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This past weekend I had the first opportunity to try my e-Bay purchased thermal transfer paper. It was to be used in my iron-on PCB work as a hopeful improvement over what I had been using...just ordinary printer paper. Supposedly the shiny photo quality papers were proving to be good performers but are expensive. Some have reported good results with glossy magazine paper but my one experience with that was not a pleasant one. Unknowingly, when I had removed the magazine page, a small amount of the sticky adhesive used in the binding process was still on the sheet. Running it through the printer caused it to melt and smear some of the laser cartridge's toner and for the next several weeks, any printing I did had a slight black streak along one edge...doh!

My new paper from China (free shipping!) was pretty inexpensive and if it offered even a slight improvement, would be well worthwhile. This first use of the paper would be a circuit board for my earlier test-bed GW3UEP 630m transmitter. I had finished designing a PC pattern for it, using MS Paint, and was anxious to see the results.



Courtesy: http://www.gw3uep.ukfsn.org/

I decided to use a small separate board for the crystal oscillator-divider so at a later time I could more easily swap it out for a DDS driver. Using a separate board would allow me to do that without disturbing the rest of the transmitter.



I know that a lot of folks turn up their noses at MS Paint but I have always found it to be a very versatile piece of software and have used it for making PC layouts for many years. I also use it for drawing all of the schematics appearing on my website.

After printing the pattern (printer set for maximum resolution and darkest print) and ironing-on the pattern , I allowed the board to cool for several minutes before immersing it, along with the now firmly attached yellow paper, into cold water. The first thing I noticed was how easily the paper came away from the board. It actually 'un-peeled', much like a good quality price tag sticker...you know.... the ones that don't take forever and come off in tiny bits and pieces. It peeled off smoothly with no paper residue left on the board. This was a huge improvement already. There were just a few traces of toner left on the paper as almost all had been transferred to the board.

Once dried, a close examination revealed that I had pressed a little too hard with the iron and there was some evidence of  'squeeze-out' along the edges of some lines. I also found one or two very small thinner areas that probably required going over with a permanent-ink black marker pen just to make sure that those spots did not get etched. Over all I was extremely pleased with the paper and will be using it from now on.

Another recent change in my PC etching regime has been a switch from the old Ferric Chloride standby to a combination of Hydrogen Peroxide and Muriatic acid. Not only does it seem to etch more cleanly (no undercutting) but it also etches very quickly and without any solution warming needed. This board was completely etched in just over 4 minutes.
  

The chemicals used in this method are inexpensive and are readily available at the drugstore and at the hardware store. There are numerous web-descriptions of this particular etching process but this site seems to cover the basics nicely.


The completed board turned out as shown here:


The CD4060 not only functions as a crystal oscillator but also as a versatile frequency divider. As well as fundamental frequency output, ten different 'divide-by' functions are available depending in which output pin is chosen. These range from divide-by 16,384 to divide-by 16. This circuit uses the latter, dividing the 7.6 MHz crystal down to 475 kHz at pin 7.


In summary, I can highly recommend the e-Bay yellow thermal transfer paper when used for this method of making PCB's and is much cheaper than buying photo-quality printing paper.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Son Chris and grandson Edward outside their home.

Although I shall probably go on 472kHz WSPR shortly, today has been a day largely without radio: we went on a train day return to Canterbury to see our son Chris and family. We have done this now 3 times and get about 4 hours with them. It was good.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

See http://hamspots.net/3bjt/

A little while back someone introduced me to Hamspots which is a sort of  filtered spotting system for digital modes. You can chose how many bands to monitor and the modes, Very useful to see JT65 and JT9-1 activity on, say, 20, 10 and 6m.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Phil Karn, KA9Q is an Internet pioneer with his name on at least six RFC‘s. Best known in the world of amateur radio for his KA9Q NOS as well as numerous AMSAT satellite communications projects.

Retired from Qualcomm, Karn seems to be staying busy with other interesting projects — like this one.

Phil Karn on the reboot of the 1978 International Sun/Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3)/ (International Cometary Explorer) from InterWorking Labs on Vimeo.

Filed under: Ham Radio Tagged: amsat, ka9q, satellite, space, video

Jeff Davis, KE9V, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Indiana, USA.

Just a quick reminder that next weekend is the August Bank Holiday weekend and Practical Wireless are encouraging VHF/UHF operators to operate from Summits on the Air on the VHF bands. It’s not a contest, more an excuse to get out and enjoy some portable radio in some great scenery!

Richard G3CWI at SOTABeams has very kindly sponsored some prizes.

I’m planning to be out during the weekend on one or more of our local summits (there aren’t many in Oxfordshire!) and will be listening out for other SOTA activity.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Just a quick reminder that next weekend is the August Bank Holiday weekend and Practical Wireless are encouraging VHF/UHF operators to operate from Summits on the Air on the VHF bands. It’s not a contest, more an excuse to get out and enjoy some portable radio in some great scenery!

Richard G3CWI at SOTABeams has very kindly sponsored some prizes.

I’m planning to be out during the weekend on one or more of our local summits (there aren’t many in Oxfordshire!) and will be listening out for other SOTA activity.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Daniel DO7FOX and Gregor DO5SSB have released a premium version of their QRZCQ callsign database. Attached below is the press release they sent.

If you’ve tried it out, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Will you be switching to it or are you happy with what you have now?

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].