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) 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. “Scores” for previous years were 206 (2000 at the clubhouse), 72 (2001 at the clubhouse but with parties of schools and youth organisations attending), 33 (2002 at Padgate High School). The event was, as always, well attended by club members who operated the station and provided general support. Several even came on for a chat with us from home. Most of the operating was done on 40 metres under very variable daytime propaga- tion conditions. On the last morning conditions on 40 m were not good at all so we spent some time on the higher H.F. bands and finished up filling a page of the logbook with contest exchanges in a Russian contest (off the back of the beam). Most of the 40m QSOs were a lot more than just exchanging basic information. As in previous years we spent time talking to our contacts, which was most enjoyable. We were interested and surprised to work two ex-RAF types who were never at Padgate Camp!! – also an ex-matelot who had been at a navy training camp at Latchford. The first QSO was with GB2RN (H.M.S. Belfast in London). Among the other QSOs we had were one with GB4FUN (which we used last year), and a couple of other stations supporting NSW. We also worked G2LV (Dick in Edgemore). He told us that he was 90 years old and had been first licensed in the early 1920s – having been presented with his license by the Postmaster. John MoANM on the mic Newly licensed M3s were abundant. We worked 49 M3s and, without exception, their operating standards were excellent. Thanks to all who took part during another memorable National Science Week. Jim G3NFB

WPX Contest 2003

Started the contest at 00:00 Saturday morning, irst contact was as soon as the contest started, the last contact was at 17:32 on FSaturday evening, we worked the contest non stop for the duration, that was a total of 17 hours non stop radio. As there were only two operators, we decided to 7 Contents close the station at that time, due to lack of sleep. If we could have continued for longer we would have, and worked the full 48 hrs, but that was expecting a bit much, During the night the bands were in very bad condition, and we only managed to work a total of four stations between midnight and 5am. The lowest band we could use was 20m, so we can only guess that most of the night activity was on the bands below 20m, After 5am, the bands picked up, and we managed to work many nice stations during the day, mainly on 20m and 15m. 10m didn't open till about 5pm, and we managed to work only a few stations before we decided to close down. Despite the bands not being in good condition we still managed to work a total of 197 stations, in 61 different countries using only 100w. We did give a final push to break the 200 stations worked at the end but it was difficult to find stations that we hadn't worked, so we had to settle for a sub 200 worked. The club station worked well, and we were given many good reports of the signal and the audio from the station. The antenna worked very well, the only problem being that the beam was the wrong way round, but that didn't cause too much trouble once we had got the idea of where we were pointing the beam. As for the shifting of the director/reflector with the antenna control box, it was really easy to work stations in either direction and we found that useful on a few occasions just to flip the direction. One time when we did this was when working a station in Europe then flipping round 180° to work the ARRL HQ station. Some stations were a bit difficult to crack, taking perhaps five minutes to get a contact, but mostly it was one call and they returned . It was really good when you gave a single call to a KH6 (Hawaiian Islands), P29 Papua New Guinea), 9M2 West Malaysia), HC8 (Galapagos Islands). This just goes to show that the club station is well and truly in the running for contests even just running the radio power. When the radio, antenna and power amplifier have all been checked out and we are sure that there are no problems with operating at higher power it's going to be a case of “DX stations be aware Warrington club is up there with the best of you”. I would like to thank Mike G4VSS, for the help and information he provided, and George G3OGQ for fixing the mast winch. Without their help, I don't think that we could have had a flawless, problem free contest. Also thanks to Gordon M5AFX for his help and for taking part in the contest with me Until the next contest, Ady MØKAS

8 Contents The Club’s Spring Social

espite short notice and without the help of his wife Carol, who had a prior Dcommitment elsewhere, Cliff M0MRC produced a super buffet in the games room of GYCA and a good time was had by all as these candid camera shots show. Unhappily several XYLs were unable to come and ensure a civilising influence to the proceedings.

Ron G0WJX

9 Contents GEOTILS Software

ave you ever wanted to know what your antenna can see around your station? HHave you ever wondered about the terrain between you and other stations? Would you like to know your National Grid Reference to 8 digits (about 100 mtrs) and also your IARU locator? Well, G4JNT has kindly put the software to do all these and more on his website. And what's more, you can download them for free and distribute them to others (UNALTERED AND COMPLETE) of course. The good news, or bad news depending on your bent, is that they run in DOS. O K, so you've decided you’re curious and want to know what's next. Easy! At this stage you may want to create a folder named (your choice) to download the suite of files into. Type G4JNT into your search engine eg. GOOGLE and left click on the first option “GEOG Suite by G4JNT”. Follow the onsite instructions to download the “FULL SUITE”. If you did not create a folder as above, create one now and move all the files you have downloaded into it. There is a README.TXT file. You will have more success in the beginning if you read it. O K, so now you've got the program suite so what do you do with it? With this type of program it helps to know where you are so the first step is to find that out. In the address bar of your web browser type Multimap.com. If you don't arrive on the Multimap site check the spelling and make sure the full stop is in between the two words. If you do arrive on the site you will see a rectangular box in which you should enter your post code and press the FIND button. A map of your location will appear enclosed in a red circle. Use the scroll bar at the right of the map to get to the bottom of the map where you should see a National Grid Reference to 8 digits starting with SJ. Make a note of this as it will be your location co-or- dinates in all of the programs in the suite you have down loaded. Now you have the program suite in it's folder on your hard drive and your 8 digit grid locator, opening the folder should look like this.

10 Contents Look for a file towards the bottom of the list named SITES. DAT. This file contains all the sites that have been entered into the program and to save you typing in your locator every time you use the program, you should now enter your SJ?? number. In case you did not read the readme text as advised, MAKE A BACKUP OF THE FILE BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO ADD YOUR LOCATION JUST IN CASE YOU FLUFF IT. The readme file explains the format of entries into this file and if you study the entries already in it you will get the idea of what the program requires. Don't forget to backup the file after new entries to it and keep it on a write protected floppy. This will allow you to copy it back into the program folder with minimum loss should you need to. The readme file explains what each module does so I won't repeat them here. I started by double clicking on the LOCALMAP icon. See the screen shot. This opens a full DOS screen with a box asking for your locator. If you entered your site info into the site.dat file, just type your callsign here. If not enter your SJ?? Locator and press ENTER. You will now see your site name and SJ locator. Underneath this you will be asked for plot size in Kilometres. Your choice here will depend on how far away the station you want to compare with is. You are now asked for a maximum height, the default is 300. The choice here depends on the height of the terrain between yours and the station you are comparing with. At this point a map in a square representing

11 Contents the plot size you selected at stage two will appear with a flashing cursor represent- ing your station. The colours of the map can be toggled using the P key on your keyboard, each colour representing a different height. Mmm, this doesn't look very exiting does it, what do I do with it now? Well, for one thing you can find out what the terrain is like between you and other stations. This is useful for VHF / UHF contacts which rely on line of sight and will help you understand why Bill is five S points down on Fred who only lives in the next road etc. Going back to your flashing cursor on the map. If you press G on your keyboard and enter in Bill’s locator the arrow cursor will jump to that location on the map. Now press T and you will see the terrain between the two stations, you on the left and Bill on the right. The height above sea level of both sites is displayed and if you look carefully you will see a series of dots across the screen between the stations, one of them is RED. Using your mouse you can move this RED dot onto each trough or peak to get a spot height ASL. These comparisons can be done as a one off, or, you can update the SITE.DAT file to include Bill as a selectable site on the map. All sites in the SITE.DAT are displayed on the map by pressing the S key. That describes my first foray into a useful set of tools for the operator. The suite of programs is capable of more than I've covered here and I think you will enjoy exploring the other features which include an all round view from your station showing height, distance and direction through 360 degrees with your station at the centre. Enjoy......

George G0MSF

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