MNQRP NEWS

February 1998 Volume 1 Number 2

First Newsletter is Here!

As you can see this is the first newsletter! It is being published three ways. The first two require Internet access, but have no additional charges. MNQRP NEWS can be read at out Internet Web site or you can send for a text only version via email. If you wish a printed version mailed to you, you must subscribe. The subscription fee is $12.00 for 12 issues. Send your subscription to MNQRP NEWS c/o Claton Cadmus, 3985 Alabama Ave. So. St. Louis Park, MN 55416.

Articles Needed!

As with all newsletters, articles are always in short supply. This is your newsletter and here's the place to tell a little about your latest QRP adventure and project. Send me your writings and/or musings and make a contribution to your newsletter and the club. Send articles via email to cla@spacestar.com or by mail to the address above.

Meeting Saturday February 7^th

Please don't forget the Minnesota QRP Society meets this coming Saturday. The meeting will be at 1:30pm February 7th located at the Minnetonka Community Center. No formal program this time, we will be operating in FYOB from the center. See details elsewhere in this newsletter. We also will have our usual show and tell.

Directions to the Center:

Exit 494 at Minnetonka Blvd. (just south of 394) and go west to Williston Road (less then 1/4 mile) and turn right(north). Plenty of parking right there. If you need talk in, we will have someone on the 145.45 repeater.

FYBO FUN and PICNIC TOO!

By Bill Brisley N0BSN

We still need more members to come and help us win the Freeze Your Butt Off "winter field day", sponsored by the Arizona ScQRPions. Everyone is encourage to come and help operate/log or just chat and see how it's going. We are operating WQ0RP from 10:00am until 10:00pm Feb 7^th. We get extra multipliers for cold temperatures. That should give us an edge!

WQ0RP will be right outside the center the day of our meeting. Setup begins about 8:00am and help is needed here too. We've got a semi-sheltered outdoor table, Icom 706 batteries and vertical antenna. We could use some other antennas, especially for 80 meters.

This is a great opportunity to learn how contests are worked and brush up for Field Day. Also, we do encourage you to bring your rigs and antennas and have a go at the contest too. We will have contest forms available. Don't forget your thermometer!

Please be sure to dress warmly, especially your feet. To help warm those keying fingers and toes, we will have a Weber grill going and there will be hot food and drinks available. Feel free to bring something to grill or something to share.

The Minnetonka Club radio station will also be operating the event from inside. Operators are welcome here too. Contact Wayne...KB0PCI for more info.

Facilities of the Center will be available until 7pm closing.

A 9-10 MHz SW in an Altoids box.

By Bob Liesenfeld wb0poq@visi.com

The schematics to the left are for a neat little superhet receiver I have built into an Altoids mint box. I claim no special propriety for this circuit, as I first got it from Steve, KD1JV off the net. I have however made some changes which I think improves the performance. I built this fellow dead bug style on a piece of PC board trimmed to fit in the mint box. The battery (9 V) is mounted externally. The antenna is a 20" whip from Ax-Man, as is the speaker (internal and *very* low profile). The volume and tuning pots are little PC mount types with a small slot in the wiper plate. I *carefully* super glued a slip of PC material into the slot and attached some small knobs (again from Ax-Man). The fixed caps in the LO and buffer are NP0 types. L3 is about 12 turns on a T37-2 core, although you may need to fudge this a bit depending on stay capacitance etc. The LO should run 455 KHz above the desired RF frequency. In the front end, L1 is about 15 turns on a T37-2 core (pri.) and a 4 turn sec. FB1 is a small ferrite bead, although a 22 or 33 Ohm resistor should also work. The RF amp oscillates without it. T1 is a 455 KHz IF can again from an old CB. The on-off switch is a tiny unit from ABC electronics in Mpls. The front end circuit could use more work, to better match the high Z of the whip. However, even as is, this thing will blow the lid up on the powerhouse SW broadcast stations on this band at night. Have fun, and I will gladly answer any questions I can.

Use Your Computer For Cheap Modes

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By Claton Cadmus, KA0GKC

Want to try out digital QRP? Here's the schematic for the Hamcomm interface that can be used to connect your radio to your PC. There are freeware/shareware programs available via the Internet and local BBS's that will allow you to send and receive RTTY, Amtor, CW, Pactor and SSTV using this simple circuit. The circuit can easily be build dead-bug style. It's an evening project and a lot of fun. More information can be found at this Web Page http://www.accessone.com/~tmayhan/ Surprise the digital guys when you tell them your operating 5 watts or less!

Fire up the old soldering iron and give it a try.

Classified Ads

(Don't have any yet. Want to buy sell trade? Place an ad here.)

Play It By Ear, Review: MFJ Morse Code Tutor

by Bob Gobrick N0EB - Stillwater MN

Even though I love CW and operate that mode 90% of the time I feel that I have not reached Nirvana until I learn how to read code in my head without the aid of pencil and paper. Copying code at 20 wpm is no problem but when the going gets rough I always grab for the pencil and write out the letters. That is a bad habit since I want to "hear" words and not "see" the letters. My goal is to operate mobile CW without having to worry about driving, sending and writing all at the same time (well it seems those mobile cell phone users can do multiple things - driving not being one of them).

So what's a QRPer to do? Recently on the QRP-L list one happy camper reported picking up a brand new MFJ Pocket Morse Code Tutor (model MFJ-411) for $29.95. I was curious about the price so I called Ham Radio Outlet and sure enough they were phasing out this older model CW Tutor (list for $69.95) since it didn't have the newer LCD display of the model MFJ-418. Well I really didn't want the display since all I wanted to do was to convert the sounds directly into words in my head. So the order was placed and about a week later arrives this little black box with a bunch of red LED's, a two digit LED display and a couple of buttons and knobs. Oh no, not one of these new electronic gadgets where I'll have to haul along the 300 page manual to figure out how to use it.

It turns out that the manual is not really needed to operate. All the commands are on the front panel and with the use of

this stenciled information, the single and two digit LED's one is able to custom the tutor lesson to one's needs. So let's give it a spin. First you turn it on (internal 9 volt battery or external source supplies the power) and set the code speed - let's see 25 wpm. Next you tab down and set the tone, beginner or advanced mode, random words or QSO mode and away you go. Actually there are multiple combinations of settings - random words, letters, numbers, prosigns, as well as Farnsworth or normal spacing - neat.

I like the random QSO mode. Picture this - here I am driving along in my Ferrari (don't all QRPers have Ferraris?), the MFJ pocket size Morse Code Tutor cranking out tunes into a pair of Radio Shack bud earphones (the Tutor also comes with a built in speaker). Jeez it sounds like a real QSO - station calls CQ, another answers, they exchange signal reports, QTH and names and on and on. I wonder if I can get a QSL card from one of these guys? Where's my key? OOPS it's only my Tutor.

This is one nice little unit. Since it sends code in random groups you get a new QSO each time you turn it on. The MFJ Morse Code Tutor has helped me improve the copying of code in my head. I'm sure if you are a beginner or an advanced CW operator you will find the Tutor a nice addition to your box of toys. Plus this unit doubles as a nice "conversation piece" for those non-ham friends who come to visit - just turn it on and say you're waiting to hear from ET. Enjoy the sounds of CW.

Like what you see here, send in an article and keep our newsletter interesting!

Only YOU can prevent the death of our newsletter!

Review: Knightlites SMiTe

By Claton Cadmus KA0GKC

I just received my copy of the first QRP kit produced by "The Knightlites QRP Club". This has got to be the best 13 bucks I've spent in a long time. It's called the SMiTe and it's an updated Pixie II kit, complete with 3.6864 crystal (Knightlites net frequency), all in Surface Mount Technology components. Yup, that's those little square components that these old eyes have a hard time seeing. Yes, I might be a little nuts, but it looked like fun at the time. I haven't had time to put it together but I did look over the kit and that's the subject of this review so I'm prepared.

The kit includes a small circuit board about the size of two postage stamps, all the onboard SMT components, a nine volt battery clip, and the solder too! The best thing that comes with the kit is the manual. It contains a little history and circuit operation details. It is very well

thought out and includes very nice circuit board placement guides and all the SMT components are taped, one by one, on the placement guide! It would be hard to put this together wrong despite that the tinned circuit board has no silk screen or solder mask. Also included is a few extra SMT parts to practice soldering these little things. You will need to supply key, earphone, and antenna jacks, as well as a suitably small case. One great thing about surface mount circuit boards is there are no through holes and the components are mounted on the foil side. This means you can glue or double stick tape the board inside a small box making mounting easy.

The kit is available for $10.00 plus $3.00 shipping from:

Bob Kellogg, AE4IC
4708 Charlottesville Rd.
Greensboro, NC 27410

Please send a return mailing label too.

YOUR MINNESOTA QRP SOCIETY'S GREAT LIST OF VOLUNTEERS

These are the people that really make a great club, if you're not on this list, maybe you should be! Don't have enough time to handle a full job? Contact one of these people and ask if they need help, write an article, volunteer to do a meeting program, get involved.

PRESIDENT - Claton Cadmus KA0GKC

VICE PRESIDENT - (Vacant, need a volunteer here)

FIELD DAY COORDINATOR - Bill Brisley N0BSN

FYBO COORDINATOR - Larry Gaalaas KB0R

SECRETARY -- David Donaldson WB7DRU

TREASURER -- Stan Berkner KA0JWH

NEWSLETTER EDITOR - Chris Wilken KB0DAL

NEWSLETTER REPORTERS; Bob Gobrick N0EB, Claton Cadmus KA0GKC, Bob Liesenfeld and
EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CLUB!
CLUB PHOTOGRAPHERS; Les Bearl N0PPF, Bill Brisley N0BSN

PROGRAM CHAIRMAN -- John Robertsen KA0OSC

EDUCATION DIRECTOR -- Bob Gobrick N0EB

PROMOTION DIRECTOR -- Steve Jacobs KI0CL

Calendar of Events

Please send in events to the editor.

We can't show them if we don't know them!

How This First Issue Was Produced

By Claton Cadmus, KA0GKC

I wrote this first issue in Word 7.0 using a free add on to Word called Internet Assistant. I'm far from expert at this but it looks like it came out OK. I then printed the 15 issues for the mail for those without email. I used my HP Deskjet 660Cse which will print both sides and collate using the membership roster as a merge list. Then I saved the newsletter in HTML format right from Word. This created all the files including graphics for the WEB version. A little touch up was required. After that I saved a text version to be available via email. I hope those members that received this in the mail will subscribe or get on the Internet.

OK, the web version needs work, but it's a start. I need to make some format changes on the printed version so the conversion works a bit better.

73 de Cla KA0GKC