SOLID COPY  The Monthly Newsletter of the  Monongalia Wireless Association

Nominations for the offices of President, Vice President, and Secretary/Treasurer for 1998 will be opened at the September Meeting. They will be opened again at the October Meeting at which time the election will take place.

On August 28 MWA VE testing resulted in one Tech, one upgrade to Tech Plus, and one upgrade to Advanced Class. Our next test session will be on October 30 at 7:00 P.M. in Engineering Sciences Room 355.

There will be a course teaching the material needed to upgrade from Technician to General Class. Anyone wishing to participate in this class should contact Jan, KX2A, at (412) 324-9160.

The Sand Springs Wireless Association using their club call, K8JF, won the WV section of the January VHF contest in the limited multiopo category. The contest team is also MWA members. They are: Mike Palmer, K8LG; Bill Jacobs, WA8YCG; Jack Coster, WF8X; and Norton Smith, WD8AFJ. Their operating location was the Chestnut Ridge Park at Sand Springs, WV.

I am not a chaser of DX stations on the HF bands, but I do enjoy working distant stations from time to time. A person does not have to do very much operating on the HF bands before they become very aware of the great variations in signal strengths arriving at your station from around the world. And those signals vary from day-to-day and from hour-to-hour. So how can you tell what's going on with propagation at any particular time?

Well you could listen to the foreign "shortwave" broadcasters and see when they are up or down. But the power levels used by the foreign broadcasters are so great that they are hard to compare to the low levels of power that we hams use. There is another way; you can listen to beacon signals on the upper HF bands and actually hear ham propagation beacons from around the globe. And these signals are sent at different power levels so stations around the world can judge the relative strength into their region.

The most useful, and interesting, beacons to monitor are those in the international network of beacons operated by the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU). These beacons operate sequentially on five HF bands. The exact frequencies to monitor are 14.100, 18.110, 21.250, 24.390, and 28.200 MHZ. Currently there are 18 stations in this worldwide system. The stations operate continuously, and they follow a closely regulated schedule.

What do you listen for? These are CW beacons. And each station's transmission is only 10 seconds long before the next station transmits. Each beacon transmission consists of the station call sign followed by four dashes of one second each. The station id is sent at 22 words per minute (too fast? Not to fear, see below). Power levels are changed during each station's transmission. The call sign and the first dash are sent at 100 watts, the second dash at 10 watts, the third dash at 1 watt and the last one is at 0.1 watts. In other words, there is a 10 db change with each dash. The sequence of transmissions is established so that each station is on the air once every 3 minutes.

The 20 meter (14.100) beacons are the easiest to hear, at least until the sunspot cycle improves. Listen carefully, because there is a different station on the air every 10 seconds, and you will not be able to hear them all. Many of the signals will be very weak. (Packet stations operating on, or very near, the beacon frequency, also make it difficult to pick out the beacon.)

Who will you hear? The NCDXF/IARU beacon network now consists of these stations: 4U1UN (United Nations), VE8AT (NWT, Canada), W6WX (USA), KH6WO (Hawaii VK6RBP (Australia), JA2IGY (Japan), 4S7B (Sri Lanka), ZS6DN (S. Africa), 5Z4B (Kenya), 4X6TU (Israel), OH2B (Finland), CS3B (Madeira), LU4AA (Argentina), OA4B (Peru), and YV5B (Venezuela). Three other stations are not yet on the air (New Zealand, Russia, and China).

What do you need to monitor the beacons? All you really need is a receiver and an antenna. If your CW ear is not up to copying 22 words per minute, there is another, easier, way to follow the stations. There are three free ware programs that, once your computer is synchronized accurately with WWV or another time source, will show you precisely which station is currently transmitting. The program BEACONCLOCK can be downloaded from http://www.mutadv.com/kawin/. My favorite, BEACON WIZARD, can be found at http://www.wtrt.net/~ku5s/comments.htm. These two programs run under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. A DOS program, BJBEACON, is at http://www.inx.de/~wumpus/bjsoft.htm. (I have not tried this last program, but it is said to also run well in a DOS window.)

It is very interesting to set your receiver on one of the DX beacon frequencies and listen over a period of two or three hours. Signals come and go as stations around the world "come into view." Keep some notes, and you can do a nice little study of HF propagation and signals at your listening post. For more information, check the NCDXF web page at http://www.ncdxf.org/beacon.htm.

Jack Coster, WF8X

New FCC rules to obtain one-by-one call signs for special events have been implemented, and four coordinators have been authorized to handle call sign requests. The first special event call sign, W3W, was coordinated August 20 at the request of the Scranton Pocono Amateur Radio Klub (SPARK) of Scranton, Pennsylvania. W3W will be activated October 11-12, 1997, during the Steamtown Marathon.

On August 18, the FCC authorized the ARRL, The W5YI Group Inc. of Arlington, Texas, the Western Carolina Amateur Radio Society/VEC Inc. of Knoxville, Tennessee, and the Laurel Amateur Radio Club Inc. of Laurel, Maryland to ''coordinate, maintain and disseminate a common database of amateur station special event call signs.'' The National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) maintains a shared database so that both requesters and coordinators will know which call signs are available at any given time.

The FCC says that special event 1x1 call signs are authorized for use ''in conjunction with an event of special significance.'' This suggests an event with high public visibility, as opposed to a routine ham radio contest or other operating event. However, a special event call sign could be used in conjunction with a contest if one were to occur within the call sign reservation period.

The four special event call sign coordinators have the authority to determine if a request is in keeping with the intent of the special event call sign system. Any licensed amateur may request a special event call sign. Call signs may be requested up to one year in advance of their use on the air. Call signs normally will be granted for periods of 15 days or less. Because of the limited number of call signs available, requesters are encouraged to limit their requests to the duration of the special event.

A block of 750 call signs is available for use in the special event call sign system. The format of each 1x1 call sign consists of a single letter K, N or W prefix followed by a single numeral, 0 through 9, followed by any single letter except the letter X, which is not available to amateur stations.

For more information on the special event call sign system, call 860-594-0300 or e-mail [email protected]. You also can contact any of the other special event call sign coordinators.

ARRL Bulletin 48 ARLB048

The FCC has revised the power level thresholds to trigger a routine Amateur Radio station RF exposure evaluation, and the changes will be welcome news for most hams. When the FCC first decreed a year ago that ham radio stations would have to comply with RF exposure guidelines, it set a 50-W threshold level. The updated guidelines, announced August 25, increase that threshold level on all HF bands except 10 meters, where it remains at 50 W. The FCC made no changes in the RF exposure limits it announced last year.

The new RF safety guidelines are scheduled to become effective January 1, 1998, for Amateur Radio stations.

The FCC went along in part with a request by the ARRL to establish a sliding scale for threshold levels, depending upon frequency. The revised thresholds are 500 W for 160 through 40 meters, 425 W on 30 meters (where the maximum permissible power is 200 W), 225 W on 20 meters, 125 W on 17 meters, 100 W on 15 meters, 75 W on 12 meters and 50 W on 10 meters. The threshold for all VHF bands is 50 W. On UHF, the threshold level is 70 W on 70 cm, 150 W on 33 cm, 200 W on 23 cm, and 250 W on 13 cm and above. Stations operating at or below these respective power levels are categorically excluded from having to perform a routine RF radiation evaluation. However, all stations, regardless of power level, still must comply with the RF exposure limits.

Along with its August 25 Second Memorandum Opinion and Order announcing the changes, the FCC released the ''core'' text of its long-awaited Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) Bulletin 65, Evaluating Compliance with FCC Guidelines for Human Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields. The bulletin contains generic equations that can be used to analyze fields due to almost all antennas, although the FCC warns that ''the resulting estimates for power density may be overly conservative in some cases.'' Hams leery of formulas might opt to wait for the easier-to-use Supplement B to OET Bulletin 65, which will include information designed specifically for evaluating Amateur Radio installations. The supplement promises to detail how hams can determine more simply if their individual stations comply with the new regulations. The FCC says the supplement will contain ''information on projected minimum exclusion distances from typical amateur antenna installations.''

The FCC said it would issue Supplement B ''as soon as a review of the current draft is complete.'' When it's ready, Supplement B will be available to download from the FCC's Web site, http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety. The FCC directed inquiries as to the availability of the supplement and other RF-related questions to its RF Safety Program, 202-418-2464; e-mail [email protected].

Last year, the FCC established time-averaged maximum permissible exposure (MPE) limits for RF fields in two tiers--for controlled environments (i.e., a ham's immediate household, including visitors) and uncontrolled environments (i.e., neighbors, the general public). If a routine evaluation of a ham station indicates that human exposure to RF fields could be in excess of the FCC's MPE limits, the licensee must act to correct the problem and ensure compliance. This could include changing operating patterns, relocating antennas, restricting access, changing frequency, output power or emission type or any combination of these and other remedies.

The FCC says that ham radio facilities ''represent a special case for determining exposure, since there are many possible antenna types that could be designed and used for amateur stations.''

The revised regulations categorically exclude most mobile installations, including those in the Amateur Radio Service, from having to comply with the RF-exposure or station evaluation guidelines. Since the FCC issued its guidelines, additional questions on RF safety have been added to the Amateur Radio examination question pool.

OET Bulletin 65 and the FCC Second Memorandum Opinion and Order are available at http://www.fcc.gov/oet/dockets/et93-62/. More details on the FCC's latest announcement on RF safety will appear in the October issue of QST.

ARRL Bulletin 49 ARLB049

Hallicrafter Model S-40B Receiver
Hallicrafter Model S-38E Band Spread/Main Tuner
Philco Signal Generator
Superior Instruments Co. Tube-tester Model # TV-11 with instruction manual
Morse Code Transmitter Model # J-38
Dictograph Products Inc. Dictograph/phone
Grummes Custom (Crystal/Magnetic) by Precision Electronics Inc.
Paul Stover, 296-7060

Articles for the October 1997 issue of SOLID COPY are due to me by Tuesday, October 7, 1997. If you have articles for SOLID COPY, please contact me via any of the following methods:

by mail at
Rt. 3, Box 421
Morgantown, WV 26505

via telephone (304) 296-8823.

via E-Mail: [email protected]

**Family member living in same household

For additional information on membership please contact a club member or write to:

Monongalia Wireless Association
PO Box 4263
Morgantown, WV 26504

The August meeting of MWA will be Tuesday, September 16, 1997 at 7:30 P.M. in Room 355 Engineering Sciences Building . The topic will be HF Contesting.