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Archive for March, 2010

SWITZERLAND - The ITU has officially declared Texas a new DXCC entity.  Texas's amateur radio prefix will be TX, which is currently allocated to France.  French authorities have agreed to allow France to be annexed with Texas rather than giving up the prefix and angering French amateurs.

The United States FCC will no longer issue amateur radio licenses to Texans; all licenses will be issued out of the Republic of Texas government office in Houston.  Texan amateur radio licenses will automatically include a concealed weapons permit and VIP parking permits for Chilis restaurants.

Texas, as part of the United States secession agreement, will also assume responsibility for the portion of national debt incurred by Texans.  This has been calculated at nearly $5 trillion, or roughly 39% of the current US national debt.

The new Texan TX prefix will become active April 2 at 00:00 UTC and is eligible for DXCC credit.

The winner of the QST Cover Plaque Award for March is Rudy Severns, N6LF, for his article "An Experimental Look at Ground Systems for HF Verticals." Congratulations, Rudy! The winner of the QST Cover Plaque award -- given to the author or authors of the best article in each issue -- is determined by a vote of ARRL members on the QST Cover Plaque Poll Web page. Cast a ballot for your favorite ar...

Compiled by S. Khrystyne Keane, K1SFA
ARRL News Editor
news@arrl.org
April 1, 2010

This feature -- including convenient Web links to useful information -- is a concise monthly update of some of the things ARRL is doing on behalf of its members. This installment covers the month of March.

The ARRL and the American Red Cross signed a new Memorandum of Understanding that provides a "broad framework fo...

The ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology (TI) began its 2010 sessions in February with a Teachers Institute course designed specifically for teachers in the Tucson (Arizona) Unified School District (TUSD). Taught at Jefferson Park Elementary School, 21 educators -- including the school principal, school counselor and three resource personnel -- took part in five Saturday sessions, working through an expanded 45 hour Teachers Institute (TIs usually are done in about 32 hours). The teachers completed homework assignments that included building the clock kit, building a flashing LED Santa and reading the first two chapters of What's a Microcontroller? In addition, five parents attended the TI as observers. The course was taught by TI Instructor Miguel Enriquez, KD7RPP, who teaches in the TUSD.

Martin, G8JNJ, sent me an email with some suggestions for getting the super-regenerative Fredbox receiver to work. He also sent me a link to the blog of Steve, G4AQB, which mentions the Practical Wireless CQ2 receiver design on which the Fredbox receiver is supposed to be based. I remember the name "CQ2" and the picture on the magazine front cover and circuit diagram shown on Steve's site look similar to the receiver I built in the early 70s to listen to the 2 metre band which finally gave me the interest to get my Class B (144MHz and up) amateur radio license. I seem to recall that the article also had detailed drawings of how the components in the receiver were to be laid out.

Steve writes that he mounted the receiver on an aluminium front panel but that this played havoc with the tuned circuit so he rebuilt it on a piece of plywood! My memory is pretty poor these days but my recollection is that I built it into an aluminium box of the sort that you could readily buy from the local radio parts shop (those were the days when there were local radio parts shops!), like a box with a lid secured with two self tapping screws. The box stood on its side so the lid was the front panel of the receiver.

Steve writes that he built a quad antenna to use with the receiver. My antenna was a dipole mounted on a wooden stand in my bedroom and fed with a few feet of audio co-ax, since at the time I was ignorant of coaxial cable properties like impedance or loss! In those days I lived with my parents in Rayleigh, Essex. I was able to receive the local police on the CQ2 receiver, as well as amateurs in the Southend area such as Barry G8HNX, John G8IDI and Chas G8HVS. I could receive the GB3VHF beacon from Wrotham, Kent, and also a couple of old-timers who had a regular sked: G6LL whom I think was in Hertfordshire and G5OX who may have been in Ashford, Kent (or perhaps it was the other way round.) This was nearly 40 years ago and I'm surprised I can still remember any of it!

Steve also writes that the radiation from the super-regenerative receiver wiped out the local TVs. I don't remember that, fortunately, or an end may have been put to my aspirations to be a radio ham before they even started!

But my first proper transceiver - a Hudson AM108 ex-taxi radio that I bought for £5 at the RSGB Woburn Rally in 1973 (which was actually before I was licensed) caused patterning on my parents' TV on receive! After I got my license I soon found that it caused serious breakthrough on my father's stereo hi-fi on transmit as well, so my operating was done mobile /M from the car after that.

Later I built my own 4-channel 2m FM transmitter (using tubes, to another PW design) which I used in conjunction with a Microwave Modules receive converter and my short wave receiver (also home built, using tubes, from a PW design.)

So much fun with such primitive equipment! I often wonder if all the technological advances we have today have really added to the enjoyment of the hobby.

Registration remains open through Sunday, April 25, 2010, for these online course sessions beginning on Friday, May 7, 2010: Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 1; Antenna Modeling; Radio Frequency Interference; Antenna Design and Construction; Propagation; Analog Electronics, and Digital Electronics.

One of the things that annoys me about Microsoft is that it has created an operating system that behaves as if it is your job to service its needs rather than a tool that is supposed to serve yours.

I'm thinking specifically about updates. Windows constantly nags you to install updates (which wouldn't be necessary if they'd designed the thing properly in the first place) and then it expects you to interrupt what you're doing while it does. After you have downloaded updates it nags you to restart the computer in order to install them. Perhaps they could have designed it so you didn't have to restart the entire OS after every change? When you do shut down it won't let you switch off while it is installing updates, so you have to wait around twiddling your thumbs until it is finished.

Hey, Microsoft, it's MY computer, okay?

I just received an update to Internet Explorer 8 (which I don't even use) today. After it was downloaded, Windows nagged me twice to restart the system by popping up a window in front of what I was doing, even though I was in the middle of writing something and did not want these interruptions to my train of thought.

Fortunately there is a magic incantation you can remember to show Microsoft who's boss. It's:

net stop wuauserv

Just click Start, Run, type the magic words into the box and hit the Enter key. What it does is kill the Windows update service for the remainder of that session. Windows will nag you no longer, and your updates will be installed the next time YOU decide to restart.

International Single Operator All Band.

• P49Y (AE6Y) | 3842 Qs | 1048 Prefixes | 36hrs | 13,657,536 Points [NCCC].
• 3V8SS (KF5EYY) | 1577 Qs | 691 Prefixes | 30h29min| 4,036,822 Points [RR DX].
  
• PY2NY | 1622 Qs | 726 Prefixes | 32hours | 3,442,692 Points [Araucaria DX].

n = 14 scores submitted in this category.

Options there are options for low power, low profile RadioSport operators. One can operate from a DX location to satisfy the competitive spirit and Andy, P49Y entered an ionospheric score from his Aruba location. In addition, he lead the Northern California Contest Club to a banner position fulfilling the club's motto, "Excellence In Amateur Radio Contesting."

An accomplishment well done!

Believe in your signal.

USA Single Operator All Band.

• KR5X (K1BX) | 1974 Qs | 868 Prefixes | 36hrs | 4,463,256 Points [YCCC].
• NV1N (N1UR) | 1761 Qs | 805 Prefixes | 36hrs | 3,761,185 Points [YCCC].
  
• KW3W | 574 Qs | 366 Prefixes | 18hrs | 552,294 Points [PVRC].

n = 33 scores submitted in this category.

The climatic ionospheric event of the season guaranteed ham radio fun and CQ WPX SSB delivered on the promise. Prefix multipliers added extra value even if one operated from their apartment balcony or with a long wire with counterpoise from a college room in a dormitory.

Congratulations K1BX who piloted KR5X to a 3830 Claimed Score first place finish while leading the Yankee Clipper Contest Club to its banner position for the year.

73 from the shackadelic on the beach.

Welcome to Handiham World!

Before we do anything else, I'd like to share last week's Midwinter Madness Hamfest with our readers. After that, we have a special edition of the Handiham World that is dedicated to operator improvement.

Midwinter Madness Hamfest Photos

Now, to our special feature: Communicating with other hams: It’s all about exchanging information.

Okay, I've had it with bad communications and bad communicators. It's time to teach some "elementary" ham radio. In a special three-part series, we are going back to our Technician Class studies to review some communications basics. To help us, we are taking the information from my teaching notes - the very same notes I use to teach in my own local club's Technician course. We can all do with some reminders of what constitutes the basics of amateur radio communication.

Ready to review the basics? Good! Let's get started.

The basics

Start with callsigns: My callsign is WA0TDA.

Every other station has one, so you will use both of them to initiate a contact:

“W0ZSW, this is WA0TDA”.

Identify!

• Use your callsign.

• Speak clearly & slowly.

• Use phonetics when conditions make hearing difficult.

• Position your microphone correctly.

• Repeat (or ask for a repeat) of the information as necessary.

When you are done talking… (Read more on the Handiham website, or listen to the audio podcast.)

On Thursday, March 25, ARRL President Kay Craigie, N3KN, signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the American Red Cross (ARC) at ARC National Headquarters in Washington, DC. The MoU, which replaces an earlier Statement of Understanding that expired in 2007, provides a "broad framework for cooperation" between the ARRL and the ARC "in preparing for and responding to disaster relief situations at all levels in rendering assistance and service to victims of disaster, as well as other services for which cooperation may be mutually beneficial."

The success of my project to make an FM version of G3XBM's Fredbox was always going to depend on the receiver. The Fredbox receiver is a simple three transistor super-regenerative design. This is the only practical way to make a receiver small enough to fit in a hand-held case. It is also the only cost-effective way to do it, because making a conventional double-conversion receiver with crystal control just wouldn't be worth it for such a project.

What I didn't know were a) would the super-regenerative receiver work with FM signals (the original Fredbox was designed for AM) and b) would it be sufficiently stable to stay on frequency without the benefit of crystal control? However, what I didn't give too much thought to was the possibility that I wouldn't be able to get it to work at all.

Because this is a VHF circuit I didn't think I could try it out on the breadboard so I made it up directly on to Veroboard. The layout is pretty similar to Roger's original layout from what I can tell from the pictures on his website, although I think he made an etched circuit board, something I'm not able to do.
I drew up the layout using a bitmap editor. This shows the components from the top view. The large outline components are the Toko S18 inductors, and the red lines are wire links below the board connecting the ground traces. The schematic for the receiver part of the Fredbox is shown below. As with the Nano-40 I used an MPS13 in the audio stage in the hope of getting a bit more audio gain.

I applied power and expected to hear a hissing sound in the earpiece which stops when a signal is tuned in. However I heard nothing at all. The audio stage appears to be working, as I can hear a faint buzz if I touch something metal to the input.

Alan, VK2ZAY had a lot of trouble getting the receiver to work as well, and he is an experienced constructor who knows what he is doing. I suppose this should have warned me off trying this project. Alan replaced the axial choke for L3 with half a dozen turns of wire on a ferrite bead, and I did the same, but to no avail. I also substituted a variable trimpot for R2 which in many other super-regenerative receiver designs is a variable regeneration control. But no matter what the setting of the pot I could not get any regeneration to occur at all.

I think my FM Fredbox is about to become yet another abandoned project. :(

On Sunday, March 28 -- a day with a lot of rain, wind, sleet and, fog -- John Oakberg, NK4N, of Sevierville, Tennessee, went out hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Mt LeConte. When he was about 1 mile up from Alum Cave Bluff, he came across Judy Potter, 57, of Atlanta who had broken her ankle while on the trail. Oakberg reached for his cell phone to call 911, but there was no coverage available. He then reached for his handheld transceiver and put out a call to any Amateur Radio operators who may be listening via some nearby VHF 2 meter repeaters.

The New York Post is reporting that Radio Shack may be courting suitors, namely electronics retailer Best Buy.  If you have the cash lying around, you can pick up your very own electronics...errrr cellphone store chain for a cool $3B.

Could this be the next or perhaps last chapter of our once great electronic hobbyist mecca?

I have always been interested in CW especially when as a boy the best I could afford was a Heathkit DX-20, a CW-only transmitter and a military six metal-tube Command Set 40 meter receiver. With this rig I was forced to use CW exclusively and I learned to love telegraphy and became fairly good at it. In those days all I had was a J-38 straight key and I pined after a Vibroplex bug (bug is another name for semiautomatic keys). The best CW men always had a gleaming bug whenever you saw them pictured in QST or CQ. In later years, I found I could hardly pass up a bug for sale at a hamfest.