Garlock has moved from the area. If any of you would like to send him a card or drop a note, his new address is: 

Ormal Garlock
Ohio Masonic Home
7 Masonic Drive
Springfield, Ohio 45504

 The most important piece of property you will ever take care of is yourself.

The FCC has a new 610 form. It will have an expiration date of September 1997.

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As of Jan 1 the test fee will be $6.35 for all ve tests except novice of which there is no charge.

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Upcoming V.E. Test Sessions 

 Mary, KA8MPH

On November 3rd, 1997, the crew on Russian space station MIR launched a replica of the original Sputnik satellite, by literally tossing it out the hatch of the spacecraft. It is currently in orbit right behind MIR, and about 2 km higher. You can hear Sputnik’s beacon on 145.820MHz FM, sending "beep... beep... beep". When it makes a pass, the satellite can be heard on even an HT outdoors with a rubber duck antenna, or a scanner with an outside antenna. Passes last about 10 minutes each.

The satellite batteries are only expected to last about 1 month, so listen in soon!

Bob Shepherd (W8CGG) held open house for his eightieth birthday in Doylestown November 2. 

Ann Laurich (WA8VTS) and James Bliss were married October 25 at Akron Babtist Temple. 

It’s time to collect toys for this year’s Christmas Toy drive. The generosity of SARA members was responsible for making a lot of area needy little ones happy last year, and we can do it again this year.

The toy's should be worth $5.00 or more. Please do not wrap them. Bring toy's to the SARA Christmas party Dec.8th, or you can drop them off before December 13. Drop off point will be:

Collected toys will be passed out with food baskets Dec 20th.

We can also pick up toy's at your house, call Gary 330-927-1838 Or Tony 330-769-3688

Barry KI8BS

During my drive home from work on Tuesday, October 28 I received a call on our repeater from Mike N8QQN. Mike is the communications officer for the Rittman Police Department. Sometime in the late afternoon that day the police discovered they could not use the police inter-city radio frequency because their radio receiver was producing a very strange and quite loud noise.

Thinking the radio equipment was at fault, the city called the company that maintains all of the city’s radio equipment. All of Rittman’s emergency services radios are installed at of one of the two water towers in the town. Nearly two years ago the city gave us permission to put an amateur UHF repeater in the equipment shed and an antenna on the tower.

Upon arriving at the radio site the repair technician (please note I use the word "technician" very loosely here) determined that our UHF repeater was the source of the problem. He felt this because he could not find any problem with the city’s radio. (He hadn’t thought of trying anything radical like disconnecting the antenna to see if the signal went away!!)

I went to the site, disconnected our repeater and another UHF community repeater in the shed, and quickly demonstrated that neither of the UHF machines were causing any interference to the city’s radios. Recognize that normally while you are in the equipment shed you can not hear what the radios are doing because there are no local speakers installed in the radios.

Once the technician connected a speaker so I could hear the problem it was apparent to me that the radio was working fine but it was indeed picking up a strong signal that had some sort of digital telemetry modulating the RF carrier.

Sure enough we could pick up the signal on our HT’s outside the equipment shed. As I drove to my home to eat dinner I drove around town a little using my mobile radio to see if I could find the interfering signal. Since neither the Orrville or Wooster police departments reported any problems it seemed logical that the interfering signal was a very local, very small signal.

After dinner I loaded up the car with my foxhunting gear and started driving around Rittman. Bob N8ZCC and other local hams with beams tried to get signal path headings to aid in my locating efforts. Unfortunately these early readings proved to be incorrect. As I drove out of town I quickly realized that the signal was not coming from within Rittman but was almost due north of Rittman.

I dove towards the Wadsworth-Rittman hospital since not only did the signal seem to be coming from that direction but the hospital has radio equipment that transmits telemetry signals.

However the hospital checked out OK and I started north again towards the Great Oaks shopping center. About this time Del N8OFP and his wife were heading home from the Rolling Acres shopping mall. Del had been monitoring the interfering signal as he was driving home. Del didn’t have a directional antenna but he did note several places where the signal strength greatly increased. I asked Del if he wanted to "play radio" with me and come along with me in an attempt to find the transmitter. Del’s wife dropped him off at a prearranged location to be picked up, and we continued the search.

Although we didn’t know exactly where yet, it was still obvious that the signal always was strongest from the general direction of north.

We traveled up 94 north from Wadsworth making several stops for new readings and a few dead ends and headed into Sharon Center. We stopped and talked to two local police officers (they wanted to know if we were looking for aliens) but we convinced them we were involved in a serious activity when we had them switch their radios to the inter-city frequency. They could hear the interfering signal loud and clear on their radios.

Back in the car again, we continued north up to route 18 thinking one of the bazillion radio towers up there was creating the problem. After a few stops for steady readings we kept heading north.

A few miles north of route 18 the signal became very strong. Del could pick it up frequently on his HT without any antenna and my readings with a quad antenna were off the scale even with the attenuator.

When we approached Hinckley we pulled off the road into the library parking lot. As luck would have it the fire station is directly across the street from the library. Where did the direction finding equipment say the signal was coming from? You guessed it, the fire station! We both left the car and walked around the fire station with our HT’s to see if we could pin point the signal source. We used the "body fade" technique with our radios and determined that the signal was not coming from the fire station but to the west from the station.

It was then that we noticed the fire station didn’t have any sign of antennas. The fire station is in a rather low lying location and we reasoned that they must use a remote transmitter site.

We loaded back into the car and headed west out of town on SR 303. About a mile from town we pulled off the road to take a good steady reading. At that location the signal appeared to come from the south of our location. Had we made a mistake in heading out of town? Were we getting a false reading now? We had nothing but questions and precious few answers. We noticed that directly across the road from us (to our south) was a cemetery. How could a signal possibly come from a cemetery? Was this a kid’s prank?

Against our common sense (but in agreement with what our equipment told us) we drove into the cemetery. This particular cemetery has a single drive that forms a circle and goes around the outside boundary of the cemetery. No matter where we drove the signal strength was always strongest from the center of the cemetery! What was going on?

Although we were sure there was no possible way the signal could be in the cemetery we drove back and forth a few times to see if we could get consistent signals. During one of these short back and forth trips Del thought he saw something that stuck up in the air directly in the center of the cemetery.

Although I had a very good flashlight in the car it turned out not to be of much help as I also have a grandson who loves to play with grandpa’s flashlight! We couldn’t turn the car off the narrow drive enough to make use of the car’s headlights.

Now I must pause here in the story to set the proper image in your mind or you won’t fully appreciate the end of this story. Picture this in you mind: here you have two hams that have been following a signal for over two hours now sitting in a car, in an unfamiliar place, on a completely overcast night in total darkness, in a cemetery just two days before Halloween! Is this science fiction material or what? I mentioned to Del as, we were stumbling into headstones in the darkness, that there was definitely something wrong with this picture!

We found a fairly large stone building directly in the center of the cemetery that resembled the typical mausoleums you might see in any cemetery. Del noticed a tall wooden pole behind the building and upon close inspection he found three different pieces of heliax going up the pole. Sure enough, we had found our transmitter! Now the question was, who’s transmitter was it and how do we get it turned off.

We never did find the source of the telemetry that the radio was broadcasting. Since the remote radio was operated by a phone line I suspect the phone line was actually the culprit. It’s possible a phone line problem caused the radio to begin transmitting to begin with, and possibly cross talk between adjacent phone lines coupled some sort of telemetry signal into the radio audio circuits.

Strangely enough there is also a UHF amateur repeater in the same building and the police immediately called a ham believing the amateur radio was the source of the problem. Does this sound familiar to the scenario at the beginning of this story?

The very people who had the equipment and know how to track the interfering signal down as a public service were blamed not once but twice as the source of the problem!

Oh well, Del and I had a good time and got to meet a fellow ham who came out to check the repeater.

At this point I wouldn’t blame you if you think this entire story was a Halloween tale spun by two hams with too much time on their hands. I’m not sure I would believe it myself if I hadn’t been there! If nothing else have a good laugh over the article and make plans to go out next spring and try a few foxhunts with SARA.

Recently I drove down to Louisville, Ohio to assist my good friend, and ex-partner (Ross / WB8KMP) in getting his tower in the air. He's been putting it up since he moved there...five years ago ! ! !

As with any tower raising there were numerous amateurs there. I met quite a few amateurs that day, most were members of the Canton ARC. 

One of the amateurs I met at Ross' was Don / K80MO. In fact, Don is actually the purpose of this article. Don is the "D" in D & B Erectors and has a nice crane / bucket truck. He made this tower raising the smoothest I've ever attended. 

Don's crane/bucket truck has a boom that will extend to 85 feet.

He was able to lift, in one piece, the top four sections of Ross' tower with the rotor plate, rotor, mast pipe and the big four element tri-band beam all at once & lower it into place.

I was totally impressed, being an amateur as well as the crane operator, Don first told us exactly how he was going to lift it and just how it would turn as well as the reason he was going to lift it that way ( so the beam elements wouldn't hit the boom and get bent). Well guess what, it lifted just as Don said it would, it turned just as Don said it would, none of the elements came close to the beam & it was set in place.

Don's rate is $50.00/hour with a two hour minimum. This is "on site" time, Don doesn't charge for travel time with his truck in this area.

If you need the services of a crane/bucket truck I can recommend Don/K80MO because I've seen him in action & he certainly knows his stuff. He also understands the needs & concerns of hams since he is one ! Don can be contacted at (330) 935-2960.

73's

ARRL Bulletin 64 ARLB064
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT October 30, 1997
To all radio amateurs
ARLB064 FCC to open Gate 4

Christmas will arrive a bit early for General, Technician Plus, Technician and Novice Class hams. The FCC has announced that vanity call sign program Gate 4--the last vanity gate--will open December 2, 1997, for General, Tech Plus, Technician and Novice class hams to request a vanity call sign on or after that date. The potential number of applicants from these four licensee groups is huge--well over a half million hams.

Applicants may use either the electronic Forms 610V and 159 on the Web or hard-copy Form 610V and 159--but not both. Both versions--plus fact sheets and answers to frequently asked questions--are available at http://www.fcc.gov/wtb/amateur. The application fee is 50 dollars, payable by check (to ''FCC''), bank draft, money order or credit card. Do not send cash. The FCC gives processing priority to electronically filed Forms 610V for which the filing fee and Form 159 have been received. The FCC now requires all vanity filers to include a Form 159, which must be mailed to the FCC with your fee.

It's up to applicants to make sure that their applications do not arrive before December 2, 1997. The FCC will return all applications that arrive early. All other vanity call sign gates will remain open, and Amateur Extra and Advanced class operators continue to be eligible to file for vanity call signs under those filing gates.

Any call sign requested must be appropriate for the class of license you hold. This means that Technician, Tech Plus, and General class licensees may ask for a Group C (1x3) or D (2x3) call sign. Novice class licensees may only request Group D call signs.

Electronic filers must mail the Form 159 Fee Remittance Advice to FCC, Amateur Vanity, PO Box 358994, Pittsburgh, PA 15251-5994. The Form 159 and the fee must be received within 10 days of electronically filing your Form 610V or your application will be dismissed.

Those filing on document Forms 610V and 159 must mail the application package containing a completed Form 610V with a copy of your license attached, Form 159 and the proper fee in a sealed envelope to:

FCC
Amateur Vanity
PO Box 358924
Pittsburgh, PA 15251-5924.

Application packages via courier or delivered by hand must be prepared in the same way, sealed in a second, outer envelope, and addressed to:

Federal Communications Commission
c/o Mellon Bank
525 William Penn Way
27th Floor, Room 153-2713
Pittsburgh, PA 15259,
ATTN: Wholesale Lockbox Shift Supervisor.

This address should only be used for applications delivered by hand or courier.

Just a word of thanks to all of you that have contributed to the Salami Merchant over the past few months. This past month, I’ve been busy moving all our worldly possessions to a new house, and haven’t had a lot of time to devote to newsletter writing. All of you folks have been a great help!