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FISTS DOWN UNDER

Editor: Ian MacQuillan. #9683 ZL2AIM email: fists.fdu@xtra.co.nz VK Secretary / Administration : Garry Cottle #14151 VK2GAZ email: vk2fdu.auz@gmail.com Administration : Nigel Hardy #9040 ZL2TX email: fdu.fists@gmail.com Newsletter Distribution: Derek Dawkins #14125 VK3KX email: dfdawkins@optusnet.com.au

FDU Web site: www.fdu.org.au

Recommended FISTS calling frequencies (MHz):

1.808 3.528 7.028 10.118 14.058 18.085 21.058 24.908 28.058

Issue: February 2017

From the editor: ZL2AIM Ian #9683 Hopefully all of you will have survived the silly season and have managed to unpack that rig that you always wanted that your partner bought you as he/she knew it was the only present that you really wanted. You can substitute whatever work you like for “rig” such as antenna, paddle, straight key etc. Hopefully you will have noticed our FDU site on Facebook. Please have a look at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1765058520392148/ and join

up. Lots of lovely photographs of keys and paddles etc and of course up to date information on CW nets in VK land. You will note that there are two pdf files this month. The other is an article about a lady that I am sure a lot of you have worked. Ellen W1YL. This is reprinted in its original form with the kind permission of Maty Weinberg KB1EIB who is the Production Coordinator for ARRL. Reprinted with permission, May/June 2015 NCJ. Thanks very much Maty. May I take this opportunity of asking you to please send me anything that would be of interest to our members. It is only if I get information from YOU that I am able to compile a monthly newsletter. Thanks in advance! List of members whose subs become due in January February and March Jan VK3JY, VK3XU, VK5ATQ, ZL2DF Feb VK1VIC, VK2AOH, ZL2WZ, ZL3WD, VK2PN, ZL1CDX, ZL2AKW, ZL2COL, ZL2IH, ZL2WT Mar VK2AFA, VK2GAZ, VK6RR, ZL2AMM, VK3KAA, VK2JDR, VK3EO, VK4AAL, VK4FIAA, VK4FJGS, VK5BUG, VK6QW, VK7SM, ZL1AYQ, ZL1BOP, ZL3TU Seeing as it has been holiday time and maybe you have forgotten about subs, the following are now overdue! ZL4AQ, ZL1AIH, ZL2APV.

Newsletter of the Australian / New Zealand chapter of the International Morse Preservation Society

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We ask that you keep an eye out for your callsign in the subs section and treat that as your reminder for you to pay your subs.

Our website http://www.fdu.org.au/join_renew.php has all the details for making payments. Don’t forget that if you are paying your subs to include your callsign.

Fists would like to thank the following members for their generous donations included with their subscriptions; VK2CAO, VK3AGQ, VK3CGB,

We welcome to our club Peter VK6IS and Ian VK3IJB. Ian VK3IJB says “I have been licensed in AU for 6 years now. I also hold the call sign N3IAN in the U.S.A. - Currently I am not proficient in CW and I do want to become proficient.” Ian has written a bit more about himself including a photograph, and you can read more about him further down this newsletter. Thanks Ian for giving us that detailed information. Now to our other new member Peter VK6IS. He says " I've had my HAM

License, since Dec 1983, when I'd passed my Novice Test.( N callsign) Then, two years later, I'd studied enough advanced theory, to pass the Intermediate Test & qualify for a K callsign. Now, if I'd thought a bit more, then, when doing the original novice test, at the Pt Hedland DRIs office - then I'd could've sat both the 5WPM & 10WPM test(s) at the same time ! Finally, several years later, I'd sat the 10WPM & qualified for a Full Call, - then just a few years later, to have the Fed Government abandoned that requirement and so have had my current call for 20+ years now. My antenna system has varied over the years, from the original full 80m dipole, from my tower, to the current conglomeration of verticals & dipole's. - both the original 80m dipole & the original 4el / tri band Quad - were destroyed by wind. I've been at my current QTH for over 25 years. More recently, in the past few years or so, I've gotten back into the CW mode, and have surpassed what I could do with CW & thus am more proficient at CW. However, I'm always looking for a buddy, to practice my on-air skill set. Peter, VK6IS

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SILENT KEY We wish to inform you of the passing of Steve VK2PS #9022.

We received an email from Stephen's daughter to inform us of his passing and Les Pall VK2KCP (his son) prepared the following for inclusion in Fists Down Under. "Steve VK2PS was born in Hungary where he held an Amateur call sign prior to WW2. He came to Australia after WW2 - still with his interest in Amateur Radio. He joined the NSW Division of the Wireless Institute of Australia as an SWL and getting on with life delayed the taking up of a local call sign, however, when the time came he started as a Novice as VK2VHP and moved on to the full call as VK2PS. He was good at CW and took part in many contests and special event operations on behalf of the WIA NSW Division including operating as part of VK9RS Rowley Shoals in 2009. He wrote the DX

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notes for Amateur Radio Magazine for many years. He also found time to be on the WIA NSW Division Council and as a WIA Federal Councillor."

Here follows the final part of ZL4CE’s article.

My first attempt at CW had been with a standard Post Office up & down key. Then I bought a sideways paddle from the Christchurch NZART branch, a Galbraith, which lasted me for many years. I even built an electronic tone generator to use it with the TS530. After I met Stan ZL1APX, he lent me his American Bencher Iambic paddle key which was really smooth and easy to use, built on a very heavy metal base. That's the type I would like to use when we get to Dunedin. Putting up my big mast in Auckland was a frustrating exercise! I'd seen Ray's mast (ZL1GG) and it was exactly what I needed, it unobtrusive and easy to raise & lower. The Maltese guy came round and told me what he needed, but I should get planning permission first. I approached the Auckland City Council and they sent me all the necessary forms which I filled in & sent off. 2 weeks later they sent me another load of forms, they'd made a mistake, wrong forms, and sent them off. Then they sent me more forms because I needed the approval of all neighbours within 200 yards of my property. It also had to be advertised in the newspapers. I arranged for a ham in Mt Eden to draw up the technical drawings of a similar mast, that had engineering approval. Everything was OK until 2 days before the application went before the council. There were 2 objections. One was from 4 doors away saying it would cast a shadow over her property, and the other one was from 2 doors away saying it would devalue their property. Luckily I had time to respond to these objections. The first about the shadow was rubbish, the top section was only 3 inches in diameter, so no shadow, & the other objector had put their unit on the market so they didn't want potential buyers seeing my mast and being put off. council guy that came round told me they always get 'insects crawling out of the woodwork' for any application. He said I shouldn't have any problems. He was right, I got approval and up it went. I had contacted a ham in St Heliers at Jack's ZL1KQ suggestion. He was a lawyer and was used to handling antenna applications. We talked on the phone and he said I had no chance as I had gone this far already. He thought I really needed his help and advice (and he wanted my $), so I said no thanks. Naturally the permit went through without problems. About a year later I had the mast extended to its full 15 metres height. Strangely most people who visited me never saw the mast or the antenna, it was too far above their eye level! Just before I went to Sydney I sold the whole thing to Graham Wilson who was in Glen Eden at that time, and we got everything working there. Later he moved to Ladies Mile, Ellerslie but, as far as I know, the mast never got put up! When I went to Sydney Graham took over my ZL1CE call sign. I never got back into ham radio there, mainly because I was on a ground floor apartment, and they didn't like antennas anywhere on the property. When I went to China, I did actually meet some of the local hams in Tianjin. They were very enthusiastic on travelling to remote islands and operating various competitions mainly on CW and very basic English, but I think their real motive was getting the US$ and IRC's. They were active locally on VHF and UHF repeaters, but only in Chinese. When I met them we needed an interpreter as their English was limited to call sign, antenna height and rig details!! I've travelled around Tianjin extensively and I've never seen a ham antenna.

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Now Rachel and I are retired in Dunedin and I'm looking forward to getting back on the air. I wrote to Graham with the hope of getting my old callsign, ZL1CE, back but I never received a reply so I applied to get ZL4CE and as it was available, I got it. All I need now is time and propagation. 73 ZL4CE

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The following cartoon came via Ralph (FDU founder) ZL2AOH

I received the following mail from Adrian ZS1TTZ an ex Radio Officer and thought the message and the pictures would interest our readers. The ship was Safmarine's Venture / ZTVE, a medium sized bulk carrier and the gear was the latest JRC stuff at that time, the ship was pretty new, here's the console :-

On the left side at the top is the auto alarm, below that the auto keyer and below that is the main transmitter synthesizer.

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In the middle is the main receiver and also in that part are the receive antenna selectors, loudspeakers, switches for routing to remote repeaters and a whole bunch of other things that I can't remember. On the right side at the top is the reserve transmitter, then the battery charger, and below that is the reserve receiver. There's my faithful Katsumi keyer at the ready and a nice big ash tray, to the left of which were the IMR telegram forms, log book and note paper directly in front. The green telephone was the air powered emergency communication to the bridge and the typewriter was standing on a retractable drawer thing on the console, the Marconi consoles had the same feature and it was very useful, because on older ships without a dedicated console there wasn't room to get the typewriter near you at the operating position, so on those ships you always had to take down by hand and type it up later. Next is a different angle showing the main transmitter which produced about 1.5 kw :-

This was probably the best gear I sailed with, very nice station, easy to use. One of the things I did wonder about was the durability of the frequency decade switches for the synthesizer particularly on the main receiver which were getting whizzed around backwards and forwards all the time, they felt a bit light weight but apparently they stood up to the task okay. I've noticed on several ship station photos that guys would plonk their electronic keyer and the ships key side by side, presumably so they could switch from one to the other as necessary and I could have done the same but I just chose not to do so. The ships key was always close by if I needed it however and it was nothing to unplug one and plug in the other, but I only recall having to do that once and it was for a particularly stroppy operator at ZSC who seemed to have a thing about

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electronic keyers, he had already QRS'd me as slow as I was prepared to go and was still threatening to drop me so, out of desperation I switched to the straight key and then he was happy, even though I wasn't sending any slower. I remember creating a mental image of that operator, I saw him as a pot bellied older guy wearing a stained string vest and khaki shorts, with a fag dangling from his lips and the ash sort of rolling down his chest, but I'd previously already visited ZSC and don't recall seeing anybody like that there, or perhaps I was there on his day off? That is a very nice looking JRC branded morse key on top of the console which I never actually used, but it was a lovely key, wonder if it survived? Cheers, Adrian

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ZL1DCO works from his back garden whilst his shack is in a state of repair. Guess he must be feeling

old as he has now got himself a rocking chair.

Still, his MJF qrp rig works great and I have given him excellent signal reports on our last few

ragchews. There is no doubt that using a qrp rig and an antenna put up in the garden on a nice day,

is one of the pleasures of enjoying our hobby. Dave sent the following link which is a bit of a head

scratcher for me, but I suppose it is like playing a piano...

Have you seen this clip, guy using multiple keys. Fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJgjukjJwRo

oooooOOOOOOOOOOooooo

Ladies on the air.

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I have been fortunate in working about 30 or so ladies on CW over the past 17 years. One of those is Ellen W1YL who sends beautiful CW and is often heard on the air. A separate pdf file about Ellen is attached as part of this email. But I wonder how many of the Fists members have worked the lady in the following photograph? ZL4YL Xenia. Holger ZL3IO sent this picture of his daughter to a group of ZL DXers. (Incidentally Holger is a very keen DXer and his wife and two daughters also hold callsigns.) I have her in my log on 15m and 20m in Dec 2015 as well as a few days ago. In one of his mails he described her as his “secret weapon – the contest tiger”! She is licensed just over a year, has made over 6,000 QSOs of which 99% are CW. Holger says he hopes to be qualified for the WRTC2018 and if so Xenia is his partner of choice. So maybe they would be the first father/daughter team at a WRTC and I think also the first ever qualifying team from ZL! I gather she is now 15 or 16 years old so that means she was 14 years old when we had our first two qso’s. I see from Club Log that she has worked 209 countries. The majority of those were on CW. We take our hats off to you Xenia and look forward to hearing you on the bands soon. This got me to thinking about the amount of ladies I have worked on CW but as I have no way of sorting when I go through my log who sends 88 instead of 73. But having a quick check (and I apologize profusely for those that I have left out.) W1YL/7 Ellen YO3FRI Tina W5LDX Louann E44YL Elvira NW2I Patricia VK4EI Our very own Lyn – she of the pink connection K2EZ Andrea HB0/DY5YL Tina NX1P Paula N2MM Carol W3EPU Mary Anne W1ALI Alice VK3OZ Patricia ZL4YL Xenia (the contest tiger!) 3A2MD Laura

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Thanks Holger and Xenia for permission to include this photograph of the “contest tiger”. Isn’t it nice to get the occasional 88 amongst all the 73’s! Ian ZL2AIM

oooooOOOOOOooooo G’day all - my name is Ian Baker, and I reside on Phillip Island (approx. 170k SE of Melbourne). Phillip Island is a popular ‘holiday’ destination renown for the world famous Little Penguin colony, beautiful beaches and the Grand Prix circuit where MotoGP and World Superbike racing is held along with some saloon car racing. Phillip Island is also a pretty reasonable radio location with access to several 2M and 70cm repeaters from home here, and occasional band openings permitting reasonably good HF. I spent 14 years in the Australian Army as an officer in the Royal Australian Corp of Signals, which provided some quite useful background in communications, and was also a pathway to Amateur Radio. I also spent a significant part of my career outside of the Army in Information Technology, and have always had a keen interest in electronics generally. While living in the USA in 2009-2010 I gained a general class ham radio license (N3IAN which I still hold) and was active with the Warminster Amateur Radio Club (just north of Philadelphia). When I relocated to Australia later in 2010, I obtained my Australian call-sign (originally VK3XIB but now VK3IJB). Interests on the amateur side are HF (I have a Yaesu FT450D with a G5RV junior and a HF vertical, an IC-7000 and some Yaesu analogue H/T’s at Phillip Island). I also have a Yaesu FT857D in my

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Landcruiser 200 4WD with a Codan 9350 auto tune antenna, and that relates to my other great interest in semi-retirement – outback touring! Recently I became interested in digital voice modes, and acquired an Icom ID-51A to learn about D-Star, and along with that a Raspberry PI 3 and DVAP to access the D-Star network via the internet (an interesting journey back to basics on the Raspberry Pi side with Linux etc!) So when the HF bands are dead – D-Star still affords the opportunity for QSO’s all over the world. As for Morse, sadly we don’t teach our signaller soldiers in the Australian Army Morse any longer (apart from special forces signallers). That said, I have always had an interest in Morse but never found time to become proficient, and so this is a step towards doing that! I look forward to meeting some new ham radio friends via FISTS in due course and getting to a level where I can enjoy communicating in CW… Hope to catch you down the log one of these days… Drysdale River Station in the Kimberley

73 Ian Baker de VK3IJB/N3IAN