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CQ WARC De NR2Z

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CQ WARC De NR2Z CQ WARC de NR2Z ’ve just reactivated my backup station in the USA. It is fairly basic, but seems Ito be performing very well, based on some limited operation over the Christmas break. My rig is a vintage vacuum tube (valve) Heathkit SB102. I built it in 1974 and it still works great. It covers 80-10 meters on SSB and CW, but doesn’t cover the WARC bands (they didn’t exist in 1974). This is the rig that was shown in the movie Frequency, although I’ve yet to make contact with the past. The Heathkit HP23 power supply (built in 1967) is in the upper right hand corner of the desk. Contents It still has all the original components. The filter capacitors still seem to be ok and haven’t dried out. It provides all of the power require- ments for the rig, including the 800vdc, 250ma supply to the two 6146B finals. My old Astatic D104 crystal microphone in the foreground still gets me excellent audio reports. I forgot how temperature sensitive crystals are. My shack is located in a spare room where I keep the heat fairly low unless I’m using it. I fired the rig up one cold morning, but couldn’t transmit any audio. I kept close-talking the microphone while getting ready to pull the rig apart to troubleshoot. However, the heat of my breath started to warm up the crystal and the microphone started working. I use my MFJ VersaTuner II in the bypass mode as my SWR meter. It has a convenient feature of allowing me to connect a 50 ohm dummy load to the rig for tuning and then reconnecting to the antenna at the flick of a switch. Some of you will remember the days when you had to tune the finals on the old valve transmitters when you changed frequency, even a relatively small amount. I still enjoy knob twiddling and analog meters! My antenna is a 23' wire (12AWG stranded) in my flagpole that is connected to an SG-237 automatic antenna coupler mounted at the base of the flagpole. I mounted the coupler underneath a miniature wooden wheelbarrow planter to protect it from direct sunlight and snow. I’m presently supplying the nominal 12vdc at 300 ma (when auto-tuning) power to the coupler with a much oversized (20 amp) Kenwood power supply. I installed three buried radials, each about 30' long, 2-3" below the ground. They are more or less symmetrical. The feedline is 100' of RG8X coax, with about 40' buried 18" below grade. The set-up appears to be working great on 80-10 meters (didn't try WARC bands yet) with a 1:1 SWR everywhere. I easily made several contacts from the east coast of the US (Connecticut) into the UK on 20 meters and 40 meters. 73, Dom NR2Z (M0CGU) See page 5 for a description of Dom’s temporary UK Shack. Sadly Dom’s work in England has finished so he will be returning to his US shack in the near future. 2 Contents Contents Page Title Author Call Sign 1 CQ WARC de NR2Z Dom NR2Z 4 A Letter to the ARRL George G3OGQ 5 Dom’s UK Shack Dom M0CGU 6 National Science Week 2003 Jim G3NFB 7 WPX Contest 2003 Ady M0KAS 9 The Club’s Spring Social Ron G0WJX 10 GEOTILS Software George G0MSF Anyone wishing to contribute to the magazine should send or give their copy to the editor Ron, G0WJX preferably in MS Word, .txt format or e-mail. Club Contacts Club Programme Date Title Speaker Mar 18 Norbreck/ NSW Ideas for next year Mar 25 Spring Social (Partners welcome) Mar 29-30 CQ WW SSB Contest Apr 01 "Something Technical" Albert G3ZHE Jim G3NFB Apr 08 VHF DX Richard G4HGI Apr 15 Sonar Basics, some applications Dom M0CGU Apr 22 Ferrites Bill G0PZP Apr 29 Video, Amphibious Ducks Roland G0RPO May 06 Web Page Design Ian M0BXR May 10-11 Mills on the Air Offers or ideas for talks to the coordinators Jim G3NFB or Algert G3ZHE. 3 A Letter to the ARRL ans of poorly translated instructions for Japanese equipment may want to add Fthis letter to their collection. It was originally published in QST with the article below. Thanks to George G3OGQ for passing it on. The Secretary of the American Radio Relay League Offers Reward! He wants an Answer to One of the Many Curious Letters He Has Received. The American Radio Relay League has to read it and suggest an answer. The grown very famous and, as this fame secretary has decided to pay $5.00 for has extended all over the world, it is not the best answer. The answers must be unusual that many curious letters are received by December 30th, and will be received by the secretary. The follow- judged from either their funny side or ing letter is so interesting that it seems technical value. certain that readers of QST would like 4 Contents Dom’s UK Shack y shack here in the UK is located in a spare bedroom on the second floor of Mthe house. The set-up is minimal, but functional. Since the UK is not my permanent home, I wanted a station that was light and portable. I’m using an Icom 728 transceiver. It’s about 10 years old and no longer made. It’s pretty basic, covering 160-10 meters (including WARC bands) on SSB/CW with about 100 watts out, and AM/FM with about 40 watts out. It has few bells and whistles—no built in keyer or VOX. It’s relatively compact and I think it was really designed as a mobile rig. But it serves its purpose. I’m using an MFJ 4225MV switching power supply that is nominally rated at 12vdc, 25 amps. It is a pretty good, compact and versatile supply—no noticeable hash, has a large built-in voltmeter and ammeter, front-panel adjustable output voltage, has a front-panel mounted cigar lighter socket, and operates on 120/240v, 50/60Hz (which is great for operating in the USA or Europe). Since I usually run between 10-25 watts output, the supply coasts along at 5-8 amps. There is a cooling fan that runs continuously that is a bit noisy, but acceptable. Its speed (and noise level) vary with the voltage level setting. At full voltage, I think the only thing holding it down to the table is the connecting cables. I usually operate CW on 20, 17 and 15 meters. I’ve recently switched from using my old Vibroplex bug (seen on the dressing table) to an electronic keyer. I’m using an inexpensive MFJ-441 keyer with a brass-based set of paddles. Since I’ve been using the bug for over 38 years, I don’t take advantage of iambic (squeeze) keying—this dog refuses to learn that new trick! Since my lease won’t allow outdoor antennas (and my landlord lives 3 houses away from me), I’m using about a 45’ random length of wire strung up in the loft. I tried to get as much wire up as possible without crossing over itself. You can see the 5 Contents black antenna wire on the left hand side of the photo. It’s connected directly to my MFJ 971 Portable Tuner. Luckily, the loft access is in the same room as my shack, so I was able to route the antenna wire into the loft without much trouble. It has worked out pretty well on 30-10 meters over the last 3+ years. I regularly work into Europe and have worked the States, conditions permitting. It was a bit touchy to load up and operate on 40m, and 80m was hopeless. I’ve recently connected a 34’ counterpoise (that runs around the room and down the hall tucked under the skirting board) to the tuner that has considerably simplified matching, and allows me to load up and operate on 80-10 meters. As you might expect performance on 80 and 40 meters is not the greatest, although I’ve have worked some DX on 80 meters—589 into Cumbria! As far as I can tell, I’m interference free. My TV, VCR, stereo, and telephone are clean on all bands (running <50watts). None of my neighbors have been pounding on my door either. I do trip on my back garden motion sensor security light when I transmit, but so what. I am not set up on VHF/UHF right now. I have my Yaesu FT 417dual band (2m/70cm) HT, a 30 watt 2 meter amplifier, and dual band ground plane antenna with me. At some point I’ll install the antenna in the loft, connect up the amp and see how I do on FM—maybe even join one of the Club nets. Until then, dahdah- dididi didididahdah. Dom, NR2Z (M0CGU) National Science Week 2003 his year we again used Tthe special call sign GB2NSW in support of National Science Week. This was the 10th anniver- sary of NSW, organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Sci- ence, and the fourth year that WARC had participat- ed. Unlike the last two Jim G3NFB on the mic years, we did not involve schools and youth organi- sations in the event but concentrated on spreading the word over the air. This resulted in the highest QSO rate since we began supporting NSW in 2000. 6 Contents We operated for a few daytime hours between Tuesday 11/3/03 and Saturday 15/3/03 and amassed a total of 246 QSOs.
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