The monthly newsletter of the Carbon Amateur Radio Club

April 1999

"It is good to look outside and see that the weather is getting warmer. That means several things, birds singing, flowers growing, grass needs to be cut, bugs on your windshield and hamfests.

There are many great hamfests coming up in the next few months. Now is the time to clear out the unused treasures and turn them into cash to buy more treasures to be unused later. Some of the fun is just to look and reminisce and, of course, enjoy some walk around food while visiting with our friends.

Also, some great activities are being planned for the club which is not only fun, but hopefully will draw our members together again. Why not contact myself or A.J., WB2VBR, for a list of upcoming events.

The Constitution committee is now moving forward and hopefully will have something to present to the club members in a month or two. Then we can move on to other projects.

Something to think about. What are the feelings of club members to have a CARC picnic this summer at Beltsville Lake, or other location? Think about it and lets talk about it at the meeting on April 15, 1999. Hope to see everyone there"

Robert Fulton, Jr. N3NOP

President

Our first hunt of the 1999 season was a tremendous success. Thanks to Gene(N3WMA) for creating such a challenge. I really don’t know how he finds these places to hide the fox. Today was no exception!

It took the first team one hour and 28 minutes to find the area where the fox was hidden. In addition to such a remote location, once there, Gene had placed 3 beam antennas for pick & choose. Unfortunately I pointed to the wrong one and incurred an additional 25 point penalty for the team. The first three places are only separated by 50 points. The new point system maybe just what we wanted since the total spread was only 345 points from first to last. The new point system should keep all the hounds in the chase right down to the final hunt. Out of the five teams participating we had an 80% success rate.

Looking forward to next month’s hunt. It should be another great one. It will be held on April 17, 1999. We will meet at the 443 diner for breakfast at 7:45am and the hunt will begin at 9:00 sharp. As usual it will run for 2 hours

and end promptly at 11am. The fox for the April hunt will be AMY, KD3TI. A REMINDER: The hunt is a trophy hunt so get all your gear in good working condition. As you can see from the March scores the hounds are sharp and their

equipment is fine tuned. See you then.

de WB2VBR AJ

In my last issue I said we were on a roller coaster ride. The week of March 6th to 11th we had daily reports of Quiet to Minor Storm levels with March 8th being the best example of HF signal fadeout. The low flux numbers settled at 110 on March 10th returning to the more normal rate of 150 by March 15th. The A Index has been in the teens much of this time with a high of A32 on March 11th. The associated geomagnetic activity created aurora worbles on the 75m band that nearly disrupted all the nets. Meanwhile, vhfers were all pointing north looking for Aurora E skip to occur.

For April we can expect disturbed conditions around the 8th and 20th with the solar flux around 110. Look for the best conditions around the 15th with low A and K index numbers ( K near zero). It has been a rough time for those running barefoot but things are sure to improve. Solar cycle predictions indicate that cycle 23 should peak around March or April 2000 with a solar flux average of 210. As has been heard before, this is expected to be a short 11 year cycle and expected to descend as quick as it peaked.

The time is here when the seasons are about to change and so will conditions. Soon the regular high noise levels will be with us. With the Spring equinox we can only hope for some magic. The Vhfers are looking for the spring Sporadic E season to begin on 6 and 2 meters where contacts up to 1500 miles or more can take place with double hop propagation. Strong short skip on 10 and 20 meters is a good time to look for Sporadic E on Vhf. It is time to have fun on all the bands.

Many of the DX signals have been just above the noise level. 20 meters is still the DX band of choice into the early evening. 10 meters shows good DX activity between 9 am and noon local time, some days totally favoring Europe. After dark, the fun begins on the low bands when 40m and 80m do their magic. 160 meters has had some DX late night activity as well. The good news is, it will get better I just can not predict when !!

73s de Larry N3CR Good DX !

I’ll begin with some questions I hear often. These come from no particular person, but they are fundamental questions that non-contesters may not know. I hope you enjoy them.

Thank you and 73 de Glenn K3PP (a.k.a. Dr. Contest) dah dit dididit dah

In almost every case, the answer is an enthusiastic, "Yes!" In fact, such casual contacts comprise the vast majority of almost any contest log. If the serious contesters had to count only on each other, the contest would be over in a few hours, maybe less and wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Please hand out contacts any time you wish. The person on the other end will be very grateful.

In certain contests your station counts as nothing towards the contester’s score, but the other guy will usually be pretty nice about it. You will probably get a friendly reminder that you don’t count, but your call will still be appreciated. The contester doesn’t want to offend you because you will count for another contest in the future.

As a courtesy to the contester, try to make the QSO short with only the necessary information. The contester may not want your name, QTH and weather report because it slows down the pace. The contester isn’t trying to be impolite. It’s just that the objective of the contest is to work as many stations as possible. Long QSOs are counter to this goal.

There are several ways to do this. The first is to check QST or CQ or one of the many Internet resources. Contest rules and other helpful hints can be found here for most contests.

You can also ask fellow CARC members before the contest. Those of us who enjoy contests will try to pre-announce the major contests to give you time to ask questions and to prepare.

If all else fails, or if you wait to the last minute (like Dr. Contest!), you can simply ask during the contest. The operator on the other end will gladly tell you and help you with the exchange information. Your QSO will be very welcome in the contestor’s log!

No fancy station is necessary if you want to join the fun of a contest. In fact, most contest participants have very modest stations. Those with big stations and big power are the minority.

If you want to WIN the big contests like the CQ World Wide DX contest, you will need such a station, but more important to a winning score is the operator’s skill, endurance and strategy. K3WW, in Perkasie, is one of the world’s top contestors. He has a good station, but he wins because of his unbelievable abilities. He consistently beats everyone else, including people with MUCH bigger stations and better locations. We generally refer to this community of high powered people as big guns.

Some contests work out very nicely for the small pistol (as the little stations are known). The PA QSO Party is a contest where lower antennas actually have an advantage because most of your contacts are with fairly local stations. Antennas that are crummy for DX may do very well for QSOs in the surrounding area.

Another bright spot for small pistols, is that many contests have multiple categories in their competition. Contest organizers realize that not everyone can be a big gun, so they provide a more level playing field for those who are not blessed with big stations. The CQ WPX Contest (WPX Phone was just a few days before you read this), for example, seems to have a category for everyone! They have a category for those with tribanders and wire antennas for the low bands. There is a category for rookies, and all categories have a separate distinction for low power and QRP operators.

Even in the big contests, you can do well with a simple station. My first HF contest effort at home was the 1994 CQ World Wide Phone Contest, done using 100W and a low 80m dipole through a tuner. I didn’t know what I was doing and I still got about 250 contacts! The fact is, the big boys want to work YOU! Most contests have enough activity to keep you busy and add a lot of contacts to your log.

As I mentioned earlier, contest QSOs are very short. The information contained in the QSO is structured is a regular pattern containing an exchange. The exchange is different for most contests, but it will follow the same pattern for the whole contest. Contest rules will specify the exchange to be used, but you will figure it out if you listen to the contest activity for a bit.

Common information contained in the exchange are things like the RST, serial number, state, first name, or special information like your CQ zone. It all depends on the contest. The concept of an exchange was borne out of traffic handling. In fact, contests evolved from early traffic handling activities.

The simplest exchange is in the CQ World Wide contests where you use the RST and CQ zone. Most contest logging software automatically enters the CQ zone for you! That’s TOO easy! The ARRL November Sweepstakes probably has the most complicated. It contains RST, precedence, check, ARRL section, and serial number (whew!). The precedence is a single character indicating your power level (B > 150W, Q < 5W, A = all else) and the check is the two digit year you were first licensed. It can be pretty brutal, but it gives the Sweepstakes a unique flavor.

This is a comical pattern that has become commonplace. There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding this development. Some say people have gotten lazy and always hand out a perfect report, irregardless of the true signal quality. There is a lot of merit to this argument, but you will rarely receive anything less. Get used to it, HI!

If you don’t plan to make a serious effort in the competition, you probably need no special logging software. You can use a general purpose package like Log-EQF or DX4WIN, or even a paper log.

Serious contesters use packages like CT, NA, and TR. These are powerful commercial applications that cost between $50 and $90. I plan to do a full article (maybe a series) on these logging packages in the near future. All are advertised in the major magazines and on the web. CT and NA are similar. CT is more popular for the bigger contests, but NA supports more contests like the North American QSO Party and the PA QSO Party.

Don’t be! A dupe isn’t a derogatory term. It only means you are already in the log, your QSO is a DUPlicate QSO.

You can get started in any contest, but good starter contests are the VHF contests, the PA QSO Party, and other state QSO Parties. These contests are usually more casual and the slower pace will be more comfortable to beginners.

The absolute best beginner’s contest is Field Day! There are plenty of opportunities to operate and learn the ropes from the experts. Most Field Day participants are not seasoned contesters, so you will not be alone if you are a bit rusty. One of the best benefits of Field Day is the chance to use equipment, bands, and modes that you may not otherwise have access to.

Many of today’s serious contesters cut their teeth on Field Day. I remember a particular Field Day outing at Mauch Chunk Lake where some N3BDA guy came out of ham radio hibernation to play with the Carbon ARC. He suffered a severe bite by the contesting bug and he has since spent considerable time, money and effort on his contesting addiction!

Remember, every serious contester was once a nervous beginner, even legends like K3II. Your journey begins with that first step. Go for it!

I would like to thank the following for donating their time to help with the exercise. N3AT - LAMAR, N3REA - FRANK, N3WMA - GENE, KA3UKL - BILL.

Again it was a minimal involvement by CARC, but we were there to show our willingness to assist. From the hams' standpoint the entire exercise left a lot to be desired. Most of the time you could not hear the coordinator and stations where checking in but received no response. There was very little origination of task coming from the main coordinators location. Thus a very poorly run exercise.

AJ

I’ve seen circuits designed to perform this conversion built around the MAX232 integrated circuit. This is a very cleverly designed IC that uses charge storage to generate both positive- and negative-going output voltages while using only a single-ended power supply. At first glance, it seems like exactly what you need for an RS-232 to CI-V level (TTL-compatible) converter! It’s overkill. Here’s why:

• The 1488 quad RS-232 driver IC and 1489 quad RS-232 receiver IC or their equivalent functionality are practically ubiquitous in personal computers today.
• The 1489 switches states at about 1.5 or 2.25 volts, depending on whether it’s a 1489 or 1489A, and operates from a single-ended supply. It’s already TTL compatible.
• Most driver IC’s have an output resistance that limits the current the driver can produce. This current limiting means that TTL-compatible levels can be safely achieved by simply swamping the output with a 5.1-volt Zener diode.

The attached figure shows the circuit that I use. It is built around one third of a CMOS hex inverter, a 5.1-volt 1N4733 Zener diode, and a couple of 1N914/1N4148 silicon diodes. K1EA very thoughtfully turned both the Data Terminal Ready (DTR) and Request to Send (RTS) signals high on the serial interface with CT, so power is stolen from those leads. The two inverters and the Zener diode are wired to form a TTL-compatible data bus and the silicon diodes provide polarity protection for stealing power for the 74HCT04 from the PC. Unused inputs on the 74HCT04 are grounded. That’s all there is to it!

My original circuit was built on half a predrilled dual IC board (Radio Shack 276-159). Just to be safe, I used a 14-pin IC socket (RS 276-1999). I housed the entire circuit in a 2.75 by 2.13 by 1.63 inch aluminum P-box enclosure with LOTS of room to spare. When I got better at packing things in, I built one inside a 25-pin D connector hood. Here are the pinouts for the RS-232 leads used:

3B9, RODRIGUES ISLAND. Frank Smith, AH0W, from the Midway-Kure DX Found- ation (MKDXF), has released the following information: The Midway-Kure DX Foundation is about to embark on its 1999 DXpedition to Rodrigues Island (AF-017), the "Cinderella of the Mascarenes", starting April 1st and running through April 11th. Callsign will be 3B9R. The DXpedition will operate on all bands, 6 meter through 160 meters and all modes. One of the 9 HF stations will be dedicated to RTTY only. Team-members represent five nations and include Bruce Butler/W6OSP, Kimo Chun/KH7U, Jari Jussila/OH2BU, Victor Keller/XE1VIC, Jacky Mandary/ 3B8CF, Garry Shapiro/NI6T, Ned Stearns/AA7A, Yuuji Yoshitani/JA3IG/K1NT and Frank Smith/AH0W/OH2LVG, team-leader. Individual team members may also operate from Mauritius after the operation as 3B9/home-call. Acting as pilot stations will be Andy Chesnokov UA3AB, Tom Harrell/ N4XP of the Dateline DX Association and Gary McClellan K7ZD.

7Q, MALAWI. Activity will increase from this one. Ron, 7Q7RM, reportedly is back in the country with John/7Q7JL, Les/7Q7LA and Harry/7Q7HB to follow. QSL is only via DIRECT to G0IAS. NO BUREAU CARDS!

JX, JAN MAYEN. If you need this one you better work it soon. Per, LA7DFA, will go QRT as JX7DFA on April 16th and return to Norway. He reports that there will not be any further amateur radio activity this summer. Look for Per between 1800 and 2230z on 20 meters SSB/RTTY. Also, check 30 meters.

E4, PALESTINE. David, E41/OK1DTP, continues to be active especially on 80 and 12 meters. Look for him to be active in the upcoming CQ WPX SSB Contest. Reports indicate that David will be active until December 31st. David was recently joined by his father Jirka, OK1TD, and they installed a HF tri-band beam and 160 meters dipole. QSL via OK1TD, Jiri Lunak, U Sporky 185, CZ-470 01 Ceska Lipa, Czech Republic.

HS, THAILAND. Look for Charlie, K4VUD, to be active as HS0ZCW now through April 5th, and again between May 18th and June 2nd. No other details were provided. QSL via K4VUD.

EU-107. The Grantham Amateur Radio Club will activate Ile Aux Moines, one of the Sept Iles, from June 26-30th. The callsign will be F/G0GRC. They are limited to daylight hours and battery power as the isles are a bird sanctuary. QSL via G0RCI, Alan Gibson, 1 Oakleigh RD, Grantham, NG31 7NN England. All QSOs will be confirmed. After 1 month, any remaining cards will be sent via bureau.

As Glenn pointed out in last month’s newsletter, several of our club members did very well in the ARRL DX CW contest. This month I’d like to share some experiences that I had operating from home during this contest. During the fall and winter I made several improvements in my antennas and station. This was my first chance to see how well everything worked head to head with the big boys.

My antenna changes consisted of a new vertical on 40m and 80m with four elevated radials on each band, a full size 160m inverted Vee, and a receiving antenna pointed at Europe. In the shack, I added a box that allowed me to switch between the receiving antenna pointed at Europe and the transmitting antenna on receive. I also located and eliminated several noise sources which raised the noise floor, masking weak signals on 160m and 80m. Finally, I upgraded my amplifier so if needed, I would be able to run full legal limit on any band.

During the week before a major contest I always like to get some extra sleep. The ARRL DX contest is 48 hours long and I wasn’t planning to sleep more than three or four hours each night. Unfortunately, the week prior to the contest was a disaster. I had many things on my mind and I found myself waking up at 4:30 or 5:00 am each morning without an alarm clock. By the end of the week, I was sleep deprived instead of well rested.

About thirty minutes prior to the start of the contest, I turned on the equipment and loaded the contesting program. I really wasn’t in the mood for a long contest but I had already set a goal of making one million points in this contest. I checked the solar flux, tuned around the bands, and decided to start on 20 meters. Fifteen minutes into the contest, I wasn’t pleased with my rate so I found a frequency and called CQ. Fortunately, I attracted a crowd and I was on a roll. Around Asian sunrise, I started to get calls from JA’s. I turned the antenna to Asia and logged a pile of JA’s some running as low as 4 and 5 watts! Other stations like BA, KL7, KH6, and HS0 were also logged during this run.

After things slowed down on 20m, I switched between 80m, 40m, and 20m trying to add as many band countries as possible. I operated until after European sunrise and then decided to sleep for a few hours. At this point I had 230 Q’s and 118 band countries in the log. After some rest, I got back on the air before the Asian sunset and logged several Asian countries on 80m and 40m while eating dry cereal and drinking milk. After our US sunrise, the upper bands opened quickly and I soon found myself calling CQ on 10m. I had a great time on 10m, logging almost 100 stations in over 50 countries in a little over an hour! The rate meter was climbing, fast approaching 150 QSO’s per hour. About this time, the phone rang and I learned that K3II was having computer troubles. I was glad it wasn’t an unhappy neighbor and minutes later I was on my way to Jim’s. At this point I had 360 QSO’s in 170 band countries in the log.

It took about 30 minutes to get Jim’s computers up and running again. While I was there I operated about an hour with Ed, K3VA. Ed operated the 15 meter station and I sat down at the 10m station. Jim has great equipment and antennas. We quickly logged nearly 200 QSO’s and at one point we had a short term peak rate of 270 QSO/hr! This was a real thrill.

After returning home, I operated all afternoon, evening, and night until European sunrise (Sunday morning). During this time I logged some juicy multipliers like SV1, KH7, HZ, JT, KH2 (on 80m), OY, TI, and YN. I was really tired and I needed some sleep. I gave one last listen to 160m and the band was quiet and there were many stations calling CQ. I quickly worked 15 countries and went to bed. At this point I had 772 Q’s and 326 band countries.

I caught up on some much needed rest and actually slept longer than I wanted (4 hours). I hurried downstairs and found some new countries on 80m before the sun came up. I ate breakfast while working Europeans on 20m. My 20m and 15m QSO totals were a little low so I planned on improving this during the next three or four hours. Alternating between 20m and 15m I had three good hours with 65, 86, and 70 QSO’s logged. The calls were steady but not as great as I had on 10m the day before. Remembering this, I switched to 10m and had three great hours logging 70, 90, 80 QSO’s. Along with the nearly 500 stations I worked this morning I added many new multipliers.

My 10m run was ended when we received a surprise visit from a neighbor asking about TV antennas. I quickly answered his questions but he insisted on staying and telling us his whole life story. There was no stopping this guy so Suzie and I kindly listened. After he left, I grabbed some food and listened 10m. I still had not broke the 1 million point barrier but I knew with a little more effort my goal would be reached. 10 meters was declining so I switched between 20m and 15m calling CQ picking up multipliers like VQ9, C2, and HR. This pushed me well over the 1 million point boundary with 1190 QSO’s and 377 band countries in the log.

As the sun started to set, I tried 40m. I wasn’t able to get a run going on 40m but I did work EL, T9, and VP2 for new multipliers. The rest of the contest was a slugfest. The bands were thinning out as many Europeans quit early to get some sleep before going to work. I kept tuning and working everyone that wasn’t in my log. This included a few JA’s and VK’s on 10 meters around JA sunrise.

When the contest ended, I had worked 1268 stations in 384 band countries for a total score of 1.46 million points! This, I hope is good enough to finish in the top 15-20 US operators in my class. Post contest log analysis shows that I worked 109 unique DXCC entities (CW mode DXCC in less than 48 hours!) and I added 29 new band countries to my station log. This contest was really exciting, it greatly improved my CW skills, and it was a real thrill to hear so many great operators on the air all at once. CU on the bands - John, K3CT

The 1999 dues are due. Final month.

Regular membership $15.00

Membership with autopatch $20.00

AJ SPITZER

308 BIRCHWOOD DRIVE

LEHIGHTON, PA. 18235

The Illuminator

In talking with several members, it has become apparent to me that we should continue producing a healthy newsletter and not limit the content in it. Local content as well as non-local content is of interest to all members. Additionally, as I have said many times before, a well-produced newsletter with good content will certainly help attract new members to the club.

FCC

It's great to see the FCC finally stepping up to the plate and getting its act together as far as enforcement in ham radio is concerned. Riley Hollingsworth, K4DZH, recently tasked with heading up ham radio enforcement, has attacked the job with the vigor, much resembling Eliot Ness from the movie The Untouchables.

You can now actually listen to 14.313 and not hear jammers, voice keyer maniacs, and heated arguments. There's still much to be done, though. 75 meters at night is still full of less-than-friendly "clique" nets, and the lower part of 10 meters is full of CB freebanders. These will be harder crack than the obvious "Ten Most Wanted List" which Hollingsworth has been pursuing. Hopefully Hollingsworth will continue to receive the necessary funding, political support, and human resources to continue this endeavor. Let's hope so.

In this day of large, ineffective, and wasteful government agencies, it's a breath of fresh air to see such an effective operation.

73 de Goody KA3NGH

Mac, W3HC (ex W3HCW) of Williamsport, PA (and the grandfather of Goody KA3NGH), operates a QSL fund to help DX stations that could not otherwise afford to have cards printed in their own country. W3HC supplies all of the QSLs for them free and acts as QSL manager.

Anyone who donates to the fund gets his call put on the card in the lower left hand corner, "QSL Courtesy of K3JJN" for example; three calls are printed on the cards.

The person who donates to the fund is sent a copy of the QSL card with his callsign on and also what is left of the funds he donated. All costs of the QSL cards and the postage required to send the DX station a sample of his new QSL cards are taken out of the fund. If there are any funds left after a person sponsors a card and it is not enough to sponsor another card, those funds are used to send incoming cards to the ARRL bureau. To date W3HC has supplied cards for over 105 different DX stations, some cards are in their 25th printing. Over 340 different sponsor calls have been put on cards since 1988. Some of the top stations W3HC has managed include: EP2ASZ, EP2DL, EP2HAS, EP2MA, EP2MRD Iran; BI5P, BI4C, BI3H, BA1DU, BI5Z, BA1CO, BA1BA China, Z31VJ Republic of Macedonia; T94GB Bosnia-Herzogvinia; 6T2MG Sudan; ED0BOD South Orkney; A92FZ Bahrain.

The above table is sorted by mixed-band/mixed-mode DXCC. Local DX’ers should submit mixed-mode DXCC by band, total DXCC, or IOTA totals to K3CT prior to the newsletter deadline each month. Stations need not be confirmed just worked. There are currently 333 DXCC entities available and one member has worked them all. Congratulations Jim!

April 3 - SP DX Contest, EA RTTY Contest

April 7, 14, 21, 28 - **CARC ARES/RACES Net 21:00 Local 147.255 + PL 131.8**

April 9 - Japan Int. DX Contest

April 11 - UBA Spring Contest, CW

April 12 - 144 MHz Spring Sprint

April 15 - ** CARC Meeting ** - EMA Center Route 93

April 17 - ** Foxhunt **, Michigan QSO Party, Holyland DX Contest

April 20 - 222 Mhz Spring Sprint

April 24 - Walk-A-Thon - Beltsville Lake, Nebraska, Ontario, Florida QSO Parties, Six Club 6m Sprint

April 28 - 432 Mhz Spring Sprint

May 1 - 10-10 Int. Spring Contest CW, Massachusetts QSO Party, ARI Internal DX Contest

** denotes CARC supported or sponsored events

bold indicates items of local interest

President - Robert Fulton N3NOP [email protected]

Vice Pres/Treasurer - A J Spitzer WB2VBR [email protected]

Secretary - Andrew Roomberg KB3CWH

W3HA Callsign Trustee – Bill Dale WY3K

Public Information Officer – Bill Kelley KA3UKL

Skywarn Coordinator - Mike N3XYU

Editor – Goody KA3NGH [email protected]

Contesting – Glenn K3PP [email protected]

DX and Foxhunting – AJ WB2VBR [email protected]

Propagation and Commentary – Larry N3CR [email protected]

QRP – Lamar N3AT [email protected]

Skywarn – Mike N3XYU [email protected]

Newsletter Printing, Folding, Mailing - Andrew KB3CWH and Robert KB3BYT

CARC Website : http://www.cpals.com/~elitehom/carc/

Webmaster – Robert KB3BYT [email protected]

Regular Membership is $15.00, Regular with Autopatch is $20.00.

Mail your checks to AJ to receive your membership card in the mail.