s a good ideato solder all mechanical connectionswhenever possib le.

This complete s the ground returnpath of the circ uit. You 'll rememberwe used only a portion of the six-inchlength of copper strip to connect thefirst resisto r to the aluminum housing.Trim and shape the excess length ofthat strip and align the end with the up·per porti on of the second set of resis­tors where the two collars join. You' llhave to drill two closely-spaced holesfor through-halting at that end .

Once these three assemblies arefirmly bolted together, the two para l­le led sets of resistors are in series andthe circuit is complete (photo D). Sol­der the j unction point as insurance fora good electrica l hand . Check yourwork with the YOM on the resistancescale for an input value.

The original Heath resistors have amanufacturing tolerance o f ± I0%, so avalue of approx imately 50 ohms canbe expcctcd. You'H need to know thisprecise resistance value if you decideto install an RF current meter to calcu­late power using the form ula E = FR. Adiscussion of this option is presented inthe sidebar.

The remaining steps in the assemblyare a snap. Us ing tin snips, cut a holein the top cover of the five-gallon con­tainer, slightly smaller than the diam­eter of the metal lid. Remem ber.there's mesh fitted to the inside cover,so cut through that material a lso. Cen­ter the lid and resistance asse mbly overthe hole in the cove r and secure with atleast four sets of nut/holt hardware.

In order to achieve maximum cool­ing efficiency from the five gallons ofmineral oil, I installed an auxiliarysys tem to circulate the oil and speedup the natural cooling convect ion ofthat fluid. To accom plish this cheap lyand effic iently, I used a 200 rpm ( 115YAC) geurhcad motor bolted to theplastic lid of the container. [This motoris #5- 1155 (200 rpm) and se lls fo r$4.99 from Surp lus Center, 101 5 West"0" Street, Linco ln NE 6850 1·2209 ;leI. (800) 488-3407 .J

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ahsolutely necessary to check output(see Photo G). A Drake" W4 or aBird rM 43 (with a 2500 H- 5000 H ele­ment) will handle the task wi th ease.Tune for maximum output and read thepower directly off the sca le.

If you elect to add the option of thetwo meters, determi ning output re­quires a simple ca lculation involvingsome multipl ication. Tunc the amp formaxi mum output on the relati ve outputme ter. Adjust thc sensitivity pot on theme ter chassis for a bi t less than full­scale deflection. You' ll want to see ex­actly at what point the meter reachesits maximum deflection and then begins10 drop off.

At tha i instant, note the va lue of RFcurrent on the second meter. Applythat number to the formula E = FR (E= power, r= current, R = resistance) tocalculate output power di rectly. Furexample, assume that in a test of anamplifier fina l, thc RF meter deflec tsto "6" and it has been determined pre­vious ly by YOM measurement that thcinput resistance of my dummy load is52 ohms . I substitute these values intothe formu la (6 x 6 x 52) and the resultis 1872 watts of power into a nearly

With the shaft protruding through aquarter-inch feedthrough bushing, usea one-quarter-inch set screw couplingto connect a metal pa int stirrer device(availahlc at an y horne cente r for about52) to the motor shaft (see Photo E) . Ihad to trim the stirrer about threeinches because it was a hi t too long.All that 's left to do is plug it in andstart stirri ng.

If you prefer to eliminate the smallmotor, pass the stirrer sha ft throughthe bushing to the outside and securethe coupling to the shaft of the stirre ras a stop collar. This will prevent theshaft from falling back into the pail.Attach a drill at this poi nt to get theshaft and blades spinning (see Photo F).

That's about all there is to get theshow on the road. except that you 'llneed an additional ga llon o f mineralo il to top otT the fi ve-gallon container.Your local pharmacy stocks thi s item. Ielected to add two meters as a meansof enhanci ng the monito ring capabili­ties of my dummy load . More on thatin the sidebar.

If you' re staying with the Heath In­put c ircuit. then a series-ins ta lled, suit­ab ly sca led, commercial wattmeter is

Photo G. A view ofthe stock. Heath Camenna input circuit. Lea ve this system intact ifyouprefer not to install a monitoring circuit. The small disk. to the upper right ofthe miniboxis the spring-loaded safi' ty valve. The electronic components in the original Heath designaccommodated a relat ive output meter through the RCA phone plug mounted oppositethe 50 -239.

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perfect resistive load. It 's as simple asthat !

If you pre fer to save yourself thehassle of making repetitive mathemati­cal calculations each time you usc thedummy load , prepare a solution sheetin advance. Solve the equation for alist of typical RF values and tape thesolutions to the container.

You may recall the movie My Fa ir

Lady. in whic h an uneducated . ill-man­nered, slove nly woman from the stree twas miraculously transformed into a

Photo H. A "iew of the new minibox with: the two meters installed. The Heath componentin the f oreground will not be used in this installation. The sensitivity pot (upper right) isin the relative output metering c ircuit. The [eedthrough to the right eventually wjl/ passth rough the gallon lid and support the resistor assembly immersed in the oil coo/ant. Thecluster of small parts to the lower right is the remainder of the relative output c ircuitcomponents. Note the #14 bus bar f rom the output of the RF meter to the top end of thefeedthrough insula to r: Circuitry is llOt critical. so don't hesita te 10 pack the componentsin a small space. The choke p ictu red to the tipper left was omitted/rom the final c ircuit.so you eagle-eyed hams out there need not be upset that it doesn ~ appear in the schematic.

c ultured. we ll-spoken, socially accept­able member o f society, through theefforts of an oddball language profes­sor. Now tha t I've completed thisproject. I feel a little like ProfessorHiggins of movie fame. I was fortu­nate in ha ving a Colone l Pickeringcounterpart in Lou WIQJ, who set theproject on course by pointing out sev­eral sho rtcomings in my initial approachto the c ircuit detai ls.

Now. you too can share this fee lingof accomplishment. Search out fourCantenna dummy loads. With a mini­mum of effort and expense, retrofit thecompone nts from those sal vaged as­

1-----------------1 semhlies to this project. As a resu lt,you' II c reate a new and more powerfulpiece of ham shack gear. with bo thuti lity and extraord inary power-han­dling capabilities . When you' re done,name her Eliza Dotittte, and if you' reso inclined. change your on-the -airhandle to "Professor Higgins: ' Goodluck on the project, and I' ll see youdown the line! fa

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28 73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999

Optional Metering Panel•

input res ist ance of your d ummy load.Life would be so easy if the RF value

happened 10 be a nice round number andyour dummy load was e xac tly o n the moneyat 50 ohms. Unfortu nately, Murphy and hi s

ve xing la ws are no t tha t accommodating.No re the value of the RF meier readout

a lo ng with the resistive value of the d ummy

load . plug those ligures into your poc ket cal­culator, and let if do the number crunching.

To ill ustrate the point, ron these hypo ­

thcrical values 10 check o ut the formula:RF current 4.8; Cantenna res istance 52.7

ohms. Using the fo rmula E = FR. subsunncthe meter reado ut values and so lve (4.8 x 4.Hx5 2,7 = 12 14,2 watts ). It 's as easy ;IS that.

If you agree that bu ill-i n moni toring

makes good se nse. find a metal enclosurefo r the components. Mo unt the me ters. ..... ire

up the circuit, a nd th rough-bolt the c nclo­

s ure to the meta l lid supporting the d ummyload resistors . O bvious ly, you' II haw to re­move the original Hea th-install ed mi ni-en­

closure. Good bond ing is essential at these

po ints 10 e nsure a zero-resistance g round

return pa th. Use at least three th rough-boltswnh star washe rs (i nte rnal teeth) for thebest me tal-t o-metal bond you can gel. Hoo k

up the input o f the first set o f paralleled re­

sis tors to the output side of the fccd th roughpo rcelain insulator to complete the wiring.

If yo u recog nize the util ity of a n in-line

me te ring console a nd realize that it has ad­

ditional value as a portable through-line

monitoring device . rhcn conside r thishookup. Construct the console in the regu­

lar manner follo wing the schemat ic . Instead

of using the porcelai n Iced th rough o n one

end. re place it with a second chassi s­

mounted SO~239. To hook il Into the

du mmy load. usc a do uble -e nded PL-259

(Radio S hac k #:!:7K-1 92) connec ted to the

. lid-mounted Heat h Cantcnna mmibox input

you 've left intact.

Whe n ull the dummy load test ing is com­

plcrcd, remove the meter ing s tation and po­

sition it III se ries 0 11 your coa xia l line 10

continually mo nito r output to the a nte nna .

Kee p in mind that the usc of the formula E

= FR for accurate IXJwer output indicationrequires a known va lue of antenna input im­

pedance . Yo u ca n alwa ys assu me man ufuc­

rurc rs ' specifications (with some wari ness)

or consider usi ng a n a ntenna bridge. The~IFJ- :!: 59 o r the Palomar RX ]()() will .....o rk

well. E ither of these two handy devices de­

termines the exact resistance in ohms. Thatvalue can be substituted into the form ula

whe n it signals lhat the array is a t reson:lnce

and the IO;ld Ihm' s d isp layed o n the meter is

purel y resisti ve .

: 500

RFOUT

50 OHMLOAD

500 :

son '> ~ 50n.>1......../>

> 1000n> 2W

cumponerus into a small metal e nclosure (ROC

Ph9to r l. Circuitry is not critical ! The RFmeter is wired in series with the center conduc­tor of the coax cable from the linear. Use # I.f

copper wi re from the 50-239 inne r contact

point to one of the meter terminals. Complete

the circuit hy connect ing a \CCOnd le ngth of#I .f .... ire from the second meter terminal to a

solder lug at the to p e nd of the porcelainfeedthrough insulator (salvaged from one of

the Ca menna mi ni-enclosures] .

There arc no high-curre nt concerns whe nwi ring the second mete r into the circuit. so

l igh t-gauge hookup wi re IS OK ; however.th is meter require s a few more parts .

Basical ly, what's happe ning here is that a

minuscule amount of RF current is sa mpled

through a resistor. lt' s rect ified by a smal l di­ode and fed in a controlled manner th rough

the sensitivi ty potentiometer directly 10 the

"+" te rmina l o f the relat ive o ut pu t me ier.F rom the sc hematic (Fig, I ), fo llow the path

of the IX: potential and the wiring will be abreeze.

To use the syste m. adj ust the sensi tivity

co n trol for about 3/4 meter sc ale when unde r

load a nd fine -tunc the amp fo r maximum de­

fl ectio n. Once that co nt rol has been set. itp robably will ne ve r have 10 be readjusted . At

the mome nt o f maximum mete r mo vement.

note the va lue of the RF current a nalog sca le

and apply that number to the formu la E =FR. Don't worry if math intimidates r oo.

S imply mult iply the numerical value o f the

Rf-' meter readout (I ) by itsel f W). and thenmultiply that p roduct by the pre -de te rmined

RFAMMffiR

RFIN

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rnA

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01 F' -'- 25Kn. ~ 1 SENSITMTY >+ :..,.

--. 00 ~ Fl

"

It's certainly convenient to han ' a sparewattmeter series-connected 10 the dummyload at all umes-ccspeciany when you want a

quick amplifier check- Some amateurs evenhanlwirc the wall meter and du mmy loadinto the o utput ci rcuit of the amplifier via 3.

tap o n the ante nna selector switch. Youcan' , heat thai for access ibili ty. Unfortu­nately, high-po wer wattmeters arc an ex­pensive luxury when they ' re used onlyoccasional ly. An alternative IS to perma­nently install two relatively inexpensiv emeters into your 3 kw- Camenna dummyloW circuit. The addition of these two moni­toring devices will provide the informationneeded to as sess an amplifie r 's output.

Search our an RF am meter rated at six 10e ight a mperes . Ma ke a ba mfcst visit fo r thismeter (S3 to 5, usu all y ). O therw ise. "hed..

availability and prices with Surpl us Sales at

[ww ....'. surp lussalcs.com] or E-mail [g rinne ll@surplussales.oom). This liule gem reads RFcurrent directly in amperes through an inter­nal thermocouple. Substit uting the me terreadi ngs into a s imple mathemat ical fo r­mula determines the actual RF p o....-cr o ut ,

put to a known resisti ve load.

The second mo ni toring device is a gar­den varie ty I rnA full-scale me ter wired to

read relat ive ou tput. Any loggi ng scale will

do j ust fi ne . smcc its purpose IS 10 read

maximum de flect ion o nly. As a matter of

fact , look specifically for an odd scale. Theprice will be cheaper.

If you want to keep expenses low. selecttwo-inch meters . Don't hesitate to pac k the

Fig, I , Schn llaric ofmOll ilOring panef Cllllsole.

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 29

Num_ 30 orr you' F.edlHek urtl

Networking withThevenin and Kirchhoff

Helpful f riends when you go into analysis.

Parker R. Cope W2G0W1l78040 E. Tranquil Blvd.

Prescott Valley AZ 86314

Networl.: analysis isn't aboutly­ing on the couch of a networkof psychiatrists, but it could

lead to that. Network analysis is the pro­cess ofde termining the voltage across animpedance or the current in it that is soessential in the design or analysis ofany circuit. Sometimes the answer isobvious. out other times it' s obtuse. orso it seems . Don ' t despair: there areonly a cou ple of laws or theoremsneeded to let the light shine through .The laws arc few and simple. but de­

pending on your faci lity with algebra.one may be easier to usc than someother. In any case , the laws and theo­rems arc essentia l to network analysis.

T he basic laws. really axiom s, arcthe two Kirchhoff' s laws. Ax ioms arcsel f-evident and universall y acceptedtruths: Kirchhoff's voltage law statesthat the algebraic sum of all the volt­

ages in a closed circui t is zero. T hat isto say, the sum of the voltage dropsaround a circuit is equal to the voltage(s)applied to the circu it. The current law ,states that the algebra ic sum of the cur­ren ts into and ou t of a poi nt is zero .That is. there is as much current 110w­ing away from a point as there is 110w.

iug toward it. From these laws. several30 73 Amateur Radio tooev » May 1999

theorems have been developed. Theo­rems arc de monstrably true based onthe accepted assumptions . In the caseof ne twork analysis. Kirchhoff' s lawsarc the acce pted assumptions.

The re arc a few theorems de rivedfrom these ax ioms that reduce a com­plex network to a more man ageableequiva lent c ircu it. Thevenin's theorem,Norton's theorem. and the Superposi­lion theorem arc the workhorses. Ofcourse , the loop equations forKirchhoff's laws can be written andthe simultaneous equations solved. hutthat usua lly takes a bit more effort.

Thevcni n's theorem is usefu l in re­

ducing a complex network conta iningmany clements (0 a sing le constantvoltage generator wi th a single imped­ance. The theorem states that any net­work can be replaced . with respect toany two exte rna l terminals o f the ne t­work, by an equivalent network thatconsists of a voltage generator with aninternal impedance that is equa l to theim pedance measured be twee n thosetwo poin ts when all of the generatorsin the network arc replaced by their In­ternal impedances. Fig. ta shows thegeneral Tbevcni n's network. Fig. I hshows the DC network equ ivalent. Flg,

l e shows the equivalent network pro­viding bias for a transistor.

For example. if it is desired to findthe current that will flow in the base of

the bipolar transistor with V ~ E = 0.6 Vwhen biased with the c ircuit of Fig. t.Thevcnin 's theorem shows the way.The voltage E

Gof the equivalent ge n­

erator at the j unction of the 6.8 k andthe 2.2 k is:

Eo =9 x 2.2 k/(6.S k + 2.2 k) =2.2 V

and the equiva lent gene rator RG re­sistance is:

Ro=(RI- ] + R~- I) I =(6.8 k-' + 2.2 k-"

= l.602k

Therefore. when the base j unction isconnec ted to the junction of R I andR2. the current in the base wi ll be

(2.2 - 0.6)/ 1.662 k = 0 .962 rnA.

Norton 's theorem is usefu l in the so­lution of network proble ms in which itis necessary to red uce a complex net­work to an equ ivalent network consist­ing of a constant-current gene ratorshunted by a sing le impedance. This

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current is equal tothe short-circuitcurrent I mea-•sured between theterminals of theoriginal network inshunt with theimpedance Zc, (oradmittance Y() seenlooking back intothe original networkfrom the terminalswhen all generatorsare replaced bytheir internal im­pedances, Norton',thtOICiIl is similarto Thevenin's the­orem except thatcurrent sources arcused instead ofvoltage sources.When a constant­current source I.,is shunted by a re­sistor f

"

the volt­age acnoss thegenerator is I r••and the generator's internal impedance

is r," The Norton generator is thenequal to a The venin genera tor with avoltage E

G= J.l a nd a genera tor in ter­

nal resista nce of r, 'Norton's theore m is not as com­

monly used as Thcvenin's beca use weusually think in . terms of voltagesources, not c urrent sources. Howe ver.there are some devices that approxi­mate a constant-current generator: Thedrain of an FEr approximates a current

equivalent circuit consists of a con­stant-current generator with infinite in­ternal impedance, whose generated

l.'V

V' "ll

101

6,8K l662K

- 9V 2,2K - 2.2V-- T 0Ibl

~ +9V

6.8K

V 1.662K VI". tf'lt...

2,2K -- - 2,2V 0,6VT ~

•Icl 0,962 mA

Fig, J. Theven in 's equivalents. (a ) General Thevenin 's network:(b) DC network equivalent. (c ) Transistor bias equivalent circuit.

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73 Amateur Radio toaey » May 1999 31

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arbitrary network with twoFig. 2. Angenerators.

Fig, 4. Further simplifications can ease the solution of tw o -SQUIr e

networks.

32 73 Amateur RadiO Today · May 1999

401 , +9 = 401, + 10 x 0. 16961.696

401, = 7.3041 , ~ 0.1 826

Continued on. page 39

Eo= 10°1+ (2) "'= 3.522, which agreeswith the answer found with the super­posit ion theorem.

T he equ iva lent generator impedanceis : R

G= (Ro·1+ R

I' ] + R

2·1).1. The solu­

ti ons found with both the Superposi­tion theorems and Kirchhoff 's lawsresolve into a Thcve nin's equivalent ofa generator voltage of 3.522 V whoseimpedance is 6.52.

For example, the network of F ig, 3is redrawn in Fig, 4, The difference isthat in Fig. 4, R

ois not connected. Ap­

plication of Kirchhoff 's voltage lawreveals the voltage across R, and R

1to

be 3 V and the curre nt through them,0.0375.

Either the Superpos ition theorem orapplication of Kirch hoff 's laws canfind the Eo of a network. In somecases, a combination of simplificationsis beneficial.

Therefore, the voltage at point A is 9+ 1.1 25 = 10.125 or 12 - 1.1 85 =10,1 25. Thevenin's equivalent circuitat point A is a 10.125 V generator withan internal impedance of 18.75 . Whenan Ro of 10 is connected at point A, thevoltage at A drops to 3.522 V, whichagrees with the soluti ons found with

Substituti ng this value for 12

into oneof the equations permits a solution for

11:

(-48 = -2401, - 401 ,1 + {9 = \01, +401,1= [-39 = -2301,1= [I, = 0.1696J

The simultaneo us solution of the twoequations requires multiplying one ofthe equations by a factor that e liminatesone of the terms when the equations areadded. For example, multiplying thesecond equatio n by -4 and adding it tothe first equation produces:

12= 5012+ 1011+1m2 = 6011 + lOll

9 =301 1+ 1011+

1012=4011+ 101

2

Of course, Eo

can he obtainedby solving the si­multaneous solu­tions of the twoloop equations ofKirchhoff's law.Appl ying Kirch­hoff's laws to thetwo loops of Fig,3 shows:

Eo = 1.957 +1565 = 3512 V

12V-+

Applying the Superposition theoremto the network of Fig, 3 shows:

Eo l

= 9(10-1 + 5Q- ')'] /l30 + (10-1 +5<J'j " ~ 1.957 V

Any number of single-generator cir­cuits can be solved in a similar fashion.

The Superpos itio n theorem andThcvenin 's theorem make a potent pairfor solving almost any complex net­work. The Superposit ion theorem pro­duces the equiva lent Tbcvenin 'sgenerator Eo and the T hevcnin equiva­lent generator impedance is R , R" and

"R2

in parallel or (Ro-l + R]-I+ R2·1., ) ·] .

Eo, = 1200" + 30·')" I [50 + 0 0' +30 ') '1= 1.565 V

Eo~ (with E ] shorted ) = E~( Ro· 1 + RI'

1).1 1 [ R~+ (Ro·I+ R]-')" I)

internal impeda nces ," Fig. 2 shows anarbitrary network that has been dividedinto two separate networks, each con­taining only one generator. The com­ponent of the output voltage Eoproduced by E

lis Eo] and the co mpo­

nent resulting from E, is E " T he volt-- .-age Eo across Ro is the sum o f Eo, andE .:.-

6.52K

••

-1__

0

3.522V

10K

A

50

CI12V

10

'2

Ial

6.52

+

•

J--- 3V@0.0375 rnA -

I 30K 50K+ +

-

18.75K

9V

-

3.522V I

30

T

10.125V

source when the transistor's drain-to­source voltage is greater than pinch­off The drain current is g, V and is- ,-essentia lly independent of drain volt-age. The collec tor current of a bipolarjunction transistor, Iuh;c' also repre­sents a current source when the collec­tor is operated unsaturated.

The Superpos ition theorem is use fulin determining the voltage across twoexternal terminals of a complex net­work. The theorem states: "The cur­rent in any branch or the voltage acrosstwo external term inals distributed inany manner throughout the network isthe sum of the currents or voltageswhich would be produced by the indi­vidual generators acting alone with allthe other generators replaced by their

1_ _ ---<0

Fig. 3. A two-source network: can be solvedK'ith Kirchhoff 's la K's.

Ibl

Triband Vertical Arrayfor Big 1200 Bandwidth Signal

(0 1; what to do with the trap beam pieces parts ill the basement.}

Andrew H, Kilpatrick WZ8A7330 Mallard Drive

West Chester OH 45069- 1028

The old knock on verticals hasalways heen tha t they generate"an equa lly poor signal in all

di rections," It is t rue that the simplequarter wave vertical doesn't have thedi rectivity or ground reflection gai n ofa basic dipole. It is also true that atground level, a verti cal is especiallysusceptible to absorption and loss fromnearby homes. trees. power lines. andother foes of effic ient tran...mission and

propagation.However. vertical polarization is the

only way (0 generate a Lrue surfacewave (up to 50 mile radi us for consis­te nt ground commu nication). and forthe really long haul DX, it's the most .cost effective way to propagate lowangle radiation. Addi tionally. whe n us­ing a single element vertical, you willnever miss hearing a rare station be­cause your beam wars headed in thewrong direction. Typ ically, I have foundthat signa ls coming in on my verticalsarc seldom strong. on the Svmcter.That 's partly due to not ha ving the gainof a tru ly di rectiona l antenna . and hassomething 10 do wi th what is calledantenna "capture area: ' Howe ver. if Ihear them. they ca n hear me. Q5 isQ5. eve n if I'm not 20 ove r 59. My

ex perie nce has been. the farthe raway the station is. the bette r mychances are o f breaking the pileupwi th my vertica l and 100 watts.

f irst. let ' s consider some of the ha­sics for a quarter wave vert ical. Its ra­diation resistance is half that of a dipole.M akes sense. since it is ha lf a dipole ,A dipo le up a t least a hal f-wave abovethe ground will have about a 75 ohm in­put impedance, (For dipoles, tha i sug­ges ts using RG-59 fecdlinc for the bestmatch. not RG-8 or RG-58. as com­monly used.) The othe r "half' of thequarter wave vertica l is the " image an­ten na" that effective ly a ppears whe nthe feedl ine shield hi connected to agood ground, If the ground is perfect.the " image" adds zero to the radiationresistance . 50 the load resistance shouldbe about 37 ohms for a well groundedvertical using no tuning circuitry.

Therefore , if your RG-8 or RG-58coax ial cable (coax ) provides a l-to- !match to your quarter wave vertical. theground system needs improveme nt! Ifyour 5WR measures about 1.4: I goingto your ground-mounted vertical, the nyou r ground system is vel)' good (theideal 37 ohm load ). or awful. A 75 ohmvertica l input impedance wi ll also

pro vide a 1.4: I ra tio. bU I suggests youhave more of a ground wan ner than anantenna,

Remember, too. that for HF pur­poses. a good ground is no t determinedby how deep your ground rod is, hut byhow much condu ctive ground materialyou have around the ve rtical e lement.ncar or at the surface . I like to take a1000fool roll o f heavy fence wire.cri sscross it centered at the vertical. andtack it down with gutter spout na ils. Itca n the n be cove red with dirt andgrass. if aesthetics are of importance ,A radia l layout of wires works also.but takes m uch more wo rk than the

wire fe nce approach.With conductive terrain around you ,

suc h as Ohio farmland, wetlands. or alake . the vertica l can be the best DXantenna you would want. at least withinreasonable budget restraints. And re­member. a ground-mounted verticalkeeps both you r feet on the ground forall critica l adjusuncms-c-making it anexce llent all -season an tenna (0 usea nd mai ntain . J ust bru sh the snowhack a few inches from the base in thewinter, and ex pect improved groundconductivity, No end insulators 10 breakdown in the min or icc. The fecdpcint

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 33

Photo A. UZ8A vertical and qutul used f or comparative signals.

leaving the transmitter on low power.holding the dri ven clement with myhealed left hand, and tu ning the seriescapacitor for max imum burn . As theRF got hotter, I would slide my hand intoward the reedpoint to red uce the hurtand the detuni ng caused by the hand .Maybe that 's w hy my hair was rcccd­ing in high schoo l. Don ' t do that withyour vertical. Adj ust yo ur antennalength using a reflected po wer (SW R)meter. Meters are c heap these days: tryRad io Shack or your loca l amateur ra­dio store. M ost radio handbooks showa simple SWR meter that can be bu iltwith a handfu l o f parts.

I wrote a C program to assis t my cal­cu lations for the phased vert ica l array,The HAMVERTS program culcula­tions for E (vert ical element length )should be close e no ug h that meter tun­ing is not a necessity. However. adj us t­ing the e lement length for the measuredSWR minim um docs give you the exactreso nant point you desire. Nearby metalobjects can make the actual resonantlength shorter than calculated: the pro­gram takes into account the width o fthe tub ing , whic h also affects thee lec trical length .

The purpose o f the H AM V ERTS PCprogram is to easi ly genera te the exactq uarter wave lengths you need fo r anyfreque ncy, T here arc actually th ree 1/4wavelength va lues ge nerated for anygiven frequency: I ) the antenna lI+.wa\"celement length, which has the width orend e ffect factored in; 2) the coax 114wavelength, which takes into accountthe "ve loc ity factor" (If the coax; and 3)the " free space" 1/4 wa-velcngth. whichis used to space the c lement d istances.Before d iscussing the HAM VERTS ,Cprogram further, let's di scuss a d irec­tional vertical.

The 9()Ox90° phased vertical is easyto construct, pro vides sig ni ficant gain(4.5 dB ). and has a hroad ( 120°) half­power bandwidth. Its card ioid (heart­shaped) pattern pro vides about 20 d Bof side atte nuation and 30 dB of rearattenuatio n. So for work ing one conti­nent , such a s Europe- two elementsdi rected at 45° (N E) works a ll thecount ies very nicely from O hio. A s aregular Wo rked All Europe contesta nt,I li ke that broad hand width gain feature ,

base of your ver­tical, and use thefencing to pro videan anchor point forthe light guy-stringsupport of the vcrti­cal element neededin windy weather.Do not makesome­one's lawyer richero ver an RF nip.

I took a big hirefrom RF w hen Iwas 18. whiIe ad­j usting a variableantenna link withthe transmitter uc­tivatcd. To uched.about 200 wattso f RF sitting onthe I.X kV go ingto the p lates o fm y two 814s (old­time pentodes). Mymuscles shot meback into the wa lla bout 6 fee t be­

hind the transmit­ter. The c rack m yelbow too k o n thewa ll momentarilykept m y mind offthe RF and elec-trical hum .

A fter the pain subsided in m y elbo w,the doctor got to look at my hand."How did you gel that'! I' ve ne ver seensuch an interest ing bum." Thai was a llthe "sympathy" I got from good o rDoc . It loo ked like a jagged lightn ingbolt had left its imprint on the side o fmy le ft hand . Doc suggested that I notre peat whate ver I did Co earn my pain .

As far as your backyard antennagoes. there should not be any 1.8 kV ofDC attached to it, and. the RF voltaged ro ps quick ly when someo ne dct unesthe ante nna with a fin ger or a hand . Sotouching a hot vertica l shou ld not nor­mally be lethal. hut it's still not fun to get"bit:' Running: 50 waus to a vertical (asin the case o f running 100 watts to apa ir o f phased ve rt ica ls) should besafe. Otherwise, invest in that fencefor safety 's sake .

In Novice days, I wou ld tunc thegamma match to my IIj-mctcr beam by

\,,

I

I

insulator needs to with... rand less than250 "OILs running the maximum 1.5 kWo utput. and less than 70 mils runningbarefoot.

Speaking of vo ltages on the vert ica l:One of the co nce rns with a vertica l isthat withou t so me sort o f fence (prcf­erahly wooden) around it. the rad iatingelement can pre sent a hazard. Ru nning100 wa tts to a vertica l implies an RMSvoltage at the antenna ha...e of 60 to 70volts. Xot that serious a shock threat.although touching it above the basemea ns hig her voltages and a defini tepossih ility o f "frostbite" (RF hum ).Most hams have had one or two ofthose blis ters be fore . but a neighborwith an attorney frie nd. m ight not takesuch th ings so cusually-c-espccially ifit 's a child who gets nipped. With anamplifier. the base vol tage can goabove 200 Vnm- 3 de fi ni te safety haz­ard. So pu t a wooden fence around the34 73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999

o Cool , W.... , .... F• • 10<Con-4lIotIt _Oo."to.d .,..__IlObOftI '" (••_ _......-..nd........,_ ,,,.....is) from ....---li'!w-'TOt....,......rpt.11

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M lti co AX ' "5'~'< R""II " '/1 Vi<;IOl', NY tUMVoice; 71 6-4 2 ~ · 87 59(BBS . It... 5PM) Fh: 716·223_6 198

Continued on page 36

Phone: 978-372-3442Fax : 978-373-7304

L.L..L.=n.!.L--" .nOrdinary receivers can't perform in harsh

R.F. environments like the MR4..•With SEVEN large helical fi lters in the Iront end and TWELVE poles 01 IF tlttering ,the MR4

Receiver is immune to desense at interference levelSgreater than 100 ,000 uV.The 21.4 MHz first IF and shielded OSCi llator! multiplier chain make it dilticult to even measure

an image, and it's double-balanced first and second mixersreject Intermodulatioo products by 80 db.

The MR4 Receiver is also packed with features like ou r Wnws MCS squelch circyit oftencalled "the best tbere isl"

The automat iC last/slow SQUelch locks on to weak signals and

eliminates squelch tails on strong Signals.

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d istance. The phasing would be cor­rect with any additional length, as longas the e lement 2 (26) transmission lineleg is electrically 1/4 wave longer thanthe leg to c lement I.

The problem then becomes: "W hatabout the match?" If the vertical's baseim pedance is 52 o hms, and RG-8 orRG-58 coax is used, then two 50-ohmloads would be paralleled at the "Y 'connection. resulting in a 25 ohm load,or a 2 :1 SWR to the transcei ver. Butthe impedance of the verticals shouldbe closer to 37 ohms, and now the im­pedance see n at the "Y' will be co m­plex, a function of both the lengths ofcoax from the vertical c lements to the''T.'' What the transceiver wi ll see as aload impedance wi ll depend on the im­pedance at the "T," transformed by thelength of coax from the transcei ver tothe "T." It could be nasty.

The solution is sim ple : The transfor­mation equation of the quarter wavematching section is the a nswer. For aq uarter wavelength of transmissionline, the product of the line impedance(20) sq ua red is equal to the produc tof the two e nd impedanc es. o r 20 x20 = Zin x Zour. 'ZJJ is the coax surge

The array takes two verticals. bothtuned to the sa me resonant frequency,with a free-space separatio n of 114wave (90°). The seco nd driven ele­ment has an extra 1/4 wavelength ofcoax to delay the RF po wer to it. So,by the time the power going to the firstelement propagates to the second ele­ment. the second e lement power is ex­actly in phase with the e nergy comi ngfrom e leme nt 1 (I E). Conversely, bythe time the energy from clement 2propagates back to clement I , the e n­ergy from clement 2 (2E) is exactly o uto f phase with the po wer being radiatedby d ement l . Obviously then, the peakradiati on will occur in the di rection ofclement J Inward element 2. and on.Looking back from cle ment 2 to wards cl­eme nt I . there should be almost per­fect cance llation. Th is is what creates

the canfield gain pattern.Measured coax lengths provide the

1/4-wave time delay essentia l fo r phas­ing the two antennas. Think of the coaxas many sectio ns of sma ll inductors(the center wire) and capacitors (thebraid and center conductor, with a plasticor foam dielectric separa t ing the setwo "plates" of the capacitor). Power isnot lost by charging these capacitorsthrough these small inductors, but ittakes time fo r each capac itor to charge

and pass its e nergy on to the nex t coil f----- ------------'and c apaci tor. So instead of the radiopower traveling at the speed of lightdown the coax wire, it's running muchslo wer. (Yes, a straight piece of w ire isan ind uctor.) With plastic insulation.about 113 slo wer than the speed oflight. Thi s means that a 114 wave­length of coax will o nly be two-thirdsthe di stance that the two c lementssho uld he separa ted for a free-spaceequivalence of 1/4 wave.

So. in add itio n to the electrica l 114wave of coax go ing from e le ment I to­ward clement 2. an e xtra 33% lengthmust he added j ust to physicall y reachthe seco nd e lement. As long as the sameextra length is added to the fccdline go­ing to cleme nt I . the 90 degre e phasedifference is maintained. Actually, add­ing 116th ofa quarter wavelength ofcoaxbetween the 'T' and clement I, and the'T ' and clement 2, p lus the II4-wave­length delay sectio n, wi ll make the

73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999 35

T riband Vertical Array would he 73 ohms (matching RG-59collf inued Jrom page .15 cable). If the match is close. then the

impedance- 52 ohms for RG-8. or 73 length of coax to the transmitter w ill

ohms for RG-59. not affect the impedance march to the

According to the lI4-wavc transfer- transmitter. Most transmitters will have

marion equation. if the input impedance no problem coupling 10 a 73 ohm load

to a quarter wavelength of 52 ohm efficiently.

coax is 37 ohms (such as a 1/4-wavc For the phased verticals. using 1/4 wave

vertical sho uld he). then the impedance of 73 ohm coax to element 1 yie lds an

at the other side of the coax section input impedance of: 73 x 73 / 37 = 1-+4

IHAMVE RTS (WZ8A antenna cales tor 900 x 900 phased vertical array) IIAt least one, and not more than 8. frequencies should be entered. IIEach frequency va lue must be between 1.0 and 148.0 MHz. IThe vertical element average diameter (inches) is used for allfrequencies.

IAs an example: hamverts 28.2 21.15 7.1 25 I•

IAssume PVC (plastic) coax insulator (dielectric) for this example. I1Also, assume the average diameter of the vertical element is 1 inch. I

Dimension & coax lengths for two 90° x 90° phased verticals - WZ8Acalculations -

IAss umed velocity factor = 0.66 The 1E & 2E avg. diam. = 1.0 in. IIx = z = RG-8/U or RG-58/U, 52-ohm plastic dielectric coax

Iy = RG-l 1/U or RG-59/U, 75-ohm plastic dielectric coax

IS = Quarter wave spacing between vertical elements I1EyyyyTzzzz> xcvr

I s y (z..z = any length of 52-ohm coaxial cable)

I s y (T = "tee" connector & ' barrel: i.e . M-358 & PL-2581U) Is y (x..x & y..y are electrical 1/4 wavelengths, y = 75-ohm coax) Is y (" = straight jack-to-jack "barrel" connector, PL-258) I

12Exxxx'

II-I ¥ direction of forward gain I

FREQUENCY1/4 Wave Coax

Element HeightElement

Length Spacing

28.200 MHzx & Y= 5 ft . 9.1

E = 8 ft. 5.0 in. s = 8 ft.8.7in.in.

21.150 MHzx & Y= 7 tt. 8.1

E = 11 It. 2.7 in, s = 11 ft . 7 .6 in.In ,

7 .125 MHzx& y =22ft.

E = 33 ft , 7.2 in. s = 34 ft . 6 .4 in.9.5 in.

Table I. HAMVERTS example.

36 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

at the "T" connector. Using II..J. waveof RG-5H to clement 2 yields: 52 x52/ 37 = 73. Now. adding the 1/4-wavcsection of RG-59 for phasing to the ele­ment 2 line docs not change the 73 ohmsgoing to the "T' connector. The t\vo

para lle l loads (1 44 II 73) work out to avery nice 48.5 ohm match to the RG -Ror RG -58 coax going to the transmit­ter. The power going to the two c le­me nts will not be eq ual. howe ver,causing a slight loss o f forward gaina nd front-to-buck rati o . These are nothigh-Q c ircuits we are dealing \...-ithhere, so neither the lengths nor the matchhave to he precise for good results.

By using 1/4 wave of 73 ohm coax:(RG -59) from cle me nt I to the '"T" and1/4 wa ve of 52 ohm coax (RG-58)from c lement 2 to another 1/4 wave of73 ohm coa x: (RG-59) to add the phas­ing delay, a combined load appears tothe transmi tter fccdline that nicelymatches 50 to 52 ohm coax . If you areusing a short (loaded) vertical. thevertical's load impedance will be low­ered. making the "T'd" impedancehigher and actually improving the SWRsituatio n.

For it 40 meier 90ox:90o array of two225 foot linear loaded e lements , Iused a 50-ohm II4-wave section to cl­ement I (50 x 50 / 25 = 100). as wel l a se lement 2, for a n almost perfect matchat the "T ' connection. The two 40 meterclements arc currently used as a -t{) meter

rotatable d ipole up between mytriband quad e lements. The input to thedi pole measures 25 oh ms. Para llelingtwo quarter wavelengths of RG-59yie lds a q uarter wave section of 36.5ohm coax that perfectly matches mydi po le to 53 ohm coax.

My HAMVERTS.C program, whichruns as a PC DOS e xecutable file , cal­culates all three flavo rs of 1/4 wave­lengths. once the coax insulation typeand cleme nt diamete r are speci fied.You ca n request a free copy of the e x­ecutable file via E-mail at [hamvcrts rs'acl .com]. or se nd a blank flop py and apostage -pa id return e nvelope .

If a frequency value be tween 1.0 and14 8.0 ~1Hz is e nte red when runningHAM VERTS.EX E from PC DOS. 'heante nna calculations will be made forjust thai one frequenc y. Three values

,

a re printe d to the sc reen for eachfreq uency: x re pre sents the leng th of1/4 wave o f coax; s rep re sents the1/4·wave spaci ng between the twovertical elements; and E represe nts theheight of the vertical e lement, with thec lement size bei ng accounted for. Upto eight frequencies can be run at onetime. If no frequency is entered for ca l­cu lation, just typing "hamverts" willpresent the instructions and calculatethree frequencies. An example is shownin Table I.

Calculated lengths do not varygreatly between SS B and C W frequen­cies. So these three example calculationsfor the 40, 15, and 10 meter Novicebands would be an e xcellent compro­mise for General phone and CW opera­tion. Note that the d ielectric informationcan be e ntered either as a decimalvalue, or the-letters P or F for plast ic orfoam di electric.

I wrote this HAMVERTS.C pro­gram to determine the optimum spac­ings for my 10 , 15, and 20 meterfreq uencies o f choice, and then reco n­structed three trihand vertical ele mentso ut o f the traps and tu bing fro m myTH2MK3 re mai ns . In its latter years ofuse, the triband two element beam hadbeen reduced to a two-band . two-cle ­ment, 10 and 15 meter beam with op­timum spacing for both bands bytuning th e parasitic element as a re­flector on 10 meters and a director on15 meters. It worked up to full cxpec­tations, as long as I remembered whi chway to point it for the band I was on.

For the vertical operation, I on lyneeded to replace the weather seals onthe top ends of the traps a nd run a fewspiders out. The 15 mcter traps werecleaned up and reassembled to againmake each e leme nt fit for tri band duty.Two of the vert icals were set up j ustoutside my basement shack location ,and the third element was located asmy re fere nce receiving ante nna, as farfrom the two-clement array as pos­sible . Actua lly, th at was 120 fee t fromthe close st d riven c lement, or about 1.7wavelengths on 20 m and 3 .35 wave­lengths on 10 meters. The re ferenceelement was still too close for meaning­ful front-to-back measure men ts, butgave general gain readi ngs .

I tried to keep the power levels lowand use clear frequencies for testing, aswell as sending my call ID regularly. Thefirst time I keyed down for 15 scconds­running 10 watts to one element on themost perfectly clear frequency I couldfi nd-back came someone curious aboutthe " AO" signal. It really makes m ewonder where atl the callers arc whenI call CQ with my kW running . But noprohlem-I had a quick QSO with Kenin Houston , explained the testing, a ndcontinued on with my antenna project.

The same thi ng happened when I rana " test ing" m essage o n a 2 meter sim­ple x c hannel I thought no one everused. The purpose was to allow a cableservice tec hnician to find and fix theirleaks (egress). My ingress o n the samefrequencies was bothering cable chan­ne l 18 (same as 2 meters) watchers .After just a few minute s of test trans­m issions for the cable people on thisonce-dead simplex frequency, hamscame out of the woodwork to find outwhat was going on. We are a c uriouslot. arc we not?

A m inor prohlem was locating myre ference antenna directly inl ine wi thm y two phased drive n elements. Anassortment of blac k walnut trees, sumac(poiso n and otherwise), and buckeyevegetation obsc ured the exact locationof m y reference antenna. So I hung a27-inch-wide orange Hallo ween deco­ration halfway up the reference verti­cal so that I co uld spot it whenalign ing the position of my seconddri ve n element. That im pro ve ment al­lowed me to locate m y line of direc­tion well beyond any reasonable need .

By the time I returned to the backcomer of my 101 to retrieve the orangemarker, my ne ighbor at the back cor­ner of the yard had noticed the whitebackside o f the decoration. She quicklycame out to ask: "That's not a TV sat­e llite di sh your putti ng up there, is it?"I a ssured her it was not a TV dish,showed he r th e Ha llo wee n decorationshe was taking note of, and re turnedto my basement shac k- leaving the14-foot vertical wi th two traps at eyele vel for her convenient kitchen windowvrcwmg.

Continued on page 38

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The coax phasing sections are notcritical with respect to length . Theselengths do not represent tuned circuitswith a high Q; listing lengths with theinches broken down into fractio ns is abit excessive , but the computer does itfor free . It is important to make thosecalculations based on either foam orPVC insulation. Selecting the mid­Novice band frequencies for 40, 15,and 10 meters will result in spacingsuitable for full usc of all normal CWand SSB sections of those bands. Aslight trim of the driven clementlengths might be desired for CW and5SB, but adjusting the coax phasinglengths will meaningfully change thegain and di rectivity of the antenna.

To measure the coax, I used thebasement method (same as garagemethod):

I . Mark the desired length of thecoax phasing section on your cementfloor.

2. Solder one PL-259 to one end ofthe coax section.

3. Stretch the coax out between themarks, with paint cans to hold the coaxin place.

4. Wrap tape around the coax tomark the exact length calculated by the"HAMVERTS" program.

The x and y phasing sections goingto the antenna require only one con­nector per cable. For the other end,separate a few inches of coax braidand center conductor down to the edgeof the marking tape, and use a I-inchhose clamp to fasten the coax to thevertical element. The braid can be sol­dered to the ground rod or groundscreen. I like to add a moisture sealantaround the braid section to keep waterfrom wicking up the coax braid andposs ibly reducing the efficiency of thetransmission line.

The l ..Z (any length) and y..y (75 ohm)phasing sections to the phased arrayneed PL-259s on each end. I usc the tipends of the pins on each PL-259 tomake my total length measurements,hut it is not critical. Do use reducingadapters (UG- 175 for RG-58, or VO­176 for RG-59) when using thesmaller diameter coaxial cables. Thatis in addition to the six PL-259s, twobarrels (PL-258), and one tee (M-358 )

Triband Vertical Arrayconrtnued jrom page 3 5

My first testing was done with eachof my 1/4-wave elements being testedindividually with a quick and dirtyground. The vertical ground consistedof a three-foot length of 3/4-inch copperwater pipe, left over from our last waterleak episode.

The coils that made up the Hy-Gaincoils consisted of aluminum wirewrapped around an insu lator form, andtap-screwed on each end into the alu­minum clement tubing. Just like myold aluminum house wiring in Floridadays, those pressure connections withaluminum wire have to be tightenedevery so often to maintain good con­tact. The same is true for Hy-Oain traps.Also, some crystalline formations be­tween the turns were scrubbed off withrubbing alcohol and an old toothbrush.After the cleanup and tightening, thetraps again performed as expected.

After adjusting the element sectionsfor resonance at the low end of to. 15,and 20 meters, I checked the SWR onall three hands . Almost perfect at therig , and indeed my MFJ-205 resistancemeter measured the resistance rightat 50 to 53 ohms. (Remember, I saidthat is bad: a good ground means somemismatch!) So, a trip to the hardwarestore, $23, a 50-foot roll of welded fencewire, and the SWR now goes to 1.4:I.and the resistance meter now claimsI've got a 37-ohm load.

However. the trihand business is op­tional. To keep it simple, make yourphased vertical for j ust one band.Make the driven clements (E) fromcopper or aluminum tubing, insu latethe base of the verti cal with a cokebottle, a few inches of PVC, or any­thing that doesn't become a good con­ductor when it gets wet. To keep myclements in line, I used three nylon guycords per vertical. Each cord was fas­tened to one brick about 8 feet fromthe base. Bricks make a great guy an­chor. The verticals stand straight instrong winds, but the brick will slidewhen a kid or careless owner runs intothe cord or an element at night; every­thing gives, and no one is hurt. How­ever, there could be a slight estheticsprob lem using brick guy anchors.

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38 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

Coril lnued on page 57

73 Amateur Radio Today· May 1999 39

serious offenses because they can be nationalor international in scope. Othergeneral problemsaccounted for another 17'% of the complaints,said Hollingsworth.Afull 10%01complaintscon­cemed anunlicensed individual in California whoalreadyhas spent tme in jail for past convictions.

Hollingsworth has sent out 30 informal 'warn­ing leiters" to individual operators as a result 01complaints. The letters warn the recipients thaia complaint has been received about lhe recpt­entorsomeone usinghis or hercansqnand indi­cate Ihatthe allegations, if true, could jeopardizetne amateur's license and request the recipient tocontact the FCC to discuss me matter.

"ln almost every case, the recipient has con­tacted us," he said. "In one case the licenseecontacted us, apologized, and reports since thattime indicate that the licensee has became amodel operator: Some amateurs have reportedto theARRl thatamateur behaviorhas improved,dramatically in some areas, since word hit thestreet that the FCC was taking amateur enforce­ment seriously. For its part, the league has saidit is will ing. for now. nol to pursue its requesttofurther privatize amateur enforcement.

Holl in gsworth says the warning letters willcontinue, but now he's taking aim at the hard­core scofftaws within the amateur radio commu­nity. "We have now lei everyone out there knowwe're back; he said. Continued violations will"guarantee" license revocations, fines, or in ex­treme cases, equipment seizures.

"Church is out now," he said. "We mean busi­ness and we're strapped in and ready to ride."Hollingsworth added: "Amateur Radio rule-break­ers continue Ihese violations attnen own risk."

From KD4V8l:Tough talk for a govemment off icial. I hope it

isn't a paper tiger. We have heard tough talkbefore but what happened? Nothing but talk.

For example, my friend AD4PS, DennisHamilton, who is a high ranking RAC.E.S. of­ficer, a fine ham, and an asset to the amateurcommunity, tried his hand at tough talk toward ahorrific non-licensed jammer. What did it landhim? He is now under investigation by the veryagency he works for.

This maggot of a jammer is well known to theamateur and the county as a culprit who inter­feres not only with amateur transmissions butalso with vital county communications such asfire rescue and the Trauma Hawk medical heli­coplers--which can mean ttledifference between

life and death.vet when AD4PS said this person was [am­

ming a communicalion (amateur) over theair, thismisfit lawbreaker made a complaint to the countyagainst AD4PS thaI put his butt in a sling.

Now he is not only sweating the stigma of aninvestigation, but now his job hangs in the bal­ance.

You tell me where the justice begins and theinjustice ends in this case. Is it OK to commit acrime but not OK to say who the criminal is?

Does justice mean only just us?Tnx and an"honest we wiU" to The ARRLLetter.

sim plified and so lved with the Super­posi tion and Thcvcnin's theorems.When a co mple x netwo rk is reduced toa sing le voltage source wi th a knowninternal im peda nce , cut-and-try isn ' tnecessary. m3

QRHcontinuedJrom pn.ye 8

Enforcer II

can be reached. To contact Hollingsworth con­ceming enforcement. E-mail [rholling@ fcc.gov]or call (71 7) 338-2502.

On anolherfront,Hollingsworth has also madegood on his well-publicized promise to issue theworst offenders a final waming 10 dean up theiract. Those letters went out on January 8th. Whalimpact the letters and Hollingsworth's on-the-auappearance will have is too early to assess. Theone thing it does say is that there's a new FCCin town and the bad boys of bam radio had bet­ter beware.

Tnx and a "we'll be good" to Newsline, BillPasternak WA61TF, editor.

connec tor required fo r neatly sp licingall the fccdli nc s together. For thi sproject. I follo wed Bob Simpleton 's"g uide to PL co nnec tors" and got so mesuperbly clean looking connector re­su its. Thai follo ws ma ny years of " fig­uri ng it out myself." with so metimeunre liable PI.-259 connections.

With my triband vert ica l config ura ­tio n spaced for 20 meters, I expectedan omnid irectio nal signa l o n 20, asomewhat om nid irec tional signa l o n15 me ters (le ss forward gain, andso me po wer off the bad), and asimple bi d irectiona l (endfi re) patternwith abo ut 2.3 d B of gain in the planeof the verticals and about 20 dB of sideattenuation.

O f course. the operating is the proofof any antenna. I could sec very no­ticeable front-to-beck and front-to-sidegai n with the verticals . The twoground-mounted vert ical s worked sta­tions in the desired direction with ease,I cannot report that the vertica l to ppedmy 2-e lclllcnt quad up 40 feet. but thenagain, with m uch less hard ware and noholes in the house roof (needed to keepthe quad up), the verticals come w ith inone 10 two S-units of the big antenna.In ge nera l. the farther away the sta­tions are , the closer the vertical comesto the q uad in pcrfonnance . And wi ththe sunspots increasing, I'm expectingmy 9Oox90o 10 do a very nice jo h o nmy next Field Day or DXpedi tion.Give it a try- it's a winne r. a:J

Networkingcontuwecl Jrom page ,12

both the Supe rposition theorem andKircbhoffs laws.

There is more than o ne way 10 sk in acat. There is al so more than one way tocalculate the value of resistors in par­allel. Before the days of the inexpen­sive hand-held ca lculator, the commonway to find the va lue of two resistorsin parallel was to use thei r productover their sum . A calculator that has asing le key for rec iprocals makes thesum of co nductances a much q uickerand easier way of fi nding the effect iveresis tance of resistors in parallel.

The most complex circu its ca n be

TheFCC's Riley Hollingsworth K4ZDH ismak­ing his list and checking il twice. Now that heknows which hams are naughty. not nice, he'sready to take action against flagrant amateur of­fenders.

"Fully half of the amateur problems on HF re­late to a specific group of jammers by maliciousinterlerers who enjoy disrupting as much amateurcommunication aspossible," said Hollingsworth,the FCC's point man for amateur enforcementwithin the Compliance and Information Bureau."Enforcement action against this group is longoverdue:

Hollingsworth has prepared a report to his------ ----- -------1 boss, CtB Chief Richard D. l ee, detailing his find-

ings and fingering the most serious votatore in a"Top Ten" list which he declined to make publicjust yet. His memo urged "immediate entotce­ment action :

Hollingsworth said he's talked with more than250 people on the amateur enforcement line,(202) 418-1 184, si nce the end of September1998, when the FCC's latest amateur enforce­ment initiative kicked into high gear. In addition,he has received morethan fourdozen tellers andE-mailed comments concerning problems in theAmateur Service. Hollingsworth has concludedthai , while most amateurs abide by the rules, afew habitual offenders continue to llout the law."We arenot going tostand to be further degradedor destroyed by them; he said.

Hollingsworth says that jamming and oeuber­ate interference is the most common problem,accounting for 31% of all complaints. Repeatermisuse and jamming account for another 29%.But he considers the HF abuses, most typicallyreported on 75 and 20 meters, 10 be the more

Frequency extension oftest equipment to 24 GHz

Num~ 40 on YOlH" F.-dbllc/< un1

HROUE I} BEYONDVHF and Above Operation

C. L. Houghton WB61GPSan Diego Microwave Group6345 Badger lake Ave.San Diego CA 92119E-mail: [c1hough @pacbell.netJ

Th is co nvener allows existinglow frequency test equipment tohe pu t 10 usc on 24 GHz. Those

Thi s lime. le t's cover somepieces of te st equipment to go

ve ry useful test eq uipme nt to beyond 18 G Hz do so with theassist you in functioning at 2-1

penalty o f requiring e xterna lGHz. This clever surp lus mate-

mixers that arc no lo nger withrial co nsists of eq uipment that

the equipment. Co upling this tocan he obtained at lower trc-

the increased problem of usingq uencics for use as actual rest

the hig h m ult iple numbe rs o fequipment at H GHz. As most

harmonics used with these mix­of yo u know. there is ve ry good

c rs makes correct signal idcnu­test eq uipment available for 24

fication difficult.GHz. hut it is still in the handsof comme rci al labs. Most of the Th is pro bl em is un ivers al

eve n on my workbench, whichequ ip ment in amate ur ha nd s

stops function ing at 12 GHz forseems to to p off at 18 GHz.

The column thi s time will spectru m analyzers and 18 GHzfo r swee p sig na l generators .

describe some surp lus materialthat was assembled to form a Sure. the old 855 1 Hl' specuumtest ing veh icle at 24 GHz . You analyzer goes up to 40 GHz. hutarc probably in a simi lar fix in beca use it uses such high o rderma t my test bench does not go harmo nics and mix ing sche mesabove 18 GHI . This seemed 10 it doe sn't provide good data forbe a hindrance to furthe r e xplo- freque ncy setting-c-i t's just 100ration of our 24 GHz and above vague even with a surpl us extcr-microwave hands. Wc were out nal m ixer. So what can you doq ua lity te sting equ ipme nt o n to make it func tion as yo u wouldthese higher microwave hands wish and d isplay 24 GHz withto see what was happening. good frequency accuracy?

This project to e nhance o ur We ll. Kerry t'6IZW came upability at 24 GHz and possi bly with a solution for our mi cro-even higher is the method we wave group and it works q uiteusc in the San Diego Microwave well. It does req uire a few partsGroup to adapt our e xisting to make the unit function. Thelo wer frequency test equipmenl two maj or compone n ts arc ato function al24 GH1.. What was Frequency West bri ck oscillatorneeded was a ci rcuit 10 test both at some output freq uency in theas a spec trum analyzer to look 11.5 to 12 GHz range. and a veryar transmiuer signals and a sig- good q ua lity coaxia l co nncc -nal source for receiver testing . torizcd microwave-rated mixer.

The circuit that Kerry N6lZW The mixer we used is rated RF-ca mc up with wil l function ct Ja wise to 18 GHz and perfo rmsGHz and allow testin g in the well to 24 GHz. The re mainingtransmit spec trum analyzer as components include an ancnu­we ll as provide testi ng o n the ator to reduce the brick oscilla-workbench. w hile this convcr- tor to +7 dB for local oscillatorsion process is quite accurate as injectio n to the mixer. and anto freq uency for hath receive SM A- lO- 24 G Hz waveg uideand transmit. it does leave some transition.uncertainty in the dBm reference Con fused? Le t me put you o nle vel department. the right track . We are going to

40 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

use a low-orde r harm oni c .name ly the 2nd harmonic of the12 GHz brick osci llator as the1/2 frequency loca l oscilla torinjection 10 the mixer. The sec­ond harmonic. along with thefundam ental (12 G Hz ) fre­q uency of the brick LO is in­jected to the LO po rt of themixer. An S MA aue nuator isincluded in this path to reducethe bri ck oscillator microwaveoscillator o utput to a maximumof +S dBm . That is the local os­cilhuor injcction maximum ratingfo r the m ixer we used.

The mi xer we se lected is o nethat is rated to IS GHz for theRF and LO port. It happe ns 10

be an SMA coaxial double hal­a nc e d m ixe r fro m Wa tkin s

Joh n son . pa rt #W- M80 . It sspecifications are as follows: forthe RF and LO port. freque ncyrange 6 to 18 GH1,; IF port, DCto 3 GH1.. Conversion loss is inthe 6 dB ra nge . T his mixe r.while ra ted to 18 G Hz. still per­forms at 24 GHz with increasedconve rsion loss at 24 GH1.. Idon ' t ha ve the eq uipme nt \0

measure the actual conversionloss at 24 GHz and suspect it isin the 10 dB o r so range . Evenwith exces..lve co nversio n lossit works very we ll .

The goal o f thi s project wasto construc t a de vice that wouldallow accurate measurements tobe made at 24 GHz with mare­rial on hand. with the exceptionof the mixer. all other pan s wereon hand on o ur workbench. Theconvener has pro ven to be quitefunctional. and has allo wed usto put to good use a lower fre­

q ue ncy spectrum analyzer forseei ng translated freq uency andsetting o ur equipme nt al 24 GH1..

It has pro ven to be quite accu­rate. even fo r SSB o peratio n at24 Gltz, by removing frequencyambiguity using a synthesizer­based frequency source. In test­ing with wideband sys tems. it

perfo rmed eq ually well. Here ishow thi s 24 GH z co nversionsystem functio ns .

With 1/2 local osci llator in­jected to the mixer's local oscil­lator port (1.0) (l et's say. fo rsim ple argument 12 GHz ), the

second harmonic would he 24

GHz. That's a local oscillato rinject ion of 12 GHl and 24 GHz(second harmonic ). The RF portis co upled to a 24 GHz transi­tion to be used as an antenna at24 G Hz . The wave guide a lso

forms a wideband filter rejection

of 12 GH z prod ucts.The IF port of the mi xe r is

connected to the spectrum ana­lyzer input.The analyzer acts asa sensitive receiver with a visuald isplay fo r input RF. It is ca­pablo of seei ng produ cts of themi xing operation and d isplay ing

them on the o-scope of the ana­lyzer. The center line o f the ana­lyzer can fi rs t be calibrated tofreque ncy by injecting a s igna l

gene rator set to exactly the Ire­qucncy expected for reference .Well . with RF at (hopefully)24 . 155 G Hz. a widcband fre­q uenc y a nd the LO ' s second

harmoni c at 24 GHL, we mix offthe 24 GHJ: o f the 24 .155 GH1..leaving a 155 ~lHz signal o utputo n the IF port.

With the analy zer setup. RFis de tected from the 24 GH1.(f re q uency un kno w n a t th is

time ) Gunn transmi tter by thewaveguide transition and mixedwith 24 GHz. producing a sig­nal pre sentation on the o-scopc.

Witho ut readj usting the scope0 11 the analyzer. adjust the Gunnca vi ty frequency adj us t screwfor center frequency alignmento n the spectrum analyzer. Whenth is is done at the pre vio uslycalib ra ted [55 M Hz ma r kerfrom the sig nal gene rator. youca n be assured that the Gunntransmitter is now on 24 155 MHz

to your calibration accuracy.W hile this sce na rio is true . i t

is better to usc a less troub le­some IF frequency dependingo n what you can come up with .A 12 GHz source so unds nicebut is usually not in the cards.Sources ....-ith unu sua l frequcn­des suc h as 11.978 GHz will

work fine . The e xact frequencyis not important, as long as it'sa ne ar e ven number to handle .Mult iply the local osci llator fre­quency used by two and subtractthe desired freq uency on 24 GHz.and that's your IF fre q ue ncy.

Fig. 1. Block diagram offrequency extension equipment fo r usinglow frequency spectrum analyzers to display accurately 24 GHz.frequency information using low order harmonic. System uses JI2frequency local oscillator and mixer originally made for J8 GHz.operation. 24 GH;: fi ltering done by U GHz. antenna transitionusing waveguide cutofffo r broadfil tering.

CI24 GHz

WAVEGUIDETRANSITlON

•

on the IF port. The 108th har­mo nic lock is 24078 .9 89; Imade a slight adj ust in the crys­tal to make it lock at 24079MHJ'~

verifying the crys tal freq uencyat 111 .47685 MHz and makingthe IF output 76 MHz. for anoperation frequency of 24 155

MIXER18GHz

TO SPECTRUMANAlYZER

o" XT....oAm

l1.XXX GHz 1/2 lO FREQFREQUENCY WEST 8RICKOSClllATOR@+7d8m

them. Ten to 12 GHI brick os­ci lla tors operate on the 102nd,I08th. or 114th harmonic of thephase-lock crystal- in this case,111.4768 MH z.

The 102nd harm oni c is11.370 o r 22741.267 minu s24155 MHz = 1413.7328 MH z

signal generator accuracy withyour frequency counter. In thescenario described above. weused a 155 MHz IF for 24155RF. Now. for 30 MHz lower, use125 MHz or 30 MHz less thano ur IF frequency to display24125 MHz center frequencyon the spectrum analyze r (with12 G Hz ex ac tly the LO injectfrequency to mixer).

With the frequency stabilityof the brick-type oscil lalorsrated at a few kHz or even tensof k l-lz, thi s is of little problemin reference to 24 OHI. widc­band measurements. With Ounnosc illato rs, even non-varactortypes. voltage tuning can bemade over a few MHz at mini­mum, making anerrorof 100 kHznothing to worry about. Do yo uneed a brick at exactly 120Hz"Certa inly not. We only need afreq uency out of the bric k thatis reliable. For example. 1founda couple of bric ks that camewith 111.4768 MHz crystals in

Just keep it in the mixer's IF fre­quency limit of less than 30Hzforme mixer I used, the W-M80.Other mixers might have IF fre­quency ranges with differentmaxim ums and mini mum s.Verify what mixer port operationyou have.

Using a higher IF frequencyshould reduce most unwantedspurious responses to a minimum.making the major signal the cor­rect one on the spectru m ana­lyzer. If you are sure whichresponse is correct, this shouldnot be a problem. U you calibratethespectrum analyzer screen, youcan make. say. 10 MHz pcrdivi­sian and see if your system cantunc to the other wideband fre­quency tha t is 30 MHz lower at24.1250Hz.

To verify the desired 240Hzfrequency on your spectrumanalyzer, adjust yo ur signa l gen­era tor to the IF frequency andcalibrate the center line displayof the analyzer to it Check the

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AVCOM's new PSA-65C is a lowcost general purposespectrum ana­tyzermars loaded with standard tea­tures including FM audio oerroccta­Iof, AM delector and digital fr~lock. The PSA-65C covers treqeen­cies mru 1250 MHz in one sweepwilh a sensitivity greater than -95dBm at narrow spans. The PSA­6Se is ideally suited lor z-way radio ,

73 Amateur Radio Today · Mav 1999 41

MIXER

~18 GHz

~.c yI I

0 ~ . I IAD!

WAVEGUIDE1l.XXX GHz 1I2 l0 FREQ TRANSITIONFREQUENCY WEST BRICK SlGNAl GEN XMTlEST SlGNAlOSClllATOR @+7dBm AT IFFREQ ON 24 GHz FREQ

Fig. 1. Nearly same circuit as in Fig. J. bur instead of displayingsignal being transmitted fro m 2-1 Gtt: unit 0 11 spectrum analvtrr,( '}W I/,IIt' IF port ofmixer to signal gl'/1('rmor. NO k' you haw! modi-fied the original circuit to he II I 'a )' (/ ('('1I1"{/1e weak source signalgenerator 011 24 GH~for recei ver testing.

again. There are lots of possl- ge ne ra tor SC lUp to verify re -bilit ics- jusl whip OUI a calcu- ceivc r opera tion on 24 GHz .Jatar and see w hat you can tum Well. it's almost the same con-up. It's better 10 use a higher fre- nccuon s as fo r the spectrumqucncy IF. We found that 11% analyzer, with one exception.~IHz or some nearby frequency Disconnect the spectrum ana-

worked best. lyzcr and connect the signa l

The d is play o n a spec trum generator at the IF port, and now

analyzer i.. easy to se t as long you have turned the brick oscil-

as you have accura te signal gen- later mixer into a transmitting

c ra ting equipment and a fre- convener.

qucncv counter in the 2 GHz Assume we have just calibrated

range to veri fy the brick and sig- the Gun n osci ll ato r at 24 155

nal generator freq uenc ies. By MHz. We are using a 30 MHz

mixing d own to lower frequencies IF Freq uenc y fo r the H·I rc-

in th is way, we have enabled easy cciver. so we need a freq uency

frequency markers 10 be com- that wi llruix with the 24 155 MHz

pared with accurate signal genera- transmitter to prod uce a product

tors and veri tied with a frequency 30 MHz lowe r in frequency.

co u nter our nearly e xact fre- With thc sig nal generator se t to

quency o f operation o n 24 GHz. maximum o utput (no more than

Not bad for just a simple bunch +7 dBm ) and a frequency of 155

o f pans bolted together. - 30 MH z, or 125 MH1. yo ushou ld hear o n your widcband

24 GHz si g na l generator FM rece iver a faint hut no tedsig nal source. You can use this

You might have guessed by for peaking up receiver perfor-no w what comprises the signal mancc and evaluation purposes.

If you're a No-Code Tech , and you're having fun op-erat ing, tell us about it! Other No-Code Techs willenjoy reading about your adventures in ham radio-and we'll pay you for your articles, Yes, lots of niceclear photos, please. Call Joyce Sawtelle at 800-274-7373 to get a copy of "How to Write for 73 Magazine."

We wo uld a p p re c ia te it if yo u wou ld

TELL A FRIENDabo ut the r\EW 7 3 a nd show him thiscopy!

42 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

For SSB operation, the convener

performs excellently.The signal genera to r's o utput

is not a ti re-breath ing d ragon huta very detectable accurate sig­nal source for workbench cvalu­

ation. II' s uncalibrared in ac tuald Bm , bu t sti ll very use fu l fo rdetermining system operationand some weak signal testing ,

When selecting a local oscitla­torfrcqucncy (in thc 11 10 12 GH lrang e ). m a ke s u re i t' s hi gh

enough to allow a quality sig­nal generator to function a longwith the so urce. Also, don ' t ex­ceed the IF freq uency spcciflca­tions ofthe mixer port . IIdoesn'tmaile r w ha t frequ e nc y yo u

usc- j ust se lect one that is casyfo r yo u and your e xis ting testeq uipment. Eve n some b rickoscillators that came with crys­tals to control the phase-locked

bric k oscillator frequency cou ldbe quite fractional and arc j ustas usable for th is purpo se. Thedifference with very fractiona lnu mbers is thai yo u will have tousc a calculator, unneeded with

simple even nu mbers. A minorari thmetic problem but still veryusable. You co uld in any casepossibly make a m ino r adj ust­

ment in the e xac t crysta l fre ­q uency to put it o n a rounded o IT

frequency for simpler problemso lving , My s uggestion is toadjust very weird crystals to a

frequency more pleasing to yo urappl ication.

We ll, there yo u ha ve it: botha rece ive and transmit acc uratefreq uency marker. allow ing youto e xte nd the capabili ties for)our lower frequency test equip­me nt. This technique is qui teadaptable even to h igher fre­q uencies, alt ho ug h I have notg iven it a try. we are try ing tolocate eq uipment for communi­cations o n 4 7 G HL, the ne xthigher mi crowave band , b ut fornow thi s is o n ly a part- tim escave nger mi ssio n .

A couple o f ideas in closing,aimed particularly at the micro­wa ve antenna . MOs.1 first triescan be made wit h a mode st ho mante nna that could be fashionedfrom hobby copper or brass, Thegain of such a small hom ante nna

is in the 12 to 15 orso d H range .Ho wever, whe n co upled with

and using the sma ll hom to illu­minate a di sh of about 12 inchesin di ameter, the di sh providessome 35 dB o f gai n to the sys­tem . Quite cheap in terms o fsim ple gain, Anothe r th ing totake into considerat ion whenusing d ishes at 24 GHl is thatfor a d ish in the 30- to 36-inchclass. the gain goes up into the

44 dB range-quite impressive ,b UI at a cost.

The cost fo r such high gainwith a 3 -foo l d ish is in the

bcumwid th o f the rad iated ordetec ted signa l. T he bcnmwidthwil l he le s s th a n O IlC d e g reeo f compass. maki ng acc uratepointing quite im po rtant. Withsuch a sha rp beam panem. itmightbe too rough 10 lind signals,

On the o ther hand , using al - foot d ish, the pointi ng angle

is inc re a se d to s light ly overthree degrees, making findi ng a

sig nal much easier than whenusing a 4-foot di sh. Sure. youo n ly ge t 35 d B gain with thel -foot syste m , hu t it's not a

monster to point. Beside s. it canhe stored very easily in an applebox , and youdon't have the han­dl ing pro blems yo u would witha mu ch larger d ish . These arcpoin ts yo u should take into con­

sidera tio n when puuin g yo ursystem together.

J ust consider the tri pod andsuppo rt ing structure to make adish sta ble with a mild wind.

The stress facto rs. with a -i-Ioorcompared 10 a l -foot d ish arc sub­stantial. Considering mountingsfor a t-toor dish, UM: a cameratripod for reasonable use a nd aheavier tripod fo r best stability.For the -t-footcr you mi ght haveto carry around several batter­ies and concrete b locks to finnup most standard heavy-duty tri ­pod s. We suspend batteries oro the r heavy o bjects from the

ce nte r mount of the tr ipo d toprovide a rig id mount for thedi sh and tr ipod structure .

Well, that 's i t for this month,Ho pe yo u have had as much funin putting to gether yo ur micro­wave system as I have , Best 73for no w, Chuck W B6IG P. fa

Amateur Radio Via Satellites

Photo C. The j"-fl R·26 mission logo as ,\"(' I'I/ I'ia SS7Vfrom MIR.

ccrurotler box . an infrared re ­mote control unit and an AppleCo mp uter ceo (c ha rgedcoupled device) color TV cam­era . The sys tem is capable of

Photo H. A chocolate bearfloats ill from ofthe SSlV camera for ashot in Decembe r.

Photo A . Sto w-Scan 11' from .\II R 1I·;t1l 50)"11:; TM ·28 erelt :

Gennodiy Padalka (fl ight engineer] and Serge; A I'deyel' (j1ig1ltcommander ].

consists of a stac k of electronicdevi ce s incl ud ing a TA SCaSSTV sys tem w ith a color LCD(liquid crystal di splay) screen.a Ke nwoo d d ual- ba ud ttwome te r an d 70 em ) T M-V7A

mobile F.\f transceiver. a custom Colllmued on page 44

73 Amateur Radio tcasv » May 1999 43

Number 43 on your F-.dtud l. card

The MIRgear

A few yea rs ago. a group ofhams got together to d isc uss thepossi bili ty of ge tti ng SST Vonboard MIR. T he y incl udedDo n M ille r W9 NT P. Fa rre ll\Vimler W8ZCF. Hank CantrellW4HTB. Dave La rsen N6COand .\ ti les Mann WF IF.

In June 1998. Miles M a nnarrived in Moscow with threecomplete SSTV systems for de­livery to Ene rg la. the Russianorganization that buil t ,\/IN. Sixmonths later. in Dece mber, theSSTV system was in om it and onthe air. Miles represents a groupca lled M AREX -N A (MannedAmate ur Radio Expc rtmen t-c­North American Division ). Thiso rganiza tion wa s c rea ted amonth earlier as it split off fromMIREX (MIR Intern ational Ra­d io Ex periment). According toMiles. ~IIREX hand les Q SLca rds and some system opera­tor du tie s. while r-.lAR EX -NAbui lds and flies amateur radioprojects for the Russian space sta­tion. Infor mation about .\ IAREX­NA can be found on the Internetat [hup:/Im arex -na.orgl] .

Today on the MIR show

The MIR SS TV syste m isvery compact and functi onal. It

first majo r component o f theSov ie t MIR s pace s ta ti o nach ie ved orbit. W i th in tw oyea rs . a fu ll -lime. two-me te rham station was onboard. La ter.with the addition ofa packet tcr­mi nal node controll er (TNC) .signa ls from MIR---either voiceo r di gital-were a daily e vent.AUN had a n outside anten naand could run more powe r thanthe space shuttle. Signals wereexcellent.

HHMSHTS

Andy MacAllister W5ACM14714 Knights Way DriveHouston TX 77083

wh en Tony England WOOREwent to orbit on 'sTS·51 0 11 July29 . 19 85. he loo k the usu alSAREX (Shuttle Amateur Ra­dio EXperi ment) gear for two­meter vo ice contac ts, but he a lsoincl uded some exci ting extras .He had a comple te two-waySSTV (Slow-Scan TeleVision)station. SSTV has been aroundfor 30 years . It is a comm unica­tions mo de thaI sends and re­ceives images using standardaudio band width. The sig nalscan he pu t into a rig via the mi­crophone j ac k and recei vedthrou gh the speaker or head­phone connec tion. SSTV hadbeen used via OSCARs (Orbit­ing Satelli te Carryi ng AmateurRadio) many years beforeTOllY'Strip. but this was the tirsttime fo r two-way SSTV activ­ity between a space-based hamand those on the ground.

The 51'S-5 1 SSTV gea r coo­sisted of a SA REX-mod ifiedMotorola M X-J -lO HT. a win ­dow-mounted two-meter an­ten na Pa nason ic ca me ra a nd,

monitor. Ro bot 1200<: SSTVscan converter. Sony tape re­corde r a nd a c us tom headset .The gear worked we ll a nd thosew it h appropria te eq uipmentcould receive and view picturesfrom the shunlc. At the JohnsonSpace Center in Houston. Te xas .a g roup pho to of the astronauts'wi ves was sent to the shunle viaSSTV TOllY captured the colo rima ge a nd re se nt it hac" toea rth. The wi ves had made around trip to space and hack .Those monitoring the two-meterdownlink saw this picture a longwith the many o thers sen t fromTony and the crew.

O n ly a year a fte r Ton yEngland 's ham activity from thespac e shun le Challenge r. the

HRMSRTSconunuea from page 43

Ph oto D. With the call/era aimed Ollt the window. great views ofEarth have been sellt via SSTVfrom MiR.

Ph oto E. Solar panels ill till' fo reground and thebackground. as sent f rom MIR ill Robot-36 ssn~

Photo f: A good shot of upper [atce Michigan as seen [rom MIR0" a south-to-north da ytime pass ovrr Nor th: America.

a picture once e very two min ­utes and transmit it with a CWidenti fier ofRO~I I R j ust before

manual o r automatic o peration th e fi r st sy nc s igna ls. Th isand can he used to receive a" mea ns that there arc about 80we ll as transmit SSTV. seconds of dead air between pic-

I n the a utom a tic tra nsm it w rcs. This is the predominantmode. the system is set to sna p mode of operation and is usually

44 73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999

r un wi t h the App le cameraaimed out a window. provid ingspec tacular Earth sho ts du ringday time passes .At night yo u getsolid blackness unless the crewhas aimed the camera at some­thing inside MIR.

The primary operating mod efo r M/R SS TV is "Robot 36:'This is the same mode that be­came highly po pula r d uri ngSTS-5 1 in 1985. It is on e of thecolor formats designed by Ro­bot. The picture tran smi ssiontakes 36 seconds to form a com­ple te 240-line co lor image. im­age quality is good. but this isnot one of the more ad vancedSSTV formats. TileARRL Hand­hook carries a good desc riptionof how SSTV works and defini­tions ofthe many mooescurrenuyIII usc.

The Rohot 36 mode sends lu­minance and chromiuance infor­mation in each horizontalline ofthe pic ture . This format is com­pat ible wit h older blac k- and­white sys tems and provides areasonably eas y to recei ve anddecode s ig na l. It has been apopular fo r mat for SSTV opera­tion via the hamsuts for manyyears.

Receiving M/R SSTV

Due !O various RF cablingprob lems o n MIR. the SSTVsignals haw had to sha re limewith the usua l packet activity on145 .9HS MHz. O rigi nall y, theSSTV wa s s upposed to use437.975 ~IH l.lf time allows fo rMIR cabli ng changes. SSTVmay yet be found on this 70 ernfrequency, hut for the fir st fewmonths of operation. two meterswas us ed excl us ive ly. Whilepacket proponents have voicedthei r complaints. the ne w crewof SSTV e nthusias ts has beend elighted w it h th e res ults .Pac ket has bee n on predomi ­nantl y du rin g the week. wit hSSTV on the weekends . Dop­pler shift on 70 em is three timesWOf"!'C than th at on two mete rs.so pictures are easie r to co llecton the lower frequ ency.

A slmple omnidi rccdonat ver­tical an tenna (li ke a grou ndplane) can be used in conjunction

wi th a standard FM scanne r 10

pick up the SSTV signals from,,",f/R. A good two-meter trans­cclver wi th a rotatable beam willdo bener. but many fine pictureshave been received and viewedon minimal systems .

It is best not to decode the sig­nal while M/R is passing by, butinstead to reco rd the stra ngea ud io tones during a pass, andthen decode them afterwards .During STS-5 1. it was commonto collect images on cassette re­co rde rs for later playback. To­day you can do a much be tterjob if you have a hi-fi VCR.Connect a good quality videosigna l into the extern al videojack. You can get this from a TVwith a video output connectionor anothe r VCR set up in a simi­lar fashion. Connect the aud iofrom yo ur scanne r or two me terrad io to the left external audioinput on the hi- Ii deck . Set theVCR 10 S P (Sta ndard Pl a y)mode and hit record when MIRsigna ls arc detec ted. usually bywatching the TV that now hasyou r radio signals coming out ofthe speakers. Using a low-powerHT. you can annotate the pro­cess by transmitt ing on the AURdownlink freq ue ncy be tweenpictures . You can identi fy thingslike the time and calculated lati ­tu de a nd long itude of MIR onth e tape to he lp ide nt ify thepictures.

Decoding M/R SSTV

In 1985. it was an expensiveproposition to set up a home sla­tion fo r color SSTV reception.A Ro bot 1200C scan conve rterwas needed to get gCMXl pictures .Thi s could cost ove r $ 1000.Some simple software had beende veloped to decode black-and­w hite pic tures Oil PCs of tha ttime. hut the results were ratherdi smal. The a udio SSTV signa lwas typicall y con nected to thePC via the casse tte inpu t j ac k.The resulta nt picture was quitegrainy and hard to d iscern .

Today there are many ways tovie w SSTV. On e is to ge t aTASCa sca n converte r like thaton MIR. Most units cost about$400. Anot her is to use the

Radio Direction Finding

l 'noto A. Kevin Hunt WA 7VTU (center] and Dick Fredrick sonWAOIJlM (righ t ) col/grow/ate Southern California [oxtailer J .Scott BOI';(: N6 M/ at the closing banquet of the first PortlandFriendship Games ill J99/. Kevin and Dick are still office rs ofFA.RS, which is putting 0 11 FRG-99 and the Region 2 ARDFChampionships.

HOMING IN

Joe Moe!1P,E. KOOVP. O. Box 2508Fullerton CA 92837[Homingin@aol.com][http://members.aol.comlhominginl)

Dayton, Portland, andSouth Texas

Is hidden trans mitter huntingthe fastest growing activ ity inham radio? I don't know forsure. hut if my correspondencelog is any indication. it' s gett ingmore popular eve ry month.More and more hams are dis­co veri ng the fun of on-fool in­tenuuiona l-stytc fo xtailing (alsocalled radio- orie ntee ring o rARDF) and traditional mobileradio di rection find ing (RDF)cont ests (Tt hun tiug o r bunnyhun ting ). W hi cheve r type oftransmitter hunting you prefer.there's lots of news for you thi smonth.

The !Y\)9 Dayton Hamven­tiou's Fox Forum promises (0

be the best ever. Here's you rchance to meet with RDF enthu­siasts fro m all over the country.

Numo.< 45 Oll your FHdNCI< c.rd

This year 's organizers are DickA me n WB 4SUV, Bo b F re y

WA6 EZV. and J im El moreKC8FQY. Beginning a t 10 a.m.on May 15 (ti me s ubject tocha nge), a three-ring circus o ffo xhuuting w ill fea tu re JoeLe ggi o WB:! HOL discussi ng

his home-brew RDF equipmentproj ect s, fo llowed by you rstruly 's slide show o n mobile T­

hunti ng, Cali fornia-style. ThenDale Hunt W H6RYU will de­

scribe the e xci tement o f inter­natio na l-s ty le toxhums, fromlast year ' s World Champion­ships to the upcoming multi-na­

tion event in Oregon .The fun res umes afte r lunch.

whe n it will be time for yo u to

chase radio fo xes for fun and

prizes . Dick . Bob . a nd J imaren' t saying much about what

10 expect, exc ept tha t it wi ll be

a challenge to bo th ne w and e x­pe rienced Rn f ers . Bring yo uro n- foo t two-meter RDF gear to

use a nd yo ur mobile 'f-h unt set­

ups to show off I'll have mycamera.

Crowning champsin the Beaver State

Preparations arc in full swing

for the upcoming biggest rad io­orienteeri ng event in the West­ern Hemisphere . Ne ver be forehave hams in so many countries

made plans to com pe te in afox hunl o n US so il. The firs tInte rnatio na l Am ateu r Radi oUnion (lA RU) Rcgion f ARDFCha mpionships wiII be part ofthe si xth bie nnia l Friendsh ipRadiospon s Games (FRG·99l,sponsored by the FriendshipAmateur Radio Society (FARS).

I have explained the rule s o frad io -o rienteering many timesbe fo re, so here arc j ust the ba ­sics for new readers: Five "fox"rra nsmi n cr s a rc p laced in alarge, woodsy park . They arc all

so und card in yo ur co mputer inconj un ction w ith appropriatesoftware to capture the images .A good list of available options.both hard ware and software. canbe found at: [htlp:l/www.ultranet .com/-sstv/download.h tml]. Afa vorite a mong MIR S ST Vchasers has been Windows 95SSlV (W95SSTV1.A sharewareversio n can be found at: [htlp:/Iw w w . sili c onpix e l s .com /W95SSTVI\V95SSTV.HT11 ].

Most of the pho tos here we redecoded with this software. us­ing a reasonably current Pentiumdone compute r a nd a SoundBlaster-compatible sound card.The program is very easy to usceven without read ing all of theinstructions . Jim Barber ;-.o7CXIand Bill Montgome ry VE3 ECdid a really nice jobTbc software

c a n be used o n many SSTV

modes and is capable o f trans­

milling in addi tion to receivingSSTV. If you like the software,

be sure 10 support the authors byregi stering your copy.

sAREX, SAFEX, MIREX,MAREX

Some confusion has been e vi­dent in hamsat circles regard ingthe state o f m anned spacecraftham ac tivi ties due to the g row­ing numbers otplaycrs. SAREXis the Sh utt le Amateur Ra d ioExperiment group that was re­sponsib le fo r ham s in spacestarting with W5LFL on ST$-9in 19H3. They have bee n instru ­mental with activities involvingschool contacts with astronauts

for many years. The g roup is

s till ve ry m uc h a live a nd is has been respo nsi ble for packe twork ing c lose ly wi th NAS A. syslcm ad v,llIces o n MJR and theA M S AT and severa l re la ted sched uling of contacts and ac-groups around the world to put tivities invol ving the MIR crew,serious ham radio 0 11 the Int er- sc hoo l grou ps a nd o the rs .national Space Station (I SS ). t>.tAREX has made great stri de sThe ir project is appropriately with the popular SSTV opera-named ARI SS or Amateur Ra- tion o n MIR. Whether a ll thedio o n the Internat ional Space groups will be able to work to-Station. gcther to advance ham efforts on

SAFEX made its space debut manned spacecraft is unk no wn.as DPOSL in October 19 K5 o n In the meantime , we do knowSTS~61 . DD6CF. DG2KM and tha t what we no w have in o rbitPE ILFO operated a dual-band is a limited resource. The crew(two me te rs and 70 em) system on MIR was c hanged in. late Fell-from the German S PAC ELAH ruary. MIR is scheduled to hemodu le in the cargo bay o f the vacated in J uly if no fund ing isspace shuttle Challenger. SAfEX available to keep the orbitinghas been respo nsible for a nu m- outpost running. T he Russlanher of shutt le and MIR cx peri - s pace sta tio n would the n bemeats 0\"Cf the years. brought back to Earth. rather

MIREX and MA R EX a re violently. in August. Collect pic-relati ve newc o mers. M IREX turcs while you can! f23

73 Amareur Radio Today • May 1999 4S

on the same frequency.transmit- too---especia lly the older one s.ting in turn for 60 seco nds each . No rway took fourth place andOne after ano the r in ro tating Sweden took fifth place in theseq ue nce, they send a simple Veterans Division last year.Morse message . You don' t have A lt ho ug h the re has nev e rto read the code to fig ure o ut been an IARU ARDF champi-which fo x is on the air, beca use onship event in North or Southyou can simply co unt the number America before 1999, FARS haso f dits in the repeated message. had lois o f experie nce . It started

Your mi ssion is to go 10 eac h in 1989. when a small delega-fo x, p unch your orienteering non of Portlanders traveled toca rd w it h the un iq ue p u nc h Khabarovsk. Russia. a sister ci tyyou' II find there. and then get to Port land . for a week o f hometo the finish line fi rst. If ) 'ou take stays. touring , and radio spontoo long (the limit is about two co mpetitions. T hey were joinedho urs), yo u no t only don't win. h ) ' hams from Niiguta . Japan ,but you a re d isq ualified . The another sister city. T here wereshortest route varies greatly. de- contests in o n-air DXing andpcndtng on rhc slzc of rhc ....euue. C W send ing/receiv ing. a nd aFor the Regio n 2 C hampio n- two-meter fo xhu nt. None of theships, it will he between 2.5 and Portlanders had e ver tried RDF

4.5 mil es. in the woods. before. but theyBesides the age 18-to--$O (Sc- e njoyed it.

nlors) di,vision fo r men. there arc Whe n it wa s their turn to host

special age d ivisions a t most the Russians and Japa ne se twofonnal ARDF events for Old - years later, FA RS-Pon land co n­

Timers (me n alles ..fO to 55) and nccted with so uthern Califo rniaVeterans (men ages 55 and up, T-hu nters and put o n a greatregardless of mi litary se rv ice). fo xhunl. A si ster city de legationOf course. Juniors (ma les under from Victoria. British Columbia,age l Sj bave rhci r owndi vision. j o ined FARS and hosted thetoo. IARU leaders. are d iscu ss- Games in 199 3. T hey cleverly

ing a proposa l to have four co r- e n li sted help from the Vic ­res po nd ing age di visions for Oriemccrs. a loca l orientee ringwome n. h ut right now there is gro up. to make their Ioxhunt ao n ly o ne di vi sio n for a ll fc- p re mi e r event. Rus sians andmales . In reg io nal and wo rld Japanese hosted the Friend shi pc ha m pio nsh ip Io xhums. the Game s in 191.)5 and 1997. re­Juniors, O ld -Timers. Veterans spec tivc ty. with the Iox huntand Women need to find o nly ..f again a major event each time .of the 5 fox transmitters . The Games return to Pan land

If yo u arc selec ted for Team this year. Ma ny of the ori ginalUS A 1999 , you will vic for r ued- organizers will be in charge. in­al s a g a i nst fox taile r s fr om el uding Ke vin Hunt WA7VTD.Ca nada. eastern Russia. and Ja- gene ral co unsel of FARS-USApan, Other countrie s that arc and secretary o f FARS Inte rna-lik e ly to se nd te am s incl ud e tiona! (P ho t o A ). O thers a reBulgaria. France . Norway. Swe- rel at ive ne wc omers, suc h asden. we stern Ru ssia. Moldo va Fo xhunt Comrniuee Chairmanand the Ukraine . T he most for- Dale Hunt WB6BYU of Yamhill,rnidablc competitors are like ly Orego n.to he on the team from Mosco w, Da le. who is not re lated towh ich placed either first or sec- Kevin. is no stranger to ARDEond in evel)' age/gender d ivisio n He competed at FRG-9 7 in Ja-in the two-meter event at the lasl pan. where he fin is he d fi rstARDFWorldChampioflships. among all entrants from North

T he Uk ra in ia ns a lso had a America. Then he led the US A'svery stro ng tea m at the 199 5 de legat io n to the ARDF Wo rldcham pio nships . ta king go ld in C hampionships in Hungary lastthe Wome n"So Division and bronze September (St.'C "Homing ln" fo rin every other division . Scandi- Janu ary 1999 ). He continues tonavian Akljf-e rs arc very good, se rve 0 11 the international com­

46 73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999

mittcc tha t is reviewing and re ­vi si ng IA RU' s cham pio nshipfoxtai ling ru les and procedure s.

For kids of all ages

When Vie think of radiospo rts.a n imag e of tee na ger s a ndyo u ng adu lts comes [0 mind .

But that's no e xcuse for the restof us to shy a way. You don 'tha ve to bc a n a thlete o r amarathoner. " Homing In" hasto ld tale s o f g o ld m edali stARDFers bagging fi ve fo xe s in45 m inu te s Oil an S-kitometcrco urse (about a c -rnlnutc-per­mile pace ). But that's the exccp­tion, not the rule. T he mediantimes (half fas ter, half slowe r)for the two -meter hunt at the last

World C hampionships rangedfrom 75 minutes fo r Old-Tim­ers to 95 mi nutes for Veterans.

That's right. the middle-agedmen d id better than youngste rsat findi ng their requi red ~ fo xes!A"nd 19 minutes per mi le soundsmuch easier, doesn 't it? It 's of­ten possib le to b risk ly wa lk [hecourse and still fini sh in p lentyof time , if you are efficie nt atRDF. You c an do that. can'tvou<)• •

The two-meter h unt in O r­egon o n Au gust I I will probablyattrac t the most interest fromNorth American foxtallcrs. hutdon' t miss the opportunity to try

80 me te rs the next day. Radio­orienteering o n that band is a bi tdifferent. h ut just as much fun.In some countries. such as Swe­de n. almo...t a ll foxhunts arc o n80. The S wed es run through(hick forests d uri ng rain. snow,or sun, carrying cigarenc-puck­sized receivers with ferri te rodantennas that don 't snag theth ick vege tation like a two ­meter beam or quad does.

Small air-core loops are popu­lar in o ther countrie s. ....uch asRussia. In either case. bette r ac­c uracy is ob tained by utili z ­

ing the antenna pattern's sharpnull inste ad of its broad peak . Alittle " sense" wire crea tes a car­d ioid (heart-shaped ) picku p pat­te rn to e liminate the ambig uityo f a bare loop antenna. whichhas two nu lls 180 de grees apart(a figure-S}. Equipme nt fo r this

band is easy to build. You rna)'eve n he able 10 modify an A~f

transi stor radio to wo rk there .Bxpcrtme nte rs. here ' s yo urc hance to inno vate !

Whe ther yo u arc an e xpe rtfc xh unter. a weekend jogger, anorien teering fan. o r just want to

see foxtailcrs in actio n. plan tobe in Portland during the secondweek o f August. Want to k no wmore about the rule s and su it­able equipme nt? See the " Ho m­ing In" Web site or check your73 buck -i ssue li hrary fo r m yco lumns in the January 1998 ,J une 19 98. and January 1999

issues. Yo u can read all aboutwhat it' s like to attend p re viousFriendship Radt osport Game s in

the Se pte mbe r 1991. October1993. and January 1996 issues .

The re w ill be mo re abou t

pre parati on fo r the champion­ships in upcoming " Homing In"installments. But don't put o ffre g is te rin g . FA RS needs toknew how many hams arc com­ing , a nd I ne ed to p la n th e

makeup o f Tea m US A. lflo ts ofstateside hams. sig n up . we mayneed to hold a q ualifying e ventor fin d ano ther wa y to allocate

the limi ted number o f availables lo ts. T he re ' s an appli c atio nfor m fo r Team US A a t t he" Ho ming In" Web si te. Do wn ­load it. fi ll it out, and send it into me via E-mail. Make paperco pies o f the fonn (0 hand o utat your loca l fox hunts. Cum­

pl c te d pa pe r co p ies c a n bemai led to my posta l box listedabov e . If you ' re not o n theInternet, send a self-addressedstamped enve lope to me and I'llse nd back a fonn fo r yo u to fillo ut and mail.

To co m pere fo r a co u ntryo the r th an the US A, contactyour country 's ARDF Coordina­tor or national society headq uar­rers. ARDF Coordinato r fo r theCanad ian national society (Ra­d io A mate u rs o f C a nada) isPe rry Cre ighton VE7WW P. H isE-ma il add ress is (ve7wwp @

rae.cal .Don't leave out yo ur fam ily.

Most ARDF Team USA mem­bers will he amateur radio op­e rators, o f course, but a ham

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 47

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In addition, the- reno wnedCornet t University Laboratoryo f Ornitholo gy is consideringvolunteer mon itoring fo r an up­coming We st Coast project. Ifyo u would like to participate inthese studies or o thers, pleasesend postal o r E-mail to me rightaway. giving your location andrecei ving capabilities. You don'tneed portab le RDF gea r, but itwould he lp. ~

xt eny hams outside the migra­

tion range o f the Saskatchewano wls have w riucn to me. asking

ho w the)' can partici pate in simi­

lar research projects. I am work­ing Oil several possibili ties rightnov.... Fo r inst ance, a study o fbrown pelicans hy a Califo rniaunive rs ity is being p lanned fo rthe west coast o f the US A andMexico later this year. If fu nd ­

ing can be found, rese archerswill tag addi tiona l birds to be

trucked hy volunteer monitors .T he tags will be in tho l4H MHz I r----------~range, making it much easier forhams 10 use e xisting two -meterbase and portab le antennas than

it has bee n with the BurrowingOw l Project.

Photo /I. Da ve Reeves AC6PP pauses 10 get (I bearin g durin g II

·N O M II:, ali-on-foot[oxtuou ill (I Fullerton park. Aff that he needsto get good bearings with his handie-talkie is a ligluweigln yagiwith (11/ altemlOlOr mounted 011 the boom.

on 22 No vember. A radio collaro n that frequency had been at­tached to a juve nile b urrowingo wl at a farm about 5 miles easto f Moose Ja w, Sask atc he wanlast summer. T he Rockport sig­nat disappeared before il couldbe verified and tracked down." C ac t us C ha r lie" Ho ff m anK5SBU has driven hundreds o fmile:'> through the co unties southand we s t of Corpus Chri s ti .fin ding four unhanded burrow­ing owls and occasiona lly pick ­ing up radio collar signal:'>. Sofar. howeve r, he has no t sighteda banded ow l from Canada.

In early De c em be r, J a so nDuxbury, a g rad uate student re­searcher, copied an owl tag froman aircraft west o f Kingsville,Texas . He a lso pi cked up a sig­nal from the a ir ove r Tam­uuhpas. Mexico. but neither owlcould be located o n the ground.Ne w b urrowing owl habi ta tswere d iscove red by the S as­katchewan researchers in Te xasand Mexico d uring an expedi­tio n in February. but none o fthese owls had Canadian radiotags o r leg bands. It is unknownif the ne wly documented Texasand Mexico owls are permanentresidents or if they migrate inand out o f the se places. Muchmore re search is needed o n thisthreate ne d species, which islisted as e ndangered in Canada .Additio nal stud ies wi ll be doneas fund ing permi ts.

Most o f the tag s for the 199&­99 Sa skatchewan study havee xceeded their a ntici pated bat­te ry life . T here are still elevenow l:'> OUI there with Scmomh­durat ion tags installed last Au­gust and Se ptember. T hey maystill be on the ai r when you getthis issue. Frequenci es are listedat the "Homing In" Web site. o r), OU can get the list by send ing aself-addressed sta mped enve­lope 10 me . The expec ted north­ward mi g rati on period is lateMarch through early May, so ifyou live in the predicted path(from Texas through North Da­kota). please moni to r regu larly,especially at night. You 'll lindsuggestions for radios. antennas.and monitoring technique s a tthe Web site.

Where'd the owls go?

ticket is not required fo r partici­pation in this event. Let othersin you r fam il y tryout yo urARDF equipment a:'> you prac­tice . Maybe they will decide 10

join in the fun. Te ll your localo rie nteering club abo ut it, too.

It's not 100 ea rly to start mak­ing your travel pl an s. If you ' rearri ving by air, WB6BYU re­minds you: " Boo k to Portland.Oregon (PDX) . The o ther Port­land i s a lmost 25 0 0 mil e saw ay!" Save airfare dollars byplanning a Saturday night stay.arriving 0 11 Aug ust 6 or 7. The rewill be pract ic e and tra in in gevents on Augu st vand 10, fo l­lowed by competitions on the nexttwo days. T he d osing banquetwill be August 13.

As the weather warms up. i twi ll be time to ho ld rad io ­orienteering practice sessions inyour home to wn . Ho w abou tpacking a picnic or grabbingsome takeout food and headi ngto a local park for a couple hoursof foxhunting on Sunday after­noons?That' s what members o fthe Super System +fO ~1Hz re­peater group have been doinglately (Photo B l. Let everyoneta ke a t urn at pl antin g thetransmitters a nd trying out theRDF gear. As strong com peti­tors emerge, e ncou rage themto do ad d itiona l tra ining forparti cipa tion a t t he Po rtland

c ha mpio nships .

Thanks to the many readers

who responded to my plea forvolunteer mo nitors to assist theBurrowing Ow l P roj ect. (Sec" Homing In" for August 1998 .)T here is no way o f knowing e x­actly how many hams and scan­ner enthusias ts listened in the172 ~1Hz range for the co llartransmitters duri ng the so uth­wa rd migrat ion and winteringperiod o f the -I I banded Sas­ka tchewan a nd Alberta owls.Unfo rtunately, the birds ha vebeen e lusive 10 both ham s andthe Canad ian biologi sts.

One o f the volu nteer ha ms,Grier Garrick KC5FJZ o f Rock­po rt, Texas. was firs t to report apulsed signal on 172.370 MHz

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Jensen Tools has released anew catalog. too.This lOS-page,full -color offering contains awide range of tool kits, specialtytools, diagnostics. and serviceaids Io-evcrvore involved inanv- -fonn of electronics.

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48 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

HDUERTI SERS' INDEH

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42

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66 MFJ Enterprises 7

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136 Milestone Technologies 23

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73 Amateur Radio rcasv » May 1999 49

NumbM 50 on )'our FHdb«1t ".rd

THE DIGITAL POAT

Jack Heller KB7NOP.O. Box 1792712 Highland StreetCarson City NV 89702-1792Uheller@ sierra.netl

I have been curious for some

t i m e ah out a conce pt t haisounded very good . A great ef­fan w as put into a program,RITTY, by K6STI. The novelconcept. one with which I secother program mers experiment­i ng. is using the sound card inyour computer as the main hard­ware for mod ula tin g and de­modulati ng the RTTY signals.

I have discussed hefore the

Chromal'ix SSTV software thatalso U'\eS the sound card. andhad wondered why sound cardprograms for ot her digital modesweren' t surfaci ng. The real rca­son is that it is a lot o f work and.

as you will sec. sometimes notvery rewarding.

A bad apple can ruin it forthe rest of us

A pparently, I waited too longto give this a try . There is somei nteresting information on theN I RCT w eb si te concerni ngthis adventure. It seems that theRITIY program was into i tsseco nd version and work i ng

qui te well. but there developed

a snag. A n unscrupulous hackergot hold of a COP)' and made acounterfeit version that he was

distributing at a reduced price.

The originator of theprogramhas now wi thdrawn i t from the

market and has a very sour taste

in his mouth from those whowou ld thwart hi shonest efforts.

I guess that is one of the pitfal ls

of this high tech stuff. It seemsthe hack er even bragged to

K 6STl ho w he had bro k en

through the code.

Lots of good info

The N I RC T Web page i sfi lled with a 101 of information

about other RTIY projects. wi thlinks for more information and

download s as well as programsthat do CWoPACTOR, W EFA Xand some SSTV thrown i n. verycomprehensive.at (hnp://oxford.

mcgalink.nctl- n Irctlindex.html ].I happened onto the si te as I

ran a searc h for RITIY. It wasinteresting j ust fo r that purpose,

and then I realized I was n't even

on the index page. So the aboveaddress i s the home page fromwhich you will find a wealth of

links to much info. You wi ll find

some links that arc already li sted

in Table I . and many more ofwhich 1was not aware. so a little

exploring may tum up some­thing you have been waiting fo r.

There is nothing thai says that Ihave found all the best ham stuff

and there i s nothi ng left out

there to unearth . Let me knowi f you find somethi ng useful

be fore 1get back there to checkfu rther.

Bogus Ecmail ad?

When I was viewi ng my E­mail the other day. I found a

commerci al piece in there thatlooked fairly legi timate tellingme how time was running out

to purchase one of the few re­maining copies of The Com­municator's Handbook. It guar­anrccd that I or someone had

entered my name into their da­

tabase and that I should thereforehe interested.

The soon-to-be-unavailablebook prom ised to reveal allthere i s to know about radio andeven gi ve a look at future rOnTIS

o f radio comm unicati on thai

haven' t been invented yet. I t

was on ly S:!O and. again. I hadbeuer hurry.

Current Web Addresses

Source for : Web address (URL)

HF serial modem plans + software http://www.accessone.com/ - tmayhan/index.htm

PCFlexnet communications free programs http://d1 Old.afthd.th-darmstadt.del- f lexneVindex.html

ITom Sailer's info on PCFlexnet http://www-ife .ee.ethz.chl- sailer/pcf/

SV2AGW free WingS programs http://www.forthnet.grlsv2agw/

BayCom - German site htlp://www.baycom.del

Pasokon SSTV programs & hardware http://www.ultranet.com/- sstvllite.html

Winpaek shareware fo r Windows http://www.duckles.demon.co.uk/ham/wp.htm

Baycom 1.5 and Manual.zip in English http://www,cs.wvu.edul- acmlgopher/Softwarelbaycoml

Source for BayPac BP-2M htlp:/Iwww.tigertron ics.com/

Tucson Amateur Packet Rad io-where packet started-newhttp://www.tapr.org

modes on the way

TNC to radio wiring help http://prairie.lakes .com/-medcalf/ztx/wire/

ChromaPI X & W95SSTV http://www.siliconpixels.coml

Timewave DSP & former AEA prod http://www.timewave .com

International Visual Communication Association-a non-profithttp://www.mindspring .com/- sstv/

organization dedicated to SSTV

Small computer boards, various kits http://www.ldgelactron ics.com

Table 1. Current n 't-b addresses. tfyou encoJlllter a problem with a European address, the network is sometimes at fault. Try again larer.

50 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

1assumed one o f you readersmust have PUI me o n the lis t toupgrade my radio IQ. I Knew Iwould be an embarrassment tothe ham community if 1 didn'tat least check it o ut, so I d id. Idi a led up the [a mazon.co m ]Web site and got the info shee ton the "book of all knowledge"hitherto and in the future ne ver10 be o utdone .

II is probably a decent hookfor the serious SWLcr who isjust ge tt ing started. It promisesa fist of foreign broadca st sta­tions and their schedules and alot of other informat io n that thegeneral liste ning public is notaware o f. AI~o o f interest. theprice fro m Iamazon.coml wasabout hal f of what the E-mailpromoter was goi ng to let mehave it for if I got in right aw ay.Plus. the information is a littledated. Thc book was publishedat the beginning o f 1997 .

So, if yo u have gotten such ano ffer, tho se are the things 1fo und. I doubt if anyone reallyvolunteered my name . The E­mail guru probably has a CD ofham addresses . No t ha rd tocome by-just send mo ney.

Also in my mailbag: I got arequest for info o n ho w to wirethe Kenwood VC- HI to thcICOM 735 . Righ t up my alley... Linda . This was just beforewri ting this article , and I had topose a fe w q uest ions 10 thewriter concerning whether a plugis available for the Kenwood endand if he could ide ntify theKenwood pinout.

That is another piece o f equip­ment I ha ve not had an oppor­tunity to ho ld in my hands. It isa no vel se tup, in that it is a digi­tal camera that will interface toa Ken woo d hand he ld and , Ithink , a seria l port on yo ur com­puter. There is qui te an ad van­tage to any di gital camera forSSTV because you can bypassthe de ve loping of roll film, plus,with the VC-H I at least, you canimmediately send the dig itizedimage file d in..c tly o ut ove r theai rwaves.

I am still at the deve lop inga nd scanning stages. This maychange, as I was informed by theinfo sed er that the pri ce s have

dropped somewhat 1bc o riginalasking pri ce was around S500.Not an outrageous sum o f money,but I don't know ho w versatilethe uni t is.There are some prettygood units out there for about thatprice range that lack. the d irectinterface [0 a radio, of COUr.iC.

Retrospec t

TIme is ca tching up with youwhen the months seem sho rte rat a rapidly decreasing pace . Itsee ms not to o lo ng ago thatChr istmas took forever to comefrom year to year.

This column isn 't about ag­ing, or e ven aging gracefu lly (Ilet Wa yne e xpo u nd on thosethings ... He is one o f the fewwho have been making foot­prints in the sand longer than 1.),

hut sometimes I gel a fix onsome­thing that I have to te ll yo u about.

And there is a prob lem whenI get o ff the track a little as I didwith the sto ry o f my mobile an­tenna a short while ago. I re­ce ived one vocal (via E-mail)reprimand from Marv W5MTVthat ga ve me reason to e valua tethe purpose of this column andwhy I write it

The purpose is to relay myexci teme nt ahout the digitalmodes o f ham rad io 10 suc h ane xtent that you wi ll want to giveo ne o r more o f them a try. Iha ven 't tried e ve ryth ing, butthose o f you who ha ve st uckwith me have seen q ui te a fewmodes and pieces o f softwarethat I have disco vered.

I know th is because man ywri te and ask fo r more informa­tion o r j ust simply to gi ve aword of thanks and e ncourage­ment. That makes it well worthmy w hile (even when thc whilessee m to get closer togethcr.)

I answered Marv and apclo­g lzcd for spend ing so much timewith the antenna proj ect. I e x­plained that I had gotten enth u­siastic about the proje c t andwished to share thc news. l ustsimply got carried away.

A real learning experience

I am still work ing o n thisp roject . I don ' t know if I rein­vented the wheel, but I learned

some things that were never evi­dent within the confi nes o f thesta tio nary shad . My firs t at­tempt to run the laptop with theH~ radio turned into a small di­saste r. It wa s a different se t o fcircumstances than using V HFfor packet in the same vehicle.

Some of yo u probably recallthat I am using the Radio Shack­voltage inverter to power thelaptop. I found o ut [hal that de­vice emits a sma ll signal whichgot right into the ICOM 735. Ifound too that some o f the in­terference went away when Id isconnected the serial cable,but was sti ll prevalent at regu­la r frequency intervals a bouteve rywhere I liste ned until Iturned the inverter o ff.

A s if t ha t wasn't e no ughproblem. I began to notice a newphenomenon as I was drivingalong attempting SSB. When Iwould p ush the PlT, the radio

wou ld send a signal o f 25 to 75wa tts without me uttering a peep

into the mike . T hai wou ldn 'thave been so bad , bUI d uringclo se r observatio n. I found thi sdidn't happen with the vehicle atsta ndstill wi th the engine stillrunning!

It was just about hair-pullingtime . Something in the vehiclewas gencrating RF, b ut appar­e nd y on ly when the wheels ro­

tated . Then it c hanged . Afteranothe r few hundred mile s (Iwas on a 5()()...mi le trip), the RFwas being picked up when wewere at a standstill as well aswhcn we were rolling. I nevermade a co ntact 10 see if the sig­nal was readahle . It was o ne o f

those time s whe n I tho ughtbriefly about asking a local hamto mon itor, then invested a litt le

time in log ic . T he prob lemsneeded a c ure regardless of whatthe resulting signa l di storti onwas o r, perhaps, was not.

As my mind wandered downvarious avenues. I thought of thefew th ings that might possibly

73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999 51

Low Power Operation

QRPMichael Bryce WB8VGESunlight Energy Systems955 Manchester Ave. $WNorth Lawrence OH 44666(prosotar@ sssnet.comj

Well, j ust when you thoughtit was safe to unlock your doors,I'm back ! Just a short vacatio nfrom the co lumn to get ca ughtup on othe r projects. With theY'J K bue ecnme rcudv to bite- e e e •

in less than eight months. I' vebeen very busy inst alling ut ili tygrid backup systems all o ver theplace . Saine of these systemscan rea lly make a QRPer drool !Can rcuimagine having over 33

kW ho urs of bancry storage vit­ring in yo ur garage waiting forthe hig one to hi t'?! Can yo u justbegi n to imagine ho w long youcou ld opera te an Argonaut 509from that battery ban k? '

In case )'ou do n' t kno w whata grid bac kup system is . le t metake a few minutes to give youa quick o verview.

Although it is technically pos­si ble to o perate e very thing you

may haw in you r house duringa power o utage. lack of moneyusually dictates what will oper­ale . Oh. yes: lf yo ur home is all­e lectric. forget about the electricstove. electric water heater andelectric clothe s dryer. It can bedone. b ut the expense o utweighscommon sense.

So, you select what loads youwant to operate on the backupsystem. This may be yo ur com­puter room. ham shack, familyroom and so on . You can usu­

ally load up to 60 amps of ACloads. You then p ull these o ut o fthe main ci rcuit breaker andinstall a subpancl.

A DC-Io-AC inverter is in­stalled in the house. I usc theTrace SW series inverters. Theseguys produce up 10 5.5 kW andyou can gang two inverters

to gether for a to ta l of II kWworth o f backu p powe r. T heo utput of the SW series is pures ine wa ve . Not the mod ifi edsine wave you see in some in­

veners. The output is so clean,you can se ll the po wer generated

by the in verter back 10 the util­ity. T hat 's a lot of hang, and ittakes a lot o f batterie s to do the

job.In most systems we do, t use

the Trojan L16 deep-cycle bat­tery. A t ove r 350 am p-hou rse ac h , the se gu ys are hig andheavy.

S o , ho w docs the sys te mwork? We ll it's a ll automaticand com pletely transpare nt tothe user. When yo u ha ve gridpower, the inve rte r si ts there

c harg ing up the batte rie s. T hec harger will flo at the system all

Final demise of thepacket modem kit

transmit problem disappeared as

we ll as the interference from theRad io Shack inverter.

I pass these items along be­

cause they ma y be o f value ifyou s ho u ld e x pe rie nce suc h

problems with a mobile insta l­

latio n-especi ally readers o fthis column, who would inc ludea computer. I haven 't placed the

radio in its permanent location

yet. Perhaps whe n the 12 voltline is c ut 10 length and the loo p

h. removed it will not be suchan effec tive antenna. Neven be­less. il will he some kind of an­

tenna that ma y still need to be

dea lt wi th and so far the toroidworks fo r me .

I mentio ned previously that Iwas getting o ne of the automatic

antenna tuners from LOG Elec ­troni cs. I did. It is a beautiful

piece of eq uipment. If I we ren' tso bent o n assembling things

myself, I wo uld be using it byno w. For an extra $40 the)' willas sem ble it a nd tha t is wcl l

worth the price . So, as time con­strai nts go, it will he a while yet.

ge nera te a signa l in the RV co n­version. There is an igni ter in the

propane re frigerator. Turni ngthat off mad e no difference .About the on ly other pcssibili­tics of generati ng RF were theignitio n system. wheel hearings(or more like ly brake s) o r the

cruise control . These ideas camealong before the problem sho weditself with the vehicle parked .

Lo gic ... The radio had per­formed ve ry we ll under test co n­d itions wh en transmi ssion lineand 12 volt supply we re strewn

across the floor in a haphazardarray. Once neatness took over,

the problems began , Simply, tomake this as. sho rt as possible, Ihad coiled the excess 12 voltfeed, taped it neatly a nd stood itvertica lly behind the d river ' sseal. It had become an antenna .

After o ther items in the samestorage space had been removed

and re placed severa l times, theloop went hori zon tal and the

character of the problemchanged.More logic .,. 1didn't care what

the source of the mysterious RF

was o r is. It was o nly necessaryto eli minate its effec t.

The cure was to wrap several

turns of the RF feed through atoroid , mak ing an RF c hoke-c. One point of intere st here is.and what a d ifference. T he PTf that Dwa ine at LOG confirms

52 73 Amateur Radio Today ' May 1999

the fact that there are no morechips to make the packet modemki t he was selling. About a yearago he had a little over 100 o fthose ki ts left. He said that theysuddenly di sappeared when hemade notice o n his Web site thatthey were the last o f the breed .I wo uld like to nailer myselfinto thi nking that yo u readersled the ru sh to buy those after Iwrote the art icle 011 the modemat about that time . Howe ver, Iknow o f o nly one reader whoactually purchased a modem kit.so it was mo re likely Dwaine ' sclever " they' re going fas t" m ar­ket ing approach . A nyway, a llgood things come to an end .

There are new things outthere

It wou ld be nice if I cou ld ge tmy hands on everything that isused in the d igita l mode s. Someare only available by o utrig htpurchase . I have some o f those,along with numerous freebies ortrial-before-purchase ite ms .

I am going to ha ve to speakto some of the providers whowo uld like a little e xposure inthi s co lumn. To he honest, Ihave never had my hands on anyof the pieces o f stand ard farefrom Ka mro nic s" . No t thei r

fau lt-I j ust need to be moreagg ressive .

My idea s otsrandard fare cur­rently revolve around the AEAPK·232M BX, which is gellingpre tty anc ient; the packet TNC­

2 clone from MFJ; thei r model1274; the Timcwave DSP-599Lxw it h its c us to m DS P-RTTYsoftware package: and the nu­me rou s soft w are program s Ihave di scussed in this co lumnsuch as XPWarc , which workse xceptionally well with my PK ­

232M BX; HamComm. which isshareware that doe s a preny fair

job with my laptop; Chromaptx.which uses the SR 16 sound card

in my desktop fo r SSTV; andPasokon. which performs WOII­

ders in my laptop with a home­bre w serial modem for SSTV-IOname a few. And I must no t ne­

g lect to men tion the Bayt'om­s ty le p ack e t m ode m s andvarious software packages . Youcall find more info o n most o fth is att bc web sites in Table 1.

If you have q uestions or com­ments about th is column, please

E-ma il me at [jbctlcrrs'slcrra.net] and/or Compu'Scrve (72130,1352) .

I will g lad ly share w ha t Ikno w o r find a resource for you.For now, 73, Jack KB7NO, iI

73 Amateur Radio Today · May 1999 53

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ORP Symposiumpresenters

Registration for Ihe Thursday.May 13, 1999 FDIM QRP Sym­po sium wi ll be $ 10 if prepaid byMay I . 1999. and Sf zartcr thatdate. o r at the doo r. " At the

feature article spot in the ne xtQR? Quarterly. and for possible

project killing . co urtesy of theQRP ARCI. A ll are inv ited .

FDIM QRP Symposiumregistration

Please submit your Qkp tcch­nical manuscripts to FOIM 99Techn ical Pa per Chairpe rsonGeorgeHeron N2APB. 45 fi eld­stone Trail. Sparta NJ 0787 1.In2apb@'am~t.orgJ . FDIM 99QRP Symposium Proceedingswill be available for sale duringand a fter the Confere nce fort hose unabl e to at ten d t hcS ymposium .

A true cornucopia o f technic al informatio n

fo r ham radio . NOI only will you fi nd the

theoretical aspects. you will find real practicalinformation presented in a no nonsense form.

Equipment & Log Sheets. Charts. Table s

showing: world w ide c allstg ns. world times.

shortwave li stening frequencies . coax losses.

cress deta ils. conversions. construction

plans. eme rgency information . e re.133 pages. S1....95

Send check or money order plus $3.50 shipping & handling 10 :

Omega SalesP.O. Box 376

Jaffre y. NH 03452800-467-7237

The QRP ARCI "Four Days InMay" 99 Q RP Symposium willbe the tal k o f t he Day tonHurn vemion.

T he " Fo ur Days In May"QRP e xtravaganza co ntin ueswi th the annua l Friday n ig htQRP ARCI Awards Banquethonoring QR P dignitaries forthe ir service 10 thc a mateur ra­

di o co m m uni ty . A s peci a levening has been se t aside afte rthe banquet for the R)IM Q RPVendo r Social. ....here prize s willhe drawn. All are invited.FDI~1 Saturday w iII be spe­

cial this year. with an eveningsocial for QRPersio meet themany reg ional North Americana nd In te rna tio na l QRP C lu bmembers-c-oring your banners !The evening culm inates with abuilding comest ... the carego­ries are wide open. so hrin g yourlalest kit. home -bre w proj ect.antennas. whate ve r! Judges willse lec t winner!'> fo r prize s. fo r a

That ' s what I' ve been up 10 .

and later Oil in the ye ar, as wege t cl o se r to De cembe r 3 1,1999. I'll really gel busy ! But.

let' s re lax and get ready for theDayton Hamvention. Once again.the QRP ARCI will he hostingFDIM at the Days Inn. Here'sthe poop. from the c hairperson

himsel f:QR P Amateur Radio Club.

Int e rnati onal IQ R P- A RC I) ,

proudly announces the fourthannual " Fo ur Days In M ay"QRP Confe rence commencing

Thursday. May 13, 1999-thefirst o f four festi ve days of 1999Dayton Hamvcnuon activities.Mark your ca lendar for thi s e x­

tra bonus day and register earlyfor this not-to-be-missed QRP

e vent o f 1999.Amateur Radio Q RP presen­

rations. worksho ps and demon­strarions wil l he the focus of thefull day Thursday QRP Sympo­sium to be he ld 011 QRP ARCIhc ad q ua rte rs-c-t bc D ays InnDayton South. Last year, thi s f..-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ­sold-o ur even t had a "standingroo m o nly" crowd of 175 enthu ­sias tic attendees . FDI M Q RPSymposium attendees will starttheir day with a wake- up coffeesocial and then p lunge into a fullday of multimedia QRP presen­lations by renowned QRP authors

and designers.Pape rs 10 be presented in­

cl ude:• Vertical Alltellila Design &

Analysis, by L.B. Cebik W"'RNL• Constructing QRP Equip­

/Il1·1It, hy Re v. Geo rge Dobbs

GJRJV• Design of a LJSP-basn JCo­

herem elf Xn t; by Ge o rgeHe ron N2APB

• QRP Construction Tools &Tricks, by Dick Pa..coe GOBPS

• Mixer Madness, by ClarkFishman WA2UN~

• PIC-based Rainbow SWRBridge/Tunes; by Joe Everhart

N2CX• When Signals Go Wrong­

Distortion Demystlfied, by Dave

Benson NNIGCulminating this first day will

be an evening QRP ARCI Au­thor Social for fo lks to meet theQ RP presenters. All are invited.

the time, or you c an tel l i t o nlyto charge the battery hank at acertain time of the day. This isused mainly to reduce the costof o perating the c harger.

All the AC loads, including

the ones in the subpancl. a rebeing powered hy the g rid . Theinverter is silting there runningin parallel wi th the grid. Its o ut­put is in sy nc with the g rid ,matc hin g it w ith the properph ase and vo ltage. If the gridgoes down. the inverte r that isrunning a long with the grid trie sto operate the e ntire electricalgrid . lt can't. so in aboul 30 mi l­liseconds the inverter drops o utand comes hack u p. with the

inverte r no w up, it powers o nlythe loads thai have been sc k..c tedin the subpane l.

The run lime of the inve rte rdepends o n many factors. Thebiggest o ne is the slze of theloads yo u ' ll he runni ng . Thesecond facto r is the capacity ofthe battery bank you're using .

Since a norm al in verter is ratedat ... kW, if you would load theinverte r do wn 10 its maximumcapaci ty with a 750 amp-ho ur

baue ry, the batte ry would hedcad in about five hours. Lighte rloads. and the baucry hank wi llrun longer. In most cases, youcan plan on ge lling from o ne tofour days o f in verter po wer.

When the grid comes hack o n.the inverter once aga in becomes

a c harger and the battery bankis q uickly recharged . The sys­tem the n waits until the ne xt

outage.Got a generato r'! No problem!

The inverter has the smarts to

ask the generator to start up (as­suming the ge ne rator has anelectric st ane r tj a nd rechargethe bat teries if they ge l too low.

So that's what a grid backupY2 K system is. Of course. youdon't need 10 wail until the yearxm for a system like thi s.A goodold-fashioned thunderstorm canknock o ut your powcr j ust as

quickly as any computer bug .Oh, ye ah- the bottom line .

Most systems run abo ut ~OOOto $9000. depending o n the typeof inverter. battery and options

suc h as solar panels.

SPECIHL EUENTS

Listings are free of charge as space permits. Please send usyour Special Event two months in advance of the issue youwant it to appear in. For example, if you want it to appear inthe August issue, we should receive it by May 31. Provide aclear, concise summary of the essential details about yourSpecial Event.

MAY 1

CADILLAC, Ml The WexaukeeARC will hold their ann ualAmateur Radio and ComputerSwap Meet 8 a.m.- 1 p.m. at theCadillac Middle School.VE examsfor allclassesall p.m. AdmissiOfl$5; a-n.tabl e 56. Setup at 6 a.m. ,table holders only. Talk-in on146.98 rptr. Contact Dan KEBKU,Wexaukee ARC, P. O. Box 163.Cadillac M/ 49601. Tel. (6 16) 775­0998; E-rnaif {ke8kudan@juno.cern/.

CEDARBUR G. WI The 21stAnnual Cedarburg Swapfest willbe held 8 a.m. -1 p.m . at th eCircle-B Recreation Center, Hwy.60 and County I (located 20 milesnorth 01 Milwaukee , wes t o fGrafton ) . Admiss ion is $4 in

advance and $4 at the door. 4-ft .tables are $5 (li mi ted poweravailable on request). Sellers'setup at 6:30 am. VE exams startat 9 a.m. For admission tickets,table reservations, maps, or moreinfo, send an SASE 10 Joe Holly,a RC Swapfest Chainnan, 1702Holly Lane, Grafton WI53024. Tel.(4 14) 377-2 137; or Skip Douglasat (4 14) 284-3271. This event isbeing sponsored by the OzaukeeRadio Club of Mequon WI.

MONUM EN T, CO The PikesPeak Radio Amateur Assn.Gigantic Hamlesl will be held onMay tst, 0800-1400, at Lewis­Palmer Hi gh Sch ool, 1300 E.Higby Rd., 1-25 between exit 158and 161. Free parking. Admissionis 54 lor 18 and over. VE examsat 1000. forums, APRS, packet.

satelli te demos. Vendor setup Fn.eve. at 1800, Sat. morn ing at0600. Tables $12 , $1 0 ea. ad­ditional. Talk-m on 146.97 (100Hz) and 146.52. For tables, con­tact Dennis NGABC, (719) 535­1160, [dennis.major@mci.com);or Bob KIOGF, (719) 265-9950,(rrya ls @pcisys .ne t). Wri te toPPRAA , P.O. Box 1652 1,Co lorado Springs CO 80935.Check the Web site at {http://www.qsl.neVppraal].

ST. LOUIS, MO All-day SkywarnWeather Observation Training willbe offered Sal. , May t st. Level 1Training will be presented in themorning, and classes resume inthe atternoor with the SKYWARNLevel 2 Program. For locations,call the Severe Weather Inlor­mation Line, (3 14) 889-2857 10r ataped message and ad di tionalinformation. All are welcome. Freeparking. Certification provided forRAC.E.S. and SKYWARN at nocost.

MAY 1-2

ABILENE, TX The Key City ARCwill spon sor the West TexasSection Convention and Hamfesta t me Abilene Civic Center, Sat.,May tst.8a.m.-5 p.m., and Sun.,May 2nd. 9 a .m.-2 p.m. Free

parking . VE exams. Wheelct1airaccess. Umited AV parking for anominal lee . Tab les $6 . Pre ­registration for the prize drawingis $7 (must be received by April27th), $8 at the doo r. Talk-in on146.160 /.760. For res erva tionsand info, contact Peg Richard,1442 Lakeside Dr., Abilene TX79602. Tel. (9 15) 672-8889.

MAY 2

YONKERS, NY The Metro 70cmNetwork wi ll present anotherGiant Electronic Flea Market atuncomHigh School, Knee landAve., Yonkers NY, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.,rain or shine . Free parking . Notailgating. Indoor flea market only.Pre-registered tables, vendors$19 first table, $15 each additionaltable . All tables 30·ft. x 5·11.. orbring your own tables at $14 for ae-tt. space. Full payment is duewith registration. At the door, eachtable is $25, or $20 for a 6-ft.space. Mail paid resevanons 10Metro 70 eM Network, 53 Hay­ward s: Yonkers NY 10704. Nopaid reservations for space will beheld past 9 a.m. No refunds givenunless prior not ificat ion of can­cellation has been received 72hours in advance of this event.Table setups 7 a.m. For reqrs­tration, call Otto Supliski WB2SLO,

Awa rds Banquetregist ration

and a self-addressed stampedenvelope i f ret urn conf nnationi s desired .

door" registration may he lim ­

ited if. once aga in. we se ll out,

Please register ear ly to guaran­tee a scat. R egi stration w il l

cover a full day of Q RP Sym­

posium activi ti es. inc luding the

QRP techn ical presentations andan endless QRO coffee po l. T he This not-to-be-missed Friday.

$ lO regisl ration fee also includes May 14. 1999, event i s beinga compl imen tary copy o f the hosted by FOUvI Banquet Chair-

FDIM 98 Q RP Sym po si um person Scon Rosenfeld N F3 1.Proceedings. Please send your $25 banquet

Please send your $ I Oregt stra- ticket fee (US check. mon",)' or-

ti on fee (U S check. money or- dcr. international money order )

ocr, intern ational money order) m ade out to " QRP A RC t.. and

made out to " QRP A RC r · and an SASE by May I. 1999, to:

an SASE by May I, 1999, to: Scott Rosen f eld N F3l, Q RP

Phi lip Specht. 925 Saddle Ridge, A RCI Banquet T k kets, 2250Roswell GA 30076 USA , or E- Paterson 5 1. 50. Eugene OR

mai l lk-tpqcwbetlsourh.netl for 97405-2988 USA . Along wi th

informat ion . Along with your your reg istration check. please

registration check. please pro- provide the name. US m ail ad-

vide the name, U S mail address, dress. telephone number and E-telephone number and E-mai l mai l address o f each att endee.

addre ss of each attendee. Also Also provi de callsign(s) ifavail-

provide cal lsign(s) if avai lab le able und a sclf-addressed starnpcd

54 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

envelope if return confirmationis desi red.

FOIM QRP Vendor Social

A tradition was started several

years ago-a spec ial eveningwas set aside to officially intro­

duce our QRP ve ndors f ro m

around the world. Thi s year, allarc invi ted to attend thi s won­

derfu l gathering of vendors dur­ing each o f the three evenings'

soc ials. Jim Stafford \\'4QO.

QRP A RCI vice president, w ill

be the host th is year. QRP ven­dors-a-for regi stration iuforrna­

non. please contact Jim Stafford

W4QO, QRP Vendor EveningC hai rperson. at 1139 5 West

Road. Roswell GA 30075, or via

E-m ail: [w4qo@ amsat.org].

QRP ARCI FDIMheadquarters

T he Days Inn D ay ton South

(DIDS) wil l he the 1999 FDiMQRP headquarters. H ank KohlK80 0 has arranged a specia lblock o f reduced -rate room s tobe held at the hotel for FDIMattendees w ishing to eOI1\'e­

niemly stay at the AR CI head­quarters for the ....-eekcnd fest­

ivities. Room s are $72/night (+

tax) wi th ;IS m any occupants asdesi red . L et H ank know if youw il l be needing one o f these spe­cial f ate roo ru s, H e can bereached at: QRP-ARCI Rooms.1640 Henry. Port Huron M I48060---2523 U SA. You call al soco nt ac t Hank by E-mail at :[k8dd(¢ contesti ng.com].

On behal f of the QRP A RCIteam. we invite you all to joinus for the QRP Even t o f 1999­the " Four D ays In ~tay" 99 QRPConference at the 1999 D ay tonH am vcmion. See you all there!7 3/7 2 , Ken Evan s W4lJ U,FDIM 99 Chairperson. E-mail:f w.J.du@bdlsollth.lU,t ]. fa

MANASSA5, VA Th e ManassasHamfest, Amateur Aad io , Elec­tronics & Computer Show is beingpresented by Ole Virginia HamsARC, Inc., Sun. June6th at PrinceWilliam County Fairgrounds (1/2mile south of Manassas VA on Ate234). Ta lk-i n on 146.97(-) an d224.660(-). Indoor exhibitor spacehas 8-ft. tables and electrici ty .Setup 2 p.m.-8 p.m. Sal. Generaladmission $5 per person at thegate . No advance sa le. Galesopen at 8 a .m. Free pa rk ing .Tail ga te spaces $5 (prus ad­mission ), gates open at 7 a.m.ARAL Roanoke Div. officers wiltbe allending . DXCC a SL CardCheckers will be avai lable. Therewitt also be a "Virginia a sa Party"Award Ceremony. You can lindhamfest deta ils on the Web at[http://www. qs/. netlolevahams).For dea ler info co ntact JackN4YIC, (703) 335·9139: E-mail(patnjack@erols.comj. For generalinfo, contact Mary Lu KB4EFp, (703)369-2877; E-mail (mblasd1638@aol.com).

To reach the hamtest. take PA AI.68 East from Interslate 79, or takeUS AI. 68 West from PA Rt. 8.Talk-in on 147.96/.36. Facil itiesare hand icapped accessible .Tailgate spaces 55 each. Dealerscan rent tables in advance at $15per table. Aeservation deadline isMay 15th. To reserve a table, sendcheck lor $15 per tab le and anSASE 10 Rey Whanger W3BIS,Hamfest Chairman , 5430 CoveRun Road, Cheswick PA 15024:or call (4 12) 828-9383. E-mail canbe sent to (w3bis @freewwweb.com). The Web site is at (www.breezeshooters.com).

JUNE 6

MEDINA, OH Join the M2MGroup for the 1999 MedinaCounty Hamfest, Sun.. June 6th,at me Medina County FairgroundsCommunity Center, 735 LafayetteAoad , in Medina. Vendor setup at6 :30 a.m. Open to the public 8a.m.-3 p.m. New and used hamgear and computer equipment willbe featured . Talk-in on 147.6301.030. Genera l admission $4 inadvance, 55 at the door. Inside

BUTLER, PA The 45th Breeze- tables $9 in advance , $10 at theshooters' Hamfest witt be held door. Flea market spaces $7 inSun. June 6th, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. on advance, $8 at the door . Pleasethe Butler Farm Show grounds, call Doug at (330) 725-0119 lorjusl north of Butler. Admission is info about VE exams: watk-ins$5 per pe rson , inc ludes prize welcome. For tickets and generald rawing s during the hamtest : info. contact Mike at (330) 273·children under 12 admitted free . 1519, or E-mail {m2mgroup @

73 Amateur Radio toaev » May 1999 S5

TEANECK, NJ The Bergen ARAwitt hold its annual Spring Hamfestat Fairleigh Dick inson University.Take Rte 4 eastlwestto the RiverRoad exi t. Follow the signs intothe hamlest are a . Buyer ad ­mission $5. with XYLs and har­monics free . Seller admission$10. Plenty of parkinq. VE exams.Talk-in on 146 .790(· 600). Formore info call Jim Joyce K2Z0 at(20 1) 664-6725 before 10 p.m.

SPR INGFIELD, IL The SagamonValley Radio Club will join with theShooting Stars 4·H Club to pre­sent a Hamfest at Il linois StateFairgrounds in Springfield. Freeparking. ARRL VE exams. Indoorexhibits. Talk-in on 146.685(· ).Admission $5 . Visit the web siteat [www.skyli ght 1.com/sv rc/] .Con tact Ed Gaffney KA9ETP,13997 Frazee Rd. Box 14A,Divernon IL 62530. Tel. (217) 628­3697, or E-mail (egaffney@fgi.net).

HOUSTON, MO The 1st AnnualCentral Ozar ks Hamfest will behe ld by the Ozark Mounta inAepeater Group, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.atTexas County Fairgrounds, 1.5miles nort h 01 Houston MO, onHighway 63. Setup at6 a.m. Tradetables $10, or outside space $5 .Commercial tables $15. 'Ialk-jn on146.850. Contact Bob SimpsonNONTC, 9570 Haney Drive,Houston MO 65483. Tel. (4 17)967-3535, or E-mail [nOntc@train.missouri.org}.

Dealers can setup on the 4th after7 p .m., or after 6 a.m. on the 5th.Overnight camping is available.Thi s year 's swap wi ll host 5technical seminars. the MichiganArea Re peater Counci l Junequarterly meeting, and the Stateand District 6 Emergency Co­c rometors will provide a forumentitled ~Y2K and Amateur Radio:VE exams at 12 noon. Talk-in on147.16 link repeate r system.Indoor table space and trunk salesspaces are availabl e. ContactKathy al (616) 698-6627 between4 p.rn. and 7 p.m. EST.

GRANO RAPIDS, MI The an­nually sponsored IRA Hamtes­t ival, west Mich igan 's la rgesthamtest. witt be held June 5th atthe Hudsonville Fairgrounds nearGrand Rapids. Doors open at 8a .m. for genera l admiss ion .

BANGOR, ME The 121h AnnualBangor Hamfest will be sponsoredby the Pine State ARC, 08 :00­13:00 , at Hermon High School.Take 1-95 to Exit 44 (Cold BrookRd.) 10 US #2; US #2 west 1 mileto the high school. From thevillage , take US #2 east 1/2 mileto the school. Talk-in on 146.341.94 and 146.52. VE exams wilt beheld for all cl asses. Features:Vintage equipment, a fox hunt,FST V, VHF, packet , antennafeeds. Set up a ham shack to helpnewcomers . Admission $4 perperson , under 12 years free .Tables sa each. Equipment wilt beauctioned at the end of thehamfest. There are campgroundsand many motels within 5 mites.This event wi ll be held rain orshine. Contact Robert W. DoleKA1TKS, RR #2 Box 730, BangorME 0440 1. Tel. (207) 848-3846.

WEST FRIENDSHIP, MD Th eMaryland FM Assn. of HanoverMD will hold the MFMA Hamfeston May 30th. 8 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. atHoward Co . Fairgrounds. Tak e170 to rue.32, south to Ate. 144,tum right. go west on Ate. 144.approx. t mi. 10 the Fairgrounds.Talk-in on 146.76, 224 .76 , or444.00. Admission 55 , tables inadvance $20, $25 at the doo r.Tailgate spaces $5 ea . For reser­vations . contact Craig WA3T/D,PO. Box 19, Annapolis JunctionMD20701. re: (4 10)987-6042.

JUNE S

MAY 30

12 p.m., at the Betta Vista HighSchool, 8301 Madison Ave., FairOaks C A . Fro m 1-80 , takeMadison Ave. east for 5.8 milesto the high school. From Hwy. 50,take Hazel Ave . north 2.6 miles toMadison Ave., tu rn left and gowest 1.4 miles to the high school,Seller spaces $10 (two parkingspaces) , buyers admit ted free.New, used, and surplus amateurradio gear. electronic test equip..and amateur-related computergear. Contact Earl Mead K6ESM,(916) 331- 1115: or E·mail [nhrc @k6is.org).

LONDONDERRY, NH The Inter­state Repeater Society will hold anAmateur Rad io Swap Meet onSat., May 22nd, at the London­derry Lions Club on MammothRoad. Dealer setup starts at 6a.m., and general admission ($2)at 8 a.m. Dealer spaces are $10.Ins ide and outside spacesavailable. Directions: At. 93 to Exit4 , west on AI. 102 about 2 milesto Mammoth Rd . (At. 128 ). Gonorth aOOuI 1·1/2 miles to the hallon the right. For reservations callPaul KILL , (603) 432- 1538: or E·mail to [K tL LX@juno.com).

FAIR OAKS, CA The North HiltsRadio Club of Sacramento CA wilthold its annual Swapmeel, 6 a.m.-

MAY l S

MAY 23

GR IMESLAND, HC The EastCarolina Anuque Radio ClubSwap Meet. -ECARC Radiofeast1999: will be held 8 a.m.-3 p.m.in the Easl Caroli na Rad ioMuseum par1<. ing lot at 7602 PittSI. in Grimesland. Hwy. 33, 10miles east of Greenville NC. Freeadmission . Tail gate space $7 .Contact Bill Engstrom, 218 BentCreek Rd., Greenville NC 27834,(252) 355 -8 732; or HermanSchnur K4CTG, 3205 Brick KilnRd., Greenville NC 27858, (252)752-2264.

MANITOWOC. WI The MancoradRadio Club will hold their 1999Hamfest and Computer Swapfeslat the Manitowoc County ExpoCenter. intersection 01Hwys. 42­151 and 1·43 on Co. R, 8 a.m.­noon. Features include an am­ateur/computer/electron ic f leamarket,and VE exams. Admissionis $3 in advance or $4 at lhe door.Dealer setup Fri. 6 p.m.-9 p.m.,or Sal. at 6 a.m. a-ft . tables 56 ,electric outlet $5. SASE to Man­corad RC, P.O. Box 204.Manitowoc WI 54221 -0204: or callRed (920) 684-3733: or Fred at(920) 682-931 2. For campingarrangements,call (920)683-4378.

MAY S

MAY 22

(914) 969- 1053. Donation 56, kidsunder 12 free. Talk-in on 440.425MHz, PL 156.7; 223.760 MHz PL67.0; 146.910 MHz; and 443.350MHz PL 156.7.

SPECIAL EVENTSTATIONS

PORTUGAL CAY OX CONTESTThe Rede dos EmissoresPortu gueses will sponsor thePo rtugal Day OX contes t onphone (SSB) only, on 10 15, 20,40 and 80 m eters , usin g therecommended IAAU band plan forRegion 1. For more information,contact REP- Rede dos Emis­sores Portugueses, Award-C on­test Manager, Po. Box2483. 1112Lisboa Codex, Portugal. fa

JUNE 12, 13

MAY 8-9

INDIANA aso PARTY The Landof Lakes ARC will hostlhe Indianaaso Party , 1800Z May 8 th ­2300Z May 9th . Categories: Sin­gle operato r. multi -operator, clubstation and VHF/UHF. All stationsmay be worked once per mode oneach band by CW and phone .Mobiles may be worked once permode per Indiana county that theyoperate f rom. No repeater con­tacts . Exchange: Indiana sta­tions-signal report and county:noo-Indiana stations-send signalreport. stale. province , or county.Phone contacts count 2 OSOpoints . all cmer modes count 3OSO points . Suggested freqs.:CW-1810, 3539, 3715. 7045 ,7 115, 14045, 2 1045 . 2 1120,28045. 28 120 . Ph one-1860,3890 . 72 80 , 14285, 21385,28400,50.14. 144.215,432.120.Certificates will be awarded forfi rst and second place in eachcategory. stale , province andco untry. Send logs with an SASE10 Sharon Brown. 905 W. ParkwayDr., Pleasant Lake IN 46! 79. Youmay also submit logs via E-mailto {sharon./.brown@gte.net}. Logsmust be received by June t t th.1999.

APR 3O-MAY 2

AaUINAH , MA The Fall HiverAAC will wo rk sta tions fo r theMassachusetts aso Pa rty byoperating W1ACTJP from the GayHead lighthou se on Martha'sVineyard island (IOTA NA046)1600 UTC April 3Oth-2100 UTCMay 2nd. Tune in on 3.755 MHz.14.260 MHz , 21.260 MHz. and28.460 MHz. a SL with an SASE10 Roland Daignault N1JOY. E­mail {roland-d@ici.net}.

WHEATON, IL The Si x Mete rClub 01 Chicago, Inc.. will hold Its42nd Annual AAAL sponsoredHamfest at the DuPage CountyFairgrounds, 2015 ManchesterAoad (north of Roosevelt Road(Route. 38), east 01 County FarmRoad], in Wheaton. Free parking.No extra charge for space in theoutdoor flea market. Tickets are$5 in advance, for attendees overage 12,56 at the gate. Advancetickets are available from JosephGutwein WA9RIJ,7109BlackbumAve., Downers Grove IL 60516.orf rom any c lub member. Com­mercattabres. 8-ft. w/110V 515each. Indoor flea market tables,e-tt., no electric, $12 each. Over­night RV parking . includes elec­trical hookup, $10 each. Send anSASE with check or m.o. payableto Six Meter Club of Chicago. andma il to 7109 Blackburn A ve .,Downers Grove IL 60516, no laterthan May 30th. For informat ioncall the 24-hour InfoLine. (708)442-496 1. Buildings are open tothe public at 8 a.m. VE exams 9a.m.-1 1 a.m.. call the InfoLine topre-reqtster for testing. Handicapparking at the east gate. Generalparking at the west gate . Sellers,use east gate . Abso lute ly noalconotc beverages permitted. Allsellers responsible for cleanup oftheir spaces.

JUNE 18, 19, 20

RED DEER, ALBERTA, CANADAThe Cen tral Alberta Radio League(CA RL) will host its 29th AnnualPicnic and Hamtest at the Bur­bank Campsite located approx­imately 8 km NE of Red Deer.Talk -in on 147.150 (.. 600 ) or146.520 simplex. For info contactBob VE6BL D, 5540 54th Ave.,Lacombe, A lberta, Canada T4L1L6. Te l . (403) 782-3438evenings. E -ma il { kingef@te lusplanet .net} or [ ve6b ld @rac.caj. Or E-ma il C.A. R.L.at{carl@qsl.ne t]. Visit the homepage at {http://qsf.neVcarll]. BillVE6WMG, at (403) 749-2063. isalso available to relay more infoabout this event.

AAC and mail with an SASE 10DavidA. White, 719Notre Dame,Cuyahoga Falls OH 44221. VEexams available. For more infocall Dave White at (330) 928-7625or E-mail (rjtaylor @akron.infi. net].Talk-in on 146.985/ .520. Parkrules: No pets, no firearms, nopornograph ic materials.

KNOX VILLE. TN The AadioAmateu r C lub of Kno xvill e issponsoring the 33rd annual ' xnox­ville Hamfest and Electronics ReaMark et " on J une 13th at theNational Guard Armory, 3330Sutherland Ave " in Knox v ill e .Open 10 Ihe public 9 a.m.-4 p.m.Admission 55. 8-ft. tables will besupplied for 515 each. AC poweralso available. Free dealer passeswill be provided for all designatedworkers . Free beverages avail­able lor all inside dealers. Accessfo r deale rs and ot he r indoorparticipants starts Sat.. June 12th,12 noon-a p.m. ET. Access alsoavailable on the day of the ham­fest , starting at 6 a.m. ET. Freeparking and handicap access.Free outdoor tailgate space witheach paid admission. VE examsbegin at 2 p.m., registration mustbe completed before 1:30 p.m.Test fee is 56.45. payable toWC ARSIVEC. exa ct cas h orcheck, please. Th ere wi ll be acli nic showing how to use newtechnology ham radio equipment.A free product lite ra ture andproduct promotional items areawill also be featured. Forums arebeing planned to discuss hamradio in the next century, publ icservice activities, computer arch­itecture , new FCC requta tions ,DX, etc. Exhibits will feat ure newtechnology equipment , satellitecommunications and emergencycommunicalion equipment. Talk­in onW4BBB 147.30(+), 224.50(-),444 .575(+). For general info andreservations. contact David BowerK4PZT. PO. Box 50514 , KnoxvilleTN 37950-05 14. Tel. (423) 974­5064 (w) or (423) 670-1503 (h).E·mail (rack@ korrnet.org]. Forupdated info check the Web pageat {http:// www. korrnet.orglrack].

provided. Talk-in on 147.255(+)and 147 .375(+) rpns.

JUNE 13

JUNE 12

FERGUS, ONTARIO, CANADAThe Guelph AA C and Kitchener­Waterloo ARC, Inc . are gettingtogether to jointly sponsor TheCentral Ontario Amateur Rad ioFleamarket. The event will be held8 a.rn. to 2 p.m. at the FergusCommunity Center. Vendors ad­n utted from 6 a.m . Talk-in on146.97(.) or 145.21(-). Contact BillSmith VE3WHS, 32 McElderryRd.• Guelph ON, Canada N 1G4K6. Tel. (5 19) 821-6642. Packer{VE3WHS@VA3SED.IfSWON. ON.CA.NA]. E-mail: {smithve3whs @sympatico.ca}.

INDEPENDENCE, KY The North­ern Kentucky AA C will hold theirMHam-Q-Rama '99" on Sun., June13th at the Summit View MiddleSchool in Independence KY. From1-75 go east on 1-275 to Exit 80(Covington/ lndependence - KY17). South on KY 17 (towards SUFFIELD, OH The 32nd AnnualIndependence) 5-1/4 miles. For Hamfesl and Family Picnic will bemore info or reservations. contact sponsored 8 a.m.-4 p.m. by theN8JMV clo NKARC, P.O. Box Goodyear AAC at the Goodyear1062, Covington KY 41012; or call Wingfoot Lake Park, located near(513) 797-7252 in the evening. Suff ield OH, 10 miles east o fIndoor exhibi t area fo r major Akron. Enter from AI. 43. one milevendors. Extensive outside flea south of At. 224. Admission 54 inmarket with se tup at 6 a .m . advance or $5 at the door. OneGeneral admission beg ins at 8 ticket admits ham , spouse anda.m.Admission $4 in advance. $5 children. Flea market spaces $10at the gat e. Children under 14 each or $8 in advance. Vendorsaormrted free. Flea market spaces (Pavilion) $8 in advance or $10$2 each (tables not furn ished). the day of the bamtest . MakeIndoor vendor space 515 pertable checks payable to the Goodyear

56 73 Amateur Radio roasv » May 1999

QUEENS, NY The Hall of ScienceARC Hamfest will be held at theNew York Hall of Science parkinglot. Flushing Meadow CoronaPark, 47-0 1 11 1th St. , Queens.Doors open for vendor setup at7:30 a.m. Buyers admitted at 9a.m. Free parking. Admission bydonation. buyers 55, sellers 510per space . Talk-in on 444 .200rptr.• PL 136.5. 146.52 simplex.For fu rth er in fo call evenings .Stephen Greenbaum WB2KDG,(7 18) 898·5599; or E-ma il(WB2KDG @Bigfoot.com].

ao/.com]. Vendors please note:No tables will be reserved withou tpayment. Prepaid tables will beheld until 9 am. Send paymentswi th an S AS E to the MedinaHamfest Committee, P.O. Box452. Medina OH 44258, befo reMay 22nd.

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the Worlds by rebroadcasting itduring the morningsnow.

The original Welles script was used and trans­lated into Portuguese.The slation issued a warn­ing at 7 a.m., announcing their intention tobroadcast the radio play. But when the play be­gan an hour later at B a.m., panic erupted.

The stationbroadcast the landing of a UFO atPatmela, and the bulletins said thai the Martianshad set oft in the direction of the capital (Lisbon)and that military forces sent to stop them hadproved powerless.

The program's producer said the radio stationwas inundated with calls lrom hlnlreds 01 panick·ng people demanding to know what wasgoingon.

The 7 a.m. warningprovedworthlessbecausenot everyone is listening 10 the radio that early.Some callers said they hadNed their workplaces.Others with health problemscomplained that theirhealth had deteriorated on news of the MartianInvasion.

One of the organizers 01 the broadcast said,"One hundred years alter the invention of theradio, there are slill people who will believe any­thing.- ...

All this goes to prove that even sixty years later,some people in radio [us! never seem to learn.

Tnx and a -run lor your life!" to Q-News, cour­tesy 01 Newsine,BiI Paslemak WA6ITF, editor. flJ

QRHconunuea from page 39

Jerry Skyw",a",-Ik"'e'-Cr _

via World Radio, via The Independent Bohemian(FLl, KD4VBI, editor, [kd4vbi @juno.com].

Amateur radio ccerators have been erectingantennas since the earl iest days of radio. So.perhaps it is apropos that it would be an ama­leur radio operator-pulting up another set ofanlennas-who would help to write a new chapterin space communications.

The ham radio operator isJerryRoss N5SCW.He was part of the all-ham crew that new mis­sion STS-37 in the earty 1990s. And now, Jerrywas one of two astronauts who ventured out ona spacewalk on Wednesday, December 9th, toattach the antennas to the first United Statessection of the international space station. Themodule is called Unity.

This was the second 01three excursions oct­side the shuttle Endeavour lor Ross and JamesNewman in less than a week. They completedinslall ing Iwo l00·pound antennas on Unity atabout the three-and-one-half-hours point of aplanned seven-hour specewetk. They then suc­cessfully pried open a stuck antenna on the

Russian-built Zarya space station module. f------------ ------1Even with the antenna repair, the spacewalk

was not nearly as diHicult as the one on Monday,December 7th . During that excursion, Ross andNewman hooked up forty electrical connectionsbetween Zarya and Unify. This essentially tiedthe two together as the first stages of the ISS.

But the antennas that Ross and Newman in­stalled outside of the Unity module may be justas important. They are part of an e'etorate com­munications system between Unity and NASA'sMission Control. Once activated, the system willprovide a direct, virtually uninterrupted commu-nications link between the two without having torely on Russian ground stations lor relay.

Rounding out the mission, Ross and Newmanalso took a third spacewalk and checked OUI thenew space station. And typical of ham radio op­eration, they kicked those stuck antennas- free­ingthem for future work when Russianspacecraftcome in to dock.

All ofthistotaled seven spacewalks lor N5SCWduri1g his la-year career as an astronaut. That'sthe most spacewalks by any American.

Tnx and a flip of the helmet visor to News/ina,Bill Pasternak WA6ITF, editor.

War of the WorldsCall il life imitating art last year. When a Por­

tuguese radio station decided to repeat OrsonWelles' famous Warof the Worlds broadcast, theresults were predictable. Graham Kemp VK4BB01 Q-News reported on the Martians taking onIjsbcn:

... On Friday, October 30th, radio stationAnlena 3, in Lisbon, celebrated the 60th anni­versary 01the Orson Welles radio drama War of

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 57

WD!\.f'? That's wavelengthd iv ision multiplexing and it 'sincreas ing the anility of fiber­optic systems to where one fi­her will be able to deliver theentire co ntents o f the Libraryof Congress in o ne second,As systems like thi s arebrough t o n line, not just tocommunications cen ters, butinto homes. the cost of com­municating will be inconse­quenti a l. We' re talking aboutbeing able to req ues t anymovie or old T V programwhen we want it.

The possibilities are mind­boggli ng . Many low-budgetmovies which have disap­peared can he made available,including a wealth of 16mmfilms. I used 10 go to Cinema­16 in New York, where theyshowell some superb filmsthat people would love to see.if they were avail able andthere was some way to knowabout them.

An old budd y of mi ne .WA3YQY (he used tn beW2~IKO whe n we were inhigh school). is busy puttinghis 35mm slides into videoprograms. complete with com­men tary. a la the Civil Warseries on PBS. I'd love to secpersona l travelogue slides orvideos done by people whohave visited places I' d like tosec - like those coun tr ies inWest Africa. fo r instance .

Fifteen years ago I got aninside look at a service beingpio neered in England wherehomes were wired with cableand the customers could re­q uest any movie they wantedwhen they wanted it. T he sys­tem also provided for shop­ping, too, with customers ableto req uest video informationon a wide va riety of products .

The Internet is getting closeto thi s . so it won't be long he­fore we' ll be able to sec amunufncturcr's demonstrationand sa les pi tch fo r almost anyproduct (or service), and thenbe able to price shop for asupplier. Eventually this ap­proach could elimi nate most o fthe midd lemen now needed- like sales reps. dist ributorsand even retailers. Manufactur­ers could almost all sell direct.Maybe this is a good time tostan selling any stocks youhave in distributing companies.

while our old-timers arcbusy doing thei r very best tokill what 's le ft o f amateur ra­dio with their insistence onmaintaining the code barrier toa license. techno logy is leavingo ur bobby so far behind thatwe 're more like an tique col­lec tors that technolog ists .

Have you been reading ab out

Wah-Up Call

lishmentarianism. bUI I'll betyo u've never given muchthough t about what it means.If you think about it. it meanssomeone who is opposed toanyone who is opposed to theestablishment.

Like ) 'OU and everyone else ,I was taught to believe in theestablishment. We're taugh tthi s by our families . schoo lsand the media. It then cameas quite a shock to me to findthat in every case, as ( lookedinto what the establishmentwas doing, I found it wasphony.

Down through the years I' veknown quite a few of theARRL direc tors perso nally, Ican't remember allY who didnot ho ld the local ARRLmembers in contempt. One o fthe directors. many years ago,made the m istake of send ingletters to the other directo rstelli ng what he and they werethinking . Copies of his lettersgo t around, wi th some bei ngse nt to me . T he se were theinfamous DoyIe le tters.

As I understood it. Doylewas the midwest director andhe'd made his money as a warprofiteer. He was blu nt abouthow stupid he thought mosto f the ARRL members were,and he put in writing thatBudlong. the General xtan­agcr, had no problem maki ngsure that the di rec tors hewanted would get elected. andnone other. He expressed hisannoyance when the Louisianamembers elec ted a "Hymic"lawyer as their director.

A fe w years later multi-mil­lionaire Man Kahn W2KRbought his way in as theHudson Division d irector b)'sending leiters to all of theHudson Di vision hams. Hequickly engi neered the tiringo f B udlong and took overrunning the League by proxyfrom his director' s pos ition.

of thousands of jobs to preventglo bal warming , Wh at you'renot seeing mu ch o f arc thereports from scie ntists whoarc culline the whole thing abunch o f unsubstantiated po­litical hogwash.

Then there ' s a petition thatsays. "T here is no convinci ngsc ient ific evidence that the hu­man release of carton dioxide.methane, or other greenhousegases is causing (or will inthe fo reseeable future cause )catastrop hic hea ting of theEarth's a tmosphere and dis­ruption of the Earth's climate,Moreover. there is substantia lscien tific evidence that in­creases in atmospheric carbondioxide produce many bencfi­cial effects on the natural plantand animal environments ofthe Eart h."

Did this come from somePR agency or anti-environ­mentalists '! No. it's a petitionsigned by nearly 17,000 USscien tist s, most tra ined in thefie lds of physics , cli mate sci ­ence, chemistry, biology'. orbiochemistry. They point outthat there is no basis for be­lieving that human activity isleading to global warmi ng .

T his is d isturbing news fo rthe bad news bean•. The me­dia, as you well know. ha vefound that bad news sells pa­pers. so they've developedthe ir ski ll for find ing and ex­aggerating bad news, whetherit' s accurate or no t.

More than 100 leading eli ­matologi s ts have denouncedlast year 's Kyoto treaty as."dangerously simplistic, qu iteine ffective. and economicallydestructive,"

This is another case wherepo liticians have their ownagenda. and are runn ing rough­shod over scientists. It wa...n'tvery long ago that a vocal fewalarmists got the media busyscaring us about global (,"001­

ing . They were wrong thenand they' re wrong again, Rigsurprise.

Global BaloneyThe term "loyal" suggests

unquestion ing subserv ience.And that's what I' ve run into

The media . led by Veep with loyal League members.Gore, arc insisting that we Yo u've probably heard aboutspend hundreds of billions of the longest word in the En­doll ars ami sacrtflcc hundreds glish language, antidisestab­

58 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

NEUER SRY DIEconrmucdjtom paqe 4

grow up and he workers '!Ditto your grundkids? All. es­sentially. members o f a giantant colony or beehive?

Well. go lly. we have towork for a living, don ' t we'!Sure, but we don't have towork for someone else all o urlives. If vou have ..'o ur owncompany: you can ' work foryourself. It's bad enough that ,by the time you co unt up allthe taxes. you 're working al­most hal f of your life for thegovemrrent - so Congress andyour state legislature can havea ball spending our money.

But. if you have yo ur owncompany, you set your hours- you set your pay - youset your vacatio ns. And if youmake your com pany one thatdoes busi ness worldw ide, youcan traw l anvwhere YOU want,

• •too. 73 magazine has sub­scribers in over 200 coun­tries, so anywhere I go I havefriends and a group anx iousto show me around and listento me ta lk.

A few weeks ago Sherryand I took oIT a fe w days andvisited Iceland. The hams therecouldn' t have been morefriendl y. But it's tha t wayeverywhere I've been.

When I was interested inIta lian greyhounds I naturallystarted a small maga/i ne o nthe subject. and that led me tovisit Ita lian greyhound loversall around the US. in En­gland , S\...cden. and seve ralother countries . It was thesame whe n I started pu blish­ing co mpUier magazines ­they even paid my way toSouth A frica to address acomputer confere nce there !And I gave talks on comput­ers in many o ther coun trieson all continents.

My book. the Secret Guideto Wealth. explains how youca n get other people 10 payyo u to learn what you need toknow to run your own busi­ness. Or you can be anotherant in the colony.

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best to add st ill another footto our heigh t.

But ho w about making ussmaller? Plait makes a very .good case for this, pointing outthat our ancestors were muchsmaller (remember Lucie"). Ifwe cut back to three-foo tpeople we'd he able to ha vemuch smaller cars that wo ulduse less fue l, have homes aneighth the current size, andneed to grow an eighth asmuch food.

T hat's right, an eighth!Think ubout it. If you take atw o-foot cube and take a one­foo t cube out of it, you 'vestill seven one-foot cubes left.

And smaller is stronger. Anant can lift 15 times its ownweight. And run with it.

We could li t eight times asmany people into planes. Andtrains, if we're still using ' em,

The booklet (25 pages) is afun read and makes sense. lt's$4 fro m Piau M onfort, 50Haskell Road. Westport MEQ.l57K.

If you' ve visi ted the May­flower you 've been surprisedat how small the bunks were,Well. they fit the people inthose days. Ditto if yo u'veseen the beds in the old castles.People were shorter, Rand yNewman notwithstanding.

With three- foot people ourcompact cars could really becompac t! Our computer key­boards would be smaller,houses IIl-siLe, and our foodsupply would go eight times

Chelsea Clock

Clockmakers since 1897

The choice of The CoastGuard Foundation ,

Quartz Clock

4- Dial

Platt Monfort has self-pub­lished a deligh tful linlc hook,Evolution - The Next Step.In it he po ints out that man­kind ha s grow n a 1'001 in thelast 150 years, and with theneed for eve n bigger basket­ball players, we 're doing our

radio , or TV set. Keep'em atleast six feet away from yourbed. The worst EMF o ffendersarc electric bl ankets. It ' s nowonder researchers have tiedcancer, birth defects, and mis­carriages to them.

The light during nighttimebathroom trips can interruptyour mclatonl c prod uction.You ' ll do better if yo u canuse a small nigh t light so youwon 't have to tum on theregular light. One of thosetiny wall lights that turn onwhen the ligh ts go o ff andmake it so yo u can walkaround ,

If you know someone whois hard to get along with ,sleeps far too many hours anight , and is depressed andtired , you might see if theyare s leeping with a room ligh to n or a TV. I know thissounds crazy, hut there are afew people who leave the irT V on all night and somehowmanage to s leep (fitfully)through the light and no ise .These are generally not pleas­ant people to he around ordeal wi th.

Smaller Is Better!

~Ielalonic

o f anyone I want to talk withthat badly.

Wit h the ove rhead of allthose satelli tes, it' s no won­der the se rvice is expensive.It costs a bazillion to putthem up there , plus all theearth stations to link them.US calls are forwarded toArizona, where a computermakes sure yo ur bill has beenpaid before forwardi ng yourcall. usually through a fiber­optic cable, to the city you ' recalling .

It ' ll he a while before littleproblems such as taking thephone through customs o fsome countries is worked out.as well as the telephoningcosts frum different countries.

Hut the vo ice quality is su­perb, so that 's a plus. J im1I0 ng KA8ZGP had a betaunit wi th him at Aspen, so Iwas able to talk righ t fro m theski slopes in Aspen to myfriend Rob Burr in CoralGables as a test with a beauti­full y clear connection. WelLthere' s a slig ht delay d ue tothe di stance to and from thesatelli tes. A fraction o f a sec­ond, but it ta kes getti ng usedto . It reminded me of themany ham satelli te contacts Imade .

Reader Ro n N2ARQ sentme some interesting data o nmelatonin via a doctor news­letter. Recent research hassho wn that the body 's abilityto make melato nin is ve ry im- i-- --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ­portant to its health and tha tsupplements, whi lc hel pful.are not nearly as effective. Sowhat can you do to keep yourbody genera ting melaton in?One im portant fac tor is keep­ing you r bedroom dark, Evena short exposure to light stopsmclatonic production . And itisn 't just your eyes that senselight Researchers have shownthat the back o f the knee is al­most as sensitive to light asyour eyes.

We ll, we know that rabbitsare able to sense changes inlight with some sort of sensingsystem o n the back of theirneck, so that isn' t really sur­pnsmg.

Another melatonic stopperis EMFs from a nearby clock,

Hon g Kong

Having visited Hong Kongmany times, and hav ing somegood frie nds living there, Itend to pay more attention tonews about the ci ty than youmigh t. It should be no sur­prise that despite promisesand agreements, China hasbeen slowly taking away free­dom from the people , A newmove could seriously under­mine Hong Kong's future.The government has recentlystopped teaching in Engl ishin all but [00 se lec tedschools. Since the main fu­ture o f business is in hightechnology, and since Englishis the only true internatio naltechnology language, this movecould severely ho bble HongKong' s coming generation ofengineers and technicians.

Hong Kong' s main com­petitor is Si ngapore, but Ind iais coming up fast with anabundance of well educatedengi neers who can speak andwrite excellent English ,

Many of the bulkier andheavier products wi ll have tohe delivered from local ware­houses, hut there won't he theoverhead o f an expensivestorefront, salesmen, manage­ment, and retail advertis ing,

Meanwhile, we amateurs arespeeding along at 13 words perminute . Snore ,

Irid ium

Iridium 's 66 sate llites arebeginni ng to be use d, but Isuspect there arc some seri­ous problems wi th the systemwhich may not be revealed ,Like what? Like the problemof getting a line-of-si gh t shotat the sa tellites when you ' rein a city full of tall bu ildi ngs.Which is where most cellpho ne users seem to be.Iridium's CEO says that 85%of Iridium calls arc completed.They're aiming at soo n having9K% of them completed ,

Well, I suppose if you 're afrequent visitor to the Austra­lian outback this service couldhe handy.

Th is stuff isn 't cheap, a tleast not ye t. The phone costs$3.395, plus a $69 a mon thservice charge, and $2 to $7 aminute for calls. I ca n' I th ink

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 59

The Best and Br ightest?

practiced every day. sta rt ingal 6 A M . What a grea t wake­up system.

A few days later I startedschool at the Bliss Elec tricalSchool in Tacoma Park , Mary­land. whi ch was on the out­skirts of w ashington. Threemonths la ter I grad uated. topin my class . Well. the coursewas superb and a lot of fun.From there I op ted for the Ra­dio Materi e l School on Trea­sure Island in San Franci sco.

T his schoo l. too . was in­credib le ! Si x months later Igraduated as an RU /c. T hen Ihad o ne o f the biggest deci­sions o f my life to make ...should I call CommanderBourne to cut o rders transfer­ring me to his research lab orshould I j oin the fleet. Andtha t' s a great story which I' lltell yo u about so me time.

When I tell people that myinte rest in amateur radio hasbrought me a lifeti me of ad­venture. l'm not exaggerating.

Con tinued on page 61

A note from reader Guy Tan­ner pointed out (hat each newpresident is so bad that we tendto forge t j ust how terrible hi ...predecessor was.

I hope no o ne will arg uewith me that o ur politica l sys­tem has not done much of aj ob o f e lec ting the best andbrightest o f peop le. We werepretty happy with Reagan. thefi rst movie star we'd everelec ted. He did a nice job o fplaying president. But beyondthat we've generally made thebest we could of lousy choices.

I never shared the enthusi ­asm for Roo sevelt. I likedTruman and Ike. but dis­trusted N ixon from the begin­ning. Kennedy was a nicechap. but I thought he was inway over his head with thejob. Johnson'! Ugh. Ford?Har-de-har. C arter? G ive mea break! Bush? What is thematter with o ur polit ical sys­tem. anyway'! Ho w did thatturkey get elected? Cl inton'!No comment. Perot? Goodgrief. what a c hoice we had!

I suspect that smart peopleknow better than 10 get intopolitics. Fmm the co ngressmen

Tom Jo nes. a L I. Com­mander in the Naval Reserve.who had been working formy fat her o n American Ex­port Airli nes. was called backtor active duty in Wash ingtonwhen World War II sta rted.So. when I decided it mighthe wiser for me to enlist thanwait to be drafted, I calledTom and asked his advice. Heknew about my amate ur radiobackground. so he arranged aninterview fo r me with Com­mander Bourne at the NavalResearch Labs in Anticoxtia.Virginia, just across the riverfrom w ashington.

Bourne .....as favorably im­pressed and arranged for meto be induc ted into the Navyin Wash ington and then fo rme to go through the Navy' snine-month radar school courseso I co uld come up to speedo n all the class ified elec tro nicdeve lopments .

After being inducted as aRadio Technic ian 3rd Classthey took me to {he w ashing­ton DC Navy Yard. wherethey exp lained that since they.....e re out o f uniforms rightthe n I sho uld come back intwo weeks. Well . this wasright before Christmas. so I' dbe able to spend the hol idayswith my fo lks in New York.Great !

T hey gave me leave paperswhich said that I was exemptfrom the la w which requiredall se rvice personnel to wearuni forms when in public.

C ut 10 my grand mother andI C hrist mas shopping in NewYork and stopping at a gypsytea room o n Fifth Avenue forlunch . After lunch a gypsycame over and looked at the tealeaves left in my cup and waspuzz led. She sa id she saw mebeing in the military. eventhough I .....as in civvies. Shesa id that a T J had recently hada big influence on my life andthat I would soon be joiningman y ot hers. going into alarge building where I wouldcome out with top honors.

Because I had always j ustsq ueaked by in sc hool thisdidn 't make a lot of sense tome. Bu t she was right. WhenI returned from leave I got apile of il l- fitti ng blues and abunk in the barracks right be­low .....here the Navy band

Sims. Thi s st uff is real. It' shappening.

The hook. by Gran ite Pub­lishing. Box 1429. ColumbusNC 28722 . ISBN 1-8931 83­02·5 . is a $ 19 232-page pa­perback. It has a sec tion ofcol or photographs o f implantremovals and e lec tron photo­micrographs of the imp lants.These implants were disco v­ered by acc ident through x­rays taken for other reasonsand they' ve been fo und be­hind an car. in a toe . a j aw.and so 011 . lr's a fascinatingstory.

So what's going o n with allthis a lien abduction stuff "Well. some time ago I re­viewed Jacobs' The Threat ­The Secret Alien Agenda foryo u. 11 explains what theal iens really want. and howthey plan to ge t it. This bookwas the result of hu nd reds o finterviews with abductees.mostly regressed under hy p­nosis . Their stories were re­markahlv consistent. once thcv- .we re enabled to recall the irabduction experiences.

Dr. Lcir's hook sho ws tha tthere is now phy s ical proo ftha t something strange is go­ine on . No. we don' t vet un­J erstand the technology usedin the implants. but then if aPentium chip had been senthack in time j ust a fe w yearsthe resources of the wholewor ld wouldn ' t have been ableto either understand what itwas or to how to replicate it.

Most of the abduct ions in­volvo the "greys:' which ap­pare ntly are some kind ofbio logical robot. They com­municate with abductees men­tally and arc able to passthrough wa lls . win dows anddoors . to 11y through the air.and also enable abducrccs todo the same. Weird stuff.Well. I 'm not going to try andg ive yo u all the de tails thathave been fou nd by research­ers so far c-c I'm just trying toget you to sta rt reading soyou can lind out for yoursel fwhat's known so far.

farther. Hey. Munchkin Land'

Alien Implants

UFOs. a lie n abductions.c rop circles. and other suchrnumbo-jumbo tabloid crapolahave many people in denial.Most o f the stuff I' ve seen onTV has been sensat ionalizedand seems more aimed atdiscreditin .. what's going o nc _

than infor ming us. To get morereliable information you re­a lly have to be able (0 read. askill that 's no longer beingtaueht in our schools andwhich seems by most peop leto be cons idered po ssiblysa tanic.

In the hopes that there arestill some people who arc in­te rested in being informed.I' ve been rev iew ing booksI've fo und to be reliable onthese o ffbeat subjec ts .. . inthe hopes that I can convincea t least a few people to in ­form themselves beyond theTV and tablo id fare .

It takes a pathological skcp­tic to remain unconvinccd thatthere are thousands of peoplewho have had alien abduc tio nex perie nces . Professor Mack .the Pulit zer Prize- winningHarvard psychiatrist . reportedin Abduction - Human EII­counters With Aliens on hisresearch into the subject. ButI couldn' t ge t you 10 spend $7for the pocket hook ed ition.Or to spend $5 for WhitleyStriebers Communion. thestory o f his many alien en­counters. Is it that people arctoo cheap to spend the fivebucks. or too busy watchingRosenrme and Jerry Springer '?Or ba ll ga mes '! W hat anincredi ble waste of time !

So what brought on th isunprovoked attack on yoursmug complacency'! Yeah. I' vejust read another hook youshould read. but probablywon ' I. It provoked me.

The hook . The A liens andthe S("(/lpel by D r. Roger Leir- subtit led. "Scientifi c Proofof Extraterrestria l Implants inHumans" - is a narrati vc ac­count of Dr. Leir"s experi ence Tea Lea vesin removing implant... fromabducrccs . I' ve seen some You don't '>L'C man)' gypsyvideo of implan t re movals by fortunetcllc rs these days. I stillDr. Leir. and I've tal ked with rem ember my first tea leafthe chap who's worked with reading. Le t me tell you abouthim on the proj ect. Dcrre l it.60 73 Amateur Radio Today . May 1999

Barter 'n' BuyTum your old ham and computer gear into cash now. Sure, you canwait for a hamfest to try and dump it, but you know you'll get a farmore realistic price if you have it out where 100,000 active ham po­tential buyers can see it, rather than the few hundred local hams whocome by a flea market table . Check your attic, garage, cellar anddoset shelves and get cash for your ham and computer gear beforeirs 100 old to sell . You know you're nol going 10 use it again, so whyleave it for your widow 10 throw out? Thai stuff isn't getting anyyounger!The 73 Flea Market, Barter 'n' BUY, costs you peanuts (almost}­comes to 35 cents a word for individual (noncommercial!) ads and$1.00 a word for commercial ads. Don't plan on telling a long story.Use abbreviations, cram it in. But be honest. There are plenty ofhams who love 10 fix things, so if it doesn't work, say so.Make your list, count the words , including your can. address and phonenumber. Include a check or your credit card number and expiration. Ifyou're placing a commercial ad, include an additional poone number,separate from your ad .This is a monthly magazine , not a daily newspaper, so figure a couplemonths before the action starts: then be prepared. II you get too manycal ls, you priced it low. If you don't get many call s, too high.So get busy. Blow the dust off, check everything out, make sure it stillworks righ l and maybe you can help make a ham newcomer or re­tired old timer happy with that rig you're not using now. Or you mightget busy on your computer and put together a list of small gear/partsto send to trose interested?

Send you r ads a nd payment to : 73 .Uaga:.i" e. Barter ' n'Buy, 70 Hancock Rd. Peterborough ~H 03-158 and get setfor the phone calls, T he deadline for the August 1999 clas­sified ad section is JUlie 10. 1999.

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water. even a not very pcrccp­ti ve person migh t wonder howcome the released Starr reportd idn' t mention this. TItis will, Ivu..pect. be the other shoe todrop.

Between the leak.s and WhiteHouse spmmcistcrs, anyonecan he forgiven for be ing con­fused about the W hitewatermess. Maybe I can clarify itfor you.

Thi s all started back in Ar­kan sas where the Clinronswere partners with Jim and Su­san ~kDougal in the White­water Development Corpora­tion. T he accounts were keptin the Madi son GuaranteeSavings & Loan . run by Jim:McDo ugal. with Hillary cu-.ton as an attorney. When fed­eral ba nk examiners checkedMadison they te stified that itwas a "po litically corrupt in­st itu tio n that routed million so f do llars to po litically con­nected Arkansan s ." The re­port ci ted wire fraud. illegalcampaign contri butions, ern­bczzlemcnt. money launder­ing. falsification (If loan record..and board minutes. e tc. TheFDIC had to cover over 560million that was looted.

Part of the money stolen byMcDougal and Hillary wentto Bill Cli nton ' s campaignacco unt.

The reason a special pros­ecutor had to be called in wasthe cbsmxuon of investigationsat both the stale and federallevelsby the Ctintons. the same pattern

S ince the Ken neth Starr in- we' ve SCt-'t1 repeated with Bill'svcsrigation started with white- sex scandals. m

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 61

I' ve known. that rule fits . It'slike tryi ng to find a goodteacher. Whe n it's (he bottom20% of the high schoolgrad uating classes that go tocd schoo ls so they can get alicense to join the teacher 'sunion and never have toworry about getting fired . thelikelihood o f a smart teachermanaging (0 survive the sys­tem is minuscule . It wasn't asbad 60 years ago when I we ntto school. yet in my 17 yearso f sc hool I had exact ly twogood teac hers - one in highschool (art), and one in co llege(accounting) .

Sigh. if I could j ust convinceyou to get as many people asyou can 10 Never Re-elect Any­one (NRA). we'd go a lo ngway toward solvi ng the cam­paign fi nancing mess, andwe'd soo n get rid of profcs­sional politic ians. If we lose afew good ones along with thecrooks. it-s a sustainable loss.

Thc system is obviously notgoing to fix itself. The fox esarc running thc chicken coop,so it 's up to the public to tak eits eyes off Jerry Springer andball games long eno ug h tochange things.

Bush was a crummy presi ­dent, but he wasn' t as bad asClinton.

The Other Shoe

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•

Hum~ 62 on y"'" FHdbM:1t c.r1

PROPRGRTION May 1999

SUN MDN TUE WED THU FAI SAT

Jim Gray W1 XUI7 1 VP·PIO21 0 E Cha teau Circle

IPayson AZ 8554112 PIO 3 P·F 4 F 5 F • F-G 7 0 8 0

Wmpeg@ netzone .oom]9 0 ' 0 0 11 G-F 12 F 13 F·G 14 G-F 15 F

16 F-P 17 P 18 P-F '9 F 20 F-P 21 PJD 22 P

May l st- 3rd arc expected to openings 10 Europe and Africa 123 P 24 P·F 25 F-P 26 P-F 27 F 28 F 29 F·P Ire veal a di sturbed (0) magne tic o n G days. midday path open-

30 P/D 31 VP/Dfield and upset to active iono- m gs to S o u t h and Centra l

sphere. re su lting in Very Poo r 10 Ame ric a. and F2 path o peningsPoor (VP-P) HF propagation . to Japan . Au strala..ia. and theHigh signa l absorption is e x- Pacific during the afternoon at hemisphere and also to Europe bu t after dark and peakin gpeered o n 80. 40. and 30 meters. your location. OX mows we st should occur after dark and duro around midnight. and again dur-renderin g the bands essentially as the day progresses . ing sunrise hours- lim ited . o f ing the pre-dawn hou rs. yo u

useless during majo r parts of the co urse. by sta tic no ise lev els .should be able to " work" many

dav 15-17 Meters areas of the world . S hort skip•• Dayt ime sho rt skip 10 about 350There cou ld be band "wipe- from I.OOO--2.(x)() mi les or so

outs' on 20 meters and higherExpe c t good O X paths 10 miles, and beyond 50n mile s will pre vail during the nighttime

during the next few days. withmost areas of the world. with afte r dark . will prevail on G hours . . . hut. as always. it wille xcellent open ings from the d ays. On 160, no daytime propa- be limited by high static levelson ly weak and watery -soundingnorthern hemi sphere to Africa. galion will occ ur d ue to lono- fro m thund e rs to rm a c tivimsignals on po lar paths. GradualSouth Ame rica. and the Paci fi c sp heric abso rption o f signals. wixu» .improvement sho u ld be 1I00edduring hours o f day lig ht and

o n the -lth and 51h. with goodpeaking during loca l afternoon.

(G) propagation condi tions rc-Good sbon-skip commun icauon

turni ng o n the 71h, and la~tillgo ver 1.000 miles will occur o n EA STERN UNITED STATES TO:

for about a week .G days. GMT; 00 ~ ~ .. 00 " ra " " " eo ae

T hereafter. propagation will Al"'SK... 151 17 1&17

be o nly fai r until the 16th andARGHITI"" ec eo »., 1~12 101'1 2 1& 11

20 Me t e r s AUSTI'lAU'" 1!li17 »., »., " eo so 15117 "

17th. when the ion osphere will """- ".,., .,., ec " ' 1)12 11)'12 "

become upset o nce agal n. and Very good DX o penings to all ; ENG~ ec .,., "'., 11)'12 15';17 ' 51 17 ac "IiAWAJI 15111 '".,., "'., "'., 11)12 l !of l 1

poor conditions prevail. A slight areas o f the world from sunrise ~,

recovery should last for a d ay th roug h t he early d a rk ne s s JA""'N ec eo eo 1!'>I1 7 15117 1!'>I 17 eoMEXICO '00' »., "'., ac ac 1!>I17 1!'>I 17 ,..,

or two . Poor and upset condi- hours. T he sig nals will peak an I'!-i IUW INES 1712 0 ,,~

tions are like ly to return he - ho ur or two after sunrise at yo ur ' P\.Jt:ATO RICO "'., "'''' "''''- eoec- ,,~ 10112 1011 2 1!of17 1!li17

tween the 2 hi and the 241h . loca tion. and again during theRUSSIA (CJ.S.I "'., - ,,~ ,,~

,SO""TH ...~f'lCA, - 10112 1l)' 12 17,'<'0 ,,~ ».,Only grad ua l Improvement wi ll aft ernoon . Short SKip beyond WEST COAST

take place unt il the 29th. whe n about 700 miles will occur dur- CENTRAL UNITED STATES TO: IPoor to Very Pour propagatio n ing daytime ho urs. ' ...LASK... 14120 11120 17120 »., a• ., 17120 151 17 1!>I17

is expec ted to return and co n-"'RGENTlN... 17120 »., 11) ' 2 l Si I7

30-40 Meters Al.lSTRALJ'" »., II) I:! """ ,,~ 15,,' 7

tinuc throu gh the e nd o f thc """- " " »., »., "''' 11)'1 2 11)12 151 17 ,,~

month . -- - "., "'., 151 11 "'''' ",

Good worldwide OX open- ~.~ • S'17 - - - - "'" 11)'11 12115Use the cale ndar to plan your

ings fro m s unset to sunrise.., """ ,,~

best HF operating day s (4 th- JA""'N 1 ~17 ,,~ 20140 - ,,~ !!>i17

shou ld occur on G day s. Noise MEXICO " sc "''' 30/40 17I21l Hll! 2 17120 eoI 51h. 19 th . und 25 th--28 th) .

le vels (static) will be highe r as I'HILI"PiNES ,,~ »., 17/20 "'" 1!rr17

Look at 6 and 2 meters fo r good PUEATO RlCQ " cc "., "'., ,,~ 1()112 15117 zcV HF-DX open ings 011 M ay 1M,

spring thunderstorms occur, and A...s51AICJ,S I "'., 151 17 ,,~ "c an depre ss audibility. Short 5O.JTM M RIC'" H~ 1Qt12 '''''' ,,~

22nd. 30th and 31 S1.sk ip between 100 a nd I.OUO WESTERN UNITED STATES TO:

Band-by-band Fore cast miles will occur during dayl ight '"""" 1!>,'17 15117 ,,~ »., »"ho u rs. and distances beyond "'RGENTlN'" 10/12 1!1117 ac co eo 15117 10/ 12

for May AUSTR...U'" 1M] 17120 "'., 1Cl' 12

I.noo r ni les at night. CANAL ZONE 17i2 Q "'" eosc »., "'., '" 15117 11)'12 11)12 ,,~

."""-"" ».,"'~

15<17 15117 ,,~ ac

10-12 Me ters 80-160 Meters .....WAJI ' 5117 "'" "'" "'" 1()'12 11)"12~, 17.'20 " 17,'20

-~ ' 5117 1!)in 17120 .,'" ".,

Ex pe c t mo rn ing F2 pa t h On 80 . DX to thc so uthern MEXICO ,,~ - "'" »., »., " ISiH 11)12 100'1 2 ".,F'I'1ILIP" INES , 5117 ,,~ eo so "'., ,,~ 11120

PUERTO RICO 17120 zwac '''''' »., »., '" 1.'>'17 H)112 1(1112 17120

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62 73 Amareur Radio Today . May 1999

non you need 10 know if you are go­ing on to learn the code at 13 wpm or20 wpm $5 (l5lCode Tape (TU ): Once yoo kJHJWtheCOOl' for the letters (T5 ) you can goimmediately to copying I) wpm code(u, ing m y system ). Th is sho uld onlylake tw o or three days. S5 (T I )Code Tape n -20): Stan righ t out at20 wpm and master it III a weekendfor yo ur EXira Class license. S5 (TIO)

C od e Tupe (T 25) : Same dea l. I Idoesn't take any longer 10 handle 25....pm as it does 1] _Or use the ARRLsystem & take six months_55 1l25)wayne Ta lks .Il l Daj t un :This is a 90­minute tape otrhe talk I' d have givenat the Dayton. if invited. $5 (W I)Wa,-ne Talks al Tampa: Th is is thetalk I gave Oi l the Tam pa G lohal Sci­ence, conference. I cover cold fusion,amate ur rad io . hea lth, books youshould read, and so on. S5 (\\'2)'tufT I d jdiLLwrite, but ,ou nttd.;~ ,\SA xt cone d Am er ifu : Ren emakes an air-tig ht case tha t NA SAfaked Ihe xtoon landings. This bookwill con vince e ven ,-00. S25 IR I JLavt S ke prie of Science : T his isRe ne ' s book w he re he de bunks ahunch of ac cepted scientific beliefs -,such as the ice ages. the Earth beinga magnet. the ~ IO(ln causing the tides,and ell'. S25 IR2)Elementa l t;nerlO' S ubsc ri ptio n, Ipredict this is going to he the largestindustry in the world in abou t 20-30yean.They laughed at me when I pre­dieted the personal computer growthin 1975. PCs are now the third larg­est ind u, try in the world. The eleme n­lOl l energy ground n{)(lr i ~ ~ t i Jl wideopc:'n, bU!lben Ihat mighl mean giv­ing up ....atc hi ng ball game.> and tal l...hows on !he hnob tuhe. $30 for sixi, sue, (EEl. A sample issue i~ $10.T hrt"e G a llo Talks: A pri ze -winni ngleacher e xplai ns what's wrong withAmerican schoo ls and why our kid~

are not being educated. Why arcSwedi, h yo ungslers, who starl ~c h{)()l

Oi l 7 )"ears of age , leav'ing our kids inthe dust? O ur kids are inlent ionaU"bei ng dum bed down b)' our f,C hoolsy, lem - lh\' least effective and moste , !~ns i ve in the world. $5 (K)

--..- -~

Radio Bookshop70 Ha ncoc k Ro ad, Pelem (lfOu gh , ~H 0 345 8

Silwr W ire: With two 3'" pieces ofheavy pure si lver wire + three 9V bat­tenes lOU can make a thou sand dol­lars .... crth of vilver colloid. Whal doyo u do with it? It does wha t the anti­bio tic, do, bUI ge nus ca n' t adap t 10it. Use it 10 get rid of germs on food,fo r skin fungus. 'loans. and even 10drink. Read SOllie books on the uSC\ ofSIlver colloid. it's like ma gic. $ 15 (Y)C1uss icu l :\lu\ k G uide: A lis t of 100CDs which will provide you with anouts tanding collection of the fine stclassical music ever w ritte n. This iswhat you need to hel p you reduce' tress , Classica l m usic also ra isesyuungslers ' IQs, he lps plants gro wfaster. and will make you healthier,Just waifll you hearselme ofGOLo;chalk 'sfabulous music! S5 (ZlRt'Prints of :\ I~' Ed itorial<; from 73.CorN I: SOof m)" best OlIO-bam orientededitorial .. from be fore 1997, S5 (f)

Grist II: 50 more choice non-hameditorials frcnu before 1997. S5 (G )1997 Ed itor ia ls : 240 pages. 216 edr­rorials d iscussing health. ideas fo rnew businesses. exciting new booksI ' ve d iscovered, ways to cure ourco untry ' s more serio us problems,flig ht 800. the Oklahoma Ciry bomb­ing, more vtoon madness, and so on,In three 5 volumes . S I5 10 l1999 J an-Aug Editerta ls : 188 pagesin lWO $5 volu mes, Hringing you upto date . 5 10 H')Ha m -t o-Ha m : -15 of m y ham-on ,enled edi lo rials. These will help youhone ul' on ham histo ry, G reat st ufffo r ham d ub newslell er filler, Yes, ofCOUThe tbese are controvers ia l. S5 IQJ$ 1 M illion Sa l..... \'id t'o: How to gen­erate extra IllilJion in sales using PI{.This will he onc uf the hest invesl­ment, )"our bu, iness ever made. $43(V)Ont' Hour C W : Usi ng Ihis sneakyme lhod even v'owcan learn the MUTheCode in one hour and pass Iha t dumb5w pm Tech-P lu, ham test. 55, (CWlC od e Tape (f5) : This lape will leachyou the leller\, numbers and punClua-

I Same Call I'hont' II Addnoss II II Cil, '-SI.II te-Zip II

llOOrm orc:to-~ - PIC' Ien= or oopy _ and nwk rook> .. a:w.t, Ord..- IOW plu> 13 oIh In US.kJCaq IUSS'----,- ,---I Fore1gn oroe'I: SlO sIh ...rfac~ .h ,pp,n" lord 1..,,",', "' hl l al1mlll ".,1) cost · mH~ I ~ood II...... II Al",,",4 "«'i:.l [or dolivtry uctp f<ttc,n.l!loUII" ..., It)' 10grt .- IIfdtn l hlPl"'d Id • da~ or tWO, I

MC/\-'IU for ordrn oYer SIO" UPft _ _

1I Phone orders: 603-92-1-0058 ·800-274-7373 · fa x: 60] ,92-1-860I Yes ! Put me down for a year of 73 for unly 525 (a Sleal). Canada US$] 2. IL r2!!ij!n llSS4..:!..2y~a, US~?.!!l. a~\~~ J

73 Amateur Radio Today • May 1999 63

Radio Bookshop1 --1

co me catastrophe which wi ll Virtua llywipe us a ll out arc right, we- re introuble. In this book I explain aboutthe various disaster scenarios, fromNostradamus. who says the po les willsoon shift, wip ing out 97% of man­kind, 10 SOli Haba, who ha 'i recentlywarned his rouowers 10 get out of Ja ­pan and Au stralia be fore ~ l an:h6I h

this year. The worst pan of these pre,dictions is the acc uracy record ofsome of the ex perts. Will il be a po leshift, a new ice age, a ma ssive so larflare . a comet or as te roid. o r evenY2K? I'm ge lling ready. how abou tyou? S5 IE)\\'a , ne"s Subm arine Ad\'en lu""" in\\'WII : Yes,l ..pent from 1943-19-15on a submarine, right in the middleof the war with Japan , We almosr gotsunl se veral times. and twice I wasin the right place Oil the righ l time 10sa ve Ihe boat. What's it rea lly like tobe de pth charged'! And what', thedai ly life aboard a submarine like?There are some very funn y s tories. If"OU'I\' near ~lobile_ please visit theDrum. 55 (S)Imp roving St a le Gev er nmenr: Hereare 2-1 ways thai almost any sta le gov­e r nment can CUI ex pen ses enor­mously, whi le providing far better se'r­

vices. I explain how any governmenthureau or department can he gu lle nto cu i ilSexpenses by al lea,t 50% inIhree years and do il cooperalivelyand enthusiastically, I explain how. 1:1) '

applying a new technology'. the sta teca n make it possihl e 10 Ilro vide allneeded services withoul having 10

le\')' till." laxes at all! Read Ihe bool.ru n for your legislalUI\', and lei'S gelbusy making lhis C\lUIl1T)' work likeit> fo unders wanted il to. Don ' t leaveIhis for ··solllt'(\ne el se" to do. $5 (LJTra\ el ()iar it"<lo : You can Irav'c! amaz­ingly inexpensiwly - once ) '00 knowthe rOlles,Enjoy S herry and m y hud­get \'is its to Europe. Ru ssia. and abunch of olher inle res ting places.Ho w abou l a first class n igh! 10f> lunich, a rented Audi. d riv'ing 10 v, i..itVienna. Krak ow in Puland (and lhefamous salt minesl , Pr ague. back to~IUnil'h, and Ihe firsl clas.s n lghl hornefor IWO. all for under SI.OOO. Yes,w hen you know how you can Iraw linexpensivel y. and ,t ill st ay in firstclass hOlels. $5 (T)

\\'.a~ ne ·s Cari bbean Ad , 'enlul"t's:~ loI\' hudgel tra w l siories - where Ivisit thc hams and scuba dive mos! oflhe i, b nds of the Caribbea n. Like thespecia l Liat fare w hich allowed us 10visil I I countrie~ in 21 da)S, wi th med iv'i ng all bUI one of Iht' is la nds,G uadeloupe. w here the hams kept meso busy with part ies I didn' t have limeto di ve . $5 (U)

Here aIT seme of Ihe book., Wa, nehas wr itten, SOllie can cha nge yuurlife, if \ 'ou ' lI lt't them. If the id ea ortwin~ health. wealthv a nd wi"l' i,- -ol inle~l to ,ou, , hn1readin~, Ye!>., '00 can be a ll thai , but onlJ whenyou know the secrets which w ayneha....pent a lifet ime uncowr in ll..

The Seeret Guide 10 Health : Yes.there really is a secret to regaining yourhealt h and adding ]U 10 60 years ofhealthy living to your life, The ans....eris simple. but it means making SOHle'Cry difficult changes. Will , ·OU hesk iing the slopes of Aspen wuh mewhen you're 90 or doddering arounda nursing home? Or pushing up dai ­sies? :"10 . I'm 001 selling an,' hea lthproducts. 55 (HJThe Sec ret (l uide to Wealth: Ju st a,with health, you'flfind tha t you havebeen brainwa..hed by -uie sys tem"Imc a panem of life that .... i ll keep )'OUfrom ever mak ing much money andhaving the freedom to travel ami dowhat you lI.anl. I ex plam how anyonecan get a dream job with no college.no resume, and even without any ex ­perience. I explain how yo u can ge tsomeone to happi ly pay you to lea rnwhat you need 10 know to ..tart yo ur0 .... n busine..... 55 ( ~ I l

The Secret Guide 10 W h d om : Thisis a review of around a hundred bookstha t will help you c hange your life.x o. I don ' t sell these books. They'reon a wide range of subjects and willhelp to make )OU a 'CT)' in tere..ungperson . Wai l'l l you see S\lUle of lhege ms you've missed reading_ $5 IHJCold t"usion tn t'n it'w: This is botha brief hi,toT)' of cold fu..ion_ ....hic h Ipredict will be one o f Ihe largest In­

du stries in the wo rhl in the 2 Istl'e n­tU1)', plus a simple explanatiOll of howand why il ....ods. This new field isgoing to generale a whole new bunchof hillionaires, j us t as th.:: personalcompul.:: r indUSlry di d , S5 (C)The Hioel« lr ifie r Hand hook : Thi~

explain . 00110 to build or buy' a lilliee1eclrical gadget tha I can help cleanthe bloud of any virus, microhe. !I'lra ­site , fungu, or yea,1. Th e process wa,discon "red b)' f,C icnlists a l lhe AlhenEinslein Col lege of ~Iedi cine . pat­enled, and then hushcd up. If , curingAID S, hcpalitis C, a nd a bunch ofo ther serious illne, ses, The ci rcuit canbe huih for under S20 from the in­slIuClions in Ihe book. S 10 (Al,\ l tHlndo ll.!!: le: Afte r reading Rene ' shook. NASA Moollt'd AIIlt'ri'll, 1 rcade\'er)th ing I could find on our ~loon

landings. I w'atched lhe Yid•.'OS,looledcarefull )' Oil the photos, read lheastronaughls ' hiographies, and talkedwith sOllie of Illy reallers who wo rkedfor ~ASA . This book cit es 25 goodreascJQ.. 1belie\'e the whok Apo llo pr0­

gram had to hav'e been faked . S5t DJ:\Iankind ' s t;xtinclion I'red ictions:If anyone of Ihe e ~pert s who havewrillen books pred ICting a SOOn-to-

305M Stan<fard low loss cab.assembly Gold plated SQ.239!PL·259 connectors.17 . ngtI1304M Same as 305M,but 13,5' length

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CK·3M5 Oeluxecableassembly17 . ngth including 17' of RG·188AAJ for fmj entry trom alipmount without causing water leak.wind noise or coax damageCK·3M Deluxe cable assemb~

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Going mobile is easy with COMET product:and there are no holes to drill. The reardoors on VAN's and SUV's are the perfectplace to mount an antenna. Simply lift oropen the rear door, slideyour mount of

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_ , the mount adjusts to vertical. Installation;::"'" takes only a few minutes. The mount is

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RS-520 Muiji·adjuslab.lip mountup to 45" antenna

CQ-5M "Oud<<Iisconnect"trunk lip mount. Rubbercoasted-tase protects thevehiclespaint Includes theCK·3M5 dOuxe cab.assembly avoding waterleaks or cab. damage whenshuttingthetrunk. Gold·plated SQ.2391PL·259connectors.

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•Ime GR·5M's smooth,roundedcorners makean attractive stainlesssteel mount strongenough to hold thebiggest antennas.

COMET's newest and most unique truck lip mount,the CQ·5M. Mounts to any trunk lid and adjusts tovertical with two offset washers. Themount basesupports even the largest dualband or HF antenna,A) CQ·5M trunk lip mount with COMET SBB·22MfiOcm antenna.B) Qu ick-d isconnect lever releases the antenna andconnector for long term storage in your trunk, to useacar wash, or theft prevention.C) The low profile base is the only thing that remainswhen the antenna is removed. ready for instantre-attachment.

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Tj4Pr1' DSO • Dual-band 146/446MHz wlfold-over ' Includes COMET exclusive theft-resistant locklGam & Wave: 146MHz 2.15dBi 112 wave ' 446MHz 5.5dBI 5/8 lVave x2 - t encm: 39' , Conn: Gold-plated Pl·259 • Max Pwr : 200Wt. ~

~ Z78G . Dual-band 1461446MHz w/fold-over - JncluoesCOMET exclusive men-resistantlock!146MHz 618 wave 4.5dBi· 446M Hz 5/8 wavex 3 7.2dBi · Length: 62" · Conn: Gold-plated PL-259 ' Max Pwr: 150W

SB~15 ' Tri-band 52/1 46/446MHz w/tcld-overGain & Wave: 52MHz OdBi 114 wave ' 146MHz4.5 dBi 6/8 wave · 446MHz 7.2dBi 5/8 wave x3 . Length: 58" Corm: PL·259 · Max Pwr: 120W

._------------====~-SIB-7 SBB-7NMO . Dual-band 146/446MHz wlfold-over I I 'Gain & Wave: 146MHz 4.5dBI 6/8 wave - 446MHz7.2dBi 5/8 wave x 3 - l ength: 58" • Conn: SaB-7 Pl·259/SaS·7NMO NMO · Max Pwr: lOW

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*. MSG-1100c. Dual-band 1461446MHzw/spring whip and fold-overGain & Wave: 146MHz3.5d8il /2 wave - 446MHz 6,OdBi 5/8 wave x2 • l ength: 43" · Conn: PL·259 · MaxPwr: 150W