The Smartlock is an accessory for my SGC SG-239 HF Smartuner, and other ATUs they make. It can be bought ready made or built.

Its simplicity and the cost of the assembled unit have inspired a number of people to roll their own.

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The colour code of the cable to the Smartuner appears to be:

TND = Green,

HLD/RSET = White

+12V = Red

Gnd = Black

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Simplified SmartLock

Phil Salas – AD5X – decided to remove the components making up the voltage regulator part of the circuit.

“I wanted to build a SmartLock to use with my SG-239. After studying the SmartLock schematic, I couldn’t figure out why SGC put in the transistor and zener diode. The ST-TNE input on the SG-239 is just a 1.5K resistor to an open collector transistor to ground. So I eliminated Q1, R3, D1 and C3 on the SGC SmartLock schematic. My final circuit is shown below. I used a DB9S connector to interface with the SGC tuner (I attached a DB9P to the tuner interface wires), and a PowerPole interface for 12VDC. This way I could use a standard DB9 extension cable as necessary for interfacing between the tuner and SmartLock. I used ultra-bright LEDs (3000mcd or so) to provide plenty of visibility.”

Pretty neat!

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text of the italian site:

L’accordatore automatico SGC-239 indubbiamente è un gran bello strumento. Si collega e funziona ottimamente con qualunque radio (HF) semplicemente utilizzando un cavo coassiale e una fonte d’alimentazione a 12 volts. Non è particolarmente esoso di corrente e anche in utilizzo SOTA non va a gravare sull’autonomia giornaliera. Ne ho trovato uno usato sui soliti canali nazionali ad un prezzo decente e non mi sono fatto scappare l’acquisto. Accorda davvero di tutto gestendo potenze da 1,5 a 200 watt. Ottimo per il mio Yaesu 817, ma altrettanto utile per le “normali” radio munite dei canonici 100 watt.  Per poterlo però utilizzare al meglio, si rende necessario l’acquisto di un interfaccia che permette di resettare o bloccare lo stato d’accordo del SGC-239. Tale interfaccia (SMARTLOCK) si trova però in vendita a quasi 100 euro, decisamente troppi per 2 condensatori, 2 resistenze, 2 led e un paio di interruttori. La prima idea è stata quella di prendere lo schema presente sul manuale dell’accordatore e realizzare su basetta forata il circuito. Cosa questa realizzabile, ma che avrebbe dato un idea di “precarietà” a tutta la realizzazione. La scelta a questo punto è ricaduta su un mini circuito stampato realizzato con maestria da Danilo Cramaglia (lo trovate su Ebay come utente Martelloman), che partendo dallo schema elettrico mi ha consegnato quanto riportato in foto:

The SGC-239 automatic tuner is undoubtedly a very nice tool. It connects and works well with any radio (HF) simply by using a coaxial cable, and a power source to 12 volts. It is not particularly power hungry and even practical to use on a routine SOTA outing. I found one used on the usual national channels at a decent price. It really suits around handling power output from 1.5 to 200 watts. Great for my Yaesu 817, but just as useful for “normal” radio equipped with 100 watt “cannons”. 

But in order to make the best use, it is necessary to obtan an interface that allows you to reset or block the status of the SGC-239. This interface (SMARTLOCK), however, is for sale at nearly 100 euro, far too much for 2 capacitors, 2 resistors, 2 LEDs and a pair of switches. The first idea was to use the circuit in the tuner’s manual and build it on perforated board. While this is feasible, it could give an idea of “insecurity” to the whole creation. Instead I chose a mini PCB made with skill by Danilo Cramaglia (Ebay-user Martelloman), which, starting from the wiring diagram handed me what is reported in the picture:

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I plan to use this wiring arrangement for the 4 pin plugs, socket and line.

1 Red – +12V

2 Green – Tuned

3 White – Hold

4 Black – Ground and -12V

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As well Philip Storr VK5SRP describes his version at http://www.philipstorr.id.au/radio/seven/accessories.htm.

SGC Smartlock control

In the hand book to the SGC SG237 Auto Antenna Tuner there is a circuit for an interface they call the SmartLock and it allows some manual control over the AATU and more importantly, it indicates when the tuner has tuned successfully.

These photos (from http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~jh2clv/newsmartlockmaking.htm) give an idea of the layout which uses an external “chocolate block” connector for the 4 core power and control cable.

Case used is a plastic case – HA1593-KB of TAKACHI.

The main parts are as follows.

① DC-JACK

② 4P harmonica terminal (Chocolate block)

③ 6P toggle SW – actually a DPDT switch

④ push button SW

⑤ LEDs (red and green)

⑥ resistance (150Omu-330Omu)

⑦ capacitor (optional)

⑧ 9V3 terminal Reg (7809)

⑨ plastic case (TAKACHI / HA1593-KB)

⑩ wiring material

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Also http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~jh2clv/smartlockmaking.htm has details of changes – design and layout…

(2) inside the box configuration

The shielded 4 core wire is clamped in the cable tie through a pull through bushing. The case uses a diecast aluminum box TD 5-8-3B (55x30x80) by TAKACHI. The front of the enclosure has the Normal / Lock switch (2-pole, double-throw), the Tuned LED (Green), the Locked LED (Red) and the Reset switch (Make contact). It includes the three-terminal regulator. The bypass capacitors on the circuit diagram are omitted here.

(3) box overview and operation

Once tuning is complete the Tuned LED (Green) glows. If the Normal / Lock switch is pointing to the right, the Lock side, the Lock LED (Red) is lit and fluctuating SWR, etc. does not cause automatic re-tuning.

If the switch is set to the Normal side, normal operating conditions prevail, the SG-239 will automatically start tuning if SWR or the band is changed.

If you press the RESET (red) button, the ATU will re-tune.

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Also check http://g3ynh.info/atu/sgc230.html for detailed description of using the Smartuner with a balanced antenna.

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For some good ideas about how to protect the SG-239 see http://dg6hd.darc.de/html/sgc-239.html. He uses a large-ish electrical junction box and includes windings on toroids…

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So here is my effort successfully completed today…

Count me amongst those who consider DXpeditioning and radiosport contesting true sports on par with chess, professional poker, America’s Cup sailing, and similar pursuits. Operating SO2R for 48 hours straight in CQ WW, chasing WRTC qualification, and pounding out 160m Qs all night from sub-Antarctic Islands are not for the faint of heart, literally!

No surprise, then, that many DXers and Contesters also participate in endurance sports such as running, cycling, and triathlon when not on the radio. The ‘king’ contester/endurance athlete must be Thomas OZ1AA who spent five years cycling around the world and operated contests from whatever country he happened to be riding through along the way. Thomas’ amazing Cycling The Globe Blog is here:

http://www.cyclingtheglobe.com/

Thomas logged his cycling travels on Strava, a smartphone app that uses GPS to track cycling, running, and other sports, with share/compare social media functionality. Think of Strava as Logbook of the World for cycling and running. Thomas’ Strava feed is here:

https://www.strava.com/athletes/7378076?oq=thomas

Are there other hams on Strava? Yes! At Force 12, yours truly (AA7XT, triathlon) and Jon (KL2A, running) are both active Strava users:

https://www.strava.com/athletes/2467

https://www.strava.com/athletes/15413914

If you look at the Strava users that Jon and I follow, you’ll see many DXers and contesters including Juan TG9AJR, Mark N5OT, Jeff N5TJ (CQ WW World Record Holder and an accomplished bicycle racer), and many more. There are also numerous ham oriented Strava Groups. I’m a member of  the “DXCC” and “DX Runners” groups.

If you’re on Strava or are going to sign up (it’s free!), please do connect with Jon and myself. Maybe we can have a meetup at Dayton and go for a morning group run? Or create a combo annual contest points + mileage Strava Challenge?

I should note that Force 12 engineer/builder Jeremy KE0CGU is the best athlete at the company but does not use Strava (Jeremy prefers his time outside to be away from gadgets – purist!). Jeremy commutes to F12 via bike regardless of the weather and also has competed in mountain ultra-running and long distance mountain bike events.

A few day after Veterans Day, I am still awash in the recognition vets received on their special day. In the interest of full disclosure, I spent two years on active duty and four years in the Army Signal Corps Reserve during the Korean War era, which probably doesn’t make me an impartial observer.

In actuality, this story began about ten years ago. I was visiting relatives in Florida and was dispatched to the supermarket to procure a few last-minute items. As I was walking into the store a distinguished looking old timer was heading toward a car with Purple Heart courtesy license plates. (The Purple Heart is presented to United State military personnel who have been wounded in combat.) I walked over to him and put out my hand and said, “thank you for your service and sacrifice, I sincerely appreciate both.” Whereupon he started to cry and said, “I’ve had these plates for ten years and you’re the first person who has every said a word!” In the discussion that followed, he told me he was a Marine who received a serious leg wound while fighting on Iwo Jima. Sixty years later he still walked with a serious limp. He also received the Bronze Star for valor in action. My new-found friend dispatched me with a big hug and an emotional, “thank you.” This chance encounter made my vacation and literally changed my life.

Over the ensuing years, I’ve frequently thought about this WWII hero. I wish I had taken his name and address so I could have remained in contact. It has also reminded me of the vast number of vets who gave their life or years of their life in the service of our country. You may be totally anti-war but in my opinion, even the most avid pacifists owe homage to those who died or were willing to serve to give them the right to protest.

Looking for vets I would simply say, “thank you for your service” and shake their hand if the occasion presented itself. I am especially on the lookout for Viet Nam vets as they were the object of disdain when they came home. People would spit at them and called all types of names. Possible a few acts of kindness now can help erase the pain of their homecoming. When encountering a WWII vet, there aren’t many left, I try and engage them in conversation. If I’m in the check-out line at a convenience store and there is a vet behind me with a container of coffee, I frequently tell the person at the cash register, “take out for the vet’s coffee.”

Don’t be surprised if thanking a vet, or other random acts of kindness, makes you feel better. Knowing you have brought a smile and a good feeling to another human being is a very special thing.

What will Amateur Radio – and radio in general – look like in the future? And maybe not that far in the future. Say 5 or 10 years?

At this year’s ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference, two well-known hams in satellite and microwave circles made that question the focus of their Sunday Seminar talk. The Sunday Seminar at the DCC is a four hour ‘deep dive’ into a single topic, from 8 AM to noon on the final day of the three-day conference. The Friday and Saturday sessions are all 45-minute talks, and while they can get pretty technical, they’re still more overviews of their subject matter. This year’s conference was in September 2016 in St. Petersburg FL.

The two hams are Michelle Thompson W5NYV and Dr. Bob McGwier N4YH. It’s hard to reduce their session to a short summary, but I’ll try. If you want more, I recorded the whole thing on video for HamRadioNow Episode 276, and there’s an 11-minute synopsis video at the bottom of this essay. I actually recorded the whole conference, as I have since 2008, and I’m releasing each talk as a HamRadioNow episode as I get them produced.

By the way, Ham Radio 8.0 is my title, not theirs. The official title of the Sunday Seminar is Spectrum: It’s the Frequency Crunch for Real. And that gets closer to the heart of their subject.

So, the short story: out there in the real world, spectrum is in short supply. It’s been that way for a long time, but it’s getting more and more critical, especially in UHF and the microwaves as wireless broadband (4G, 5G, WiFi, etc.) needs more and more space. And yet it’s being used inefficiently. Blocks of spectrum are assigned to services as if they are city blocks of land. Yet those services don’t use every bit of the spectrum they’re given all the time.

Starting about now, software defined, cognative radios can be designed to work together, to cooperate on frequency, mode, bandwidth and spectrum to each get their message through using whatever they need to do it. I’m going to take a paragraph break here because the previous sentence is the heart of the story. So much so that I’m going to repeat it, in bold type, and turn it blue:

 Starting about now, software defined, cognative radios can be designed to work together, to cooperate on frequency, mode, bandwidth and spectrum to each get their message through using whatever they need to do it.

We’ve got the technology. We just need the plan (and the will). The plan part is being spurred on by the DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge. That’s the same DARPA that brought you cool stuff like the Internet. Your tax dollars at work. The will part… well, that probably comes from government and industry running up against a wall and finding they have no other choice.

Where does ham radio come in? Bob N4YH is Chief Scientist at the Hume Center for National Security and Technology at Virginia Tech. He’s way up there in advanced academic circles. And he mixes that up with ham radio as much as he can, encouraging students to become hams because that opens up some unique paths for experimentation. We can do almost anything we want with our allocations across the radio spectrum at will, without asking anyone’s permission. Bob expects (hopes?) that our more technically savvy hams will take on that DARPA challenge and lead the way into this brave new world.

So where does your ham radio come in, assuming you’re not one of our most technically savvy hams ready to lead the way? I think you’ll enjoy hearing Michelle and Bob wind their way around this subject, and this is really just the start, so the discussion begins here. Government and industry need this to keep communications moving forward. Bob’s take is that ham radio needs it to survive into a new generation of hams – hams who are attracted to technical challenges of the future, not legacy operation of the past (and the present). That is not going to sit well with today’s older ham gentry. We like our CW and SSB, and even our PSK 31 (and WSPR – HamRadioNow Episode 277 is on using a Raspberry Pi and a TAPR shield kit as a WSPR beacon). Bob readily admits that this is the End of Amateur Radio As We Know It. And the beginning of an Amateur Radio that we won’t recognize.

Here’s the 11-minute version. The full talk in Episode 276 runs about 3 hours (which I break up into three parts). That’s a serious time commitment, even for something this entertaining and important. Maybe the audio version will help, so HamRadioNow is available as an audio podcast you can download onto your phone.