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www.Al.NCO.com oDistributed in North America by ATDC Amateur Distributing UC. ZJ S, High St.. Covington, OH 45318. (937)413-2840Cellular reception blocked on USAmodel1. Unblocked versions Ivailablelor qUllrtying agencies,documentation rtquir.d ,' Opoonal stereo lleldphones qq _tIt to rel;eN8 FaA mreo transmissions.Specificllron subject to chlnge WIItloul notice Of obligation. Check 1ot.1regul.tiOlll before u$ing I scanning receser inrnobil. operation-

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Every radio enthusiast should own at least one scanning receiver.A/inco offers four great choices!liD matter ""at ,our role, /I ,ou're an emergenc, responder, part 01 the go,eroment, medIa,business or just an In,ol,edcitizen, amulti-mode scannIng recei,er can keep'OU Inlonnedand up with current erents. There's aworld01 communications happening all dar, e,e" da,.Sta, on top 01 de,elopments .,ithan Alinco scanning recei'er.

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Associate Publ isherE I Marion

Execut ive EditorJack Burnell

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APRIL 200 2ISSUE #49 7

THE NEWI

AmateurRadio Today

TABLE OF CONTENTSTechnical EditorLarry Antonuk WB9RAT

Con tributing Culpr itsMike Bryce WB8VGEJim Gray II

Jack Heller KB7NQChuck Houghton WB61GP

Andy MacAllister W5ACMJoe Moell K00VSteve Nowak KE8YN/OD r. Rick Olsen N6NR

Advert ising Sales

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FEATURES10 Ham Window Dressing - Rynone

If this nifty car frequency display doesn 't draw ga wks,nothing ever will.

14 50S ... 50S ... Titan lcl- GarciaRadio operators' courage still inspires amateurs.

19 Does Your Junk Box Runneth Over? - W6WTUA true junkie explains how to get a grip.

22 New Life for a Pierson KE"93 - W6WTUParl3 of 3.

25 The Call of the Maldives - G3SWH8Q7WH, tha t is ..,

29 Easy-Bui ld Project of the Month - KBIHQThis tim e: 400 kHz AC low pass fil ter for 120 VA G60 Hz line filtering.

DEPARTMENTS49 Ad Index64 Barter 'n ' Buy43 Calendar Events46 The Digital Port - KB7NO44 Hamsats - W5ACM52 Homing In - K00V

8 Letters4 Never Say Die - W2NSDI1

48 New Products51 On the Go - KE8YN'060 Propagation - Gray

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Editorial - Advertising - CirculatiOn 38Feedback - Product Rev iews

73 Amateu r Radio Today Magazine

70 Hancock Rd.Peterborough NH 03458-1 107603·924 ·0058Fax: 603-924-8613

Mt. Wilson Travelogue - W6WTUJoin this private tour of one of America 's mostfamous observatories.

Tesla : Inventor of Radioand Modern Day AC - Brand, Watts, & W8AHB(Marconi & Edison notwithstanding.)

Dala Entry &: other Sl uff

Norman Marion31

QRH • • •

Web I' agewww.waynegrccn.com

73 Amateur Radio Today (ISSN 1052-2522) is published monthly by 73 MagaZine, 70 Hancock gd .Peterborough NH 03458-1 107. The enti re conte nts 0 2002 by 73 MagaZine. No part of this publication may bereproduced wi thout wr itten permission of the publishe r, Which is not a ll that d iff icult to get. The subscrip tionrate is : one yea r $24 .97 , two years $44.97; Canada: one year $34 .21, two yea rs $57.75, including postage and7% GST. Foreign postage: $19 surface , $42 airmail additional per year, pa yable in US fu nds on a US ban k.Second c lass postage is pa id at Peferborough, NH, and at additiona l mailing offices . Canad ian second classmail regist ration #178 101. Canadian GST registra tion #125393314. Mic rofil m ed ition: University Microfilm, AnnArbor MI 48106. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 73 Amateur Radio Today, 70 Hancock n o.Peterborough NH 03458 · 11 07 . 73 Amateur Radio Today is owned by snaoromat Way ltd . of Hancock NH.

Reprints: $3 per articleBack issues: $5 each

Printed in the USA

Manuscripts : Contributions forpossible publication are mostwelcome. We'll do the best we can toreturn anything you request, but weassume no responsibility lor lossor damage. Payment for sobmlttedartides will be made after pcoicatonPlease subm both a disk and ahard copy of your artce [IBM (ok)or Mac (preferred) formats), carefullychecked drawings and schematics.and the clearest, best focused andlighted photos you can manage "Howto wrrte for 73" guidelines areavailableon request. US citizens, pleaseinclude your Social Security numberwith siorrateo manuscripts so we cansubmJt rt to au know who.

Yikes! It's AnotherRECOUNT!

Unfortunately, some dark news now follows the goodnews on ham radio growth pattems recently reported.Now it seems that the numbers may not be as good asthought.

Fred Maia W5Yt, who follows growth trends in hamradio, says that the numbers were overly optimistic:

"The FCC database is a database of all amateurswho have been licensed for 12 years. That's ten yearsfor the license term and an additional two. The reason itstays in the database for the additional two is so that

it can be renewed during the grace pe riod. There­fore, the licenses in the database are two years morethan the ten-year term, or twenty percent inflated."

According to Fred, as of January 15, 2002 , therewere actually only 98,030 holders of the Extra classlicense; 86,425 legacy Advanced; 138,546Generals;318,603 Technicians and legacy t ech-pius: and only39,972 Novice class. Thetotal is 681 ,576, That iscon­siderably lower than the 720,194 reported in the lat­est ORZ census and 10,424 lower than the adjusted692,000 that others believed to be accu rate.

The bottom line: Once you take away the expired

Continued on page 6

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A More ImmediateProblem

hundred eountries in oneweekend. The night I workedall 50 states on 75m ... just tosee if I could do it.

Sorry. but the stories of myexciting ham adventure... cango on for hours. What 1 needare yours, not mmc.

If you haven' t had any ex·citing ham adventures. may­be it's time to get unstuck andhave some. The opportunitiesarc there. just grab them.

Have you sent any rigs upin balloons? Rockets? Oper­ated from some weird place?Helped in an emergency" Haveyou operated from a hot airhalloon? Have I told you re­cently about the time I didthat while ballooni ng over theSouth African veldt? Or, inthe ear ly repeater days, whenI made 2m contacts while fly­ing across the country oncommercial airlines? Yes. withthe permission of the pilot.

Continued on page 7

If you' ve been watching 60Minutes and other programsof its ilk, you know that thou­sands of terrorists have infil­trated our country. all await­ing orders on how to do big­time harm. They' ve been tak­ing flying lessons. seepingout the crop duster planes,obviously with the goal ofspreading something we re­ally don't want spread. Isomehow doubt (hat they'vebeen doing this just to makeus nervous.

What that means is thatthere 's a good chance ourabili ty to set up emergency

the magazine with these sto­ries. And then repri nt them ina booklet ham clubs can useto give to prospective hams.A hookle t just about my ad­ventures isn' t going to do thejob ... even though I couldtill a whole book with them.

Dubya at the Korean DMZreminded me of when I vis­ited there and got on the airfor a few hours with one footin each of the Koreas. talkingwith friends all around theworld. What a kick that was!

What arc some of the funthings you've done wi th thehobby'! Tell me about them.

Once we have some solidpropaganda to lay on thekids, we have to reach them.That's not as hard as youprobabl y think, The idea ofbeing able to keep in touchwi th friends via a local re­peater will get them excited.That's bet ter than their eellphones, Being able to talkwith people anywhere in theworld is another big plus.

My many 20m contacts withRobbie 5Z4ERR in Nairobigot me to organize a hamhunting safari , not one minuteof which will l ever forget.

Sure.Fve done my share oftotally forgcuablc 75m roundtab les, I' ve made thousandsof "the rig here is" short con­tacts. Most of the 350 or socountries I' ve confirmed werecontacts that lasted less than aminute. Done all that. They'renot what stands out for me.My OSCAR contact withMoscow. where we had a 20­SCC(lllJ window ... that standsout. M)' sitting up all nightoperating with Ki ng Hussein.My 1\I 'Q DXpcditionsto Navassa,The con test when I worked a

otT from thc rest of the world,developing communicationsand transportation tecbnolo­gtcs are going to make this aone world society in the long:run. And this means that ifwe're going to maintain ourstandard of living, our work­force is going to have to becompetitive.

If we're going to he sue­ccss ful. we ' re going to haveto have the best-educatedworkers in the world. Rightnow we sure don' t. We've beencoasting along on our pa...t,watching one industry afteranother slip offshore. we'reseeing the blue-collar jobsmoving to Mexico, China, andother lower-wage countries.

So where does ham radiotit into this? It's a great wayto gel kids intcrcsrcd in learn ­ing about technology, Weneed to get them aboard andthen get them interested inlearning about our ham satel­lites, packet, and our otherpioneering acti vities. We don 'tneed more shoe salesmen, weneed engineers and techni­cians to design, build, sell ,install. and serv ice high-tech(high profit) gear.

Act ion!

We 've got a problem andwe damned well better dosomething about it! What 'sthe problem? Our hobby isheading toward exti nction . ..and wc are" 't doing anythingabout it. And hy "we" I mcanyon, as well as your very dis­tinguishcd ARRL HQ gangand the Board of Direc tors.

With about SO% of our lic­cnsccs inactive and newcomersdown to a dribble. our fu tureright now looks bleak.

BUI gee, I hear you mum­bling, ....'hat can I do aboutsomething like that'! Whatyou can do is get your big fa thew-tox into gear, Yes, ofcourse I have a plan. and Ithi nk you' ll like it.

Okay, problem # I : We needto get kids interested in ham fa­

dio. We need new blood. and alot of it. Now, how arc wegoi ng to do that" That's easy.we're going to start promot­ing the fun and excitementamateur radio provides. We ' regoing to get visible. As longas kids don't even know thehobby exists. we aren't going10 be able to infect them withhamitiv. That 's the uff'liction Icaught when I was 15 andhave never bee n able to shake Step by Stepoff.

Yes. J know all about the In- Let's start by building ourtcmct and kids. But kids have propaganda barrage. Now I'malways had a 101 of interesting talking to you! I' ve had anoptions. a lmost endless num ber of

We need to tum every ham exciting and fun adventuresclub in thc country into a pro- involving the hobby ... and Ipagunda mill promoting the write about them in my cs­hobby. says. How about you ? Whcn

Before you roll over, yawn- arc you going to sit down ating, for a little nap. let me ex- your word processor and tellplain why this is important. me about a ham-related ad­No matter how much isola- venture you've had'! I' d lovetionists want to CUI America to be able to run a section of4 73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002

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QRH • • •

COnlilluedJrom page J

licenses that are in their grace renewal period,the club and military recreation stations and thelike, the numbers are nol nearly as rosy aspeople thought.

Thanks to Newsune. Bill Pasternak WA6ITF,editor.

Would That Be Dubya 4?President George W. Bush has taken to the

ham radio airwaves. This, 10 thank the FloridaAmateur Radio community for being ready 10serve the public when it is needed.

The president's comments were made duringa stopover the morning of January 31s1at theVolusia County Fire Services and Training Cen­ternearDaytona,Around 9:15 am. Eastern Time,President Bush checked in 10 the NorthernFlorida Amateur Radio Emergency Service Neton3.950 MHz. using a portable stanon sel upbyJohn Schmidt AF4PU. Then the president madethese remarks 10 the 40 or so stations listeningto the net:

' t want to thank an the volunteers who helpmake sure that Florida is prepared lor any kind01emergency. Ialso want to assure you that yourfederal government is doing everything we can10 make sure that there is net an emergency ­starting with unleashing the mighty U.S. militaryoverseas to bring evil ones to justice. But shouldthere be a need for a response, I want to Ihankyou all for helping our communities be prepared .And finally. I want to tell you - we are lucky tobe Americans and may God continue to blessthis great land of ours. Thank you very much."

Needless to say. the net members were oe­lighted tohave the president of the United Statesaddress them. More important. hamsnationwidecan now be sure that President Bush knows thatamateurradio operators are readyto serve when­ever he, and lbe naton, needs to call on Ihemfor help.

Thanks to Bill Burnett KT4SB. via Newsuoe.BinPasternak WA6ITF. editor.

The ABCs of Friendship,---A friend ...(A)ccepts you as you are.(Blelleves in "you:(Clalls you just to say "Hi:(D)oesn't give up on you .(Elnvisions the whole of you (even the un-

linished parts).(F)orgives your mistakes.

. (Glives unconditionally.(H)elps you.(Ilnvites you over.(J)ust wants to "be" with you.(K)eeps you close at heart.(L)oves you for who you are.

6 73 Amateur Radio Today · Apri l 2002

(M)akes a difference in your life.(Njever judges.(O)lfers support.(P)icks you up.(Qluiats your fears.(R)aises your spirits.(S)ays nice things about you.(T)ells you the truth when you need to hear iI.(U)nderstands you.(V)alues you .(W)alks beside you.(X)plains things you don't understand.(Ylells when you won't listen, and(Z)aps you back to reality.Thanks to the Warrensburg (MO) Area ARC's

Th e Repeater, June 13, 1998.

New Element DiscoveredThe heaviest element known to science was

recently discovered by government researchphysicists . The element. tentatively namedAdministratium. has no protons or electrons andthus has an atomicnumberof 0 (zero). However,it doeshave oneneutron, 125 assistant neutrons,75 vice neutrons. and 111 assistant vice neutrons.This gives it an atomic number of 312. These 312particles areheld together by a force that involvesthe continuous exchange 01meson-gee particlescalled morons.

Since it has no electrons. Administratium isinert. However, it can be detected chemicallyas it impedes every reaction that it comes incontact wi th. According to the discoverers, aminute amount of Administralium caused onereaction to take over four days to completewhen it would have normally occurred in lessthan one second. Administratium has a norma lhalf-life of approximately three years, at whichtime it does not actually decay but instead un­dergoes a reoorganization in which assistantneutrons, vice neutrons. and assistant viceneutrons exchange places. Some studies haveshown that the atomic mass actually increasesafter each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates thatAdministratium occurs natUlaly in the aeroscoere.It tends to concentrate at certain points such asgovemment agencies, large corporations. and uni·verstes. and can usualty be found in the newest.best appointed, and best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that Acmmrstratlum isknown to be toxic at anydetectable level 01con­centration and can easily destroy any produc­tive reaction where it is allowed to accumulate.Attempts are being made to determine howAdministratium can be controlled to prevent ir·reversible damage, but results to date are notpromising.

Thanks to the JUly-August 1999 edition of theStatic, the newsletter of the Straits Area ARC,Dick Esterline KG8JK, editor, via the September1999 ARNS Bulletin. .

But Does He HaveHis Lunch?

According to news reports, Carol Dukes spentthe equivalent 01 5220 in United States currency0fI planes and taxis in a dash from her home inBerkshire to l ondon's Heathrow Airport and onto Scotland - to catch her tt -yeer-old sonCharlie after she real ized he had left hisGameBoy handheld computer game at home.

Charl ie Dukes was on a school field trip. CarolDukes caught up with her son's train at theDumbarton station near Glasgow. She says thatshe is not an overindulgent mother, but didfeel responsible for repacking Charlie's bagand forgetting to replace the game and hispencil case.

Ironically, CharlieDukes and his 39 classmateswere bound forthe isolated island of lana.The rea­son fOf the trip was to learn about lile without anymodem comforts or communications devices.

To which we must ask. Would a ham radiomom do the same thing if her chi ld went off on atrip and left his or her HT behind?

Thanks'oJeramyBoot G4NJH, via Newsline,Bill Pasternak WA6fTF, editor.

Whose Job Is It?This is a story about lour people named

Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.There was an important job to be done, and

Everybody was sure Somebodycould have doneit, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because itwasEverybody's job. Everybody thought Anybodycould do it but Nobody realized that Everybodywouldn'l do it. So it ended up that Everybodyblamed Somebody when Nobody did whatAnybody could have done.

By the way. what's your name?Thanks to The Modulator, the news and views

of the Fort Myers (FL) ARC, Inc., OCt. 2001.

aCWA Scholarship-,,-s__The Quarter Century Wireless Association

has announced that it is funding several schol­arships for 2002. There are eleven QCWAscholarships valued at $1 ,000 each and fivevalued at $1,500 each to be awarded later thisyear. Hams interested in applying for the QCWAScholarships should contact the Foundation forAmateur Radio. The Foundation administersthe scholarships sponsored by the QCWA. Ad­ditional information and an application formmaybe requested by leiter or QSL card to the FARScholarships, Post Office Box 831, Rive rdaleMD 20738 .

Thanks toQCWA, via Newsline, BillPasternakWA6ITF. editor. flJ

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The Propaganda Barrage

There arc thousands of radio and TVtalk shows. all looking for interestingpeople to interview. Get interviewed.

Send news releases to every neighbor­hood paper announcing club meetings andactivities. Make a big deal out of yourspeaker and his subject. This is your op­portunity to let the public know about hamsatellites, packet radio, DXpcditions, slowscan, your club's emergency preparations,repeaters, ham contests, and so on.

I want my mail to be stuffed withcopies of ham newspaper clippings .

I want to see stories in the club news­letters about getting our 80% inactivehams activated. Call them up and invitethem to a club meeting. Be sure to have agood speaker booked. We' re going to needall 600,000 licensed hams pitching in.

Now, get busy with your word processorand give me some ammunition .

The other day they replayed a tapefrom the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.

Continued on page 48

NEUER SRY DIEcontfnuedjrom page 4

conununications will be needed. What wedon't need is to wait until we 're facedwith an emergency before we have ouremergency systems read y to go andthoroughly tested.

When they start spreading anthrax,we're either going to want to knowwhere to get a vaccine or else have ourimmune systems so strong that it isn 'tgoing to affect us. And it sure won't hurtto have a few gallons of si lver colloid onhand. Once the terrorists strike, our doc­tors and nurses arc going to be just assick (or, more likely, dead) as everyoneelse, so you won 't have to worry aboutsitting in a waiting room, waiting for aprescription for a vaccine.

Of course the best approach is to do asthe terrorists hope and just wait to seewhat, if anything actually happens. Andthen panic . Th is war is going to befought right here in America, and you' vebeen drafted.

Senate Hearing

73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002 7

LETTERSFrom the Ham Shack

Somewhere in Af~hani...lan. Hi. Wayne:It will probably he A pri l 1 by the time yougel this. bUI I hope it will he worthwhilenonetheless. I cannot give you my name oraddress or anything . and indee d I have askedsomeone to <:aITy the enclosed our of thecountry for me in CJ..e there was any prob­lem with censors. But I don't fed there isanything unpatriotic in doing so. because Ialso don', think there is any military valuein this, and plus I have told my superiorsabout it anyway.

So here is wha t happened: I was invo lvedin the searches of the caves in Tora Bora.There was unbelievable ...tuff there. a... yo usaw on Cl'\N and we ...aw in person. On lyobviouvlv we saw much more than vou.

• •But let me give you a little background

first. I grew up in southern Californi a. whereI was into. in order. hot girls. hot cars. and- o f all things - ham radio. This was be­cause my dad i.. a ham. a.. we ll as a 73 sub­scriber. So I used to fo llo w most of all thetwo Bills -c- onc was the g uy who wrote theLooking West col umn about a ll the repeaterwa rs in OUT area. and the other was the o ldmarine (K Ie l l maybe" ! who used to write

i

8 73 Amateur Radio Today . April 2002

up these Mcrfuyver-type projects where yo uco uld make a tra nsce iver o ut of a toaster, orat least it seemed like it. So eve ntua lly I gotmy ticket and have been a fan (and reader)of 73 ever since.

Back to the caves: We we nt into thi so ne huge cavern tha t looked like a gi an to ffice. The lig hts were even stil l o n, a ndsome o f the computers we re even stillturned on . so we must ha v-e been rea llyclose. But there was about six inc hes ofpa perwork tra .. h a ll over the floor. wewere really, a nd I do mean rea lly. afraidof boo by trap s there , but I guess the yd idn 't have time fo r the m .

I wo uld say thai I was probably the li ftho r sixth person into the room. and o nce itwas "cleared," we started loo king for any­

thi ng of use - names, photos, manuals. etc.- in the trash on the 1100r.

S uddenly. something caught my eye a ndset o ff a mental alert that I had seen it be­fore - it was a photo tom OUI o f an issueof 73!

A.. I loo ked at it, I re membered that itcame fro m o ne of your re ports about themysterious Ishmod ove r the ye ars IApril

/ 984, April/985, May / 999, Al'riI 20(HJ ­ed.], A nd the mo re I tho ug ht about it. themore I recall ed that the stories incl udedthings a bou t "ca mps" and "mysteriousg lows" a nd e lec trica l e ngi nee ri ng a nde ve n the civi l unrest in Indo nesia . No w,Ih is !

Over in the corner o f thi s room. up onpa llets a nd still p lugged in (some sort ofge ne ra tor sys tem , obvi ously. b u t wecou ldn' t hear anything ). was o ne of the seclunky o ld Xe ro x co pie rs tha i uses pow­der for a tone r (a nd I' m here to tell yathat we get pretty itchy around black pow­der o f ANY sent) . I was able 10 get to itbefo re they started 10 remove the ro llersto look for Impressions. e tc .• and I madethis o ne copy o f the pho to . which I se ndto yo u. As I said. I turned O\"CT the ori ginal.with e xpla na tion. in my report.

What do yo u think of th is? Xote the ar­row newly drawn in. Does Ishmod reallylive?

P.S. Rx ex really great up here, if youkno w what I mean.

Submitted a nonym ously

.-" . ~nl,

and its itT>mankind

la5l undel5loly beg;,

/a5l (and f

sentence Onthe A.pril 7<

Ed .-s.

Tlle rOCksch ib ited t.

capaci ty to adibu'iformplain. . . .

Once tile filers left tile (Cha rrapur oo

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Ham Window DressingIf this nifty carfrequency display doesn't draw gawks, nothing ever will,

Ever have the desire to let o lher hams who were spotting com antennas on their cars knoll'a contact frequency ? Tile fol/owing description of tisrdwsre for ,1 rear window displaywill enable you to construct an easy-to-read suggested COll l.1Cl-frequency display sys tem ,

Photo Ii.. Hear window disptav during daylighl hours. Regulations regarding the place­mellt of signs 0/1 vehicles I'llr)' f rom stllte to Slate. They muv also 1'(/1)' with the type of re­hicle (e.g., ("(I r. 1'(111 , or truck), rile location of the sign on the veh icle (e.g., rear deck.trunk, or side lI 'illl/OW ) and the si:e or type ofdisplay [illuminated or passive]. Contactyour local motor vehicle office.

10 73 Amateur Radio Today · Apri l 2002

This system design and construe­tion was developed by lWO ofthc Annc Arundel (Anne Arun­

de l County. Maryland ) Radio Club

members upon reques t by ano the r ra­dio ama teur. Some design criteri awere: easy to read from a distance. low

cost. simple construction. easy tocha nge display. and easy to install.

Design considerations

LCOs of the size desired (se veralinches tall) arc very expensive com­pared with LEDs. Also. LeDs require

back-lighting during darkness. lnsteadof purchasing comple te bar segme ntdisplays. separate ly mounted LEOswere used. The display selec ted was a5 x 7 J ot matri x of jumbo LEOs. RedLEDs were selected due to cost andbrightness considerations. To mini­mize comp lexity and maximi ze dis­play bri ghtness. DC cu rrents wereused rather than strobing the display.To minimize the number of wires con­nec ting the control panel at the da...h­board to the display in the rearwindow, BCO switches and 7-W7BCO-to-"N" of 7 drivers were used .

Photo /J. A view of the control hox with till

8-ft.·hmg 25-wire data cable. The cable isterminated l\ 'jlh a D8 -25 female ('()/Jnec­to r. A 3-J1. power cable is aim ShOIl'II COII ­nected to the control box. This cable i.\ ter­minuted with a cigarette lighter plug,

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Continued on page 12

System block diagram

The control box consists of a 5 voltregulator (7805), four BCD switches,an SPOT toggle sw itch, an SPSTtoggle switch, a cigare tte lighter p lugwith a built-in 2 amp fuse, a greenLED assembly with built-in resistor.a female OB-25 connec tor, and analuminum enclosure.

number of wires between the controlpanel and display were reduced from45 to 21 . To minimize voltage drops,the +12, +5, and ground lines were"doubled up."

CONTROL 8 0;..

SCD s wrt c ne s

• 4'

o g g le SW!I Cn

N e a r c a r ca s ob o e r c

Rea r w in d ow

Fig. 1. System block diagram.

7447 drivers are ubiquitous and low­cost ($1.29 each by mail order). Seg­ment drive currents of 20 rnA at a carelectrical voltage of 12 volts was de­cided upon. At 13.8 volts, the currentfor a bar segment consisting of 3 LEOsincreased to 26 rnA and the 4-LEDs­per-segment current increased to 28rnA. Since the jumbo LEDs were pur­chased from a surplus electronic partssupplier, data sheets were unavailable.There was concern about exceedingthe maximum current rating of theLEOs; however, over 100 hours of"bum-in" have occurred with no failures.By employing BCD switches rather thanIO-position rotary switches, the total

Fig. 2. Control box schematic.

73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002 "

a .c .d.e &g

s egme n t se , f

R~240

• •

000o 0o 0o 000000o 0o 0o 0

o oc

7 ,

te rm inal s a re connected to wires thatinterco nnect the contro l bo xswitches to the 744-7 decoder/drivers .T he output of each 7447 consists of aLOW logic level for .•:-;.. of 7 seg­

ments. The second di git is a lwaysdi sp layed as a "4:' Conseq uently,segments b. c , f. and g arc hard­wired to +12 volts wi th the appropri ­ate current limiting resi stors (330 ohmsfor c & g. 240 ohms for b & 0. It iswort h noting that shou ld it be desiredto cons truc t a d isplay where a ll sixdigits are selectable. all that is requiredis to replace the SPOT switch-sel ectedfirst digit and hard-wired seconddigit wi th two addit ional decoder/driver boards.

R ~ 1~

Displays"0" to " g"

1 1 -r-*"""-':-5-','"','--","",'<'. . ," N - 01 7 lines

Digits' 3. 4 5. 67447

,

1 10'

o 0o 0o 000000

ooo

7447

3 4 5 16 1 11 _ -4"N" o f 4 lines

Dis pl ays"1 " or " 4"

D'gi t' 1

(O NE2DIGT K e F )

." R - 1 ~ "1·"2" ' 4" 8'

"5" in '5" In+,.:::.,-,-,

Fig. 3. DisplllY schematic.

Ham Window Dressingconrinued.from page 11

Control box schematic

We p.1~' SCASHS( wd l. c"",d.)for articll's !

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T he di splay assembly consists o fsix decimal di gits . Four of the digitsarc composed of seven-segment dis­plays . The second di git is simp ly thedecimal number "four:' T his digit ishard-wired as shown. The first digitof the system must di splay eitherdecimal " I " or decimal '"4" (for twometer or 440 MHz) - thus only fo ursegments (b. c , f. and g ) are required .Selection of ei ther " I" or "4" ismade via a single pole double throwtoggle s\...-itch.

For the remaining fou r digits. BCD_______ ________--' switches are u..ed and the four output

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PllOla C. Close-up front I'iew of the display panel with a 6-in.-IOflg.25-wire dam cable. and its terminating D8 -25 male COll1leclor.

12 73 Amateur Radio Today 0 April 2002

Photo D. Rear \'iew of the dis play panel showing tile wiring be­nl'eetl the data cable ami each of the display digits.

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PCBs

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Printed circuit boards are available

for each digit of the 6-digit frequency 1--------------­display system at $6 per board, plus$ 1.50 S&H per 2 hoards. You can pur­chase the set of all six boards for $30plus $3 S&H. Inquiries should be ad­dressed to FAR Circuits. t 8 North 640Field Court. Dundee IL 60118. Phone847·836·9148. or E-mai l [farci r@ais.net].

Acknowledgments

Installation

By employing a cigarette lighterplug. the display system may be easilyremoved from the car. This featuremay be desirable where auto theft is ofconcern. The data cable may be buriedunderneath the front seat and then un­der the rear carpet and finally underthe rear seat. For ease of removal. itmay be desirable 10 not locate thecable under the rear seat and insteadlocate the cable on the side of the rearscat up to the rear deck. Also, plugsand jacks may be included at thecable entrance to the contro l box anda lso at the rear di sp lay. This wouldenab le easy removal of the di sp lay

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TabU 1. Parts list.73 Amateur Ramo Today' April 2002 13

Mario Garcia534 TravisPort Lavaca TX 77979

sos • • • sos ••• Titanic!Radio operators ' courage still inspires amateurs.

In 1910, the government required ell ships to have a wireless telegraph Yet by 1912,fewer than 400 ships were equipped with Marconi wireless. It was the Titan ic disaster,just off the coast of St. jolin's, Newfoun dland, which fin ally proved the value ofwireless to the world. This article is about the Titanic's fateful day and the two wirelessopere tors, j ohn Phillips and Harold Bride, who performed their du ties with valor andhonor. We reprint it to honor the 90th anniversary of the disaster.

Working on the 7/((IU;C wasserious business and hardwork for senior teleg raphi st

John George Ph illips, 24, and juniorteleg raphist Harold Sidney Bride, 22,Although signed on with the crew astelegraphists, the two men were actu­ally employees of Marconi InternationalMarine Communications Company, Ltd.Ship-to-shore wire less transmissionwas in its infancy and viewed more asa convenience than an integral part ofthe ship's command. The operatorswere under the capta in's command.but only with regard to receiv ing andtransmitting messages of importanceto the ship. Their main job was takingcare of the passengers' telegrams whileat sea . The ship's weathe r reports andship-to-ship telegrams came second, asthey weren' t paying cu stomers. Unde rits agreement with the Marconi Com­pany, the White Star Line. owner of theTi tanic. was provided with free wire­less messages betwee n the ship and itsowners or other ships regarding navi­gation, safe ty, or the sh ip's business,provided the messages did not exceed

Reprinted from the October Ill Y7 73Ama teur Radin Tod(II'.

14 73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002

a 30-words-per-day average. Excesswords were charged to the ship 'sowner at half the usual tariff rates. Inreturn , White Star was to pro vide theMarconi operators wi th their mealsand lodgi ng. The Marconi Company.in tum , paid John Phillips and HaroldBride approximately $23 per monthand $ 12 per month, respectively.

The fateful Sunday

On Sunday, 14 April. 1912, Philli psand Bride had been busy rece iving,logging, and transmitting passenge rmessages. Wire less transmitting andrece iving ranges increased markedly atnight. and night signals fro m the pow­erful Bri tish land station at Po ldhu(call lette rs MPD) re layed by interme­diate ships had included news, stockreports. and some persona l messages.There had bee n daily tra ffic messagesto and from Titanic '« passenge rs. Theship's I .S-kilowatt wire less transm it­ter, among the most powerful a float,had a 400-mile daytime transmittingrange . This range increased sigu ifi ­camly at night , but during the day, par­ticul arly now in the North Atlantic , itsfunct ions were limited to ship-to-shipme ssages.

Signals were transm itted and re­cei ved on closely adjacent standardfrequencies, with two , three, or evenmorc signals being sent or rece ived atthe same time. Much of the operator'sskill invol ved being -ahlc 10 discrimi­nate and se lect the particular messagesaddressed to his station. To assist op­erators. eac h station had its part icu lariden tifying call let ters . With few ex­ceptions, callletters from Brit ish shipsgenerally began with M, while those ofGerman ships started with D, andUnited States nava l vessels with N.Ti tanic's ca ll lette rs were MGY.

The long hours and tedious workmade the job very stressfu l for Phillipsand Bride, hut fortunately for themthey would work in shifts to help eachother at the Morse key. In 19 12, lawsdid not require two operators or 24­hour watches on the ship's wire less .Many passenger liners and all freig ht­ers had single wireless operators whores ted or slept when they could.

Ice!

Wireless operators were supposed tointercept for their captain 's atten tionall messages relating to the nav igationand safety of his vesse l. Phill ips and

Bride received several messages con­cerning ice conditions in an area to­ward which the Titanic was directlyheading. At 9:00 a.m.. a message fro mthe Caronia was taken immediately tothe bridge , where it was posted for theofficers' attention . Another messagewas received from Athinai via the Baltic:

Cap tain Smith, TitanicGreek steamer Athinai reports pass­

ing icebergs and large flotation of icefield today.

This message placed icebergs withina few miles of Titanic's track. It wastaken to Captain Smith. The messagewas not posted on the bridge nor enteredin the scrap log until 7:15 p. m.

As daylight turned to dark, the coolair began to tum cold. At 7:00 p. m., itwas 43 degrees. Because of the da y'swireless messages, an iceberg watchwas ordered. By 7:30 p.m ., atmo­spheric temperature had dropped to39 degrees .

At this time a message from theCalifornian to the eastbound freighterAntillian was overheard by the TItanic swireless operators . Harold Bride dcliv­ered the message to the bridge andhanded it to an officer. The Californianmessage reported ice about 18 milesnorth of Titanic's track. By 8:40 p.m.,the ai r had fallen to 35 degrees as theTitanic steamed full ahead at 21 knots.Around 8:50 p.m., Captain Smith wasbriefed by his officers about weatherconditions and the ice and about theprecautions that had already been taken.

More warning

It was 9:40 p.m.. and in the wire lessshack Harold Bride had turned in for anap before working the busy late-nighttraffic . John Phillips was manning thetransmitter alone when a message wasreceived from the westbound Mesaba:

To Titanic and eastbound ships:lee reports. Sa w much heavy pack

ice and great number large icebergs.

Also field ice . Weather good, clear.

The land station at Cape Race, New­foundland (call Ictters MCE) , was inrange now and John Phillips was verybu sy transmitting messages which hadaccumulated during the day. Unable orunwilling to leave his key unattended,he ignored the Mesaba's ice messagewhich described ice di rectly ahead forTitanic.

The message never did get to thebridge. With lights from the ship's decksseemingly guiding the way. Titanic spedwith determination through the night at2 1 knots. The sea was so calm that oneofficer on the bridge made the commentthat in all his years on the sea he hadnever seen it so flat. The stars shonebrightly in the moonless sky.

As I0:30 p.m . approached, thesteamer Rappahannock, passing on anopposite course , signaled the Titanicwith its Morse lamp:

Continued on page 16

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73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002 15

sos ...sos ... Titanic!con tinued from page 15

Have just passed through heavyfieldice and several icebergs.

Titanic replied by signal light:

Message received. Thanks. Goodflight.

Titanic continued on her course,speed undiminished. In the wirelessroom, John Phillips was very busywith Cape Race traffic as well as send­ing and receiving messages to andfrom other ships. A few minutes before11:00 p.m. he was interr upted by avery stro ng signal from a nearby ship,the freighter Californian. twenty or somiles away to the north:

I sav old mall we 're stopped Gildsurrounded hy ice.

She was so close that she almostblasted Phillips' ears off. Annoyed bythe intrusion interrupting his traffic ,John Phillips curtly responded:

Shut up. Slim up. I am busy. I amworking Cape Race.

Californian's wireless operator, CyrilEvans, rebuffed by John Philli ps' curtmessage, listened for several moreminutes to Cape Race traffic . Then ,around II :30 p.m., he turned off hisequipment and turned in.

Doomed

On the Titanic, two crewmen in thecrew's-nest sw ung their arms in an ef­fort to keep warm in the freezing air.Their eyes strained into the night'sdarkness ahead. They had wished theyhad thei r binoculars to help them seebetter. Somehow, the binoculars hadbeen misplaced the day before.

Suddenly, without a word, one of thecre wmen hunched forward and peeredintently into the black, moonless night.He immediately reached for thc belllanyard and gave three sharp pulls tosignal an alarm. He then picked up thephone piece and called the bridge:"Iceberg right ahead."16 73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002

The warning was too late. The offic ­e rs in the bridge stopped and reversedengines and averted a head-on colli­sion with a large iceberg, but the hugeiceberg managed to strike a glancingblow on the Titanic fifteen feet aboveher keel. The gash ex tended for 300feet along her side, floodi ng five of hercompartments. T he Titanic was de­signed to float with three or fourflooded compartments, but not five.She was doomed.

Carpath ia to the rescue

By 12:05 a.m., the Titanic's frontcompartments were rapidly fi lling withwater and all engi nes were stopped.Captain Smith, realizing the ship wassinking, personally went to the wire­less room and ins tructed the wirelessope rator to order a ca ll for assistance."Yo u had better ge t assistance," Cap­tain Smith told his wireless operato rs.

John Phillips set the frequency onthe multiple tuner to 600 meters, ad­justed the spark gap for maximumrange, and sent out the standard CQDdistress call (some operators called itCome Quick, Danger) from Titanic'shuge antenna. Later that night, HaroldBride decided to use the new distresssignal, SOS , which was j ust cominginto use. Titanic's wire less operatorssent one of the first SOS's from a shipin distress.

SOSSOSCQDCQD--~fGY.

This was a call for help to save over2,200 lives on a ship that only hadenough lifeboats to save 1,1 78.

By 12:45 a.m. , severa l ships andland stat ions had responded to Haro ldBride 's and John Phillips' di stresscalls . The Carpathia was 58 milesfro m the Titanic at the time of co llisionand responded immediate ly. Car­pathia's captain turned his ship aroundand raced to the rescue.

Opportunity lost

Although the Carpathia was close tothe distressed Titanic, there was an­other ship that was much closer -- butit never heard the Titanic's wirelessdistress calls. The wireless operator onthe Californian had turned off his

wire less and gone to bed after JohnPhillips had told him not to interferewith his comme rcia l traffic . The Cal i­fo rnian could have saved the lives ofall the Ti tanic' s passengers if only theoperator had not shut off his wire lessand turned in for much-needed sleep.

Abandon ship!

Ori the Titanic, Captain Smith or­dered loading of the lifeboats withwomen and children first. By I :30 a.m.,Titanic's bow was distinctly down andshe listed heavily to 1'011. The slant ofthe ship's deck was becoming Slee perand people were having trouble keep­ing their balance as they moved towardthe stern. Lifeboa ts were being low­ered into the calm sea 60 feet helowthe ship's deck. Althou gh the lifebo atswere capable of carryi ng 65 passen­gers. some boats were filled withfewer than 20 people.

Signs of panic began to appear. In thewireless shack, John Phillips and HaroldBride were sti ll at their posts, the irdi stress ca lls becom ing increasinglyde sperate:

Engine room getting flooded.

At I :45, another di stress call:

Engin e roomful! up to boilers.

Every man for himself

By 2:05 a.m. most of the lifeboatshad heen lowered (except for thecollapsibles) and had moved away fromthe Titanic. More than 1,500 peoplesti ll remained aboard. With the boatsall gone, hundreds of passengers leftbehind stood quietly on the upperdecks. A quiet calmness set in. CaptainSmith made hi s way to the wirelessroom and told John Phillips and HaroldBride that they had done thei r duty.Now it was every man for himself.

Into the sea

As the ocean water filled one com­partment after another, the water'sweight pu lled the Titanic's bow com­plete ly under. The great ship's im­mense bulk started a catas trophic arcinto the star-filled sky. As the Titanic

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upended, hundreds and hundreds ofpeople were thrown into the sea. Thewater temperature of the North Atlan­tic was about 28 degrees Fahrenheit.As energy from the generators faltered,the last wireless signal spluttered to ahalt.

At 2:20 a.m., the liner started itsnearly vert ical descent downward intothe sea. Not yet complete ly under thesurface, with a loud roar the sinkinghull broke in two near an expansionjoint and engine room shaft. The for­ward section of the ship began its dropto the ocean floor ove r two miles be­low, while the stern section remainedafloat a few seconds more before it,too, plummeted to the bottom.

Down with the ship

Almost immediately, the silent nightwas filled with the calls of floating sur­vivors, growing in number until therewas almost a continuous wailingchant. Hundreds of people cried forhelp as they strugg led in the icy coldwater. Some of the ship's 1,500 pas­sengers managed to reach some of thelifeboats, but most did nolo Long be­fore dawn, hypothermia had claimedthe lives of most of the floating survi­vors. The rescue ship, Carpathia. ar­rived around 4:00 a.m. and started totake on survivors from the lifeboatsthat held mostly women and children.Everyone was still in shock, not onlyfrom the horrendous experience theyhad just witnessed but also from thebitter cold that engulfed them . In all,711 passengers survived the ordeal.Captain Smith did not survive, Hewent down with his ship.

Constant duty

Of the two wireless operators on theTitanic, only Harold Bride survived thetragedy. Even after his subsequent res­cue by the Carpathia, he continued to

perform his duties as a wireless opera­tor. The ship already had a wirelessoperator named Harold Cottam, but hehad not slept for many hours and wastotally exhausted. Bride had to be car­ried from the dispensary, where he wastreated for severely frostbitten feet, tothe wireless room where the exhausted

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Cottam was working. Once Bride began to transmit,Cottam got a few hours of precious sleep. Both Cottamand Bride ignored all information requests from privateand public sources even as the Carpathia sai led full-steamto America.

Once the Carpathia reached New York. Bride was car­ried ashore on the shoulders of two Carpathia officers.Among the last of the survivors to be brought ashore,Bride had been almost constantly on duty since boardingthe ship from an overturned collapsible boat and now, to­tally exhausted, he was taken to a nearby hospital fortreatment of crushed and frostbitten feet.

Inquiry

At the Titanic inquiry, several proposals were made :I . Lifeboat s required to have increased capacity, a seat for

eaeh person aboard, and adequate manning.2. Wireless stations required to have 24-hour manning .3. Amateur interference banned.4. All ships required to prov ide reliable auxiliary power

sources.5. Wireless operators required to maintain secrecy of all

messages.These wireless recommendations resulted in the Radio

Act of 1912, which requ ired all ships to carry wireless sta­tions. The Act also contributed to the Marconi Company 'sextraordinary financial success.

"The last I ever saw of him ... "

18 73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002

The wireless operators of the Titanic, John G. Phillips andHarold Bride, went into the history books as two youngmen who heroically stood at their post, bravely transmittingdistress signals until moments before the huge ship sank.John Phillips ' body was never recovered. Harold Bride saidof his coworker. "Phill ips ran aft and that was the last I eversaw of him."

Harold Bride kept a very low profile in the years follow ­ing the TItanic disaster. World War I found him as a wirelessoperator aboard the steamer Mona s Isle. Later in life, hebecame a salesman before returning to Scotland, where hedied in 1956.

Bibliography

Dr. Robert D. Ballard. The Discovery of the TItanic,WarnerfMadison Press , New York. 1987.

John P. Eaton & Charles A. Haas, TItanic.' DestinationDisaster, W.W. Norton and Company, New York-London,1987.

John P. Eaton & Charles A. Haas, Titanic: Triumph andTragedy. W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London,t986.

Walter Lord, The Night Lives On, William Morrow &Company, Inc., New York, 1986. fa

Say you saw it in 73!

Hugh Wells W6WTU1411 18th St.Manhattan Beach CA 90266-4025

Does Your Junk BoxRunneth Over?A true junkie explains how to get a grip.

As has been said for many years. "One man 's junk is another man's treasure!" And so itgoes with the unique collection of ham and electronic items that not only have s ta tusj us t as "stull," b ut also have a personality depicting their owner.

Junk being another person 's trea­sure is the ph ilosophy behind allswap meets. We. as hams. go to

swap meets to obtain those items that weneed - or at least think that we need.The driving force, of course, is that wehave money burn ing a hole in ourpoc ket and we hope to find somethingfor a "bargain" price. Ask yourse lf

how often you've gone to a swap meetlooking for a particular something. Evenif you didn't find what you wanted, youmost like ly carried something home thatyou just needed to have - that's calledimpulse buying. Don't feci like the LoneRanger, though, becau se all hams suffe rfrom that syndrome. We're collectors ofall things dee med valuable and usefu l.

What makes up a ham j unk box?Now that' s a question only you can an­swer, because of the uniqueness of thecomposition of the "junk" in your pos·session.l\..fy definition of "j unk box" isa warehouse of parts stored for per­sonal projects - though who knows

Contin ued Oil page 20

Light Bulb s

IPA·2 238V 500mA 15 hrs b1utl bead. 2-oal lfta r>g6 base 7

I PA-ll 1.9V '00"" 10 hrs 2'091 nange

I ~& ' W " (}rnAeoc n.=0.3000

E10 lhrtladed6 3V '0'"'' baM 8. AS 272·.... 1128

I " '3V 200mA 3000 bk>e DNd,.... _...~3000

brown baad.

" '3V 'OOmA ." bayoneI baM 9.AS 272·1110

.. 2'" ""'"1000 ~kbNd, E10

." - -., 2'" '000 pink bead..... ...-

' 0001CP. bIlJef\IIItoItI

I• • V ,- bNd. bu., 9.." RSm-l l17

Table J. Example ofa data listing for lightbulbs stored in a /'(/111 S j unk: box.

/'holo A. Example ofparts and assemblies being stored i ll paper and plastic bags. Bagsare filled "mil they overflow.

73 Amateur Radio Today 6 Apri l 2002 19

Photo R. Example of parts and equipment stored 011 shelves. Aslacking technique is used tofiflul' available space - thell jam illthe next item.

Photo C. Labeled cigar boxes containing 'Junk box" parts arestacked all shelves. Having boxes two stacks deep is commonpractice.

Does Your Junk BoxRunneth Over?continuedJrompage 19

when a project will materialize fromthe stored items.

When a stranger looks into your"junk box ,' they usually ask , "What isit that you' re going to do with all ofthis stuff (ju nk)?" What they ' re faili ngto grasp is the "value" one places onthe "stuff' that's stored for future us­age. Value, as used here. refers not to

financia l value, but to one's under­standing of the item and its usefulnessin an application. Items of value can beof any size, shape , or configuration,whether in the form of components orcompleted devices. Electronic compo­nents arc of value only to the extent thatone understands their characteristics andusefu lness in a project or application.

Us ing mysel f as an example, I' vebeen collec ting elec tronic parts since Iwas very young (they 're still in myjunk box). I understand the parts and

know how to use them in a project,should I choose to bu ild one. From thataspect, I feel that I know the techn ical"value" of the part and how to apply itto an appl ication. Does this mean that Ihave a use for it today? Probably not. Ihave some tubes that date back to themid-1 92(}..; era that arc still good andcould be used in a project - but whetherI will ever huild something with them isthe question. The answer is probablynot, and knowing the technica l valueof those antique parts prevent" me

Photo D. Example ofa cabinet containing plastic drawers. Drawers are labeled to indicate the part within along with cursory technical data.20 73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002

Photo E. Example ofhow file folders may be used for capturing part data listings. Theindividual listing may indicate the number ofparts available in the junk box.

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from disposing of them during my life­time. True. and following my demise.my kids will probably view the "stuff 'as junk and will pitch it into the trash.

If you 're like me, you've buill up a"j unk box" of parts that are of value toyou. For that reason, parts have accumu­lated regardless of whether there is adedicated project in the near future forthem.

Organization

The above discussion brings up the

question of how the parts in your junkbox are organized. The usefulness ofyour junk box is really measured byyour ability to quickly find the neededitem. How have you stored your spareelectronic parts so that they can be re­trieved when needed? Does your stor­age technique create the appearance asshown in Photo A? If so, how do youremember or know what's in the bag?With this type of organization, youhave to dump out every item whilesearching for that one needed piece.Yes, that search and rescue operation ..

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73 Amateur Radio Today" April 2002 21

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Hugh Wells W6WTU14111 8th St.Manhattan Beach CA 90266-4025

New Life for a Pierson KE-93Part 3 of 3.

Pans one and nvo of this ser ies restored the comp anion power supplies and pan of theKE-93 receiver to an operational state. Rut although the receiver appeared to be readyto operate. it still failed to sholV signs of life.

T hiS Iinal pan in the series will tubes. The voltage values measured ondiscuss the problems that pre· the plate and screen grids of tubes V3vented normal operation and and V4 just didn ' t seem to be correct.

the repairs req uired to fix them. Follow- hut I was momentarily unable to deter-ing repair. the receiver was eva luated for mine the problem. Tubed equipme nthoth function and performance. with the gets warm after being "on" for a wh ile.results reported here in. and when I touched tubes V3 and V4

Receiver (continued)to check for heat, I found them to becold. After substituting one tube and

Correcti ng the dial cord problem. as fi nding thut it al so remained cold, I im-

discussed in part 2, was a major hurdle mediately concluded that it wasn' t a

In prcpanng the recei ver for normal tube problem. Yes. the healer voltage

operation. But wi th power applied to measu rements at the tulle socke ts of

the receiver, it was still vdead." and the tubes V3 and V-l- indicated a problem.

reason wasn' t immediate ly apparent. and the measured values were not as

Tu begin the troubleshoo ting pro- expected.cess, I removed the RF shield abo ve I traced the wiring for bo th tubes andthe fro nt-end tube sockets and tuner. found the ground lead tie point forand this allowed me to make voltage tube V4 to actually be inside of themeasurements on the four front-end power supply - but the ground c ircuit

Tube Pins (8+ '" 223 V; band", 80m ; max. sens.) IT,,,,, t , a • e e r e 9

I V1 0.07 1 24 - - '" zs 0

V2 -" 1.88 - - 193 " 0

I YO -1 5 5 0 - - t ts '" -

I V, -49 a - - '" as -Table J. Chart showing the voltage values measured lit the socket pins of tile from-endtubes. The shield 11IIUt be removed to obtain access to the socket pins ,

was ope n and the lead fai led to connectto ground. The problem turned out tobe a dirty contact in the connector ofthe power supply cable whe re it at­tached to the hack of the receiver.C leaning the connector contacts ­again - resolved the problem for tubeV4.

Tube V3 still didn' t have heaterpower. and upon tracing the wiring Ifound a IS-ohm 2W resistor attachedto a soc ket on the underside of the re ­cciver chassi s. Someone had cut theresistor lead with diagona ls and left itha nging. Soldering the resistor lead tothe socket pin resolved tube V3'!,> prob­lem. and the receiver began to operate .

Upon gelling the receiver to operate .I worked up the voltage chart shown inTable 1 for the fron t-end tubes. Withtubes V3 and V.f heating properly. themeasured socket voltages appeared tohe more logical for the c ircuit de sign.

As I began adjusti ng the controls totunc in stations. the noisy/d irty potsand dirty turret contacts began to"speak loudly" and cried out for hel p. Isprayed all of the pot resistance cardswith a TV tuner cleaner and theyclea ned up quickly.

TV tuner cleaner didn ' t seem to beappropriate for the si lver-plated turret

22 73 Amateur Radio toaev » April 2002

Fig. 1. General layout of the tubes used in the KE-93 receiver's IF module.

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"Workthe World WithoutWorkingUpthe Neighborhood"• 5

paper towel. The important thing wasto apply oil only to the points wheremechanical friction was occurring andto keep the oil away from all of theelectronic circuits.

Operation

Once the receiver was operating with­out mechanical and electrical problems,it was time to do a pcrfonnance checkto see just how well the receiver wasoperating and how it compared to amodern solid-state receiver.

One of the first performance teststhat I normally do is to measure areceiver 's sensitivity to a weak signal.As I've said before, most receiver de­signs of the 1950 era exhibit a sensitiv­ity of about 2 J.-lV as compared to themodern solid-state receivers that oper­ate down to about 0.2 J.-lV. When mea­suring a receiver's input sensitivitycorrectly, signal-to-noise ratios arc themost discrimi nating and meaningful.But not everyone can make such ameasurement, so a comparable substi­tute technique is used . Yes, the compa­rable test is subjective, but it doesprovide a means for equating areceiver's performance with a num­bered value. The method that I used isa minimum detectable signal levelwhere the modu lated signal remainsdiscernible. In this case, signal-to-noiseratio sensitivity accuracy is traded forthe ability to perform a "comparable

Band Froq. (MHz) sene. ().IV)

'.0 •ect .e "" 0.25

'"' 3 ' 0.'

35 "80 •., 0,15

" o.aec

' .3 o.,

14,0 0"ec

14,3 0'

at O.

'" 21,4 O.

aa "toso 0 '

Table 2. Signal sensitivity chart as a func-tion offrequency that I measured for oneKE-93 receiver.

contacts, so I wiped them with a drypaper towel and they polished up well,eliminating the contact noise.

At this point, it was obvious to methat the mechanical parts required lu-brication. Applying motor oil to eachmoving point resolved the high fric-tion problems. The oil was transferred 'to the selected points by dipping thetip end of a thin-shaft screwdriver intothe oil and carrying a drop or less ofoil to the point where it was needed.All excess oil was wiped up with a

Photo A . Top side of the IF module show­ing the compact design. The audio outputtransformer is shown 011 the rear of thechassis.

measurement" using available equip­ment such as a ca lihrated output signalge nerator.

Tahle 2 shows the band, frequencyof measurement, and sensit ivity valuethat I ohtained for the KE-93. Thenumbers impressed me because no othertubed receiver had performed as wellon my test bench. The only thing that Ican attribute to the nice performance is

Photo B. Underside of the IF moduleshowing the compact design. The audiooutput transformer is shown 011 the rear ofthe chassis.

24 73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002

the HI·Q turret tuner design . Ofcourse , the low-noise 6BZ6 RF tubehelps, too!

Before leaving the sensitiv ity perfor­mance, let's note that most competitiverecei vers exhibit a better sensitivitywith the BFO turned "on" when com­pared to the AM mode. As I deter­mined for the KE-93, the CW and AMsensitivity remained the same, and Iwas curious to determine why. What Idiscovered was that the KE-93 designreduces the BFO injection level whenin the SSB mode when it is needed forproper SSB audio recovery.

The KE-93 was one of the first hamband rece ivers to be designed withSSB as an operating mode. Eventhough the receiver does not have aproduct detector, it's hard to tell thatfrom the superb SS B performancethat's ex hibited.

When operating the receiver in theSSB mode , the AF gain is advanced tonear maximum and the SENS level isreduced slightly. Yes, because of thesens itivity factor, the front end canoverload when either the CW or SS Bmode is se lected and the RF gain is se ttoo high . Backing down the SENSlevel (RF gain) slightly, the receiverbecame alive and performed we ll duringmy tests.

After tuning around the bands andlistening to SSB signals, I noti ced thatthe receiver was doing a pretty goodjob of separating adjacent signa ls. Thi srai sed my curiosity as to the IF's band­width. I ran a number of cursory testsand came up with a bandwidth ofabou t 2 kHz. I couldn't determine theshape factor, so I can' t comment inthat regard.

IF module

While preparing the receiver for theapplication of power, I removed the IFmodule from the rear deck of the re­ceiver and examined it. Because of thecompact design , it was very difficult towork up a signal path, hut I eventuallygot enough information to develop thesignal path block diagram . Fig. 1 andPhoto A show the top side of the mod­ule layout ide ntifying the tubes and IFtransformers.

To remove the IF module from the

"rece iver, I used the following proce­dure :

I . Pulled back the two connectorslocated on the underside of thereceiver 's chass is.

2. Pulled the IF wire/plug from theRF deck.

3. Removed the two screws locatedon opposite corners of the module.

4. Carefu lly lifted the module until theconnector panel cleared the receiver'schassis.

5. Tilted the module up slightly toachie ve connector panel clearance,then moved the modu le rearward.

A vis ual inspection of the underside(see Photo B) allowed me to detecttwo capacitor problems and one rcs is­tor problem. The 12 IlF filte r capacitorconnected to the cathode of tuhe V9had a cracked ceramic case . T he othercapacitor was a dried-out e lectrolyticcapacitor connected to the cathode oftube V12. Finding the mechanicallyhad 1/2 watt resistor was interesting.The resistance value had shifted from4 .7k to nearly 9k ohms, and I was re­ally surprised to find a resistance shiftin a molded carbon res istor. However,what caught my eye was a very smallchip knocked off of the corner of theresistor body ncar one lead.

When removed from the receiver,performance testing and vo ltage mea­surements on the IF modu le fortroubleshooting purposes arc diffi cultwithout an external test fixture. Due tothe compact design and shielding, thebottom of the module is covered wi thmetal , preventing circu it access whilethe IF is mounted.

The resistance chart shown in part 2,Fig. 2, could be helpful should a prob­lem exist within the IF modu le. Withthe modu lc removed fro m the rece iver,several of the ci rcuits will appear to beopen, but they would normally becompleted with the module mountedto the receiver.

C lea ning operation/notes

Cleaning of the Pierson KE-93 waslimited to washing the faceplate cast­ing and the cab inet. For the faceplatecas ting, I scrubbed it with a toothbrush

Continued on page 57

Phil Whitchurch G3SWH21 Dickensons GroveCongresburyBristol6849 5HQUnited Kingdom

The Call of the Maldives8Q7WH, that is ...

Afrer our eventtul visit 10 Sr i Lanka in Novem ber 2000, rhere was nor much doubtabout where our next trip would be, mainly due co the fact rhar our flight home wasroured via /If,lle and A bu Dhabi.

Photo A, An aerial d ew of the airport 0 " its OW" separate island.

After an hour 's night, we spenta further hou r on the ground inMale a irport and were able to

get off the plane and wander arou ndthe duty-free shops, e tc. Jan fe lt inlove with the posters on the walls de­picting white sand and simple wate rbungalows linked with a system of jet­ties. Although we have tended to steerclear of beach holidays and pursued

.morc "activity" types of vacations. itcertai nly looked tempting . Jan said, " Ithink I could stand a week here." I said." It's ever so easy to get a license ."

Taking off fro m Male , we were treatedto breathtaking aerial views of thearchipelago, with inn umerable tinyislands poking above the coral ree fs .

Once back in the grips of the UKwinter. time was spent scanning overthe travel sections of the weekend pu­pers. LaS! year's sojourn to Mykonoshad been beset with poor weather andwas not as success ful as in previousyears. so we dec ided to look else­where. It wasn' t long before Jan spot­ted a Trave l Collection ad vertisementoffering an a ll-inclusive week in June

on one of the Maldive islands a t aprice which suited our budget A copyo f the Lonely Planet was swiftly pur­chased, the deposit paid, and a seaplanetransfer arranged.

O H2MCN's Web site once againcame up with good information aboutthe licensing procedu re . This merelyinvolved downloading a copy of theapplication form, completing and send­ing it to the licensing authorities by faxon 15th January, together with a copyof my UK license and a covering Jetterasking for the callsign 8Q7WH. I re­ceived a fax almost by return confirm­ing the ca llsign had been reserved andaski ng me to arrange for the fee of J25Maldivi an rufi ya (M RF) - about USSIO - to be paid by my touroperator's agent in Male . This proved.to be one of the most difficult pans ofthe whole procedure and involved con­tacting Travel Collection by Ecmail(no response) and fax (not received),and silting in a telephone queuing sys ­tern for up to 15 minutes at a time.Eventually, J received a copy of thethree months' license by fax on 3rdApril. together with a note that thisdocument would enable me temporuril yto import my radio equipme nt.

73 Amateur Radio 'toasv » Apri l 2002 25

Photo B. A Twill Offer seaplane.

T he Maldives are an independentcountry within the British Common­wea lth and consist of over 1,000 low­lying coral islands grouped in 26 atoll sabout 600 km southwest of Sri Lanka.No natura l land sta nds greater than2.4 meters above sea level!

T he ocean arou nd the Maldives isworld-renow ned for the snorke li ngand scuba diving. My good friendBruce Sawyer ZF2NT spends sixmonths of the year div ing on LittleCayman and told me he believed thediving in the Maldives to be superiorto the Caymans. Nei ther Jan nor I arevery strong swimmers. so we decidedto learn to snorkel properly and at­tended a number of informal lessons

during the weeks preceding our depar­ture. I even tried on an aqu alung at onestage and would not have neededmuch encouragement to tum the snor­keling into diving, but Jan was not sokeen . Considering the length of ropewhich I get playing radio on holiday, Idecided that a second act ivity exclud­ing Jan was not a good idea, and sodrew the line at snorkeling .

Check-in at Gatwick was uneventfu land the ski bag containing the R-7000vertical rai sed no eyebrows. Jan and Isplit the radio equipment between ourrespective hand luggage, and there wasa difficult moment at the departuregate when the cle rk declared mine tobe too heavy and asked that it beplaced in the hold. Fortunate ly, I was

able to convince him of its fragilityand kept it under my contro l through­out the flight. There was a short stop atBahrain to refuel and change crews.and we arrived at Male on time on 4thJune. The baggage, including the R­7000, also arri ved, and after subjec tingit to an Xcray examination by customswe made our way to the seaplane ter­minal for the 30 min ute flight toVelidhu Island in North Ari Atoll,about 85 krn to the west of Male. Theaircraft was a Twin Otter, and I wasamazed to find it to be li lted with anIcom IC-706 tuned to 3407 kl lz.

Islam is the religion of the Maldi vesand no alcohol or pork is permitted onany of the 202 "inhabited" islands.Vclidhu is one of 90 or so island re­sorts, which arc officially "uninhab­ited" - i.e .. no Maldi vians live thereon a permanent basis. Consequently,there are no res trictions on the con­sumption of alcohol, etc. The islandcovers some 19 acres and has 80 indi­vidual, circular bungalows with thatchedroofs, known as rondavels , sca tteredam idst the palm trees and lu sh veg­etation . There are also 10 ovcrwatcrbungalows on the northwe st side ofthe island , which were available atan ex tra cost of US $50 per day.

Arriving at the island, we were per­sonally we lcomed by the hotel man­ager and very quickly checked into ourmost comfortable , dou ble-bedded, en ­suite rondavc l. Contrary to the TravelCollection's handouts, there was one

Ph oto C. Velidlw Istand from the air:

26 73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002

..!ISLAND RESORT

> ~QRTH ARI ATOLL

Photo D. Proof tnat 1 was there.'

,- ....., . ....,•

Pholo E. Our TOm/lwei.

- .• • •. .. . . ." .--""- 2 .. •... - , .

PIIO/(J F. The R-7000 a1ltenna set lip in a

clearing between two rondavets.

of their representatives on hand whotheoretica lly also looked after theguests in six other resorts. In view o fthe diffi culties in traveling betweenher resorts , she rare ly seemed 10 leaveVelidhu! She greeted us with "Mr.Whitchurch, have you got you r radiolicense'!" When I said not. she ex­plained thai she had sent it to Male 10

be handed to me on arriva l. just in caseof any problems with the customs, butthat she would re trieve it and give it 10

me during the next Jay or so,By now the daylight was fa iling and

I wanted to get the antenna erected be­fore dark if at all possible . O Uf

ronda vel was on the cast side of the

Ph,,10 (;. Phil White/lUrch GJSlVlI.

is land with a screen of bushes betweenit and the beach. I would have liked toput the R-7000 on the beach itse lf butwas worried that I could not anchor itproperly in the soft sand and that. as itwould be out of sight. someone mightinjure. himself or hersel f by trippi ngover a guy rope. Consequently. I se t itup in a clearing be tween two of thero ndavels and guyed it to the trunks oftrees to mi nimize the tripping hazard .There was nowhere to rig a wire an­tenna as an alternative. because the nu­merous palm trees were all too shortand close together.

It was now fully dark and, after amuch-needed shower, we made our

way to the bar and a pre-dinner drink.Under the "all-incl usive" deal. in addi­tion to all meals we were entitled tounlimited quantities of free beer. cock­ta ils , spirits and soft dri nks in the barand to glasses of red or white wine inthe restaurant. Jan and I arc both winedrinkers and found it strange that winewas not available in the bar, except atex tra cost. Over an aperitif we struckup a co nversation with a couple thathad been on the seaplane with us, dur­ing the course of which we discoveredthat they lived in a small village ncarBristol. Further enquiri es establishedthat they actually li ved about 200 yardsaway from us and had severa l acquain­tances in common. a lthough we hadnever previously met. Indeed, it is asmall world !

Dinner was a first-class buffet eatenwith our new friends, and we werewelllooked after by our waiter Moham­med, who kept us well supplied withglasses of excellent Californian wine.Mohammed was a Maldivian national,although most of the staff were SriLankan or Bangladeshi . After dinner.we retired to the bar where I orderedbrandy, which was served in a fullwine glass. At this point. I came to theconcl usion that an "all-incl usive" dealwas potentially dangerous!

Nex t morning I was up early. feel ingsurprisingly bright. I set up the sta tionon the patio outside the room. straight­ened the antenna and put out a few

73 Ar1l<J teur Radio Today . April 2002 27

The New Pools!

who he would like to visit. As it washis off-duty time. we readily agreed,fully expecting him to disappear onarrival and reappear at the agreeddeparture time. We were pleasantlysurprised, as we were introduced to hisfriend and family, given fre sh coconutmilk to drink through a straw in theshell and fresh papaya to eat before be­ing escorted around the village. About600 people live on the island and makea living by fishing and boat-building.They were extremely friendly andquite happy to be photographed with­out requiring payment in advance. Theimmediately viewable image on thesmall screen of Ian's digital camerawas of great interest, particularly tothe children.

I had set myself a target of 1,500QSOs during the week. but found thatI had only made just over 1,050 by thestart of our last day. I'm afraid that Imade myself rather unpopular with Ianby spending too much time on the ra­dio on the last day, but I did bring thefinal total up to 1,345, the last 200 orso being very slow going indeed, withmany unanswered CQ calls.

Despite daily enquiries of the TravelCollection's representative, retrievingthe original license document from Maleproved impossible and I was able even­tually to collect it at the airport just priorto checking in for the return flight.

The breakdown of QSOs by bandand DXCC entity wen t like this (band!QSOsIDXCC): 30/111 , 20/63/12, 17/31 4/35, 15n07/57, 121260/32, aIV1345nI .

Special QSL cards have been printedand are available from either myCa//book address with return postageand SAE or via the RSGB bureau. Ihave been particularly surp rised atthe number of direct requests a lreadyrecei ved from Iapanese sta tions.

My particular thanks go to my XYLJan; Abdullah Rasheed, Director ofEngineering at the Ministry of Commu­nication, Science & Technology; and 'Anthony Perera, General Manager ofthe Velidhu lsland Resort and hismost friendly and courteous staff,wi thout whose help and cooperationthi s operation would not have beenpossible. fa

calls on 21 MHz CWo The first QSOwas with 9M2SZ at 0347 UTe on 5thJune, but the band was very quiet so Iwent back to bed and we both sleptlate , missing breakfast. The patio fur­niture was designed for relaxation andtherefore not very practical for radiooperations . so I arranged for a "nor­mal" height table and chair, which wasaltogether more comfortable.

In March 1998 an EI Nino (tempo­rary increase in seawater temperature)event bleached much of the coralthroughout the archipelago, killingmost of the algae living within thecoral polyps , particularly in the shal­low waters. Consequently. the coral it­self is mostly an unsightly browncolor, but with some more colorfulnew growth showing through in places.Despite this, the house reef providedexcellent snorkeling for beginners likeus. with myriads of multicolored fishof a ll sizes to be seen, includingparrorfish, blue surgeonfish, rock codand eagle rays. A particular favoritewas a triggerfish that frequented thewater around the jetty and could be fedwith pieces of bread stolen from thebreakfast buffet.

Radiowise, I found that my usualpattern of a session in the morningsand a session in the late afternoonsdidn't work. Admittedly, the first coupleof morning suffered from the "all-in·elusive" syndrome, but even then theactiv ity j ust wasn't there . The lateafternoon session was much moreproductive, with a couple of very sat­isfying pile-ups of Far East stations on18 and 2 1 MHz. QSOs with Europe:and the USA were very few and far be­tween . This was probably due to thefact that we were on the east side of theisland and the path to Europe wasstraight through the island's vegetation.28 MHz was unusable due to intrudersusing CB-type radios for inter-islandcommunications.

We wanted to see something of thetrue culture of the country, but escap­ing from the island was slightly diffi­cult. We finally managed to negotiate a20-minute ride on a speedboat to theneighboring "inhabited" island ofMathiveri. Mohammed asked if hecould join us, as he had a frie nd there

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28 73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002

Carl Markle K81HQ11 570 Taylor Wells Rd.Olaircon OH 44024·8910

Easy-Build Project of the MonthThis time: 400 kHz AC low pass fi lterfor 120 VA C 60 Hz line filtering.

Tired of the neighbor's noise generators messing up your TV and stereo receiver? Ormaybe /llama using her kitchen mixer or the like when you are trying CO work thet we.1kDX sr,1rion over the 5-9 noise level? Well, you ger the idea of ll'h1r this filler can do [or you.It also has a fuse and surge protection /IIOV device CO provide maxim um usefuln ess.

The filter is basically a 400 kllzand below low pass filter. Sinceit is a common mode desig n it

IS equiva lent to a toroidal bifilar­wound indicator. In short. it cancelsnoise and inrush current and voltagespikes between the neutral and powerlines . The slugs of energy developedare then capacitive-coupled to thecommon ground re turn back ttl thecircuit breaker power distribution box.

A nice side use is in the bathroom orwhere GFI grou nd fau lt interru pter de­"ices are used . We know these devicesare real noise makers but are requiredif power is within six feet of water orplumbing. If you like a radio in thebathroom when soaking, the GFI willkeep you safe and the filter will reducethe Gf-l noise to a tolerable level (ormaybe completely). AM stations maystill have some interference. but theFM stations sound pret ty good.

Thi s filte r de vice can also he used on240 VAC if a double-wide enclosure isused and two filter assemblies arc en­closed . The MOV should be either a130 or 150 VAC device. The Pulse En­gineering dual-common-mode 8.2 mHchoke is rated at 5 amps 250 VAC. Thewindings are about 0.2 ohms each.

See Fig. 1. the schematic. and PhotoR. the assembly photograph. to get abetter idea of what the filte r systemlooks like.

Another application that was foundwas for DC usc. You r 6 V or 12 V wallconverters or mobile automotive 14 Vbattery system can he filtered dramati­cally with this fi lter. Make sure youchange the MOV to handle the DC triplevels. General ly the AC-speci fied de­vice has a 60% increase in the trippoint level with DC usc. An example isthe 5 VAC ~10V. which has an 8 VDCspecification. I often use two 5 VACdevices in series to form a 16 VOC de­vice for use with a 14 VDC batterysystem. When used in a DC app lica­tion. make sure you do not exceed that5 amp current limit of the dual choke.The internal bobbin wire is still limitedon current.

In a DC applica tion. you can put the+V source on one winding and the - Von the other winding. The ground canbe connected to the grounding point onthe equipment sys tem. In the case ofwall converters, the capacitors have noreal effec t. Only the dual choke comesinto play. Digital equipment generateslarge amo unts of noise on the DC

lines. so filteri ng from the wall con­verte r is very beneficial. It not onlyisolates noise from entering the instru­ment, but also keeps noise from beingplaced onto the 120 VAC lines. This isespecially useful to keep your rig 's RFoff of the power lines . Only the radi­ated RF will need to be dea lt with inthat case.

The component sources are listed at

t'noto ,1. Make sure the lid markingsindicate that this is 1I0t fo r exterior lise.

73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002 29

-------- - - - - - - - - - -

mark the fuse rating and labe l informa­tion. The marking pens are ava ilab lefrom your local post office at $1.00each - what a deal!

One word of caution. This is not forexte rior use . It is ne ither watertight norGFI-protected . Make the lid markingsindicate accordingly.

For those who think 1\v0 are be tterthan one , I found that two filte r stagesin series did not j ustify the addi tionalcost. One filter does it just fine ! Now,on to the next project!

w

PC BOARD

F1 r- - - - - - - -LC

: L1

I I I ~ }e C3 IS01 B

:1l 'Of; Gr~

I c2 TT T T To r '" I

C4

'-- - - - - - -

120 VAC

FiR, 1, '+00-/.:.1/: AC Line FilII'/' schematic.

FH1

Sources

I . Hosfe lt Electron ics, catalog: I(800) 524-6464.

2. FAR C ircuits , 18N640 Fie ld Ct.,Dundee IL 60 118 (" K8IHQ Filter") ,

3. Local ; home improvement storeor elect rical supply. fa

1 PCS

Qty. Name

0;

35

' 00

;00

Cost

Local

Hcstelt21·365

Hosfen31-050

Local

"RCircuns

ncsren18·129

Hosfe~

43·206

Source

Fuse holder"0

pvc boxCOver

Duel8mH 5Achoke (PE·

( 6180)

Printed ci rcuitboard

Fuse 5A 3AG

AC receptacleNEMAL 3­

prong

Description

PVC elect ricalbo<

'"'

so,t

t

, ."

I used a standard gray PVC 2 x4outdoor enclosure and lid at about$6.00 from you r local home improve­ment store in the e lectrical department.Using a 5/8" Forstne r drill bi t, the fusehole and NE.MAL socket/receptaclehole can be cut eas ily. Usc a copingsaw or saber saw to cut thc square holefor the NEMAL socke t. C lean up an dsquare off using a doub le-cut fi le .Snap in the soc ket, then use a litt leclear 100% silicone caulk on the rea rside to provide a secure attachmen t tothe lid. It must be safe and sec ure,si nce we are fooling around with 120VAC and National Electrica l Code(NEC) requirements apply. Make surethat your line cord is a three-prongedNEMAL-type, or the filter wi ll notwork properly. Mount the circui t hoardin the enclosure bottom using the si li­cone caulk on the four nylon standoffsor nylon screws .

I did decide to use an indelible inkpen, some times called a felt marker, to

the end of thi s a rti cle . Hosfclt Elcc­tronics can prov ide the Pulse Engi ­nee ring PE-96180 dual choke forabout 35 ce nts and the AC hox capaci­tors at about 5 cents each. This is agood deal ! They a lso have MOV andfuscholdc r devices, as do other sourcesincluding your local Radio Shack retailstore.

The line cord and strain relief can hepurchased from these sources as wellas your local home improveme nt cen­ters. I recommend using AWG- 18 hook­up wire to the NEMAL receptacle.Four nylon low standoffs can also bepurchased from Hosfc lt Electronics atreasonable prices. The PC boards areavailable fro m FAR Circuits at $4.00each plus SIH S 1.50. This is quite abargain for high-quali ty FR4 glassboards that are silk-sc reened withcomponent inform ation. The SfHcharge covers up to four hoards, and Ido recomme nd purchasing more thanone hoard.

L ne co rd (3·Hosfe ~LC prong)60·370

1.75NEMA L

SR0.5 in. strain

Localrelief

, 0.5 in. nylon Hoslen' 00standoff s 8·32 28·149

, 0.25 in. nylon Hosten AOscrews 6·32 28· 128

Total $15.99

Table I. Parts list.Photo R. A view of the j ilter system Qu ell/hi)'.

30 73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002

C l - 4

130 VACMOV (20mm)

Mouser115989·250V. l

Mou ser11539'­

158X l04

Hosle~

V130LA·zoe

Wallace Edward Brand;Malcolm Watts, N .Z .C.E.; andJohn W. Wagner W8AHB3890 Tubbs Rd.Ann Arbor MI481 03Owwagner@concentric .netJ

Tesla: Inventor of Radio andModern-Day AC

(Marconi and Edison notwithstanding.}

Popular beliefs in history arc often not Inctue! and cannot bear scrutiny. Such is thecase for the history of electricity, which ultimately led to radio.

Prom the time man started his up­ward march toward an advancedtechnological society, only a

fe w e xceptiona l sc ie ntis ts have le ftindelible marks. Ni kola Tesla was oneof those few. Born in 1856 of Serbia nparents in what was once the greatAustro-Hungarian Em pire , and edu­cated at the Austrian Polytechn ic Schoolin Graz, he emig rated to the U nitedStates in 18S4 and became an Americancitizen.

Tesla brought with him the sec re tof how to un leash an a wesome powernever imagined by his contemporaries... the power upon wh ich . today, theentire world runs ... polyphase ahemat­ing c urrent (AC).

The illnesses Tesla suffe red duringhis childhood almost killed him . Later.as an adu lt, the ridicu le and rejectionhe suffe red , after showe ring the worldwith many o f nature 's most e lusi ve sc ·crcts. were severe enough to stiflemost me n. yet he remained dedicatedto sc ience. The great German philoso­pher Arth ur Schopcnhaucr probablysaid it best whe n he stated : "A ll truthpasse s thro ugh th ree stages: First. itis rid icu led ; Second , it is viole n tlyo pposed ; and Third , it is accepted assel f-ev ide nt."

S uch is the story of Nikola Tesla andhis strugg le to make AC the worldsta ndard. His rotating magnetic fieldprinci ple. basic to a ll power generationand e lec tric motors. is as e terna l as thew heel. Indeed, it has become as corn­

mon as the whee l, and witho ut it. theworld wou ld he qui te d iffere nt.

The story of the rise of e lectr icpower is long. and no one man shouldhave excl usive credit for its c reation.O thers. such as Hans Christian Oerstedand Michael Faraday, made significantdiscoveries in electrical sc ience . Theird iscoveries of electromagnetism andelectromagnetic induction. respectively•were pi vota l breakth roughs: withoutthe m. Tesla wou ld no t ha ve been ableto unleash the awesome power con­ta ined in the e lectrica l ge nie Faradaydi scovered in I HJ I .

For 5 1 years afte r Faraday 's discov­c ry. invest igators strugg led to increasethe electrical o utput of Faraday 's e m­bryonic generator. Gradually. magneto­electric generators became available. andby 1872 uc direct current (OC) generatorreached its peak of refineme nt.

Nevertheless. all suc h ge neratorsproved to he ine fficient and tro uble­some, creating sparks and requ iringfreq uent maintenance . Moreo ver, DC

power was inherently inferior beca useits losses increase as a fun ction of theinve rse sq uare of the voltage . End-uscvoltage has to he re latively low forsa fe ty reasons . With no inexpensivemethod of c ha nging the voltage of DCe lec tricity. the vo ltage of ge nerat ion,transmission . and distributi on of DCpower had to be the same as the lowvoltage of usc .

Unless massive copper bars as con­d uctors arc used to tra nsmit all thea mperes necessary to transmit a largequantity of power at low voltage. it isimpractical to d istribute DC a distancegreater than 1/2 mile fro m the generat­ing station. With AC power, the re la­tively inexpensive transformer changesthe voltage from high vo ltage trans­mission (over pe ncil -thin cond uctors)to low voltage d istributi on ... and use .

Nine teenth-century techno logists be­lieved DC power was their only optionfor harnessing Faraday's di scovery.Everyone believed naturally occurringAC was useless ... akin to a perpetualmotion machine. Tesla 's discovery ofthe rota ting magnetic fie ld pri ncip leproved everyone wrong . As the Circu itCourt in Connectic ut concl uded in up­ho ldi ng Testa ' s cla im of inve ntionagains t attacks on its novelty, " What

73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002 31

(No. 33642. Decided November 4, 1935]

8.~C_.Cl_8,] M ARCONI WIRELEss 'fELEoRAPH Oo,.e. U. S. .67L

On the Proofs

role was strictly as an entrepreneurbuilding larger generators than were al­ready commercially available. Edison'sbriefforay into the power industry wasnothing more than an anomaly, and hecontributed nothing to the time line ofscient ific progress. His much-heraldedPearl Street Station in Manhatta n pro­duced the same DC as the much earlierarc-light DC centra l stations in SanFrancisco and other locations, so therecan be no justification for scientific in­novation. DC is merely a historic rel ic,and even its title docs not belong toEdison.

While the rest of the world had theireyes fixed on Edison's promotion,Tesla was searching for a way to provehis AC theories. The answer came tohim one day in IRR2 as he was walk ingin a park reciting poetry. The idea ap­peared as a blinding flash in his mind,and he knew instanlly that he hadfound the missing link in Faraday'sgreat di scovery .. . how to extract theawesome electrical power contained inMichae l Faraday's discovery 51 yearsearlier. Such was the power of his rotat­ing magnetic field principle. Faraday's"new-born baby" suddenly became agiant in his mind. Moreover, Tcslanever realized at the time how difficu lta task he would have in overcomingignorance and greed. Th omas Edisonhad spent mill ions of dollars of inves­tors ' money to promote ex isting, inef­ficient, DC techno logy, and he was notabout to have his empire destroyed.

Tesla worked for Edison briefly, buthe soon realized that Edison had fixedinterests and that they were stric tly en­trepreneurial. Tesla had loftier goals,and they did not incl ude wasting histime hui lding Edison's power stations.which perpetuated a limited, inferiortechnology. He simply co uld not un­derstand why Edison was unahle tocomprehend the super iority of his ACsystem.

George Westingho use did not sufferEdison's shortsighted mentali ty. Heknew Tesla had so lved the energyprob lem that plagued scientists formore than 50 ye ars, so he bought allof Tesla's patents on the polyphaseAC system. Tesla had germinated theAC seed. and now it was the

Appeals, Second Circuit, 1to F 753(CA2- 1901l].

After Thomas Edison invented theincandescent bul b. he immediatelysought investors to fu nd the construe­tion of power stat ions, usi ng ex istingDC technology to power his lamps.Hi s promoters immediately dubbedhim "The Ki ng of Electri city," hut his

Fig. 1. Excerpt from Marconi Wirele.u Telegraph Company of America v. the UnitedStates. 81 Ct. Cis.

32 73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002

Patent8; im.pT(n;ement:J in w i.releu telegraphlY; validittl and infl'inge­ment..,...-()n the questions of validity and infring_f'cmc-ul of the­following patents for Improvements in wn-etess telegrnphy, the­court held as follows : Marconi r eissue patent No. 11913, heldnot infr inged. L DQ,ge , patent 609HH, held vrilid and Infelnged,Marconi patent 763772, held invalid except claim 16, which 1&­held to be: infringed. Fleming patent 80.3684. held invalid and ' not"infringed.

ROllaltV; construction: of contract of seze.c-wuere a contract of sale­to the United States of certain wireless telegraph stations bythe owner of patents on the equipment thereof provtded rbatthe contract price was for compensation In full to the seller, lindthat the Government was not bound to pay the setter any fur­ther sum as payment, royalty or other compensaeton "on accountof its patent rights involved 'In any Of the apparatus" thereby­transferred ; the exemption ot the Government from paymentor royalty on account of such patent r ights extended unly to thp,use of the rerttcumr apparatus or equipment transferred In the sale;

Par t y e1Ititled to sue tor infrinoem.ent.-The general rule as to the­right to sue for the infringement of e patent 13 that the rightrests with the one who was owner of the patent at the timethe infringcment occurred.

Infrinllem8nt of oombination.-A new combination oe elements, [Ire­sentlng a new arrangement, and producing new and beuetlctntresults does not infringe a former combtnatton by using some­of the elements thereof.

Va.liditl! at patent; a,pplication (tIed more tkan 8evC',~ tIInntll~ attortllint) of foreign a-pplica tion.-A patent is not iovolid under sec­tion 4887 Revised Statutes, as amended, because the nppllca tfoatherefor was filed more tlmu seven months nfter the filing orapplica ti on tor a foreign patent unless t he invention was a tsofi rst patented In the foreign country.

When invention. " {i.r, t pa tented" withi n- meaninu of $el-tlflll .1887Revilea S latute8.-As used in section 4887 Revised Statutes, thete rm "first patented" means the time when the patentee's r ightsto the patent become fixed and determined, which in Great BritainIs the date when the patent is "sealed."

Lachell of owner of patent in enforcing r i ghl8 agaifl.8t infringer8;­effecl upon 8u.b8equent own.e7·.-Wh ere there was such Inches onthe part of the owner of a patent In enforcing its rlg'ht!l againstinfringers that Interested persons might well believe the ratenthn d been abandoned, a subsequent owner of the patent is not

. . -MARCONI WIRELESS TE LEGRAPH CLlMPANY OF

AMERICA v..THE UNITED STAn,S

others looked upon as only invinciblebarriers . . . he [Testa] brought undercontrol, and ... taught how to util ize inpractical motors in distant cities thepower of Niagara" [WestinghouseElcc. & Mfg. Co. v, New EnglandGranite Co., Vo l. 1m. Federal Re­porter, p. 95 1, at p. 972 (D. Conn.­19(0); affirmed by the Circuit Court of

en trepreneur's tum to cu ltivate thepower industry and reap its rewards.

Westinghouse, us ing Tesla's AC pat­ems. joined with General ElectricCompany and in 1895 created theNiagara Power Project. the first large­scale hydroelectric generating stationin the world. A mere 74 years later,man was walking on the moon. Suchwas the impact of Tcsla's discovery.Now. virtua lly unlimi ted electricaland mechanical power is available

~ anywhere.Is it not classic irony that today our

perception of electrical history is soflawed that Testa' s name is largelyunrecognized. and we pay tribute toThomas Edison. the ma n who foughtbitterly to defeat the rise of the poly­phase AC electrica l power used almostuniversally throughout the world to­Jay'! Even our premier museum, theSmithsonian Institution, hails Mr. Edisonas the founding father of our electrica lpower system. and recognizes Teslaonly as the inventor of the AC motor.Its curator even attributes Ed ison's

incandescent lamp as being the catalystfor the second industrial revolution .

It was not the lamp that industryneeded; it was the mechanical muscleof Tesla's AC motor and the power tomake it ru n that sparked the secondindust rial revolution. But the greatesttriumph of the polyphase AC sys temwas that its use permitted the integra­tion of utility systems to permit takingadvantage o f overwhe lm ing scaleeconomies in generation. No more wasit necessary to have an isolated gener­ating source for each different use ofelectric power.

Tesla's intellect was such that oncehe had solved the AC conundrum. hecontinued his investigations into theworld above (lO cycles (AC) ... highfrequency. A few years earlier, the hr il­liant Scouish mathematician. JamesClerk Maxwell , established the laws ofe lectrodynamics by formulating fourequatio ns defini ng electromag netictheory. He concluded that it is pos­sihle to transmi t energy by electro­magnetic waves at the speed of light.

Later, Professor Heinrich Hertz. inGermany, set out to interpret and proveMaxwell's work experimentally. Hisexperiments proved those postulates- that e lectromagnetic waves are in­deed propagated in air at the speed oflight. Ma xwell and Hert z had nowlaid the gro undwork for someone tofoll ow in thei r footsteps and create asystem for transmitting and receivingintelligence.

Nikola Tesla was the first to recog­nize the need to investiga te the proper­ties o f high frequency alternatingcurrents probably because ofEdison's attacks on his high voltageAC transmission system as unsafe.The so-called "skin effect" of high fre­quency reduced its danger; and thiswork with high frequency electricpower led to his sys tem of transmittingintelligence (radio).

Tesla invented a high frequency aircore transformer capable of producinghigh voltages at very high freq uencies .It became know n as a Tesla coil. Indoi ng so. he discovered the secret of

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73 Amateur Radio Today . April 2002 33

electrical resonance. a funda mentalnecessity in all electronic circuitry.Tes la again proved he was hoth scien­ti st and technologist. someone whocould discover new scientific truthsthat advanced earlie r bel iefs and thenmade them work in a practical way. Inshort. he was the link between the purescientists and the technologists whofollowed .

History is not kind to Testa. althoughall of us are the benefactors of hiscreative ge nius. The main reason hisname is not a houschold word is thathe left no industry or family to per­pe tua te hi s memory. Nevertheless.his legacy - whether or not we ac­knowledge it - is a ll arou nd us in theelectrici ty that powers our homes.schools. and factories. and in the ACmotors powering the many machinesthat make our lives comfortable .

There is an overwhelming belief thatThomas Alva Edison was the chie f ar­chitect of our electrical society. andthat Marchese Guglielmo Marconi wasthe inventor of radio. Nonetheless.there is indisputable evidence clearlyshowing that Nikola Tesla was notonly the father of polyphase AC elec­tricity transmi ssion. but also the fatherof radio.

Litigati on agai n is helpful in estab­lishing priori ty of invention of radio.just as it did for polyphase AC trans­mission . The granting of a patent. byitself. is not who lly determinative ofinvention because that is an ex parte.or one-s ided proceeding. Usually noone is oppos ing its grant with facts(outside those readily available to thepatent examiner). tending to show thatthe claims of the patent applicant wereunwarranted. The patent examiner issome help in avoiding grants based onunwarranted claims of invention. buthis study is limited to papers on file inthe patent office or availab le to himwithout great effort and expense. Evenconcerning those. he is frequently de­pendent on the honesty of the lawyerfor the app licant in hringing prior artto his attention.

In the case of radio. as well as elec­tric power systems. two-party patentli tigation . and sometimes other litiga­tion. fortunately is available to help in34 73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002

determining priority of invention.Such litigation with respect to radiocame to the U.S. Court of Claimswhen Marconi Ii led a claim against thegovernment for the taking of his inte l­lectual property involved in four pat­ents; two claimed to be invented byhim. one in which the claimed inventorwas Sir Oli ver Lodge and assigned ( 0

Marconi. and one by J.A. Fleming,also assigned to Marconi .

Four patents were involved. Thefirst was a patent by Marconi for atwo-circuit system for transmitti ngsignals and recei vi ng them remotelywith one circuit in the transmitter andone in the receiver. A current analysisby an expert in e lectrodynamics (be­low) shows that this was not a viablesystem of rad io communication.

The two-circuit patent was Re-issue:\0. 11.913 (Original No. 586.193).granted to Guglielmo Marconi on June4. 1901, for transmitting electrical im­pulses and signals and the apparatustherefore.

The second patent was for a four-cir­cuit system of wire less telegraphy, No.763.772, granted to G. Marconi onJu ne 28. 19~. This patent is the key tothe invention o f radio. The questionfor the court was whether the patentwas properly issued to Marconi, whoclaimed to be its inventor. or whetherits issuance was invalid becau se ofprior art .

The third patent at issue was No.609.154. for the use of a variable in­ductance in tuning a circuit to resonancewith another. grunted to OJ. Lodge onAugust 16. 1 89~; and the fourth patentwas for a rectifi er tube. No. 803.8M.granted to J.A. Fleming on November7. 1905. The total damages claim wasfo r 56.000,000 - which in 19 16 wasa lot of money - and j ustified fulldevelopment of the facts by the partiesto the litigation.

The fi ndings of fact and opinion ofthe lower court (Court of Claims) canbe found in Marconi Wireless Tele­graph Company of America v. TheUnited States. XI Ct. Cis. 671 (1 935).affi rmed in major part by the SupremeCourt 320 US I ( 194 3).

The Court o f Claims decided thatthe government did not in fringe o n

Marconi 's two-circuit patent. Thegovernment's suppliers had not usedthat technology because long beforeWorld War I. it was already obsolete. Itheld that each of the componentsMarconi utili zed in the two-circuit sys­tem was invented by others . hut thatpossibly the combining of them justifieda clai m of invention for the two-circuitsystem (even though it was not a vi­able system of rad io). Moreover. thefour-circuit system had revolu ti oni zedthe art . Clearly. the focu s of the litiga­lion in the Court of Claims was on thefour-circu it patent.

During the more than three yearsafter Marconi's initial f ling of the keyfour-c ircuit patent on June 2X, 1904was rejected for prior art. new applica­tions and petitions for revival were liledand rejected by reason of the prior artse t forth in the Braun British patent.Lodge No. 609.1 54. and Marconi No.627.650. but principally in Testa No.tH5 .576.

In the early 193&. the Court ofClaims carefully analyzed Marconi 'sclaim of invention of the four-circuitsystem. Its examination showed howpatent office examiners time and againrejected Marconi's claim on the four­circuit system due to Tcslu's priorpatent for the identical apparatus. his"prior art." lt held that it was not nec­essary even to consider the Stoneclaim. which was pri or to Marcon i'sbut afte r Tcsla's, because Stone him­self credited Testa with its invention.[John Stone ( 1869- 1943). one of themany carly pioneers of radio. gaveTesfu full cred it for its inveruion.]

At long last. Marconi had persuadedthe patent office to reconsider andgrant the patent. was it only by coinci­dence that this occurred just after theinfluentia l investment banker. Morgan.gave his hacking to Marconi'! Both theCourt of Claims. and later the SupremeCourt, in affi rming the decision of theCourt of Claims. remarked that thefi rst examiners were correct, and therewas no apparent justification for thevalte face of the last examiner whogranted Marconi the invalid patent onthe four-ci rcuit system (opinion of theCourt of Claims on Liabili ty, 8 1 Ct.C is. 67 1. 760 '0768).

73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002 35

SI c.crs.j MAROONI"WIREIUS,TEtEGMPH Co. '1./. U. S. 677

x ·

w

1/

-t-t- 1' 1--==-~ 'g. - -

distance of more than 6,000 miles [ci­tations omi tted]." Brief for Pe titionerand C ross-Respondent, March, 1943,

at p . 16.Accord ing to the Coru m brothers.

who arc promine nt experimenters withTcs la coils, "Tcsla's stroke of ge niuswas to use tuned coupled coils, movethe energy sto rage capacitance to the

I "

_" c·. .. ·.. ·. "r"""'-1I'"' " . . ., , ~'c

' / e e ,/<,

Ie

"'"'? r. ... r:To one skilled in the art a transmitting station is shown at

fig. 10, havin g a M orse key and bat t ery in the primary cir­cuit, n ot shown, of an induction or Ruhmkor ff coi l c or othersource of high tension, high frequency current. A spark gapd, c, e, d, in t he second ary circuit has one side grounded at Eand the other side connected to an elevated wire and plate 'U'

insulated f r om the earth on the pole v . "The receiving st a t ion in fig. 11 has a coherer or im perfect

electrical con tact type detector j connected on one side toa n elevat ed conductor w insu lated from the earth, while-

Fig. 2, Another excerpt,

the recei ver would he more se lective(inductance in an e lectrical system isthe same as inertia in a physical sys­

tem) . M oreover, even with the Lodgepatent , signaling only to short dis­tances, about eighty miles, was all thatwas possible before the invention ofthe [four-circu it] system which en­abled communication in 190 1 over a

" It is sometimes said [by those deni­grating Tcsla's invention of radio] thatTesta's purpose was only to transmitelectrical energy, but the electricalwaves transmitted by any wireless sys­tem arc merel y one form of electricalenergy. Moreover. the specification ofTesta's patent recited that the methodof energy transmission would be usefulwhen it was desired to tran smit in tell i­gible messages to grea t distances. Inview of this statement, it is within theknowledge of those skilled in the art to

interrupt the cont inuous ge neration ofhigh frequency energy in the transmit­ting system by a te legraph key, andsubstitute for the curre nt receiving in­strumentalities disclosed in connectionwith the receiving system, a radio signaldetector device ."

The onl y thing le ft is to dete rm ineof what significance is the Court ofC laims' marginal award of inventionto Marconi for the two-circuit system.

First, the government's lawyer claimedthat Marconi's two-circuit system wasbasically the same system used byHert z to verify the theories of JamesClerk Ma xwell . Bri ef at 4 1.

Second, this is what Marconi 's ownlawyer said of the two-circ uit system:"Marconi, in 1894, learned o f theHertz 1888 experi ments and in lS96fi led an appl ication in the UnitedStates upon which was aranted the, e

patent which was rei ssued as 11,913.That patent, formerly in suit, describeda sending station and a receiving sta­lion without any tuned circui ts, T hissystem would operate, hut only atshort distances, becau se there was toomuch was te of energy. The transm it­ting antenna would quickly, and notpersistently, radiate the ene rgy app liedto it. with the result that the tra in ofether waves would he too sho rt insteadof being sustained . And at the rece iv­ing station, the antenna like wise wouldqu ic kly absorb the rece ived wa ves,instead of storing them up, and theantenna also would recei ve undesiredwaves from other transmitting antennas[citat ions omi tted ]. T he Lodge patentformerly in suit was an im provement:hath the transmitting and the receivingantennas being tuned with inductance,so that each would vibrate longer and

primary side, and to add a ground con­nection. Tesla was the first to induc­tively couple the secondary circuit[where the capacitance must he small]to a tuned primary circuit, where theenergy storage element (capacitance]may be huge by comparison. This re­markable innovation made possible thegeneration of RF signals immenselymore po werful than Hertz 's apparatus[and therefore the apparatus in Mar­coni's re issue patent] (TCTUTOR atpage 13. J& K Corum, D. Edwards ,Corum & Associates, Windsor, Ohio,1988, ISBN 0-924758-01 -5). Accord­ing to the Corurns. Hertz calculated hispeak power at 16 kW. They concludedthat his average radiated power wastrifling. In contrast, at Colorado Springs,in 1899 , Tesla's average power was inexcess of 250 kW and his peak powerexceeded 76 megawatts - a long wayfrom Hertz in just a decade. Ibid.

Third. even Justi ce Frankfurter. whodissented bitterly in favor of Marconi,acknowledged that the two-circuitpatent was not a significant factor inthe innovat ion of radio: "That patentdid not embrace many of the crucialclaims here involved and its productcannot compare in commercial useful­ness with that of the patent in suit"320 U.S. I at 64, footnote 3.

The following technical evaluationwill clearly show the unviubility of thetwo-circuit system as a means fortransmitting intelligence:

(1) Abstract, This work examinesthe characteristics of the two-circuitradio transmission and reception sys­tem (Patent Re-issue No. 11,91 3) usedby Marconi prior to the developmentof the four-circu it system. The find­ings are that the circuit as described inthe named patent is an unviable systemof radio communication owing to anumber of drawbacks (to he examinedin detail) . In part icular, findings in­clude a wide inherent bandwidth in thesystem (con sider the implications ofthis in the usage of tcday's radio fre­quency allocations) and limitations onthe signal and receptive power of thesystem as described in the patent (af­fec ting coverage and transmi ssiondi stance) .

(2) Transmitter Characteristics(and their implications). The circuit36 73 Amateur Radio roasv » April 2002

diagram of the transmitter (MarconiWireless Telegraph Company ofAmerica v. The United States - Fig.10,81 Ct. CIs. at p. 677] shows a con­ductlng plate (u) suspended by insulat­ing pole (v) to which is attached avertically hanging wire connected toone end of spark gap (d .c.c.d). Theother end of the gap is connected by awire to earth. Across the spark gap isconnected an AC power source (c) (seeFig. 2).

O bservations

It is not obvious from the diagram ofMarconi's two circuit apparatus (re­produced in the court 's findings offact) ur exactly which point along thetotal length of the wire the spark gap isconnected. This may have an influenceon the resonant mode of the system(due to impedances associated with thepower supply with respect to ground),but it is also true that any monopoleresonator such as this will respond to anumber of frequencies. (Thi s is easilydemonstrated both by doing a fre­quency sweep of such a circuit using asweep generator and spectrum ana­lyzer, and is al so shown in graphicdetail in a simple mechanical system- a metal ru ler standing in a vise is anexample of such a resonator.) It is as­sumed that the dominant II4-wavemode is being used.

Consequences

A confl icting set of requirementsarises from the desirability of the sys­tem to be narrow band (selective) onone hand and a good radiator on theother. Thi s is not necessarily an im­pediment to a good narrowband trans­mission (the antenna used in thetypical AM station is unchanged ex­cept for the lack of a top-loading ca­pacitance) , and in modern radiostations the signal fed to the antenna isrigorously contro lled with regard tofrequency content.

In the transmitter in question , this isnot so. The signal is generated byconnecti ng a charged capacitance(upper wire + plate) to earth by aspark gap which conducts when thebreakdown potential across it is

reached. Conduction in the gap takesplace extremely rapidly (spark propa­gation of up to 108 cm/s) [High Po werElectronics, Sargent & Dollinger, pub,TAB Books, Inc., ISBN 0-8306-9094­8, Ch. 6.1, pp. 187-190J and is essen­tially a step function. The result is thegeneration of a broad spectrum of fre­quencies whose harmonic content andharmonic amplitudes may be de­scribed by a Fourier Series or similar[Advanced Engineering Mathematics,Sth Ed. , Erwin Kreysig, pub. JohnWiley and Sons, ISB N 0-471 -8894 1-5,Ch. 5.3 , pp. 2 11-2 16], al l of whicharc available to exc ite the ante nna inmany resonant modes additional to the1/4·wave fundamental.

The Q of a circuit containing a sparkgap has been seen to be a severe limit­ing factor on the performance of reso­nators generally (particularly high Qones - however, any unwan ted lossesin a radiating circu it that do not con­tribute to the radiation arc undes ir­able). Not onl y docs the gap dissipateenergy (that could otherwise be use­full y employed in radiation) , bu t inex tingu ishing at low currents it sup­presses further oscillation in the antennabefore all energy in the circuit hasbeen usefully employed.

Finally, the top capacitance is usedas the primary energy store in the two­circuit system. Available system en­ergy is described by the equation E =:

O.5CY2. To max imize transmission

power, this energy must he maxi­mized . An obvious ploy to increaseavailable energy is to increase the volt­age (Y), because not only does energyscale as voltage squared, but antennacapacitance must be kept low enough toenable working at a desired frequencywith good radiation efficiency. Thegeometry of the electrode dictates thevoltage it can be charged to, and highvoltages demand a large radius of cur­vature for the energy storage capaci­tance. It is clear that there arc limitationson increasing both capacitance andvoltage in this system.

Transmitter summary

In this transmitter, the sole resonantcircuit is heing asked to do two jobswith confl icting requirements. While

rad iating efficiently. it is a lso requiredto achieve a high degree of harmonicsuppression. The four-circuit syste mgels around this by se parating thesefunctions into two separate looselycoupled circu its. each performing asing le function. Any c ircuit containinga spark gap has a very lossy harmonicge nerator built into it. Effic iency is notrestricted to signal radi ati on a lone, andthe resonator (antenna) in th is systemis exci ted at a mult itude of frequenciesresu lting in a widehand tra nsmission.In the fo ur-circuit transmitter, the gapis removed from the antenna circuitand incorporated into se parate ci rcuits,the degree of coupling between themdefi ning the bandwidt h of the c ircuitunti l the gap is quenched. Idealquenching results in a single frequencyoutput. a fact well known in early ra­d io circles. Thi s scheme. whe n usedwith cl ose coupling. allows e nergytransfer fro m primary circuit to an­tenna to be effected wi th very few gapconductions ... and hence. losses .

The four-circuit syste m still suffersgap losses but enables the gap to bequenched (removed) from the a ntennacircuit while sti ll allowi ng the antennato ring at its natural freque ncy withbette r e fficiency. The mome nt the gapstops cond ucting in the two-circ uitsystem. a ll oscillations cease. There isa serio us problem when trying to in­crease power in the syste m to a le velsuitable for long di stance transmis­sion. The requirements for the capaci­tor Iu} to be small for radiationeffic iency and large for energy storageclash badly. The voltage the capaci torcan be charged to is limited by its sizeand shape - hence transmissionpower is a lso restricted. T he fo ur-ci r­cu it system overcomes this by allow­ing use of arbitrarily large primarystorage capacitance charged to arbi­tra rily high vo ltages in a compac tmanner. Primary energy storage is rc­moved from the aeria l sys tem.

(3) Receiver characterist ics. Thereceiver circuit appears in Fig. II(Marconi Wireless Telegraph Com­pany of America v. The Un ited States,8 1 o. C is. At p. 677), show n in F ig. 2.Once again. a lossy clement (coherer)appears in the antenna resonant circuit,

losing energy and widening the an­tenna frequenc y response . The degreeof coupling between the two resonantc ircuits in the fo ur-circui t syste m de­fines overall system re sponse a nd re­moves the lossy coherer from theantenna.

With that technical e valuation of thetwo-circuit system as backgro und , wecan tum to two portions of the Su­preme Court opinion that arc some­times cited as preserving Marconi 'spriority of in vention .

First. a se ntence in the majorityopinion at page 37. The se ntence reads:" Marconi' s reputati on as the man whofirst achieved successful radi o trans­mi ssion rests on his origina l patent .which became Re-issue No. 11.91 3.and which is not here in q uestion." Thepronoun "which" has an ambiguousantecedent. It is not c lear whether thematter " not here in questi on" is Mar­coni ' s reputation. or the validity of thetwo-circuit pate nt. Re-issue No. I 1,91 3.It appears to the writer that it refers tothe latter. which was not in issue be­cause neither party sought review of(he C ourt of C la ims decis io n on thereissue patent since there had been afinding of no infringement. But even ifit refers to the former, the state mentwo uld have significance only if thecombination by Marconi of the cle­ments inv ented hy others played animportant role in the progress of rad io;and as it has been shown above. it didnot. The two-circuit system cou ld onlytransmit a few miles without the Lodgeimprovement. which increased the rangeto 80 miles. ln contrast. the fou r-cir­cuit system co uld reach 6.000 mi lesand lesse ned interference of othertransmitters . The two-c ircuit systemtransmitter was ide ntical to that ofHertz. The receiver merely substituteda coherer - in vented by Branly - inthe Hertz rece iver. in lieu of the sparkgap used by Hertz for experimentalpurposes.

The second ci tatio n is to the di ssent­ing opinion of Mr, Ju stice Frankfurter.He conunenced his di ssent by pointingout the inadequacy of lawyers. such ashimself, to follow a technica l di scus­sion. 320 U.S. 63. footno te I . It is clearthat he fo un d it difficult to unde rstand

the facts. because he fai led to c ite asing le one in support of his view thatthose prior in time to Marcon i "d id nothave the ' flash' ... that begot the ideain Marconi wh ich he gave 10 the worldthrough the in vention e mbodying theidea ." Perhaps it was fo r this reasonthat he fa iled to persuade the majori ty.Jus t as in any other profcssion.Jawyersand j udges apply principles to facts todraw concl usions. The majority ap­pl ied legal principles to facts andfou nd that Tcsla invented radio . JusticeFrankfurter apparently reached theconclusion in his di ssenting o pinio n insome other way.

Guglielmo Marconi deserves greatcred it for his vigorous promotion andbusiness development of wire le ss te­legra phy and radio, j ust as credit forpromoting the polyphase alternatingcurrent system belongs to GeorgeWesting hou se - not the in ventor, alsoNikola Tesla .

Marconi e valuated the commercialopportunities arising from the inven­tions of Hertz and Tesla. and se izedthem. When Hulsmeycr, the inventorof radar. tried to sell his in ve ntion toshipow ners , he had no success. Beinga shrewd businessman, Marconi tiedhis customers wi th cor nructs so tightin exclusive dealing arrange men ts thatsh ipowners were fearful of dealingwith others to install radar systems forsa fety purposes because the systemsalso used Hertzi an waves. "The ve ryfact that all reports and documents re­ferred to Hulsmcyer 's [radar] di scoveryas based on a forrn of wireless telegra­phy w a..enough to convince them [ship­owners ) that it was one and the samething. however different its use . andshipping lines using wireless telegra ­phy in its acce pted sense were mostlyunder contract to the Marconi monopoly.The terms of the Marconi Licensewere strict and no one in those com­petiti ve times would dare risk a suit forbreach o f contract" [bracketed mate­rial added ] (Pri tchard. 11u' Radar ml1;

Thorsons Publishing Group, Welling­borough. Northamptonslure. NN8 2RQ.Eng land. 1989. at p. 19).

Being a good businessman, Marconi

Continued 0/1 page 5 7

73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002 37

Hugh Wells W6WTU141 1 18th st.Manhattan Beach CA 90266·4025

Mt. Wilson TravelogueJoin this private tour of one ofAmerica 's most famous observatories.

Ham s are a curious bunch. They have an interest in many things ~ particularly scientiiicones. For this explora tion a group ofhams joined a group of nonhams for a totsl of 18persons. The nonhams were primarily amateur machinists enjoying everything mechanical.

t'hoto A, Some of the hams participating ill the visit. From L to R: Norm K6YPD. HllxhU'6WTU, Tom N6VGK, Jo hn KM61V.

38 73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002

Hams participating in this eventwere Norm K6YPD, JohnnyWB6HYR, Tom N6DGK, Pat

KA6TRK, Warren KE6LEA, JohnKM6JV, Hugh W6WTU, and Mike(call not avai lab le) .

Photo A shows four of the hamsposing for their picture. Photos wereprovided by Norm K6YPD, HughW6WTU, and Johnny WB6HYR, who

provided the majority of those shownhere.

For this trip, we toured the As­tronomy Observatory located on thetop of Ml. Wilson (CA). The observa­tory is at 5, I00 feet above sea leveloverlook ing Los Angeles County. War­ren KE6LEA made the arrangementsfor us to have a privately conductedtour of all the facil ities.

Mt. Wilson is named afte r Benjam inDavis Wi lson who was a pioneer trap­per and seuler (see Photo B). Heblazed a trail to the top of the moun­tain in 1864 , after which the mountainwas named Wi Ison Peak and laterchanged to MI. Wilson.

Adjacent to the observatory is thesite of all the TV transmitters servingLos Angeles County. Yes, this is RFHill and our handheld radios did expe­ri ence some dcscnsc from time to time.Photo C shows the density of thetransmitting antennas located on thesite,

While we were waiting in the park­ing lot for all of our lour group 10 ar­ri ve, we had a chance to investigate oursurroundings. Located in the parkinglot was a huge microwave horn that

Photo n. Bronze tablet erectedfor BenjaminD. Wilsoll.

1'''010 C. ]V and FM broadcast alllennas serving the Las Angelesmetropolitar area.

/''' 010 F: DOli Nicholson leading the group f or 1I (ollr of thl' MI.Wilson observatory site.

Photo E. 3-CH;, wa veguide hom am enna lying OIl its face in theparking 101.

te lescopes

re flecting

scope and it was placed on Mt. Wi lson(sec Pholo G) . This part icular tele­

sc o pe w as one o f the fi rst de signspro vid ing mounts for both visua l

vie wi ng lenses and for cameras. Several73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002 39

observatories isbecause the site isco nsidered to hethe " best seeingsite" of anywherein the U.S . At5.100 fee t. thete le sc o pes area bo ve the lightfield generated bythe metropol ita narea be lo w a ndvery littl e or nolig ht aberration isex perienced .

One interestingfact was brough tou t during the lour:Fo r a g reat manyyears. astro nomywas considered tobe a " ma n's fie ld" and women were

not accepted as o bse rvers until the1950s era.

O ne of the firs t " large"was a 6O-inch paraho lic

appeared to ha ve se rved its time andhad bee n re legated to the parki ng lotfor storage (Photos 0 and E) . A l­though 1didn 't measure the waveguidedime nsio n. I did estimate the circ u larguide dimension to be th ree inches ind iameter. It is my estimate that the an­te nna was designed to support signalsin the 3-GHz band.

A lthoug h the radio eq uipment on themountain was of interest and the TVantennas captured o ur attent io n. wewere there to visit the observatory. Ourtour doce nt for the visi t was DonNicholson (see Pholo F). who hadbeen assoc iated wi th the observatorysince he was a small ch ild - hi s fa therworked o n the site J uring the earlyyears.

The word observatory might tend tolead you to believe that there is only asing le observatory o n the site. when inreali ty there are o ver e ight. A ll arc ac­tive and operated by astrono my re­searc h g roups from all o ver the U.S.The reaso n fo r the co ng regation of

To make the measurement. Michelsonhad a reflecting mirror placed 22 milesaway on Me San Antonio, providing atotal li ght path of 44 miles. Surveyingteams verified the distance to an accu­racy of a small part of a ern . Aftermaking the measurement. the joke be­came, "Now that we've measured thevelocity of light. we question thelength of the meter!"

Michelson's rotating mirror wasspun using compressed air, causing itto scream loudly. Michelson used atuning fork as his "standard' fo r deter­mining the speed of the mirror 's rota­tion. By the way. thc force of gravitywas measured and recorded at the testsite should gravity have an effect onlight velocity.

Another aspect of the visit to Mt.

Photo 1. Tl"O photos of "The Cham Ar­ray: .. The IOJ.\·e r phOTO shows some of thein -process pictures during construction.

(Photo H) was developed and installedon Mt. Wilson fo llowing the design ofthe 60-inch . Years later a 200-inchtelescope was built and installed at MePalomar near San Diego.

One of the most recent telescope de­velopments on the Mt. Wi lson site wasdesigned and is being built hy GeorgiaState University and is called "TheChara Array" (see Photo I ). I foundthis telescope to be very fasci natingbecause it is the equiva lent of a hugeparabolic lens 350 meters in diametercreating a collimating image profi lewith an infini te foca l length. The de­sign uti lizes six telescopes positionedin the fonn of the letter "Y" with twotelescopes per leg. The telescopes ineach leg are at different spacing to re­duce or prevent a redundant image. Allsix scopes are linked together withevacuated light pipes with a resultingoptical image accuracy within a frac­tion of a wavelength. "Viewing" fromthe Chara Array is performed by acomputer.

Mt. Wilson has many historicalevents locked up in its closet. with the"secrets" being revealed only to thosewho venture into the rea lms of theobservatory.

Here is one of thc many historica levents recorded for the sitc. During the1924-1926 period Professor Albert A.Michelson measured the velocity o flight from the Mt. Wilson site using arotating mirror (sec Photo J). The ac­curacy achieved was 4 km/s, and thutwas better than any previous measure­ment. The previous accuracy obtainedby others in 1906 was 10 kmls.Michelson 's record stood until 1950,whe n Esser in Eng land achieved anaccuracy of 3 kmls.

Photo J. Br01I:e tablet erected 011 the pier where Prof Albert Michelson measured thevelocity oflight to a ll accuracy of4 kml s.

"second" mirror options were madeavailable for installation on the upperportion of the structure to accommo­date most any viewing requirement.Currently the 60-inch scope is the onlyone on the site that is available to thepublic for lease hy the night.

In 19 17. a J(X)..inch reflecting telescope

Photo H. The l oo· illch Hooker telescope.Photographs made with this telescope canreveal stars .~o faint they are no brighterthan all ordinary candle lit a distance of8.tXXJ miles. Completed ill 1917 and remainedthe largest ofits kindfor 30 years.

40 73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002

Photo G. Partial view ofthe 6O-inch para­bolic reflecting Telescope located at theobservatorv 011 Mt. lVilscm.

Photo K. 1912 Fairbanks-Morse 2-cylinde r 50 liP engine fo r­mally used to dri ve a ~O kW 120 VDC generator. Most all of theMt. wilson observatory equipment was powered by 120 VDC.

Wilson was the demonstration of a Fairbanks-Morse enginewhich had been installed in 191 2 (sec Photo K ). At thatti me the observatory site was designed to run on 120 VDC.The Fairbanks-Morse engine drove a 40 kW DC generator(photo L) that was used to charge a hank of batteries dur­ing daylight hours. The objective was to operate the obser­vatory at night off of the batteries since the heat from theengine would create light aberrations.

The engine had been dormant for about 35 years after ACpower was provided to the mountaintop. However, the ob­servatory continued to operate off of DC power, so a largebank of rectiflcrs was set up to take over the task andeliminate the batte ries .

A volunteer group of three fellows decided to restore theFairbanks-Morse engine during mid- 1999 and it has beenoperating ever since. The engine is now operated for dem­onstrations only and it was a very fascinating thing to seeand hear operate. The engine was designed to operate onany combustible fuel. hut gasoline and kerosene was usedmostly in this engine. Details on the engine arc as follows:

• 2 cylinders• 25 HP per cylinder (total o f 50 HP)• Bore is II inches. stroke is IS inches· 300 rpm• Shipping weight of 22.000 Ibs.• Two solid cast-iron Flywheels at 1.700 lbs. each

Photo 1_ Picture ofthe -/0 k \l' 120 VDC generator being driven bythe 50 liP Fairbanks-Morse engine.

Photo I-.t. The line-shaft used to distribute rotating mechanicalpower In various pieces ofmachine shop equipment.

Photo N. The 120 VDC line-shaft drive motor driving a belt andpulley speed reducer.

73 Amateur Radio toaev » April 2002 41

Plw/o 0 , Stepped switch rheostat and pow('/" solenoid used forcontrolling till' Iim'-slwji drive motor.

Photo J~ Hom and machinist lour group entering the A\/rml/llllicalMuseum. Much of the his to ry of Mt. Wilso n and observed

phenomena is displayrdwithin.

Say you saw it in 731

line -shaft as sho wn in Photo :\1. A 120VDC motor, shown in Photn N. drivesthe line-sha ft. A rheostat . shown inPhoto O. controls the motor 's speed.Alt hough most of the origi nal linedri ven equipment is still operational.severa l independent pieces have beeninstal led.

Although our fi rst tour stop was inthe Astronomical Museum. Pholo P . itis being d iscussed last because of itsimporta nce 10 the visit. A multitude ofphotos adorn the walls of the museum.with each describing many of the ob­served sights and phenomena from ournighttime sky. M uch of the history ofMt. Wi lson and the observato ry is re­corded and displayed wi thin the mu­se um. re veal ing many of the secre ts o fthings tha t happen above our head.One of the things of concern to hams.of course. are flares occurri ng on thesun. and the way they affect our signalpropagation .

Eve n though this tour was notstric tly ham-radio-oriented . the scie n­tifi c history and deve lopment re pre­sented was very e nlightening to manyof us. Because of the volume of infor­mati on avail able , I suspect that a sec­ond or third trip to the mou ntai n willhe necessary in order to gain a properperspective of the things that are goingon around us but are normall y out o four daily sight. fa

different from that heard from a typ i­cal gasoline e ngine. The hcst way forme to descri be the sound is wi th a"hoof-hoof-hoof" instead of the sharp"crack" wi th each cylinder firing onehears from a gasoline engine .

Following the origina l installati on ofthe engine on the observatory site.people liv ing on the moun tain wereprovided with hot water during thedaytime. Cooling water for the engine.after passing through the engine. wasrouted through the local shower so thatpeople cou ld bathe in war m water. Ap­parentl y the engine provided the onl yhot water on the mountai ntop du ringthose early years.

'Adjace nt to the Fairbanks-Morse en­g ine was the origina l machine shopse rvic ing the obse rva tory site. Mosto f the equipment is powered fro m a

• 8 feet o f vertical hei ..hto• Displacement was estimated to be

equivalent to se ven times that o f asrnall-hloc k Chevrolet engi ne.

I stood beside the e ng ine while itwas running and the only noise that itmade was the clicking of the ex ternalpush rods that opera ted the valves andigniter poi nts - quite an ex hilaratingtreat! To c reate a spark within the cyl­inder. a se t of mechani cal points weremounted inside of each cylinder. At theappropriate time , the poin ts open and aspark across the open points fires thefue l.

Arte r sta nding beside the engine fora while and being fasci nated hy thesmoothness and silence of operation. Iwent outs ide of the bu ildi ng to listen tothe exhaust. The sound emanating fromthe ex haust stack was considerably

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CALENDAR EDENTS

Listings .rre free of charge as space permits. Please send us ) 'our Calendar Even t tun months inad vance of th e issue y ou l ..'an Cit lO appear in. For exa mp le. if y ou wanr it to appear in theJuly issue, u'e should receive it by: April 30. Provide a dear, concise summary of the essentialdetsils about your Calendar Event,

APR 13

ST. PAUL, MN The Robb insdale ARC, Inc.(44 years old this year), will sponsor the 21s1annual Midw inter Madness hobby electronicsshow at Ganglehoff Center on the ConcordiaUniversity Campus in 81. Paul MN, SaturdayApril 13th. 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m . ConcordiaUniversity is located off Interstate 94 nearHamline and Marshal. Super buys on corn­puters. hardware, components. peripherals,and amateurradio equipment. Info, registrationor tickets: 763-537-1722. Free parking. Same­day VE exams. Commercial Exhibitors. Largeind()()( swap meet. Admission is $7 at the dOOI".Children 12 and under admitted free. Advancediscount tickets available at Amateur &AntiqueRadio Consignment Center, Pavek Museum,and Radio City . For more info rmation visit{h ttp ://www.visi.coml - kOltcj . or E-m ail{kOlte@visi.comj.

WEST ORANGE, NJ The IRAC Hamfest 2002will be held by the Roseland Radio Club. IAAC,at West Orange High School, 600 PleasantValley Way. West Orange NJ, Saturday April13th from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. This event willfeature amateur radio, computers, and thingsof int e rest to S WLers and e lect ro nicshobbyists. Plenty of free parking. Ground levelaccess. This event will be held indoors rain orshine. Admission 55 at the door (no advancedtickets). XYUchildren under 12 free (withregular admission). Tables paid in advance are$15 for the first and 512 for each additional; or$20 for the first and $15 for each additional atthe door. Add $2 for the limited number oftables available with electric. You must RSVPby April 5th, after mat, first come first served.Sellers Or..ilY admitted at 6:30 a .m. - noexceptions! Special parking lot for vendors.Talk-in on 146.415(+1.0) 85.4T, 447.875(-5 .0)156.7T, or 146.520 simplex, on the W2CRrepeater system. Contact Harvey MuskowitzW2YWC. 973-994-0637. The Club Web pageis at [www.qsl.netlk2gqj.

APR 14

RALEIGH, NC The Raleigh ARS will presen tit s 30 th Hamfest and NC State ARRLConvention in the J im Graham Bldg., NCSFairgrounds, Sunday April 14th, 8 a.m. to 4p.m. Wheelchair access . AARL, MARS, ARES!NTS and CAP meetings are among thefeatures of this event. All activities inside.Advance tickets are $5 each, $6 at the door.

Tables and booths are available. Free parking .AVs welcome. A Hospitality Party will be heldSaturday night. VE exams W4VFJ, 919-556­855 1. For pre-registration , general info anddealer inquiries, contact J eff Wittich AC4Z0 ,2 11 Dundalk Way, Cary NC 275 11. tel. 919­362-4787.

STOUGHTON, WI The Madison Area RepeaterAssn . will sponsor the Madison Swapfes tSunday, Apri l 14 th, at Man dt CommunityCenter, Stoughton Junior Fair Grounds onSouth Fourth SI. in Stoughton. Doors open at8 a.m. Talk-in on 147.15. For further info seethe Web site at [http ://www. qsl.netlmara;]. orcall 608-245-8890. Tickets are $4 in advanceand $5 at the door. Free parking . Sendpayments to Madison Area Repeater Assn.•P.D. Box 8890. Madison W/ 53708-8890.

APR 20

MORGANTON, NC The 5th annual CatawbaValley Hamtest and Computer Fair will be heldat the Burke Coun ty Fairgrounds, Hwy. 181North, Satu rday, April 20th, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.The FCC's Riley Hollingsworth will speak .Vendor setup is Friday night and Saturdaymorning. Admission is $4 in advance, $5 atthe gate. VE exams on site . For ticket infocontact Don Beam KK4NI. tel. 828-652-3 102,or E-mail [dbeam@wnclink.eomj. For dealerinfo, contact Larry Withrow AF4HX, tel. 828­652-4195, E-mail [af4hx@worldnet.att.netj.Talk-in on 147.150(+)

APR 26, 27, 28

VISALIA, CA The International DX Conven­tion , sponsored by the Southern Californi a DXClub, will be held at the Holiday Inn Plaza,9000 W. Airport D r. Features include DXforums/programs, vendors. Saturday banquetand Sunday breakfast with major DXpeditionspeakers. Admission is $60 in advance , 565at the doo r. For more info see (www.qs/.netlvisalia2002j, or contact Don Bostrom N6IC.4447AtoIlAve., Sherman Oaks CA9 1432. Tel.818-784-2590; E-mail [n6ic @arrl.netj.

APR 27

SONOMA, CA The Valley of the Moon ARC,W6AJF, will hold its annual ARRL Hamtest.Saturday April 27th, from 8 a.m. to noon. Thehamfest will be held at the Sonoma ValleyVeteran's Memorial Bldg., 126 First Street

West. Sonoma CA, just one block north of thecentral Sonoma Plaza. Foll ow Highway 12which passes through the center of town infront of the Plaza. For a map an d printeddirections to the namtest , send a business sizeSASE to VOMARC. 358 Patten St., SonomaCA 95476. Talk-in will be on 145.35(-600) PL88.5. For more info call Darrel WD6BOR at707-996-4494. Admission is free and hams areencouraged to bri ng the entire family. Theevent will include a walk-in VE exam sessionwith registration starting at 9 a.m. Testing forall license elements begins at 10 a.m. Therewi ll be an electronics swap meet with bothindoor and outdoor spaces available. Setupwill start at 7 a.m. Spaces rent for $10 each;free of charge for amateur radio organizationsto use for informational tables and displays.The Club WIll serve a full breakfast from 8 a.m.to 10 a.m., including eggs, pancakes, sausage,juice and cot tee or tea for $5. Demonstrationsinclude an operating CAP station, AMSAT, ad ispl ay of hom e-bre w equipment. and abeginner's RDF transmitter hunt. VOMARCmembers will be on hand to help visi ting hamsregister with the FCC thro ugh the UniversalLicensing System so they can renew licensesand upg rade. VOMARC will al so be par­ticipating in the QRP to the Field contest, whichwill run during the hamfesl. Guest operatorsare cordially invited to sit in and take a tumoperating the Club station.

APR 28

ARTHUR, IL The Moultrie Amateur Radio Klubwi ll hold their 401h annual Hamfest 8 a.m. to12 p.m. on Apri l 28th. at the Moultrief1)ouglasCounty Fair Grounds on the south side ofArthur, just off of Illinois Route 133, behind Ihehigh school. Talk-in will be on 146.055/.655and 449.275/444 .2 75 . Admission $5 perperson over the age 01 14 years. Tables are$10 each, paid in advance. To reserve tables,or for info , wri te to M.A.R.K., P O. Box 91,Lovington IL 61937, or call for info during theday at 2 17-543-2178, evenings at 217-873­5287.

CANFIELD,OH The Twenty Over Nine ARCInc .. of Youngslown OH, will host its 18thAnnual Hamfest 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. , Sunday Apri l28th at Mahoning County Career and TechnicalCenter (formerlyJ.V.S.). 7300 N. Palmyra Rd.,Canfield OH. Gate admission is $5 , children

Continued 0 11 page 5 7

73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002 43

HRMSRTSAmateur Radio Via Satellites

MAROC-TUBSAT

Andrew C. MacAll iste r W5ACM14714 Knights Way Dr.

Houston TX 77083·5640

On j anuary 22nd, an E-mail went out to the AMSAT-BB remailer from Colln l l urst VK511I, askingif anyone was aware of an amateur sa telli te with a beacon on 144.1 Mi!«. This began a series ofIect-Iitulitig ettorts by hams around the world to iden tify the mystery signals.

Photo A. MAROC-TUHSAT, Reflector, BADR 2, and Kompass are arranged around theperiphery of the ZENIT-2 adopter ring prior to the December 10, 2001. launch f romKa zakhstan. (TUB !J/IOW)

44 73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002

D uring the follow ing 24 hours, manytheories were posted until it became

app arent that we had a new sate llite ope rat­ing within the Amateur Sate llite Servicefrequency spectrum thut was not a hamsat .MAROC-TUBS AT was on the air.

ZENIT-2 launches five satellites

On December 10, 200 1, a Russian Zenit-2rocket lofted five satellites into a LOnO-1on(540 mil es ) o rbi t fro m the Baiko nur

Cosrnodrome in Kazakhstan. The primarypayload was the 5,OOO-pound Mcrcor-Sjameteorological observation (wcather) sat­elli te . Mounted on a ring around the baseof Meteor were four much smaller satelli tesincluding Kompass. Refl ector, BADR 2, andMAROC-TUB$AT. The omit is circular andsun-sync hronous, with an inclination to theequator of 99.7 degrees .

Kompass is a l 75-pound geophysics sat­el lite designed to help with earthquake pre­dictions. Reflec tor is a curious satellite built

by NIl KP in Russia unde r co ntract to theU. S. Ai r Force Research Lab at KirtlandAir Force Base in New Mexico. It is 4.5 feetlong, 1.5 fee t wide, weighs 13 pounds , andcarries an array of laser re troreflec tors. Thesatelli te has four triangular fins on a squarebase with a de ployable boom. It ' s purposeis to prov ide a resource for ca librating AirForce imagi ng systems anti othe r opticalsenso rs that a rc used to monito r "spacejunk."

The remaining two satellites, BADR 2and M AROC-TUBS AT, were consideredpotential cand ida tes for the signals hea rd on144. 1 MHz. The groups behind both satel­lite s have a histo ry of successful satelli testhat have used amateur-rad io frequencies .

BADR 2 was buill by SUPARCO (Spaceand Upper Atmos phere Research Commis­sion) in Karachi, Pakistan, and STL (SpaceInnovations Limited] of the United King­dom. In Pakistan it is known as Badar-H.The satellite weighs 150 pounds an d con­tains a numbe r of ex peri ments includingmag netorquers, a grav ity -grad ient boom,radiation detectors, a CCD (charge-coupledde vice) camera, and comm unications sys­tems on V HF, UHF, and S-band. BADR 1(B ad a r- I) . the fir st s a tel lite f ro mSUPARCO, was launched several years ago .It had uplinks on 435 .030 and 435.5 12t\.tHz. The downlinks were on 145.825 and144 .025 MHz. It was a 26-facel polyhedronshape weighing 115 pou nds. Its signa ls a ll

the two-me ter band alarmed many hamssince there was no apparent amate ur-radioconnection with the Endeavor. Fortunatelyit did nOI last long, only about a month.

A German-Morocca n sate llite

M AROC ·TUBSAT wei gh s i n at 104pounds and was built for Morocco ' s RoyalCenter for Remote Sensi ng by the German

" '.

~

Photo R. MAROC-TUBSAT'Hll buill as a cooperative effort between groups in Morocco andGermany ",i1l1communications gear on Amateur Satellite Service frequencies. (TUB photo)

I--

Technica l University of Berlin (TUB). Thebasic structure is derived from the TIle SAT­C spaceframe. The satelli te is the first forMorocco and the CRDTS (Moroccan RoyalCenter of Space Telcdctccuonj. CRDTS isdirected by Driss El-Haddani and has beenactive since 1989. The Technical Universityof Berlin, however, has had previou s suc­cessfu l sate llites, some using amateur-radiofrequencies.

T he prima ry mi ssion of :\lA RO C ­T UBSAT is Earth remote sensing and veg­etation detection from space. The cameraresolution is 300 meters. Attitude contro l isprovided by gyro assemblies in onhogonataxes coup led to a sta r se nsor and sunsensor. Magnetic field sensors arc also used.

Additional systems are incorporated forstore-and-forward digita l communications.The sate llite has VHF. UHF, and S-handtransmi tters. MAROC-TUBS AT was iden­tified by Ray Soifer W2RS as the source ofthe 144.1 MH z transmi ssions from space.The satellite was transmitting FS K (Fre­quency Shift Keying) CW as VVV DE CN!ZAR KAA AL YAMAM A. CN is the ITII(Internation al Telecommunications Union)prefi x for Morocco.

A nothe r freq uen cy a ssoci a te d wi thMAROC-TUBSAT was noted at 436.075~IHz when the satellite was over Europe andAfrica . Although the S-band transmitter issu pposedly on 2208 MHz, no re ports ofrecept ion were mentioned in January.

On Friday. January 11 . 2002. Morocco'sKing Mohammed VI personally congratu­lated the Moroccan uni versity professo rsresponsible for design of the experimentson MAROC-T UBSAT. Morocco now joinsEgypt and Saudi Arab ia in a small group ofArab-Moslem nation s with earth-orb itingsatellites.

Le ss than two wee ks later, Norher tNeuhoff Df5DP. representing DARC, theGerman version of the Ameri can RadioRelay League, was in contac t with some ofthese same professors to fi nd out more aboutthe incursion into the two-meter AmateurSate llite Service band. IARU (InternationalAmateur Rad io Union) Sate llite AdvisorHans van de Groencndaa l ZS6AKV wasalso establishing contac ts to the MoroccanNational Radi o Society (A RRAM) to askfor more info rmation about l\.I AROC ­TUBSAT.

Shortly after the excitement died down.the two-mete r s ignal s fro m MAROC ­TU BSAT were off the air, and the otherham-band operation s a ll 436.075 1-HIl and13 ern were in question. Talks arc continuing .

Continued on page 58Fig. 1. Exploded drawing \'iew of MAROC·TUBSAT f rom the Technica l University ofBerlin (TUB ).

73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002 45

THE DIGITRL PORTJack Heller KB7NO

P.O. Box 1792Carson City NY 89702

[KB7NO@worldnetan.nell

Freebie Antenna Aid

There are a lot of programs available to the ham these days, and most of us pay tribute primarilyto those comm unications programs that ha ve clumged the [a ce of ham radio. And this is righ tlyso, because that is the big news. But there are a few ather valuable contributions that migh t fallunnoticed if \VC don't make some fuss over them.

The other day I was looking at one ofthe ti ne pieces of software from the li­

bra ry of free ham softwa re. Th is wasMMTTY. Ever since its release it has beena hit no! only with the newcomer (0 RTTY- many old-limen; have converted to itscase of use. excellent quali ty. cost (free).and dependabi lity. Hard (0 heat.

The author. Makoto (Ma ke} Mo r iJE3HHT. has written another noteworthycommunications program. MMSSTV, alsofreeware and of equally excellent quality.M any praise s have been pronounced by us­ers and column ists for both of the aboveprograms.

However. Mako has two other ham pro­grams to his credi t that you very seldom hearabout. One is his DSP audio filter. whichworks quite we ll with the soundcard. andanother, MMANA, is a full-fe atured antennadesign analyzer.

I kno w I tread on thin ice with some ofyo u when I bring any thing into this columnthat does not send and rcccive musical tunesvia the soundcuru wh ile display ing messagepri nt on the monitor. Hut please bear withme a few minutes. Mako addresses a realissue here and he understands it we ll. Yousee, he was inspired to put fo rth this effortbec ause of his own needs , and si nce itworked for him , he is shari ng it with therest of us.

As modern-day hams (especia lly in theUSA) yo u arc experienci ng two factors thatbarely existed 20 years ago . We used to bepre tty lucky in that we cou ld erect somereasonable st ructure to support a decentanten na as lone as we had an avcracc cirv. e e •

lot or larger piece of rea l estate surroundingo ur residence .

As most hams are painfully aware, thatis the exception these days. unless you livea fair dis tance outside the ci ty limits. My

46 73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002

c ase is a bit envi ab le in that I have hadchunks of aluminu m and wire sticking upfor so long that it is somewhat tolerated inmy neighborhood. T hat could change any­time, and then I could join the ranks of thosewith "stealth" antennas.

The other facto r, which is a good thing.is the advent of the digital modes that is per­mitting exceedi ng ly dependable communi­cations at power le vels wh ich are typicallyten percent of those we used to consider"average." I converse with hams frequent lywho arc running 25 watts or less to atticantennas, and it is tough to maintain a con­sistent readable signal be tween the two fac­tors of low po wer and the lim ited radiator.Do n' t get me wrong. Hams by thei r verynature arc happy to communicate. It is sim­ply a bonus when the adversity of antennarestrictions can be overcome with a fewine xpensive adjustments.

To he perfectly honest. there is no com­mon solution for this attic an tenna d ilemma,b UI what is needed is to do whatever is pos­sible to make that crazy antenna into the bestradiator possible . T hat is why I am spend­ing a bit of time this month waving the nagfor f\.fMANA.

Before I go too far, I have to adm it that Iam as lazy as anyone. If I can put up a fu ll­size antenna. either commercia lly b uilt orcopied fro m a handbook, that is what I do.Furthe r. if I find I can load a chunk of wireto the point my transmitter is happy and Iget consistent decent reports, I do n' t try toinvent new wheels .

Add itio nally, these days there are somereally neat commercial antenna analyzerson the market, and those who are in theknow arc using them. Sometimes I feci Isuffered a slight misfortu ne fro m livi ng inthe days of the dip-me ter (I still have oneand break it out on occasion). T hese are

more difficult and time -consuming to use,and users tell me I ha ve to be n uts not toa t le ast put the d ippe r away a nd buy oneof the ne w-fangled te lls-all gadgets. Saveshours, they te ll me . Bu t there are moreways to skin the k itty. So me o f us arc o ld­fash ioned .

Be all that as it may. the be st success wil lbe had if you can design and cut yo ur lim­ited-space antenna and Iccdline to the bestpossible dimensions. From there, whateveryou do to adjust the SW R shou ld becomemi nimal and your success over the ai r willbe much improved .

Bearing these facts in mind, a trip to theHan-Soft MNITTY Web site to dow nloadthe MMANA so ftware c an prove educa­tional at the very least. Mako is right upfront , as he explai ns that the program withall its instruc tions is not in tended to be acourse in design . He me ntions a few piece sof recommended reading: unfortu nately formost of us, those how-to references are inJapanese.

Do not let this litt le detail stop you . Thereare quite a few published works on antennadesign read ily available . I have several from

the A RRL, and there a re others Oil theshelves. Some of my reference material isjust as old as the dip-me ter I mentio ned ear­lier. And, something to remember: If theprinci ples were correct thirty years ago, theyarc not too far off these days . I will admit,however, that I still learn things about thesestra nge radia ting devices when I keep myeyes and ears open. It doe sn ' t mean thereare new principles; they may simply be oldpri nciples explai ned in a di fferen t light.

Getting started

Refer to The C hart for the M MTIY Website. If you do n' t a lready have your copies

ZOOM CURRENT!

L~'" NORMVI E~P CURRENTSr:: SEIlllEHISJ

WIRE NO.1Xl : l.e MYl : B.B MZl : I.e MXZ :B.B MYZ : -w.s MZZ :l.e MR : 1.l MMLENGTN l~ .l MRZIM: - 90.0 DGZEN IT: 90.0 DG

Speaking o f operating systems. I menuoncdlast mo nth that ) in tended to install Linuxin the old s low machi ne that th is c urrent

I app reciate. I occasio na lly receive mcs­sage s where my use o f the lang uage mustfai l and it appears I am saying certa in soft­ware has failed me under this operati ng sys­tem d ue to a defect in the programming .

l ne ver want to leave that impression. Allthe software I mentio n in th is column worksand ha... been wri tte n by hams fo r the ex­press purpose o f ad vancing the technology.It is a ll good so ftware . Please do not readne gat ive tho ughts into the me ssage thatwo uld ind icate disapproval of the programsre vie wed . It is o nly the o perating systemCr-.le) with which I am at odds.

One othe r note o n the operating systemdi le mma. I heard a rumor the o ther day thatthere arc two new systems o n the drawingboard to replace the XP already. Hard tounde rstand . What are the programmers todo? J ust imagine all the free alteratio ns nee­cssary to kee p o ur ham co mpute rs playingthe ir mag ic tunes . When Microsoft is incharge o f the musi c, yo ur guess is as goodas nu nc .

linux

HORIZONTAL RO TRV ER TICAL ROTATE Zi-000",M.;...._ ,I ~ r= .r.;:; r J

X

fie ,ell 0"""" Holp

GEOMETR VIEW ICOMPUTEI f AR rIELD PLOTIIIITNTlnM tRAH .liAM . ' ''M .1''Ml

oSOURCE Z')( L.OAD

Yo u may no t keep as many ham applica­tions in your computer as I have here . The

la test count is about 20 ham applicationsplus the va rious word p roc e s sing a ndgraphics necess ities used to co mpile thesecol umns . Each o f the se prog ra ms, espe­ci ally the ha m soft ware, deserves cred itfor making comp ute rs useful.

All of these progra ms worked we ll inversions of Windo ws prior 10 the Mil le n­nium Edition (Me) that came with th is new

computer. I have just a few mo re programsto try, and the next order of business will heto save the se files to a CD. format the harddrive, and install Wincxse.

I tal ked to the service folks at the com­

pute r manufacture r and they warn me that Iwill mid the warranty o n the machine in so

do ing . That's rea lly to ugh; the o n ly proh­lcms with this computer have been causedby the Me o perat ing system. and the manu­

fac turer of the eq uipme nt simply throws upits hands when asked fo r help. Been o n myo wn all the way a ny way.

By the way. I recci v-e a lot o f mail co n­cerni ng my rant ing abo ut Me. Most fo lksagree. and some offer suggestions - which

Back to operating systems

Fig. 1. Screenshat - Here is j ust olle of the panels available ill the MAIANA f ree all1ennaanatyzer available from the author ofthe MM7TY and MMssn' programs. With today 'slimitations and restrictions on hom antetlna location. )'011 need all the help )'011 can get 10radiate a decem signal from the mml)' stealthlocations, especially attics. thor hams areforced 10 lise. This program can help )'011 make the calculations necessary to tllm theserough conditions around ill Jour favor: The program comes with a lot of good inf orma ­tion concerning operation of the software, )'0 11 will still need some good basic fundamen­It/Is in anlenl/a design principles. The author of this program developed it because hefaces the same restricted space problems as many US hams.

73 Amateur Radio toaev » April 2002 47

o f MMTIY and M MSSTV. check them OUI.

Then explo re the DSP fi lter and , for sure,down load the M~1ANA software. It isn 'trea l b ig - less than a megabyte .

Install the program. then take a look atthe fo lder/d irectory where the program is

insta lled and bring up and print two files.Emmau.tx t and Eppen.rx t. You can displaythese Irom the Help butto n. hut I had no luckin printin g them from there. so I im portedthem to Illy word processor and prin ting wasa snap from there . T hey are 15 to 20 pagescacb. ! prefer hard co py for files that leng th.

Unless you are already an antenna engi ­neer (I am not) . these files will not be fu llyunderstandable. Yo u do need this inforrna­lion. The-n yo u will d isco ver several thingsas yo u read the text fi les. The first is at thevcry end of o ne o f the files: T he autho r of

the program lives in an apa rtment in Japanand b in about the same antenna predica­mcnt as many of you. In fact, he appears tohavc about as much space fo r antennas assomeone living in a hote l.

Th us. one of the dri ving factors behindb uild ing an antenna analyzer program wasoptimi zing his own meager "antenna fa rm ."As I was reading through the text file s. Ifound references to models Mako had storedfor di fferent types o f antennas . He did a lotof e xperimenting, and the results will be of

interest.Th e fil c I b ro ug ht u p from th e

subdi recto ry incl uded in the program is fora Windom ante nna to load o n 80. 40, 20.and 1() meters. T he view in Fig. 1 is o nlyo ne o f fo ur panels available for that antennamode l. Yo u will find o ther pane s a vailableas you c lick o n the tabs above the display.T his allows yo u to a lte r and recalcu late theproperties of yo ur a ntenna to see what ismost likely to work .

This Windom an tenna appears to be anattempt at a radiator to fit in a limited spaceand no t necessarily the o ptimum design tobe installed down o n the furm . His instruc­

tions fo r the use o f the Program give a lo t o fg limpses into the best ways to use the pro­gram and . in the proce ss, a few tips aboutho w some parts of the antenna work .

Afte r you e xperimen t wi t h th is fo r awhi le , you will ho pefu lly get " hooked" andfind it necessa ry to break o ut those antennadesign books you have had lying around andput some thing togethe r that really worksregardless of what kind of space you haveto work within. Pe rsonally. I hav'e several

project s I have been p utting off mostly be­cause o f the time-co nsuming what-if mathnec essary. and that is a ll made muc h easierwith a program such as th is one. And yo uwilllikc the price.

NEW Pannucrs

Alinco's DJ-S40T Pocket HT " Second Generation" Pocket-Size UHF Transceiver

Alineo has introduced the DJ~S4OT UHF HT. a pager-s ize tran scei ver that replaces the very popularAli neo DJ-54 1. T he nc ..... model has several improvements ever the original and can transmit with up 10t-wan output with the optional Ni-M H battery or exte rna l DC power. Announcement of the new unitwas made by Craig COla o f ATOe Amateur Distri buting, wh ich dist ributes Alineo produc ts 10 dealers inthe USA and Canada.

T he new DJ-$40T has a "normal' output of 500 mW. 100 memories, a call channel. several scan modes.and more. It covers the entire U.S. UHF amateur radio allocation of 42()....450 MH1, with receiving capabilitiesbeyond the allocated transmission range.

Unique features include a newly designed case that conceals the speaker but provides loud, clear audio.The antenna is now a standard SMA fitting . There arc 38 c rcss encode and decode se ttings (decodeincluded as a standard feature) and four tone bursts that make the unit usable for repeater ope rations in manyparts of the world.

The large illuminated disp lay is easy to read and pro vides information to the user abo ut a number ofuseful features. Alinco has added its experimental "mosquito repelli ng featu re" to the unit along with atheft alarm function and the abili ty to clone units by cable . T here's also an exte rnal power po rt.

Many Alinco accessories, such as a wide variety of speaker mics and power cables. arc cross-compatiblewith the OJ-S4OT.

In addition to normal simplex and repeater operations. a very popular application of the tiny transceivercould be its use through cross-band transceivers . essentially using the OJ-S40 a.. a "remote mic" through abase or mobile dual-hand transceiver.

The MSRP for the OJ·$40 is SI09.50, hut dealers often set "street prices" below the suggested retail."T he OJ-S40T demonstra tes Ati nco's continuing leadership in the development of small-s ized. hig h

performance. low-cost transceivers," says Mr. Co ra. "The DJ-S4 1 proved there is a market for pockettransceivers and that most areas served by repeater systems do not require high power in order to achievereliable communications. The DJ-S40 is an exciting ' next step' in thc evolution of small-size, full-featuredradios that are fun and affordable."

Con tin ued on page 59

Lafayette Radio ). Wow, didthey have parts ! Rad io storeswith acres of parts tables arelong go ne.

Heath and Eico came alongwith kits , which made build­ing a snap. We didn' t evenhave to make our own ho lesfor tubes. Now they 're go ne.We still have Ramsey andMFJ doing a good business inkits . And it is fun 10 buildyour o wn stuff and to tellvisitors. " I built it myself: '

But the idea of buildingsome of today 's complicatedrigs is discouraging. I suspectthat one o f the reasons Heathfolded was that equip mentwas just getting 10 0 complex.I remembe r George Morrow,who came out wi th a hunchof stare-of-the-art computer

first commercial ham re­ceiver was announced. WhenI was a kid in Broo klyn Iroller skated around to wn.visiting almost every activeham and I found only one outof over a hundred who 'd bu ilthis o wn receiver. Nut case.Sure, we built our own rigs. butwe had to - there weren't anyconunercially built transmit­ters available. And when thecontraptions we bui lt did n' twork we took ' em over to CyW 21XY so he could lind cutwhere we'd gone wrong. Hiso nly piece of test equipmentwas a neon bu lb. Hey, 1haven' t seen any of thosellOV neon bulbs in years.

In those days I could go toCortlandt Street and shop forparts , or to Canal Street. overo n Sixth Avenue. to Radio.Wire. Televis ion (late r named

Wh)" Hams Are XotBuild in g

"And what do yo u recom­mend we do with him? askedthe sena to r.

"Well, sir. if it were up tome, I would recommend thatan a..sa-..s in team be fanned toel iminate him and his menfrom the face o f the earth."

The senator disagreed withthis approach.

The senator was, of course.Al Gore.

Ollie North was being inter­rogatcd by a senate comrnincc.He was asked by a senatorwhy he spe nt $60.000 on asecurity system for his house.Ollie said it was to protecthim and h is family fro m aterrorist.

"T errorist? What terroristco uld possibly scare you thatmuch'?"

" His name is Osama bin

Laden . sir," Ollie replied . I hear complaints on the airThe senator tried to repeat and in leiters that hams don ' t

the name, but couldn' t pro- build like they used to . Newsnounce it, to snickers from llash: Hams have never builtthe audience. "like they used to ." Hams

"Why arc you so afraid of have, in general, never both-this man?" the senator asked . crcd 10 build anything they

"Because. sir. he is the could buy commercially. Earlymost evil person alive that I hams built their own recei versknow of," Ollie an swered. - up until the day after the

48 73 Amateur Radio Today . April 2002

NEUER S RY DI Econtin uedfrorn fXl.ge 7

R.S.' R.S.'

RDUERTISERS' I NDEHR.S. ' page R.S.' PO..

• A & A Engineering .......•.•••• 23 • Communieations

• Alinco •••••••.••••••••••••. ......... CV2 Electrooics, Inc............... 5

• AIinCO .•••••••••••••••••.•.•..•..... CV3 10 Com~tions

• All Elec1ronics CoJp.......... 11 Specialists, Inc. ............. 17

• Amateur Accessories ••• •••.• 59 • o& L All1enna

16 Aslron Corporation .............. 2 Supply Co..................... 42

• Al OC Amate ur • Dayton Hamvention .......... , 5

Distri buting l l C .... ..... CV2 13 Doppler Systems ............... 1a

• Al Oe Amateur • Fair Radio Sales ............... 13

Distri buting llC ......... CV3 193 GGTE ................................ S8

42 Bila l Company ................... 23 • Ham Ambassadors ............ 33

168 Buckmaster Pub lishing .•••. 23 • Ham Mall ................ ....... .... 17

56 Buckmaster Pub lishing .•••• 26 • Hamlronics , Inc . ................. . 9

• C & J Radio ....................... 59 • Houston Amateur RadiO •••• 12.. Communication ccocece 21 ea lsafran ............................... 23

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193

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Eleclronics Lab 59

Michigan Radio 49

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Concepts 13

Midland Technologies 21

Morw Tutor Gold 58

Omega Sales 18

Omega Sales 21

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73 Amateur Radio Today ' April 2002 49

whiz-bang system rep laced . Do ne that. And cures I have found listed and pub lished by

that is a co ntinuing learning process. Sev- o ther ne w users have no t applied here be-

era l Linux users (hams, remotely located) cause o f those difference s. That is one morewarned I shou ld get a loc al guru to sta nd rea son there is so little hel p for the newbie:o ver my sho ulder to get the se tup up and The wo uld-be hel pers don' t wish to ember-running. rass themselves in new terri tory.

local Li nux gurus are not readily avail- So . here is where it stands at this stage o fable. at lea..t around this comer of the shire. the game. I installed the Red Hat versio nIf they arc here, they are burrowed into thei r 7.2, which is said to be o ne o f the e asie rhobbit holes so deeply that they will not sec installatio n'). To obtain direction on thi s in-d ay light uruil the week after I have thi s stallauon. I we nt down to the loca l bookproject co nq uered. And this is o ne project supermarket and c ulled through many feetthat loo ks as if I can wo rk o n i\ for a long o f bookshe lf space li ned with books o ntime and ne ver really feel pro fi cient enough Li nux . l purchased the thickest one I fou ndto co me to someone else's aid. and digested several chapte rs on installation

T he reason , I am find ing, is there are so before proceeding .ma ny versio ns o f Lin ux o ut the re . W hat The big . thic k (o ver 2 inc hes) hook d id

Source for: Web address (URL):

IM,x W Soundcard program l or PSK31. ATTY. httpJltavkiev.uaI-niCk/my_l\am_soIl .hl m

r"I$W mollflS. MTTV. FSK31. mortI httpJ/use<!!.MI$.CCI«t/.jaIlOljim/lTlIxwpage. hlm

I MMTTV FITlY soundcard " eeware hll;l/lwww ge<ICItIHcornImmtty.Jttil

I TftMlfTY _ SOund card FIfTY wi PSK31 _.d>lsofl.(X)(IVm.trny .htm IPasokon SSTV programs & l\artf*are _ ultranel oomi.aafoj\tehlml

I P$K.31 - F'ee - and mudl PSK into hll;lJia<nl8l.bi.ehu fi!psil31 Illml

I lnIe<1l1011 lor dogoIal • rigs 10 compulers _ ,westr!lOtrllalOl'.c:orn$lIGbIaSlef,htm II SOul'ldeard int...-Iaoe into - int:lIdes AlinCO www padoelr.dIOcomtpsl31h1m II ,",el1_ ..to for DIY dlgllall\am$ wwwqslnet/'Mn2ulintel1acehtml II W..Warbier inlo and l rae download _ .qsl.nevw;n....rbl." J II MFSK _ ,lllatll(l tach inl(l _ how tt ...orkS _qslnellzI1bpu1 I

ThrOO _ Ne... - lots (1/ inlo WW'N Jsear 1r&8SUIVe.co.ukJwww.btintem" t.oom/· g3vfpl

Download l O\liler, also Zakanaka www,g" oci tiea,oomlkc4eloJ

I PSKGNR _ FIO<1t end tor PSK31 www .al.williams,comIWd5gnr/pskgnr,htm

IDiglpan PSK3 ' - easy to use _ new version

hnp:I/rnembershome.comIhleMerldigipanit.e

I TAPR _ Lots of ..10 _ tapr.orll

I TNC 10 radio winng help h!tpJllreeweb pdq netimedcalliZW

I ChromaPiX and ChA:lr'l'a.Sound OSP 1IOIlw... _ $ikOr'lpl.etseom

I T..-.~ OSP & AEA Hllev. ) p<oQxts www._avecom

I "'-'10 t\6Ief and eee- kits _10;); IIc:lrono::s.com

I XPWare TNC lKlItware 'Mlh sample Dt. _ .{IOOdIoet.oomi_aomso<V

I RCKRrty~ p'ogt"am WIth tree DL hltpJIwww rd ul lYde'

I HF aenaJ modem plans & RTTY & Paao< hll;lJJhorne an n&Ii. k7$Zl1

SV2AGW Ire" W r195 programs _laag.or~lode.l ,111m

Source lor eeveac Bp·2M '" APRS www tiger'lrO<1ics,comI

Int 'l Visual Gommunicatoon Assn , t'lOOprotltwww . mind9Pri ng , Coml~ astvl

org dedicated to SSTV

Hellsch,a lb&r & MT63 '" MFSK 16 (Sl reamj hnpI/lz8ll1y,syoonline .~

HamScopa - mcmmcoe ...1 MFSK16 httpJlusurs mes.alop .comI-lY'anserV

I YPLog al\araware klg ng control - ee e demo www .nllCleua.comI~ hek:i'

Table J, Tne Chart.

50 73 Amateur Radio Today . April 2002

pretty well. I am finding the ad vantage isthat the book c ame with three CDs. Two ofthe m have the installation fi les and the thirdone has documentation that if I ever printedit. would likely fill o ne of my bookshelve sand run over o nto the l1oor. As a Iitt lc aside ,I have noticed that M icrosoft's documcnta­tion for Windows 2000 Profe ssional (over$200 worth of books) is quite lengthy also.The se are both systems primarily engi­neered to operate networks. The simi laritye nds the re .

Li nux is a take-off on Un ix ami is a whaleo f a system for networking . That isn' t what

I am after of course. The interest in thisshack lie s in the fact there arc about a hal f

dozen ham programs written fo r Linux . Andthey are soundcard program s similar 10 theones we are seeing wri tten for Window s.

The real Intere st I have is in seeing whatthe o perating system can do in my shack . Itho ught this system .....o uld run we ll o n anold slo ..... co mputer suc h as the 120 MHlCPU with 32 megs of RAM thai it is resid­ing in at this time . Well. that si tuation isanswered with a yes and a no . Yes. it wi ll

run. bu t if I implement the Windows-st yledesktop. it TUns like a snail.

So I e xperimented. By the way, on theinitial installation the system started up okay

hu t ran like a snail with a broken leg . Aftc ra bit o f research, I decided that the swapfile I had ulloued was a wee mite sma ll and

had to reconfigu re. After that , I fo un d Ico uld get reasonable performance fro m thede skto p until I demanded too much from it,such as running the Nctscapc program thatcame wi th it at the same time .

O n with the ex pe rime nting . I fo und Ico uld escape the desktop. bring up o ne o fthe available shells, and run Ncecape o n itsown and the speed was acceptable . Furtherprobing showe d tha t the d ia le r, whic h Icould o nly seem to acti vate under the desk­to p, wo uld stay awake after exiting the desk­

top. Amazing what yo u can do with a littletink ering .

The se cond itions made it pussib le to d ialup my ISP and download three Linux I'SKprograms from the G 3VFP site listed in TheC han . I fe lt like I had conq uered this thi ngby then. I hate to admit the numberofhoursit took to get to that point. hut it is possiblefor so meone, regard less of skill level , \0

exercise persistence and get in to the Linuxand make it work.

Now 1 have o nly to get the soundcurd tocoo perate, lea rn the decompression and in­sralbulon tec hniq ues. and run a few cab les.und we may see th is thi ng o n the air. Just a

Continued on page 59

ON THE GoMobile. Portable and Emergency Operation

A Wake-up Call

Steve Nowak KEBYNlO16717 Hickory $1.

Omaha NE 68 130-1529[ke8yn O cox. neIJ

17lC terrorists who armcked the United States last September succeeded in havi ng an impact. lYe see thisevery lime we crave] through ,111 airport. Did they atso deal a cripp ling hfmv to .rmareur radio?

YOU may have read in the newspaper orin o ne or the ham magazines that there

is a proposal to es tablish an eme rgency corn­m unicarion s service somewha t a long thelines of the Nationa l G uard. The idea is tha ithis group could be called 10 duty to pro­vide communica tions in an emergency. Pro­

po nems of this plan ha ve po inted OUI Ihalnormal communications may fai l during a nemergency. so there is the need for enema­live communicat ions . America need s tohave a reli able source to which it can turnto provide this sen -ice quickly when needed,

On e idea is 10 estab lish this technology­based se rv ice, eq uip it with appropriate ru­d ios. train the co mm unicato rs and havethem ready, willing , and able to respon d ifand whe n needed ,

I don 't know abo ut you. but reading abou t

this new service seemed like reading an adin the help wa nted sectio n, and for my o wnjob. Isn' t this what amateur radio is sup­

posed 10 do '? Of co urse it is! If we have agroup that a lready provides thi s service,

why are we talking about establishing asimilar service'? If we ha ve a group of trainedcommunicators who not only provide a scr­vice hut abo bring their ow n equipment at nocost, why do we need to re-invent the whee lwith this ne w service?

Because the right people don't know weexist. That's why! To many people , hamradio is j ust a hobby. It is so mething like

CR. It's so mething that a bunch of o ld me ndo . It messe s up tele visions and lo ....e rs prop­erty values wit h big ugly antennas. Generallypeople don' t see amateur radio as a valuableservice that is there to provide comm unica­tlons ill an emergency. T he y on ly sec a

qu irky hobby.The re a rc t wo m a in rea so ns th at th is

occ urs. First . o ne of the effects o f peace fultimes is that there is a comfort level . and thatcomfort level is partially d ue to ignorance .

Ignora nce is no t stu p id ity - it mere lymeans that peop le arc not a ware of the facts,When yo u fee l secure and your te lephoneworks and your cell phone is reliable . it isnatural 10 not even think that backup sys­terns may be requ ired 10 be used somedayunder some condi tions . somehow. How of­

te n do yo u think about yo ur smoke detectorif it is not so und ing an alarm or requiring a

battery change? Probably ne ver, Amateurradio is in the same boat.

Second. we hams have become j ust ascomplacent as everyone e lse . We may getsome publicity from lime to time , hut muchof that is re latively innocuo us . Do yo u reade very news sto ry in your daily newspaper?O f course no t. So ....-hy shou ld we belie vethat everyo ne would de vour the article 011

page 9 abo ut ham radio? Wh ile many ofthese arc quite good. they tend not to grabe ther peop le 's attention. If they highlightham radio suppo rt for a disaster. the verypeo ple we need to sec the article arc ofte ntoo busy worry ing about the d isa ster itsel f

ra ther than our comrihution to it. Besides.whi le the general pu blic is important. it ismore important to gel o ur message in fronto f the real decision-makers.

If it is believed that amateur radio canno to r will not be a primary provider o f emer­

gency communications. o ne o f the pri maryrea sons for amateur radi o ' s very e xis tenceis eliminated. T he freq ue ncies that we ha vebee n loaned may be necessary fo r o the r

purposes, a nd am ate ur rad io cou ld cease toe xist. Tryi ng 10 o perate a ham radio wouldbe viewed the same as trying to drive a horse

a nd buggy down the interstate: out-of-datest rang e behavior th..t might no lo nger he

legal.Get invo lved ! Really invol ved ! Do you

have an Amateur Radio Emergency Services(ARE.';;) or Radle Amateur Civi l Emergency

Sen 'ices (RACES) identi fication card '? Do

yo u ha ve a grab-and-go kit of essentia lmaterials you' d need in an eme rgency'? Doyo u regularly check into the loca l eme rgencynet? If nOI. it's time 10 stan .

We need to demonstrate to the people whomatter that we can A1'\D WE WI LL he there.ready 10 provide comm unications serviceswhen needed and for as long as needed .When the National Guard was tasked with

e nsuring additional securi ty at the nation 'sa irports. they accepted the mission. Theywill carry out that mi ssion until relieved o fit. That is the le ve l o f support that o ur na ­tio n no w needs.

T imes have c hanged . No lo nger arc weta lking abou t three days of support a fter astorm strikes . We need to demonstrate that

we call and will provide emergency com­munlcatious whe n c alled upon unt il thatneed no longer e xists. It may be time to moreclosel y coo rdinate o ur efforts with ci vil de ­ten se and public se rvice agencies. It mayalso mea n we ha ve to define method s forproviding e xtended operations if ca lledupon 10 do so . Does your ARES. RACES.

o r club group have a plan to do ..o? If nor, Ipropt.l!»C that every amateur radio group ge ta commi tment from e \"CI)' member to pro­vide at least four hours' support per week ifnecessary. Develop a sched ule 10 show howthe hams in your city could provide around ­the-clock coverage on an o ngoing ba..is ifca lled upon to serve. I think that most of us

arc convinced that we have the eq uipme ntand the ability. What we need to demon­strate is that we will have the endurance aswcl l.

T he o the r th ing th at we ne ed to do isto let the right people kno w what we arccapable o f and co mmitted to . The human­interest story o n ham radio in the localnews­parer i.. like and ego-gratify ing hut does

Contin ued 0 11 page 59

73 Amateur Radio Today . April 2002 51

HOMING INRadio Direction Finding Joe Moell P.E, KClOV

P.O. Box 2508Fullerton CA 92837

[Homingin@aol.com)[http://www.homingin.com]

USA's Foxhunters Take On the World

Every year, more and more hams discover the fun ofhidden transmitter hunting, eith er in cars(called Trhuntitig and bunny hunting) or on foot (called Ioxtsiling. r adio-orienteering andARDF). For those who prefer searching for transmitters while on the run , 2002 brings theopportunity to compete against fellow hams both at home and abroad.

.~

coo ko ut on Fri da y eveni ng , a spag he tt idinner on Sat urda y ni ght, and an awardceremony following the 80-meler hunt.

Competitors arc di vidcd into fi ve catego­ries for males and four categories for fe­ma les, in accordance with new ly approvedARDF rules of the International AmateurRadio Union (lARU) (Photo B j. There willbe awards fo r the first-, sccond-. and third­place fi nishers in each category. Foreignvisito rs are welcome and encou rag ed to

l'hoto IJ, Think you're too old fo r A RDF?There's a specia l category fo r men over60. and there will he lots ofcompetitors inthat category at the USA an d Wo rld Cham­piouships. This is Boh Cooley KF6VSE. amedal-winner ill classic orientee ring whoI /O W takes to the trails with radio gear. Theset lie's holdi ng is for the 80-meler ban d.

This spring , why not hold some easy in­the-park transmit ter hunts to ge l local hamsand their offspring going (P hoto A). Thenyou can progress to internationa l-rules huntson bo th eighty and two me ters . For ideason equipment and rules fo r s im ple huntslike thi s, see the "Hom ing In" Web siteand previous "Homing In" columns .'?

ARDF in the Appalachians

For over 20 years, hams in Europe ha vestaged national and multinational ev ents tocrown the best on-foot foxhunters. Last year,for the first tim e, USA had its own nationalchampionships, hosted by the A lbuquerq ueAmateur Radio Club.>' Compe titors camefrom ten states, includ ing gmups from se v­eral metropolitan areas such as Los Ange­le s. Den ve r, A tl anta , Cincinnati. andRal eigh. Afterwards, Thad no trouble find­ing indi viduals and clubs from these loca­tions who were eager to host the next one .Afte r much discussion, the nod was gi vento the Georgia Orienteering Club (GAOC).

Because of its importance in the selec­tion process fo r USA's team to the ARDFWorld Championshi ps (more on that la te r),USA's national championships must takeplace in the spri ng this year. GAOC pro­posed a sim ple one-weekend competitionschedul e that would minimize expenses andaway-from -work tim e for ARDFers whowish to attend both of 2002's major rad io­o rie nteering events.

The Second USA ARDF Championshipswill be held on April 19- 2 1, 2002, at F. D.Roosevelt State Park ncar Pine Mountai n,Georgi a. The competition gets under wayon Friday afternoon with a practice event,followed on Saturday by the main two-meierhunt , and on Sunday by the SO-meter hunt.In addition to the hunt s, there will be a

Photo A . Even if you 're not ready fo r thechampionships . you call have rad io ­orienteering jim ill a park lIear you. Why/lot volunteer to p ut 011 a [oxhunt f o r yourradio cluh this spring? In this photo . A rtJury KF7GD takes his young "navigator"along 011 a two-meter hunt in SOl/themCalifornia. (Photos hy Joe M oell)

52 73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002

I s there any doubt that on-foot transmitterhun ting under international ru les is the

fastest growing for m of ham radio contest­ing? It combines adventure, intrigue andexercise with an activity that's suitable forhams and ncnhams of a lmost any age. Thebest radio-onentccrs arc physically fi t, men­tal ly alert, and techni ca lly adept. If you' relook ing for a way to hook your child ren,g ra ndchild ren . nieces, and ne phews onamateur radio, this activity may he yow'answer.

Photo C. Sam Smith N4MA P of Georgia Orienteering Club sets the timers 0 1/ his 80­meter fox transmitters at a practice session bef ore tire Championships ill New Mexicolast year. lie will set coursesfor the Second USA ARDF Championstups in Pille Mountain.

come a nd compe re . Award s wil l be p re­sented in t wo div i s ions . O verall a ndUSA -Only.

Pine Mountain is approximately 90 min­ute... southwc...t o f Atlanta . T here are manyloca l motels and bed-a nd -breakfast inns

nearby, because the town is adjace nt toCa llaway Gardens, a 14 ,OOO-acre resort. If

yo u' re pinching pennies or if you j ust liketo rough it, there are cabins in the park andcampground s with RV hoo kups.

Laurie Searle KG4FDM o f G AOC is theMeet Direc tor. Her hushand Sam Sm it hN4MA P (Photo q is l.he ARD F course-set­ter. Both have years o f experience ho stingclassic (non- radio ) o rientee ring meets. Samwon a sil ver medal at the Firs t USAARDFChampionships in A lbuquerque.

Whether you 're an expen o r you' ve neverfinished a fo rmal radio-orienteer ing coursebefo re, the USA's ARDF C hampionships

are open to yo u. The dead line fo r regi ster­ing is Apri l 6. If that's a lrea dy passed bythe time you read th is, it may still be pos­sib le to attend , so contact the organizersright away.

The easiest way 10 register for the P ineMountain events is via the GAOC Web site .where you will fi nd the event flyer, rules,and information about an E-mail no tifica­tion lis t. Reg istratio n fo nns are avail ab lefor download. You ca n get the re b y lin kfro m the " Hom ing In" s ite . If you ' re nOI

on the Internet. wri te to G AOC s Registrar.Robin S hannon ho use , 47 38 Ci ty ViewDrive. Fore st Park GA 30297 .

He sure to allow an extra day before ora ft e r the C hamp io ns hi ps for a vi sit toCallaway Gardens. which is famo us fo r itsnatu re trai ls. flower gardens, butterfly ce n­ter, birds of prey show. and much more. Youca n play golf. ride a bike. go fly-fish ing. orshoot clay targets . If the ARDF action haswo rn )'ou o ut, just sit and enjoy the flowersand the mu sic from the Memo ria l Chapel.

Tracking in the Tatras

Later this year, the USA takes o n thewo rld once again as Team USA trave ls toSlovakia for the Eleventh Wo rld C hampi­onships (WCs) o f ARDE T his will be thethird time that Americans have participatedin the WCs . In September 1998. a group o ffi ve statesi de hams we nt to Nyiregyhaza,Hungary. 10 compete and observe.' Then,in October 2000. a dozen from se ven stalesmade the jo urney 10 Nanjing, China. as theWCs took place in Asia for the first time."

The Slo vak Amate ur Radio Association(SA RA) is ho sting the c hampionships. T hesite is Tatrauske Matliare in the High Tatra so f the Slovak Repub lic. at about 3,OCX) fee l

in elevation. It's about 240 mile s east ofPrague and 125 m iles north o f Bud apest.T he terrain is mostly forested .

As most Amer icanscelebrate Labor Dayo n September 2. Te am US A members will

touc h do wn in Europe. tra ve l to e ithe rPoprad or Koslce in Slovakia by air or m il,and then be transported by the organizersto the host town . T hey can stay at o ne of

two fine hotels (Hutn ik and Metalurg) thatare being complete ly taken o ve r fo r thise ve nt. If they c hoose the hotel package , theregistration fcc for the entire champion­sh ips. includ ing even ts. lodging and meals,is 300 US dollars per person.

Alternately. participants can get a half­price package that does not include roomand board . T hey will camp and cook in anearby park, provid ing their own shelter andfood. In eithe r c ase , they ha ve access tot he facilities that include a gymnasium.swimming pool, fitness center. and gamemo m .

O n T uesday. September Srd. the Slovakswill hoslARDF training events on both band..,follo wed by a gala Opening Ceremo ny. Theseceremonies tradi tionally include a parade ofthe competitors, entertainment, and welcomeby local dignitaries.

Wednesday s ta rts ea rly as co mpetito rsboard buses to be ta ken to an undisclosedlocation for the big transmitter h unt o n twometers. Thursd ay is a d ay of res t. with an

optional c ult ural program. Friday is theSO-mcler hunt in a d ifferent venue. followedby the Closing Ceremony and a mini-harntest.E veryone head s for ho me o n Sa turd aymornmg.

Competitors are di vided into the sameage/gender categorie s as in Pine Mountai n .Each country may have a maximum o f threepersons per category on its team .

If the 21X)2 ARDF World C hampionshipsarc typical. there will be a total of abouI 250co mpetitors fro m 25 European and Asiannations. The "b ig guns" o f the contest willbe all the eastern European and former So­viet Union count ries. plu... China and Ger­many. We 're still "little piSIOI... ," but that justme an s that we learn lots more when weatte nd , and we learn from the best.

Team USA members are respo nsib le forthei r o wn transpo rtation ex pe nses to andfrom Slovakia. Entry fees are d ue in full to

the organiz ers by July 15, 2002 . ARR L willhandle the wire transfer o f funds. but it isnot kno wn yet if there will be any fi nancialsupport from ARRL.

As AR RL' s ARDF Coordi nator, I have

subm itted the US A's Le ite r of Intent to

Parti ci pate to the S lovakian o rganizers ina c cordanc e w i t h l A R D pro c edure s .Twelve stateside foxhunters with current ages

from I I to 60 have already expressed strong

Contillued art page 54

73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002 53

Photo D, Jay Thompson W6 1A Y was /5 years old when he traveled with his dad Richard\l:46NOL (right) to the l OOO AROF World Championships ill China. Afterwards, Iheyand Team USA member Murrin Johnston KE6HTS (le]t) were honored at this park humnear their hotne.

54 73 Amateur Radio Today. Aprit 2002

HOMING INconttnued f rom page 53

interest in attending. But it's not too late toput in your name forTeam USA considemtion .

Our categories for males between 40 and59 years of age (as of 121311(2) already havethree or more slg nups, hut more are we l­come. Team USA sclcction in "overboo ked'categories will he based on recent perfo r­mances and standings in fo r mal events suchas last year's USA ARDF Champion shipsin Alb uquerque and this year 's USAARDFChampionships near Atlanta. The di vision sfor males under 40 and fo r all females stillha ve openings as of this writing, so it mayhe pos si b le fo r i nexpe rie nce d radi o ­ori enteers in these categories to join theteam (Photo 0). It is also possible to attendas a non -competing visitor, but our visitorsmu st be listed as such on the national teamroster and fees pa id via ARRL.

If you are interested in tra veling to the2002 ARDF world Championships as amember of Team USA or as a US A vis itor,please contact me immediately. If yo u havenot been on Team USA befo re. include yourfull name and mailing address. callsig n.

ho me pho ne numher, and date of birth. Youmust be an A merican citizen or ha ve resi­dent status in thi s country. Also , visit the"Homing In" Web site, where yo u can readthe latest new s of Team USA formation plusstories and photos of previous Team USAtrips, (0 give you an idea of what to expect.

If yo u wish to participate as a citizen ofano ther North or South American co untry,contact lARD Region 2 ARDF Coordina­tor Dale Hu nt WBfiBYU hy E-m ail to[wh6hyu@arr l. ncl]or hyUSPS to P.O. Box108 , Carlton OR 97 111. Canadians sho ulda lso contact RAe ARDF Coordinator PerryCrei gh ton VA7PC by Bcmailing [ va7pc@

rae.ca l o r writing to 30 18 Spring Bay Road.Victoria Be V8N 1Z3.

The World Cha mpionships of AmateurRadio Direction Finding (ARDF) take placeo nly in even-numbered yea rs. so you won'tha ve ano ther opportuni ty to compete in theWCs until 2004. I'm waiting to hear fromyo u.

Other opportunities

Traveli ng to overseas events is a great wayto lcam ARDF techniques from the best and

most ex perienced practit ion ers. If you can' tgo to Slo vakia in Se ptember but want anoverseas radio-o rienteering experience, lookfo r anno unceme nts of other high-profileevents whe re visitors arc welcome. For in­stance, abo ut 150 co mpe titors from all overEurope are expe cted fo r the Ukrainian In­temationalA RDF Championships , 26Apri lthrough I May in Kiev, the capi tal city.

This year 's national ARDF champion­ships of Bc lg ium arc 8- 9 June in Arion,which is located in the southeast pari of thecountry, close to the bo rders of France andLuxembo urg. For bo ys and girls born in1987 or later, the Thi rd European Yo uthAmateur Radi n Di rection Finding Champi­on ships arc 10--14 June in Ncsscbar, Bul­garia, on the Black Sea coast. Links to Websites fo r eac h of the se meets are at the"Homing In" Web site.

Than ks to all who are sending me storiesand photos of your loca l RDF contestingact ivities, both in vehicles and on fool. Keepthem co ming by E-mail or postal mail tothe addresses at the beginning of thi s article .

Footnotes

1. Mocll. Joe. "Homing In: Rad io FoxesDon ' t Ho wl," 73 Maga zine, March 1998.

2. Mod i, Joe, "Homing In: ARDF is Offand Running," 73 Maga:::.ine, J une 1998.

3 . Moell, Joe, "Horning In : ARDF Cham­pion ships Pa rt I - Tri umph in the Land ofEnchantment," 7J Maxa:::.ine, December200 1.

4 . Moell , Joe, "Homing In: ARDFCham­pionships Part 2 - The World Comes 10

Duke City," 73 Maxa:) l1e. January 2002.5. Moctt. Joe, "Homing In: A Banner Year

- More to Come," 73 Magasine. January1999.

6 . ModI, Joe . "Ho ming Tn; A New Mil ­lenn iu m for Foxhunting," 73 Ma gazine.January 200 1. fa

If you're a No-Code Tech , andyou're having fun operating, tellus about it ! Other No-CodeTechs will enjoy readi ng aboutyour adventures in ham radio­and we'l l pay you for your ar­ticles. Yes, lots of nice clearphotos , please. Call JoyceSawtelle at 800-274-7373 to geta copy of "How to Write for 73Magazine."

Does Your Junk Box is piled in the open so that you can lind cans or shoe boxes? Maybe you usc

Runneth Over? the "thing" hy scanning the shelf. Yes. old pa int cans. trash bags. or cardboard

conlinuedJrom page 2 1 the amOUD( of time required to locate boxes . Whicheve r method IS used.the needed item IS reduced. but the there has to be a technique availab le

docs work. hUI the amount of time "pile" of stuff must still be handled to for retrieval. One of my friends usesconsumed usually takes the "desire•• retrieve the desired Stacking glass • • for storing smallpiece. cannmg Jarsc ut of constructing a projec t. Of large pieces on the she lf works reason- parts . Perhaps you recall the "Masoncourse. you may be the type so easily ably well for some items. but how do • •• that had wide mouth andjar a afrustrated by the confused pa rts sto r- ),ou hand le small electronic parts'? screw-on lid . These jars make an ex-age that you ' Il ru n down to the local Over the years, the size of an elcc- cc llcnt storage medium for items that"candy store•• 10 obtain the desired Ironic part has shrunk fro m "huge" to can he identified visually by scanni ngpart. knowing full well that a supp ly o f micro-miniature . The smaller the part, the jar's contents . In most cases. the jarthem exists in the j unk box. the better your organization must be to lids arc sec ured to the underside of a

Anothe r technique for storing things keep from losing the item. Do you she lf so that the jar can he easi lyis shown in Photo B. where everything store your j unk hox parts In coffee viewed and retrieved should it conta in

the desired part. Jars arc well suited forthe organi zation and storage of nuts.

NPN T••nsiIlIOl"IIbolls. and other small hardware items.

I """ 2.5 MHz ." ",," teoew B. 18To.5 - A technique that I started using whcn I

was a youngster was to place parts in c i-II 2N706 320 . '" '" """ 300mW ,. eo - - gar boxes as shown in Photo C. Yes.

I "'",. w ..... '" 300mA tsonw B z 6G-300 TD-5 NTE101 I when I was a kid. cizar boxes were•,.."...."

readily available for the a..king - and II ,.."" aso .'" &N """"'" SOOmw B.50-12O TC).I8 - I accumulated a lot of them. Believe it or

I 2N3065 10 kH.l: ,,'W ' SA 115W B K 20-70 TO.' NTE181 I not, SOIl1C of my boxes are so okJ that they

I EIffiW5 "'" I" - - - - eress I

I "w TO." NTEl28 IContinued on page 56

2SMOO , G'" - - -

I 'SC536 ""'.'" '" - - - TO." NTE107 Ii ~ Ui ... iI 2SC19(l6 , G'" 3<W 10.92 ECB NTEI 07 Ie Database- - -

PNP Transisto.s I 4011 lAOS quad 2·m NAND I

I2Nl07 4012 MOS dual 4·,n NAND

rev ,om. somw e . 18 m·ine -germanium -

"'" MOS Iripl.. 3·in NAND

2"11 55 ." " 1 5W ' . 30 10·3 I MOS hex ,n~e rt- ~

"'"germanium

2"1247 30 MHz '" ,om. 80mW - - - I " 00 quad 2·in NAND

I 2N l 038 I 7. 10 lnpl .. 3-in NAND8 MHz ." '" 'w e . 2G-60 - -germllnium ,

I 7. 14 tlEIx Schmitt tng.1nven

I "" 250 MHz "'"TO." ""'00- - - eoc I 7. LSH tlEIx Schmrt1 ing'inven

I TO." NTEHlO I "', quad 2..... OR Iee 5SO U Hz 30V - - - eoc

I open coIectof quad 2..... II TOo18 "" NOR2SA12. "".'" '" - - - eoc NTEl26

I ,~, BCD-O£C deoodEI.'El.

I ,~, BC!).7 Sfl9I'1&I'lI deoodEI.eosoe

I."'" zoe .'" "" ",'" . oomw - S ""', MFEl22 AND-gal&d J.K master·NOS "" slave ft ,p-flop

2N2843 "'" 4·bil binary lui adder

'''''' - 30' ,.. 300mW 1.4k IJmho - -. OS " 00 dIlcade counle.

2"13818 7412 1 mooostabie on..·s/lo1,,". 400 MHz '" , om. - 5k IJ.ITlhO 4 dBnt -. OS 7412 3 dual retrigger mono 10145

2 f.W416 30' <Sm. 310mW 6k IJmhO4 dBn!

TOo72 74C15O CMOS 1_16 dala sel&Cl.... 400 MHz150 ece

741&4 8·bit $hill reg

~ "" sam. 375mW """"... 250 rds --,- Table J . Example of an Ie data file. DataTable 2. Example ofdata listings for transistors and FETs. The listing contains data provides a function reference assoc iatedpertinent 10 pa rt identification and general usage. with a part number:

73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002 55

Does Your Junk BoxRunneth Over?conlilltlPdJrom page 5 5

arc worth more to a collector than thefinanc ial value of the parts they contain.

Obtaining authentic "cigar boxes"today is a lot more diffi cult than it waswhen I was a kid. But available todayare pencil boxes that resemhle cigarboxes in SiLC and shape. In the Los An­geles area at least, pencil bo xes showup on the shelves about one to twomonths preceding a schoo l year. When­ever I See them. I manage to carryhome several because I always have a"need to organize' my stuff in boxesthe size of cigar boxes.

In my situa tion . each cigar box car­ries a sticky label that identifies theparts contained within. In the case ofresi stors or capac itors, the label carriesa part 's value range . Dividing the partsinto numhcrcd ranges reduces the"hunting" time required to retrie ve adesired part . Of course, separa ting theresistors and capacito rs in to wattagesize or working vo ltage increases thenumber of boxes required and doesmake it easier to lind the "right part"

for a project.With tech nology driving down com­

ponent sit e , small plastic drawers incabinets provide an exce llent storagemedium as shown in Photo D. Eac hdrawer carries a stic ky label that iden­tili es the contents. Because the cabi­nets are easily slacked. they arc veryconve nie nt for tigh t sto rage spaces.

OK. now that you have your partso rganized and you think that you canfind them. what part do you need for aproject'? Le t me cite an ex ample ofwhat happened to me once that causedme to consider a refinement to myparts organization. While cleaning upmy workbench one day, I picked up asmall flashlight bulb - yes , it was agood one a nd I recognized its applica­tion. But what d idn' t appear in myhead was the technica l informationyou would desire to have for that par­ticular light bulb. Was it a 1.2 V. 2.5 V.3.8 V, or perhaps a 6 V bulb'? When Icons ide red the fact that I failed to havethe specific data in my head for thebulb I began to realize th at 1 had no56 73 Amateur Radio Today · April 2002

information for other parts such astransistors, ICs. and other small partsthat I usc in my projects .

Data conlrol

To resol ve the issue of readi ly iden­tifying data for the light bulb. I beganto bui ld a database for every light bu lbin my possession. A sample of the list­ing that I deve loped is shown in Table 1.The objective was to provide data thatwould be desired for use in any appli­cation in addition to the application forwhich it was designed. To make theligh t bu lh listing meaningful. I've in­cluded only the pertinent technicaldata . Of importance to me was the partnumber, vo ltage , curre nt, hours of life,bead color (for visual identification),base information. and alte rnate partnumber. The alte rnate part number al­lows me to obta in the bulb from my lo­cal "candy store" should that be

necessary.After completing the light bu lb data­

base, I continued to build up data on allo f my transistors as shown in T a ble 2.Desired data for transistors fo llows asimilar pattern as that for ligh t bulbs.In most cases , I need to know the partnumber. maximum operat iona l fre­quency. collector voltage . curre nt.wattage dissipation. HFE (B ). and anequiva lent part number. With that in­formation in mind. I can design a c ir­c uit usi ng available parts or ca n easilyrelate one transistor to ano the r anytimeI choose. Being able to compare tran­sistors is helpful whe n having to se lecta substitute device while repairing apiece of equipment.

Most transistors available today arcprocessed in silicon or exotic materials.while those made earlier were made us­ing germanium. I' ve found it interestingto identify and work with germaniumdevices because of the electrical di ffer­ences they exhibit. Therefore. it' s im­portaru to note "germanium" in mylisting.

Field-effect transi..tors have so manyunique charac teristics that place theminto a category of the ir own. The kindof FET information important to me isshown in the listing example. In addi­tion to the normal voltage , current. andpower dissipation. I' ve attempted to in-

el ude the characteristics such as en­hanceme nt or depletion mode. micromhos, noise figure. a nd saturation re­sista nce that are appropria te fo r the

de vice .Table 3 shows a brief listing for IC

data . Since availab le data books carrythe techn ical information you need fora c ircuit design. my listing objectivewas to provide functional identifica­tion . When designing a c ircuit out ofyour junk box. the listing a llows spe­cific parts In be selec ted for the projecthv function . Speci fic design data is

•then obtainable for that part from datahook refere nces.

After bu ild ing up the various data­bases for parts stored in my junk box, 1found a need for orga niz ing the data .As shown in Photo E. I ha ve file fold­e rs identi fied for the general type ofdata contained . Also shown in Photo Eis a file folder marked SPEC BOOKINDEX which conta ins. in order. thedata information shown in the houndhooks shown in Photo F.

An aspect of the database that hashelped me is the fact that the only partsthat are listed arc parts stored in my"junk box." As a result. there is no rea­son to guess and search for a part . be­cause if it's listed, it's properly fi led inmy junk box for easy re trieva l.

C onclusion

So what's a "junk box" and how canyou best make usc of one? Perhaps it'sa hunch of accumulated trash. or itcould he use ful ham-related items hav­ing a value other than financial, thatvalue being determined by the ownerof the items in relat ion to the knowl­edge of an a pplication usage . Using atransistor as an example. the value liesin knowing what the device is capableof doing. or how it wi ll respond to acircuit stimulus. The device is use lessunless its characteristics are known.Also, is the pall contained in the junkbox and is it available for usc'!

Your junk box is really a very per­sona l thing - one that ano the r personmay not re late to or evaluate in thesame manner as you. How you deter­mine the value of your junk box is re­ally lip to you. but one thing 's for sure:The better o rganized it is, the more fun- and va luable - it becomes. fa

New Life for a Pierson KE-93continuedJrom page 24

and a mixture of dish detergent andwater. Immediately after scrubbing, Iwiped off all of the moisture with a pa­per towel. Although the dirt and grimewere removed, the original dark colorof the casting remained.

Cleaning the cabinet was mucheasie r, because without electronics itwas washed with detergent and rinsedwith a garden hose. After drying thecabinet in the sun, I waxed the grayhammertone finish with auto wax andpolished it with a soft rag.

Conclusion

Working with the Pierson KE-93communications receiver was quite anexperience fo r me. The design of thereceiver exceeded my anticipated per­formance criteria that I' d considerednormal for tubed receivers of the19505 era. The narrow bandwidth, lowintcrmod . no identifiable images, andhigh sensitivity of the receiver werevery impressive indeed.

On the downside, however, the com­pact design, though grea t for both mo­bile and base applications, makes thereceiver very difficult {O troubleshootand repair. For troubleshooting pur­poses, a complete schematic would bevery helpful, but in the absence of aschematic, I'm hopeful that the infor­mation that I' ve provided will assistyou in restoring your own KE-93. Fa

Tesla: Inventor of Radio andModern-Day ACconnnued jf-om page 37

Gramme Electrical Company in 1882,a group formed express ly not only tofix prices but also to engage in paten tlitigation against "outside" electriccompanies (Electrical Review. May15, HHQ). The Sherman Act was notenac ted until 1890 . It outlawed pricefixing and other restraints of trade (butby 1890, the business was alreadyprettywell concentrated). In sum, evidenceavailable from historical documentssimply docs not support Marconi 'sclaim of invention, but shows only astrong incentive for claiming invention.

Marconi 's interest in wi re lesstransmission of intell igence did notcomme nce until 1894.

In 1866, an American dentist namedMahlon Loomis showed that one coulddetect signals between two mountainsin Virginia. Loomis applied for and wasgranted a patent for wireless telegraphyin 1872. some 22 years before Marconilearned of Hertz 's experiments.

In 1897, Marconi cou ld only reach adistance of nine miles. Two years later,he sent messages across the Eng lishChannel (the English Channel is about22 miles in width from Dover to Calais)(Bruno, The Tradition of Technology,Library of Congress. Washington. 1995,pp. 110. 24 1).

In co ntrast, despite a laboratory firein 1895 that destroyed most of hisequipme nt, less than two years laterTesla was tra nsmitti ng from his Hou s­ton Street laboratory in New York Ci tya dis tance of 30 miles up the HudsonRiver to West Point (Nikola Tesla 011 HisWork With Alternating Currents, N.Tesla. ed. L I .Anderson. Sun Publishing,1992).

Tesla was so confident of his newfour-circ uit system that in 1899 hewro te a letter to his friend RobertUnderwood Johnson procla iming"how ... abso lutel y sure I am that Ishall transmit a message [across theAtlantic] to the Paris Exposi tion with­out wire . .. l" (microfilm letter. Teslato Robert U. Johnson, August 16.1899, Library of Congress) . f1J

Back Issuesof

73 MaKazine

Only 55.00 Each!Call tiOO_274_1373

CALENDAA EUENTScontinued from pag e 43

under 12 admitted free with adult admission.Mobile check-ins and directions until noon on147.315 and 443.225, backup 145.275. Freeparking. Handicap facilities available. Outdoorflea market spaces $2 per 10 It section. Insidetables $10 per table, gate admission notincluded. Deatectlea market setup at 6:30 a.m.Inside tables guaranteed until 9 a.m . withreservation fee in advance; others first come.first served. Dealer registration with SASE andcheck or MO payable to : 20/9 Amateur RadioClub, Inc., 55 $ . Whitney Ave., Youngstown OH44509, Payment must be reccved no later thanApril 15th. For more info contact Don StoddardN8LNE, Chairman, 55 S. Whitney Ave.,Youngstown OH 44509, tel. 330-793-7072, E­mail [NBLNE1@neo.rr.com}:or RichHamaker,Co-Chairman, 4939 E. Radio Rd., YoungstownOH 44515, tel. 330-792-4019. Uniformed andplain clothes security will be present. Alcoholicbeverages , fire arms, and questionable ordemoralizing materials are not permitted onschool property.

G A LVA , IL The Area Amateur Rad ioOperators club will hold the 3rd annua lW9Y PS/AA9RO Hamfest "ARRO Fest 2002"on Apri l 28th, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the GalvaNational Guard Armory. Handicap parking andhandicap accessible. Excellent parking . Largeoutside flea market area. Electricity is availableinside the build ing; bring your own exten sioncords. VE exams by reservation only. TheNational Guard Auxiliary will provide an AII-U­Can-Eat breakfast as well as lunch. Advancetickets are $5 with three stubs , $7 at the doorwith one stub. To reserve tables and tickets. orto receive more info, contact Matt Bullock, 419E. College St. , Kewane e IL 61443,(mbullock@bwsys.net}: or Phil /mes, 908ZangAve. , Ke wanee IL 61443, E-mail [kewphi/@cin.net).

MAY 4, 5

ABILENE, TX The Key City ARC will sponsorits 17th annual Hamtest at the Abilene CivicCenter from 8a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday,and from9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Free parking. VEexams. Wheelchair access. Umited RV parkingfo r a nomi na l fee. Tables $7 each . Pre­registration $7 (must be received by April 29th),$8 at the door. Talk-in on 146 .1 60/.760 . Forreservations and info. contact Peg RichardKA4UPA, 1442 Lakeside Dr., Abi/ene TX79602, tel. 9 15-672-8889. E-mail {ka4upa@arrl.netj.

MAY 11

58 73 Amateur Radio Today . Apri l 2002

WANT TO LEARN CODE?

In the month s and years to come, we ex­pect dozens of sma ll sa telli tes to take to thesky on amateur freq uencies. Most of theseare from ed ucational institutions with strongham-radio tie s. Many ha ve been in contactwith the IARU or AMSAT. A few have not,bu t at least arc cognizant of the guideli nesavailable in the lARD document.

One new educational hamsat to watch foris Kolibri, a Russian/Australian project forstudents at the Ravenswood Girls Schooland Knox Grammar School in Sydney.Aus­tralia , and the Obninsk sc hoo l sys te mthrough the Center of Computer Technolo­gies at Ihe Institute of Atomic Power nearMoscow, Russia. The small sate llite has aprimary downlink on 145 .825 MHz FMwith telemetry and recorded voice. It hasbee n on the International Space Station fora number of months, and was scheduled to

be hand-launched in late February or earlyMarch , 2002, during a spacewalk. We'll

problem is further compounded by coveragearea. A typical sun-synchronous. tow-Earth ­orbit (LEO) sa telli te like MAROC·TUBSAT will be in range of every spot onthe Earth several times a day.

AMSAT (The Radio Amateur SatelliteCorporatio n) was established in 1969 as anonprofit scientific and educational entitytasked primarily with building and o perat­ing satelli tes within the Amateur SatelliteService. Today there are many AMSAT or­ganizations, all working to promote sim ilargoals.The IARU was established in 1925 as aworldwide federation of national amateurradio societies.

AMSAT drafted and approved a docu­ment in 1997 called "Background Infonna­tion for Prospective Owners and OperatorsofSatellites Utilizing Frequencies Allocatedto the Amateur-Satellite Service." The IARUimmediate ly adapted this document for in­

te rnational usc. You can find it on theInternet at [http://www.iaru.org/satellite/propcctive.httnl]. It is easy to understand andis now the standard for satellite builders.

If the groups behind MAROC-TUBSAThad taken a bit of time to check out infor­mation from the IARU or any AMSAT or­ganization, they would have been able toeasily avoid their c urrent difficulties. Thedownlink on 144 .1 MHz was not a goodchoice . In many parts of the world, this fre ­quency is seen as a weak-signal calling fre­quency. Most ed ucational satelli te s withtwo-meter downlinks are coordinated to use145 .825 MHz due to worldwide congestion.More options are available for those with70-cm downlinks.

What's next?

APR 13, 14

HRMSRTSconttnuedJrom page 45

What does it mean?

SPECIAL EVENTS, ETC.

GODALMING, SURREY, UNITED KINGDOMA worldwide radio link-up will be on the airSaturday April 13th and Sunday Apri l 14th, the90th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.The link-up is being organized by the TitanicWireless Commemorative Group in co­operation with Godalming Museum, to honorthe memory of Jack Phillips, Chief WirelessTelegraphist aboard the Titanic. Jack Phillipswas 25 years old when he stayed at his poston the Titanic, sending out SOS distresssignals in Morse code to alert other ships. Hesaved over 700 lives before he went down withthe ship 2 hours and 40 minutes after it struckthe iceberg. It was the first time that the SOSmessage had been sent at sea. The specialevent commemorative station GB90MGY willbe active on CW-only on all amateur shortwave bands from 80 to 10 meters (includingWARe bands), from 1000 hours GMTSaturday, April 13th, to 0219 hours Monday,April 15th (the precise time when the Tita~

sank) . fililI

Our amateur satelli te freq uency alloca­tions are a very va luable resource. The ITUhas speci fically set aside 144-146 and 435­438 MHz in the VHF and UHF spectru mfor the Amateur Satellite Service as a sub­set of the Amateur Radio Service . Otherallocations also are in-place. but the VHFand UHF bands arc the most popular. Forthose that recogn ize the authority of thelTV, the rules have the status of an Interna­tional Treaty.

In some countries amateur radio is viewedas a public service, while in others it is seenas an educational resource, a simple hobby,or as a training ground for commercia l e n­deavo rs . A few countries e ve n treat hamfrequencies as j ust another place to dobusiness regardless of int ernational agree­ments. The lTU and IARU certainly ha vetheir hands full attempting to police theworld for spectrum misuse . For satellites the

1-80 take the Virginia St. exit and head northone mile. Free admission to all. Vendors bringyour own tables. Large indoor/outdoor swap.Plenty of free pa rking . Raff le, colfee ,doughnuts, tours of the high definition TVstation. For VE exam info contact Don FreemanW7FD,[dlres1@worldnet.att.netj ,tel. 775-851­1176. Tal k-in on 147.060(+) (123). ContactGlen Haggard KK7/H, tel. 775-673-6401, E­mail [kk7ih@nvrams.org}.

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' S""", 1"8 7, OOTE has pided _,I)' 2~.0(l(l~..... and pmsro:<:IM:

ham. ",ound ,0< W<l<ld through p roven Slrn,l\lro<l I..."". a nd 0..ri<\v of ,barae"'" ",old and """.ersa'Oooal dnU•. S' I1I4!ht fo"". ,d""'"0' m.... ,he p' oc<" . impl. and fun

A hint of something new coming

have more on this endeavor next month. hutfor now you can check for updates on theAMSAT homc page Ihup:/Iwww.amsal.o rgland in an excellent article by Anthon y CurtisK3RXK at {hnp:/Iwww.arrl.orglnewslfea­lures/2001112J16l Ilj. fa

TH E DIGITRl PORTcontinued from page 50

few FYls for thosc who think I made thissound so easy. The Linux is co-existing ona hard drive with Win95 . which, up to thispoint in time, refuses 10 boot. Hopefully, thatcan be overcome sometime in the ncar future.

Other than a cas ual reference to "Don' ttry this at home," 1 have learned 10 advisethai the system really needs a relatively fastCPU with plenty of RAM and that a personwould be very wise to invest in a separatehard d rive just fo r Linux. There is also asmaller version of the o pe rating systemavailable, but I do not know anything abouthow it works. II wou ld seem for our pu r­poses that we will need al l that is availablewith the " regular" install ation. More later.

Have one of the members of your localham group contact a staff member at yourcongressman's office. Realist ically, it isprobably more effective 10 work through anaide than to try to get directly to yo u- e lectedofficial (although i f he or she responds di­rectly, so much the better). Invite the staff

-------- - - - - - - - -1 member to Field Day or the local disasterdri ll. Gel pictures of the aide sitting in theemergency van or similar photo oppo rtunityand publish them on your club's Web pageand newsletter; and send a copy o f the news­letter to the congressman's office. Maybeit'll catch the congressman's attention. If itdocs. he or she might be there for the nextphoto opportunity. Make sure yo u show ortell him what we can do, what we haveproven in the past. and what we are com­mined to do in the future . Show a schedulethai demonstrates thai your local group canprovide extended opera lions and the logshowing the names and ca llsigns of all the

check-ins to the weekly ARES or RACES net.This is important. Our country has a need

thai we have proven we can meet. and ourleaders are not aware of ham radio as a rc­source. Let's make sure thai we truly areprepared 10 serve and thai the right peoe,!£know who we are and what we can do. w:

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NEUER SRY DIEcontinued-from page 48

boards, o fferi ng th em at one price bui ltand tested. and c harg ing morc in kitfonn because he knew he ' d ha ve hand­hold ing problems.

During WWII the armed forces senta long technicians to keep the radio. ra­dar, and sonar equipment working. Theirelectronics schools were superb, turningo rdi nary people into technicians whocould fix just about a nything. They don ' t

f--------- --- ---l I Say you saw it in 73!

By the time this hils the magazine , thefollowing may have become a reality. r no­ticed a ham was mentioning the Logger pro­gram was about to come up with a ne wversion that sho uld cause new respect. Hewas saying ho w it was being tested in an"all -in-onc" formal. Not su re .what tha tmeans, but perhaps we will know by thene xt time 1si t down to write this column.

That abou t wraps it up for this go-around.If you have comments or questions aboutthese subjects. I will be glad to help how­e ver I can . Dro p me a li ne a t{KB7NO@worldne l.aU. net] . 73 for now.Jack KB7NO. Fa

73 Amateur RadiO Today · April 2002 59

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TWO YEAR WARRANTYON THE Gocontil1uedfrom page 5 1

001 necessarily rreet ~ needs of the AmaICtJTRadio Service. Is the local police c hie fsomewhat ambivalent to amateur radio as aresource? One of the many benefits of be­ing an American is that we have elected of­ficials who tend to be mu ch m oreresponsive.The city council membcrmightbe far more interested in listening to howinvolved a group of voters are in support­ing the community. Similarly. your con­gressman needs to be aware of what his o rhe r constitue nts are doing 10 help our.

PROPRGRTIONJim Gray II

210 E. Chateau CirclePayson AZ 85541

[akdhc2pilot@yahoo.com]

Special DX Forecast

April i s usually favorable for HF com m unications bu t I'm p redicting that this will tu rn out to bemore the excep tion tllan the rule.

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WED THU

April 2002

TUE

2 F-P

MON

1 P

SUN

N umerous active sunspots will cause erratic propagation con­ditions throughout the month with fewer good days than one

might normally expect. In fact you'Il notice (hat there are only twosolidly Good(G) days marked on the calendar with on ly eight otherdays listed as Fair to Good (F-G). The dates marked as Poor (P)are very likely to be associated with M and X-class solar n aresor CMEs. so ex pect geom agnetic distu rbances to follow within48 hours if such events occur and arc Earth-directed.

There has been a resurgence of sunspot acti vity since laic lastyear and experts now agree that we arc experiencing a second pcakin cycle 23. This is not unusual since about a dozen dual peakshave been observed over the last 400 years . What is surprising isthat this is the third cycle in a row that we've had one. An interest­ing pattern that seems to have emerged is that dual peaks occur 1510 18 mon ths apart. but the reason why is uncertain.

One possibili ty has to do with changing rota tion al velocities ofgas currents near the base of the "convect!vc zone ," the turbulentlap third of our SUIl . This is the region thought to be where most ofthe sun's magnetic Held is generated. Just last yea r, using a tech­nique called helioscismology, scien tists were able to probe the sun'sinterior and measure these curre nts speeding up and slowing downabout every 16 mont hs. Whether this happens coruiuuously or onlyduring solar ma ximum is yet to be determi ned.

Exactly how this might relate to the sunspot cycle and the for­mation of new sunspots is also unclear. Sunspots themsel ves arconly a minor part of the whole so lar picture but obviously the ac­ti vity associ ated with them can produce dramatic changes in theEarth' s magnetic fie ld. Over the solar cycle these effects have im­portant consequences for the Eart h's upper atmos phere and, as weall know. the propagation of high frequency radio waves .

73 until next month . . .

7 F·P 8 P 9F-P 10F 11 F 12F-P

14F 15F 16 F·G 17 F-G 18 F-P 19 P

21 F 22 F-G 23 F·P 24 F-G 25 F-G 26 P

28 F·G 29 F-G 30 f

13F

20 F-P

27 F-P

Table J. Hand, time, country chart. Plain numerals indicatebands which should be workable on Fair to Good (F-G) andGood (G) days . Numbers in parentheses indicate bands usu­aUy workable on Good (G) days only. Dual numbers indicatethat the intervening bands should also be usable. When onenumber appears III parentheses, that end of the range willprobably be open 011 Good (G) days only.

60 73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002

Band-by-Band Summary

10-12 meters

10 and 12 me ters wi ll hav e alreadybegun to wane and will continue to dete­riorate as the weather warms up. Someacti vity will still be available to the cast inthe morning and to the west during theafternoon, but the duration ofopenings willhe short. The strongest peaks will usua llyoecu r in the afternoon and short-sk ipdistances will fall between 1.000 to 2,200miles.

15- 17 meters

15 and 17 meters will sri II be fairly work­able, but mostly to the Central and SouthAmerica. Look for a few openi ngs towardEurope before noon, a strong peak to Cen­tral and SouthAmerica around midday, andsome weaker activity to the west from lateafternoon to mid-evening. Short-skip willaverage around 1,000 miles.

20 meters

20 meters will be open to most areas ofthe world and is your best bet for most timesand condit ions. Peaks occur right after sun­rise and againjust before sunset. The south­ern hemisphere will be very active withstrong DX signals on good days. Short-skipmay vary from 500 up to 2,500 mile sdepend ing on conditions.

30-40 meters

These bands should be good choicesfrom late evening until sunrise but armo­sp heric no ise wi ll be higher than lastmonth as the subtroplcs heat up. The mostrelia ble openi ngs will be to the southernhemisphere but North Afric a, the MiddleEast, and Central Asia may provide somelnteresring opportunities when conditionsallow. Daytime skip wi ll be less than1,000 miles but nighttime distances willbe beyond 700 miles.

80-160 meters

80 and 160 meters will be spotty and can'tbe relied on because static from tropicalstorms will be the norm. Have a listen if 40meters is open but don' t expect many sta­tions to come booming in from halfwayaround the world. Short-skip on 80 metersshould average over 2,000 miles at nightwhile skip on 160 will fall between 1,000and 2,000 miles. If there are any daytimeopenings at all skip will only operate out to

300 miles or so. fa

NEUERSRYDIEcontinuedJrom page 59

bother with all that anymore. If so me­thing stops working they don 't fix it,they replace it. They no longer have anyneed for tech schools. I' m not even surethey bother to fix the stuff when it's re­p laced. I' ll bet we ' ll find that they justcrush the stuff and throw it away. WithCongress and the Administration okayingany military budget submitted, whyshoul d they worry about economizing?

Ou r military is spending more todaythan they did in the 19705 and early 1980swhen we were: "fighting communism."

When I was teaching radio school atthe submarine base in New London , theyhad a huge warehouse packed so lid withradio, radar, sonar, and tes t equipmentshipped there to be installed on the newsubmarines that were under construc­tion. When the war ended and new sub­marine construc tion was halted, all thatbrand new st uff was unpacked andcrus hed . Tens of mill ions of dollarsworth of fabulous eq uipment. Rece ivershams would have given their eye tee thfor. Oscilloscopes, General Radio signalgenerators , and so on. Sure, there was abunch of war surplus eq ui pment that hitthe marke t, but virtually none of it camefrom the Navy. T hey destroyed theirs,apparently because of a secret agree­ment with the manufacturers not to spoiltheir postwar sales of new equi pment.

I heard about this happening at Navybases all around the world. In Guamthere was a pi le of Teletype machinesover a hundred feet high that hams wouldhave given anything for. And so on.

The m il itary, with an endless supplyo f our money, doesn't have to be careful.And it's more practical with today'sshort, intense wars to replace brokenequipment and forget it, so we 're nOIseeing military surp lus. Not that most ofit would be of much use. The stuff is toospecialized today.

So our surplus houses are long gone.We o nly have a few kit manufacturers.And old-timers grumble about our notmaking our ow n equipment anymore asthey tune their leom radios, loo king forsomeone to complain to .

Water

How come I keep stressing the impor­lance of drinking distilled water'? Don'twe need the minerals we ca n ge t fromo ur water supply? Dr. Allen Banik,who 's spent much of his life researchingthe effects of water on the human body,says , "The only minerals the hody canutilize are the organic minerals (fromplants) . All other types of minerals areforeign substances to the body and musthe eliminated. Distilled wa ter is the only

water that can be taken into the bodywithout damage to the tissues ." And Dr.Charles Mayo (Mayo Clinic) says tha tinorganic minerals in solu tion are theca use of much human disease .

Are you drinking at least ten glassesof pure water a day? And two glasses forevery cup of coffee or lea yOUdrink.

There 's a $ 119 steam distiller avail­able . See www.steamdistiller.com forthe sales pitch.

Windmills

I see where Ireland and UK are start­ing to install o ffsho re windmi lls as away to phase out their coal generatingplants. Each will have 200-foot rotorsand generate 3 megawatts.

Ireland 's wind farm plan is to installtwo hundred wind turbines four miles atsea in water up to 81 feet J eep. This willsupply about the same amount of poweras a large coal-burn ing plant. Twentyturbines are expected to be in place hyfall this year.

It would take about a million wind tur­bines to supply America's energy needs,but it su re would cut the cost o f electric­ity and free us from a lot of pollutio n. Itwould also help us not to leave a planetstripped of coal and oil for our greatgrandchi ldren.

I'd rather see some developmental ef­tort for cold fusion-powered units, wherewe could use our nuclear waste as fuel,generating heat and electricity while weclean up our nuclear waste storage sites.That would bring us energy at about aten th o f today's cost.

Reincarnation

If you are in denial about reincarna­tion, it's because you haven't read anyhooks on the subject. Well, it' s easy todis believe thi ngs you kno w very littleabout.

I fi rst ran into re incarnation when Iwas doing Dianetic auditing back in1950 . I found that in quite a few cases,when under hypnosis I asked my patientsto go to the first time something trau­matic had happened in the past whichwas causing them problems in theirpresent li ves that they went to a death ina prev ious life. People who'd died bydrowning in a past life often had a fearo f the water in this one .

I decondi tioncd the trauma just as Iwould one in their current life and thisalways cured the ir problem.

I've read some excellent books on thesubject, incl udin g a new one by TomShroder, Old Souls , from Simon &Schuster, ISBN 0-684-!'\5 193-R, 255 pp.,1999 , $ 12. This is Tom's story of his

Continued on page 62

73 Amateur Radio Today· April 2002 61

N EUER SRY DIEcon tinued from page 61

work with Ian Stevenso n. a physicianand psychiat rist who has investigatedover 2.500 cases of young children whohave memories of their previous li ves.

In the book Tom takes LIS throug hStevenso n's investigation of several chil­dren who remembered previous lives.There was one case where as a Lebanesewoman died. she promised her husbandthat she' d he hack as soon as she could.A fe w weeks later a baby girl was bornin a village about a hundred miles away.As soon as the baby started to talk shewas pleading to go In her village and bewith her husband and children. Whenher parents fina lly d id make the trip withher she was able to name many of thepeople they mel in her o ld village andpoi nt OUI things from her memories .

T he book is interesting. but I won' tadd it to my Secret Guide to Wisdom re­view o f books because I found it toos low-going . Too muc h travelogue andnot enough interesting cases. Ho w­ever, if you wa nt to learn abou t the re­ali ty of re incarnatio n and past lives.give it a read .

Extinction

Art Belt has interviewed a couple morepretty convincing gloom-and-doomcrs.II's almost been enough to make methink.

In my Human Extinction Propheciesbook. I ci te Nostradamus' prediction of asoon-to-come pole shift that would movethe poles to somewhere over Siberia andSouth America, wipi ng out 97Lk of hu­mans in the process . The old geezer hasbeen right on the money with most of hispredictions, so he's got a lot of credibility.

Then we have Edgar Cayce. promis­ing us a similar catas trophe in the nearfuture. An d hi s propheci es have beenremarkably accurate too. Hmm. Gee.

Next comes Chct Snow and his MassDreams ofthe FWI/re. C hef's team inter­viewed a couple thousand people underhypnosi s about thei r future lives. Morebad news.

Gordo n Michael Scallion K IBWC isanother we ll-known prophet. He. too,has been predicting a major calami ty. Ihave his map o f the U.S. as he says itwi ll look afte r the event and it looks re­markably similar to the one Nostradamusdrew 400 years ago. I chec ked with Gor­do n and he 's gotten prepared with amostly underground home and plenty o femergency power generating eq uipment.He lives about 40 miles west of me .Both of our locations will, according tohis map, be above the ' new wate r level.But good-bye to all o f o ur coastal cities .

One of the two new doomcrs on Art's

62 73 Amateur Radio Today. April 2002

show got his story of what's goi ng tohappen from someone he contacted psy­ch ically 5,000 years .in the future . Some­thing came along at around this time andwiped out all of the cities and put whatfew people were le ft hack into the cave­man age . In view of the warm ing o fAntarctic a he suggested that the mile­high icc sheer covering much o f theco ntinent. which is larger than the U.S. ,might sudden ly slide into the ocean. cre­ating a tidal wave a half mi le or morehigh which wo uld travel at about 500miles per ho ur all the way to the NorthPole, wiping out everything in its path.

T his could, in turn, wobble the planetinto a pole shift. A doubl e whammy.

Art's next doomer made a good case forthat elusive tenth planet which ZcchariaSi tchin found described in ancientrecords as Nibaru making a comeback inMarch next ye ar. He says it' ll pass be­tween the sun and earth, caus ing ushavoc . And may be triggering that polecha nge.

Hmm. maybe it's about time to get alittle du g for an underground retrea t andput a dome over it. I' ll need a solarpower system (like Scallion's), plus apropane-powered genera tor and a bigtank (like Scallion's) to provide powerfor my ham station and computers for afew \veeks until the sun comes out again.

Could a major catas trophe wi pe outthe technology we' ....e developed overthe last few hundred years '? Wel l, if wehave no coal or oi l. we'll have no trans­portation or communications and no wayto refine meta ls .

T his all seems unlikely, but if any­thing ha ppens, remember that you saw ithere. If noth ing happe ns, forget thewhole thing.

Home Power

If anything catas trophic docs comealong. the people who are not living incities and thus have a better chance ofsurvival are going to need to generatetheir own power. T hat comes down tosolar and wind power at present. Thecost of so lar panels has been dropping.making that approach more attractive.But the cost of the batter ies and otherequipment still makes it an expensiveway to go.

A bunc h of small wi ndmills, as de­scribed in the December 200 I issue , isanother pract ical approach.

Ken West KC7TRM Ecmailed me an­other approach which cou ld be devel­oped to harness the sun 's power. T hiswas developed by John Mou ntain . bu tnever commercialized. It uses a bunch ofFresnel lenses to concentrate the sun'srays onto some pipes filled wi th a liquidwhich can be heated to 6000 or so andstored in a well insula ted tank below the

ground. A heat exchanger can deli ver theheat to a home via steam. as well as uscthe steam to drive a turbine to generateelectric ity to keep s to rage batteri esc ha rged . T his would require a spaceabout six by twe lve feet, considerablyless than a solar array. And could be lessexpe nsive. Anyone interested?

Hydrogen

It's a dangerous fue l. but so is gasolinean d kerosene - as used in the WTC at­tack . But if the "war on terrorism" startsj acking up oi l prices, as seems likely,we' re go ing to be looking for practicalalternatives .

Hydrogen is easy to make - j ustseparate it from the oxygen in water,save the hydrogen and le t the oxygeninto the atmosphere . We could use a fewextra billion tons of oxygen a day for along time to come.

But it takes energy ( 0 make hydrogen.Big deal, we've got boundless e nergyavail able from Mother Na ture (u.k.a.God ). Where? All around us. Like theact ion of ocean waves, which can beused with floats 10 turn electric turbines.Tidal flows. some very strong, can beharnessed . A mi llion undersea volcanoesare releasing incredible amounts of heal.Ditto those heat vents all a long themidoccan tecton ic plate edges .

As long as oil was cheap, and the oilcompanies in finn lobbyist contro l ofCongress and the White House. therewas little interest (money) in developingco mpeting technolog ies. Some $4.99prices or long lines again at gas stationsand we might sce more publ ic unrestwith the status qu o.

Will we eventual lv be seeing cars with- -hyd rogen bottles for fuel? Will we seefue l sta tions selling refill ed hydrogenbottle s? How many bottles will it take togo, say. 300 miles? As a scuba diver inan hour I pre tty wel l usc up a tank fill edwit h 3,000 pou nds o f ai r. And thoseal uminum scuba tanks arc heavy to lift.

Well. if it's im practical for cars .maybe hydrogen trucks can refi ll ourhome tanks.

F ired !

As (he recession conti nues, with ourlarger companies laying off thousands ofemployees (I almost said workers),there 's an upside for the survivors and a"what in the hell am I going to do now'!"sudden shock for the dow nsized.

The midleve l survivors arc moving upto top-level jobs. T he lower-level survi­vors are findi ng themselves having to dothe work that two or three d id befo re .T his should no t he diffi cul t.

Continued on page 64

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73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002 63

Barter 'n' Buy:...- _

Turn your old ham and computer gear into cash now. Sure, you can wait for a hamtest to try and dump it, but you know you' ll get a far morerealistic price if you have it out where 100,000 active ham potential buye rs can see it, rather than the few hund red local hams who com e bya flea market table. Check your attic, garage, cellar and closet she lves and get cash for your ham and computer gear before it's 100 old tosell. You know you're not going to use it again, so why leave it for your widow to throw out? That stuff isn't gelling any younge r!The 73 Flea Market, Barter 'n ' BUY, costs you peanuts (almost) - comes to 35 cents a word for individual (noncommercial!) ads and $1.00a word for commercial ads. Don', plan on tell ing a long story. Use abbreviations , cram it in. But be honest. There are plenty of hams who loveto fix things, so if it doesn't work, say so .Make your list, count the words, including your call, address and phone number. Include a check or you r credit card number and expiration.If you're plac ing a commercial ad , include an additional phone number, separate from your ad.This is a monthly magazine, not a daily newspaper, so figure a couple months before the action starts; then be prepared. If you get too manycalls, you priced it low. If you don't get many calls , too high.So get busy. Blow the dust all, check everything out, make sure it stil l works right and maybe you can help make a ham newcomer or retiredold timer happy with that rig you 're not using now. Or you might get busy on your computer and put together a fist of small gear/parts to sendto those interested?

Send lour ad s a nd payment to : 73 Magazine, Harter ' n ' Buy, 70 Hancock Rd. , Peterborough ~I1 03458 and get set for thephone calls, The deadli ne for the June 2002 classified ad section is A pri l 10, 2002.

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NE UER SRY DIEconlinuedjrom p age 62

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Job survivors are no longer complacentabout their jobs. What ir the recession con­tinues? How long will it be before the axswings again and their head is staring upblankly from the basket?

If you've been reading my essays forlong you know what my advice to both thedownsized and the potentially downsizedis. Start your own business. m

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COLLOIDAL SILVER GENERATOR! Why buy a f-- --- - - - - - - - - - - ­"box of batteries" for hundreds of dollars? Currentregulated, AC powered, tully assembled with #12AWG silver electrodes, $74.50. Same, but DC pow­ered, $54.50. Add $2.50 shipping. Thomas Miller,216 East 10th 51. , Ashland OH 44805. Web ad­dress Iwww.bioelectrifier.com). BNB342

COLD FUSION! - FUEL CELL! - ELECTRIC BI­CYCLEI Each ecucatonat kit. (Basic - S99.95, De­luxe - $199.95, information - $9.95.) CATALOG ­$5.00. ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILE BOOK - $1 9.95.KAYLOR-KIT, POB 15505T, Boulder Creek CA95006-1550. (831) 338-23OJ. BNB128

ANTENNA SCIENCE: Why do antennas radiateelectromagnetic waves? Learn for yourself fromthis _enlightening paper by MAX RESEARCH.Gain an understanding of the radiation mecha­nism of antennas! Written in a clear style for radiohobbyists, inquis~ ive amateurs and experimenters.$4.95 ... ppd. Order from MAX RESEARCH, P,O.Box 1306, East Northport NY 11731.

DWM COMMUNICATIONS - Neat stuff! SASEbrings catalog! POB 87-BB, Hanover MI 49241 .

BNB641

K8CX HAM GALLERY [http://hamgallery.com].BNB620

220 MHz Award; see W9CYT on~COM for information . BNB645

New miniature oscillato r modules are now avail­able ... all under $20 ... plus our great referencebook is still for sale. Write to RMT Engineering,6863 Buffham Road, Seville QH 44273 or seeour Web site at [www.ohio.netJ-rtormetJindex.html/] . BNB640

RF TRANSISTORS TUBES 2SC2879, 25C1971 ,2SC1972, MRF247, MRF455,MB8719, 2SC1307,2SC2029, MRF454, 2SC3133, 4CX250B, 12D06.6KG6A, etc. WESTGATE, 1-800·213-4563.

BNB6000

METHOD TO LEARN MORSE CODE FAST ANDWITHOUT HANGUPS Johan N3RF. Send $1.00& SASE. SVANHOLM RESEARCH LABORATO­RIES, P.O. Box 81 , Washington DC 20044 USA.

BNB421

Cash for Collins: Buy any Collins Equipment.Leo KJ6HI. Tel./FAX (310) 670-6969. [radioleo@earthlink.net]. BNB425

TELEGRAPH COLLECTOR'S PRICE GUIDE:250 pictures/prices. $12 postpaid, ARTIFAXBOOKS, Box 88, Maynard MA 01754. TelegraphMuseum: [http://wltp.com]. BNB113

Ham Radio Repair, Quality workmanship. AllBrands, Fast Service, Affordable Electronics,7110 E. Thomas Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251. Call480-970-0963 , or E-mail [HAM SERVlCE@AOL.COM]. BNB427

64 73 Amateur Radio Today • April 2002

Browse our Web site and check out the"Monthly Specia!." TDL Technology, Inc. [www.aienet.cc mstdf]. BNB500

MAHLON LOOMIS, INVENTOR OF RA DIO. byThomas Appleby (copyright 1967). Second print·ing available from J OHAN K.V. SVANHOLMN3RF, SVANHOLM RESEARCH LABORATO·RIES, P.O. Box 81, Washington DC 20044. Pleasesend $25.00 donation with $5.00 for S&H.

BNB420

Alineo Delivers HF Adventure!Alinco's HF Transceivers Deliver Incredible Performance at aTiny Price

You're only afew hundred dollars away from a brand newAlineo HFTransceiver. That's right! Just afew hundred dollarsgets you on theairwithabig 100-watt signal, great audioand an easy-to-operate packagethat's pertect for base, portableor mobile operations. The Alinco

DX-70 and DX·77 make it easy for everyoneto enjoy HFwithadependabletransceiver that's backedby Alinco's 1year warranty.

The world of HF is calling. What are you waiting for?

Alinco OX-70TH Base/Mobile/PortableHF +6Meter Transceiver

• 100 watts SSB, FM & (W, 40 watts AM

• Continuous coverage HF receiver+ full 6 meter coverage

• 100 memory channels• Speech compressor

• Great CW rig, full aSK, semior automatic break-in

• Standard narrow filter fights QRMon SSB, CW or AM

• Two VfO's and easy "split" operation• RemovabLe face for remote mounting.• RIT / TXIT, IF shift• Mu{t; function control for easy operation

Alinco DX-77T Desktop HF Transceiver• 100 watts 558, FM & CW, 40 watts AM• General coverage receiver

150 KHz ..... 30 MHz

• Two VFO's; easy "spttt" operation• Standard speech processor• Front panel speaker provides loud,

clear audio• Built-in electronic keyer 6 ..... 60 wpm• Full aSK, 7-step semi break-in or auto break-in

• Enhanced DirectDigital Synthesis(DDS) eliminatesneed for SSB NarrowFilter

• Front paneL connections for mit, key, speaker& phones

Options• EDX-2 automatic wire antenna tuner• EMS-14 desktop microphone• DM-330 MVT switching power supply• DM~340 MVT reguLated power suppLy

IHKD3S QuickDisconnect Kit

You get a package of 5 ru gged, easily tunedantennas for 10, 15, 20,40 & 75 meters fromIron Horse, a name recognized for its strengthand dependability. Each has 3/8 x 24 threadsand is rated for 500 watts. Order the IHKD3S5 antenna quick disconnect mounting kit tomake changing bands aquick and easy operation,just push, turn & go!

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IHF5S Mobile HF Antennas

~o~, www.AlINCO.com<~' Distributed in Norlh America by AlDCAmateur Distributing LLC • 23 S. High si.. Covington, DH 45318 . (937) 473·2840

Specilicationssub jecl lo change withoul nol iceor obligation.Products intended fu' use bypruperly licensed operators. Permito required for MARSICAP use. Specrt i<;a! io~s subject to Gha~Qe without nonce or oeucatoo. All trademarks rem, int ile property ot their respectiveowners

IH1H·1Optional

Trailer Hitch Mount

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