June 2002 THE SQUELCH BURST a monthly publication of the STAMFORD AMATEUR RADIO ASSOCIATION    www.qsl.net/w1ee/ctsara.htm                                                                                                                                         Have any questions: check out the SARA Bulletin Board.

President ........ Andy Laska .......... KA1SLG ........ 531-9493 Vice Pres ........ Fred Cunningham...... K1FC .......... 322-8274 Secretary ........ Mike Cordelli ....... N1FOA ......... 838-3661 Treasurer ........ Dick Finn ............WA1VUU ........ 323-0982 Trustee .......... Spence Heath ........ W1BWK.......... 322-7539 Editors .......... Marv Fleischman ..... N1AWJ ......... 438-7889 Mike Cordelli ....... N1FOA ......... 838-3661 Dick Finn ............WA1VUU ........ 323-0982 Y.O.J.B. Ed....... Marv Fleischman .... N1AWJ ......... 438-7889 Circ/Pub.......... Dick Finn ........... WA1VUU ........ 323-0982 Repeaters: W1EE/R........ 146.055 in; 146.655 out (PL. 1Z, 100Hz) W1EE/R.... 442.125 in; 447.125 out (PL. 2A, 114.8Hz) Internet Home Page at http://www.qsl.net/ctsara Yearly membership $20.00 ($ 15.00 for retirees, senior members over 62, $10.00 for full time students, members under 16 years of age and members living over 100 miles from Stamford; $20.00 for family memberships.) This includes a copy of the club bulletin and a copy of the club roster. Send your dues, membership applications, etc. to the club Treasurer, Dick Finn, WA1VUU, 27 Ivy St., Stamford CT 06902. Non-commercial ads are printed in the SQUELCH BURST on a no charge basis, club members only. Send your ads for Ye Olde Jonque Boxxx and articles for the SQUELCH BURST to Marv Fleischman, N1AWJ, P.O. Box 113, Ridgefield, CT 06877-0113. Unless noted, meetings are held on the first Thursday of every month in the 4th floor cafeteria of the Stamford Government Center, Tresser and Washington B'lvds., Stamford, CT. Meetings start at 8:00 P.M. Free parking in the Government Center garage with the entrance on Washington B'lvd. The Stamford Amateur Radio Association is a tax exempt organization under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue code.

EMPIRE SLOW SPEED NET Join the Empire Slow Speed CW Net every evening on 3590 KHz at 6PM local time. CW speed is between 6 and 8 wpm. A great way to improve your CW proficiency and learn net operation. Joe, W1LUH is one of the rotating Net Control stations.

TREASURER'S REPORT AS OF 12 MAY, 2002 INCOME EXPENSE Dues 80.00 Rptr. 72.16 50/50 6.00 Phone (move) 86.44 Donation 6.00 Postage 40.80 ______ ______ Totals $99.07 $199.40 Balances: Checking-$1,791.32 Savings-$3,948.72 De WA1VUU

Minutes from the May meeting:

New Members - Bill Libraudi - KBlIFY

Squelch Burst - Marv N1AWJ needs Ask Elmer questions.

VE- There was a session in May, the remaining sessions this year will be August 10 and November 9.

Interested in becoming a VE? Contact the ARRL VEC Licensed Extra or one of the Old Advanced are needed.

Public Service events - The Bennet Cancer walk will be June 2, and The Denmark Race will be in September. Emergency - Stamford is participating in the state wide drill May 10th There are several communications options, including going 2 meters to Jay Millard's in Darien, then 80 from there.

RFI - There is some pager noise at the site, Marv and Andy are working on it.

Technical - The 440 machine was being aligned, and space in the closet was an issue that is being resolved.

Field Day - This year we will be more experimental, building stuff, improvising antennas, using a TV antenna, etc. Please come to the June meeting with your ideas to make this work. Photos of SARA Field Day 2002.

We will be having a QRP solar station.

Mike KBlDXC - brought up the subject of CW lessons on a New York two meter machine. If you are interested in setting up something here let Mike know or any of the club officers and we will consider setting it up.

Dayton stories and images over at http://www.cordelli.info/dayton02/

Mike, N1FOA

ASK ELMER Dear Elmer, What useful things can be done with an Oscilloscope in the ham shack and also building, diagnosing and checking equipment. Signed C. R. O'Scope Dear CR, To continue our discussion about Oscilloscopes that started in the May issue of the Squelch Burst, we will start by discussing how to read the screen display. It is not difficult to interpret the screen display, but if you are a first time or casual user, these instructions will help you to avoid any errors in interpretation. Please refer to the diagram of a screen display below. In the most common use of the instrument, the vertical screen axis represents the voltage and the horizontal screen axis represents time in units or subunits of the second. This permits you to obtain quite a bit of information about the waveform being measured . ( CRO Screen drawing here) The measurement would be "Y" volts per division vertically and "X" nano, micro, milliseconds horizontally. With this representation you can easily measure the frequency of the waveform. This is done by measuring the time indicated from one peak of the display to the next one in seconds. This is the period of the waveform, therefore the frequency is obtained by dividing the period into 1 (calculating its reciprocal). The front panel control on the instrument permit you to adjust the horizontal resolution (this is called the sweep rate) to some convenient value for the measurement. By refining the measurement, you can even obtain the frequencies of some of the components of a complex waveform, such as an amplitude modulated RF signal. The vertical measurement is the peak to peak voltage measurement. You use the vertical gain control, calibrated in volts per division to adjust the trace to be easily read on the screen. Generally you would like a display of at least 50% of the screens graduations. If the signal is a very good sine wave, pulse, square wave or other simple geometric shape, you can easily determine its DC component, peak and RMS value, by using the appropriate arithmetic relationships. As an example, if the waveform was a good sine wave, the peak value would be 1/2 the peak to peak, and the RMS value would be 0.707 x the peak value. To measure the DC component of the waveform, you first disconnect the vertical input of the oscilloscope from the circuit being measured. Set the vertical input switch to DC response. Use the vertical positioning control to position the trace (which will be a straight horizontal line) to the horizontal center line on the screen. This represents 0 Volts. Reconnect the oscilloscope to the circuit and determine if the trace is non symmetrical about the center line. The offset about the center line is the DC component. As you are measuring an electrical signal, you do not want to influence the circuit by the act of doing the measurement. The term used is circuit loading. You want to minimize circuit loading during measurement. There are two primary elements which load a circuit. They are resistance and capacitance. To minimize the effects of these elements, a high resistance-low capacity probe is used in conjunction with the oscilloscope. Most of the probes reduce the capacitive loading by 80% and the resistive loading by 90%. It is always recommended that you use one of these probes when using the oscilloscope, unless the impedance of the circuit under test is so low that the loading of the oscilloscope can be ignored. The probe resistance effects all frequencies (DC included), whereas the effect of the probes capacitance increases with increasing frequency. To properly use the probe, you must calibrate it on the Oscilloscope that it is being used with. Calibration is quite easily done. On the Oscilloscope there is a calibration test jack. This outputs a square wave with at a known amplitude. Connect the probe to this point and adjust the Vertical Gain of the instrument to display 4 divisions or more of the square wave and the sweep speed to display 2 or 3 cycles of the waveform. The Oscilloscope vertical input must be set to DC response. On the probe, there is either a screwdriver adjustment hole (compensating screw) or the probe itself can be adjusted by turning the probe body (older Tektronix probes). Adjust the "compensating screw" in the probe so that the top of the square wave is as flat and parallel to the gradicle as possible. The next step is to adjust the vertical gain calibration control, until the peak to peak voltage as read on the screen corresponds to the marked calibration voltage. Your Oscilloscope and probe combination is now calibrated, so that any measurement that you make is relatively accurate. There is yet more to write about the Oscilloscope, but the references listed in last months "Ask Elmer" do a much better job than I possibly can in these short articles. Continued on Page 7 ASK ELMER cont. I do hope that these very brief articles were of help to you in using your Oscilloscope. It is an extremely versatile measuring instrument whose in which new uses are still being developed. 73, Elmer Send your questions to "ASK ELMER", c/o Marv Fleischman, N1AWJ, PO Box 113, Ridgefield, CT o6877-0113 or e-mail

POSSIBLE NEW AMATEUR RADIO BANDS

The following report is directly from the ARRL Letter for the week of May 19, 2002.

The ARRL Letter , Vol. 21, No. 20, May 17, 2002

FCC RELEASES DETAILS OF 5 MHz, 136 kHz AND 2400-2402 MHz PROPOSALS

The FCC has released the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in ET Docket 02-98, which proposes to create new amateur allocations at 5 MHz and 136 kHz and to elevate the status of Amateur Radio at 2400 to 2402 MHz from secondary to primary. In response to separate petitions filed by the ARRL, the FCC voted unanimously May 2 to adopt the NPRM in ET Docket 02-98. The Commission announced in a Public Notice released May 9 that it would propose a new, secondary, domestic (US-only) HF allocation at 5.25 to 5.4 MHz and a new LF allocation 135.7 to 137.8 kHz. If eventually approved, the 5 MHz band would be the first new HF allocation since the early 1980s, when amateurs got 30, 17 and 12 meters. The LF allocation would be the first ever for US hams. The FCC said it received 87 comments on the 5 MHz proposal and 32 comments on the LF proposal. "We agree with ARRL that propagation and interference conditions in the 3500 kHz and 7000 kHz bands could hinder effective amateur HF communications," the FCC said in its NPRM. "In particular, as ARRL indicates, the nature of the ionosphere prevents communications during certain portions of the day because of increased atmospheric noise levels at certain times on certain frequencies." The FCC said ARRL's WA2XSY experimental operation "appears to support its contention" that the band could supplement 80 and 40 meters at certain times. The FCC has proposed letting amateurs operate at full legal limit on a new 5 MHz allocation, but it left open for further discussion whether to restrict the band to Amateur Extra Class licensees or make it available to General and higher class licensees. The FCC also invited further comment on whether the band should be broken down into mode-specific sub bands. The ARRL had proposed opening the entire band to RTTY, data (including CW), phone and image emission types. Assuming the 5-MHz band eventually is authorized, it could be a few years before it actually becomes available. The band 5.250 to 5.450 MHz now is allocated to Fixed and Mobile services on a co-primary basis in all three ITU regions. On 136 kHz, the FCC has proposed mirroring technical limits suggested by Canada during World Radio communication Conference 2003 preparations to 1 W effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and with a transmission bandwidth of only 100 Hz. The ARRL has asked for than 2 W EIRP and a maximum transmitter power of 200 W PEP. The FCC proposed no restrictions on antenna size or design, saying it did not want to inhibit experimentation by hams. It proposed to limit access to the band to General and higher-class licensees, as ARRL had proposed. The FCC said it was reluctant to also propose allocating an amateur band at 160 to 190 kHz--as ARRL had requested--because of concerns about possible interference to unlicensed power line carrier (PLC) systems in that band. The FCC noted it had turned down a 1978 ARRL petition for the same reason. The FCC said ARRL's request to upgrade the 2400-2402 MHz band "has merit." It did not propose any changes in service rules or operational requirements. The NPRM is available on the FCC Web site <http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-02-136A1.doc>. The FCC is expected to soon make this proceeding available for comments filed via its Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). Visit the ECFS site <http://www.fcc.gov/e-file/ecfs.html>, click on "Search for Filed Comments" and enter "02-98" in the "Proceeding" field.

YE OLDE JONQUE BOXXX    Also check the SARA & GNARC Message Board.

ICOM IC-2AT 2m HT w/Charger, Batty., & SS-32MP micro-min. CTCSS Encoder kit, VGC, $100; Simpson 260 VOM, VGC, $50. Call Geoff, N1CAT, (203) 966-7444 evenings

HALLICRAFTER SX-28A RECEIVER, recapped, $275. Works good. Call Joe, N1GWO, (203) 322-4061 Evenings

PARTS GALORE- Xerox 3000 Word Processor (antique) w/transformer, p/s, etc., connection to Diablo printer. FOR FREE!!! Take it away! Call Mike, KA1VWP, (203) 838-8089

AOR 1000 XLT, 1000 Channel HH Scanner, 5KHz to 1.3 GHz continuous coverage. Exc. cond. $ 275. Call Rick, N1LYK, (203) 531-1756

YAESU FT-757 GXII, HF Rig, FP 757 HD Power Supply, FC 757 AT Tuner and MD 1B8 Desk Mike. Call George, N1HIX, (203) 357-1879

Mac Laserwriter printer, best offer. Call Jeanine, KY1Q, (203) 324-6865

ICOM IC-02AT 2M HT w BP-3, BP-5 & BP-8 Batty Packs, BC30 Charger, Spkr-Mic, Manual, $125 obo. FatMac Computer w/ 1Meg Ram, Free!!! FOR PARTS..Olevetti Accounting Machine. FREE!!!!! Take it away!!! Call Marv, N1AWJ, (203) 438-7889

HD-73 ROTOR w/CONTROL & CABLE, $50; Cushcraft 10-40M Vert. Ant., $15; Ringo Ranger 2M Antenna, $10; Heathkit Station Monitor Mod. 614, $50. Machinist's Tools for Sale, 2 South Bend 7.5 HP Go-Cart Engines. Lots of Tools, Hardware and Craft supplies, etc. Call for Info. Call Irv, N1ATS, 348-3425

2M 30W AMPLIFIER, $25; 6M Amplifier, 10W in 150W out, $175 Call Andy, KA1SLG, (203) 531-9493

Send all your ad's for YE OLDE JONQUE BOXXX to Marv Fleischman, N1AWJ, PO Box 113, Ridgefield, CT 06877. E-mail to.  Ad's must be in by the meeting night of the month prior to the publication. (December meeting for January publication)

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