April 2004
THE SQUELCH BURST
a monthly publication of the
STAMFORD AMATEUR RADIO ASSOCIATION
President .......… Fred Cunningham. ..... K1FC..
Vice Pres .…….. Bill Librandi ……….... KB1IFY
Secretary .....….. John Sabini ….....…... WB1GRB
Treasurer ...…... Dick Finn .….................WA1VUU
Trustee .......…... Jim Markus ... ............. N1ZFS
Editors .......…... Marv Fleischman ........ N1AWJ
Mike Cordelli ........... N1FOA
Dick Finn ..................WA1VUU
Y.O.J.B. Ed..…. Marv Fleischman ........ N1AWJ .
Circ/Pub..…...... Dick Finn ...................... WA1VUU
Repeaters: W1EE/R........ 146.055 in; 146.655 out (PL. 1Z, 100Hz)
W1EE/R.... 442.125 in; 447.125 out (PL. 2A, 114.8Hz)
PROGRAM FOR THE APRIL 2004 MEETING
The speaker for the April meeting will be Ms. Galicia Outes, American Red Cross Director of Emergency Services and Tom Lombardi, Director of Emergency Planning for the City of Stamford. Don't miss this most interesting and informative talk.
March Photos Of Meeting.
Internet Home Page at, http://www.qsl.net/ctsara.htm/
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.
TREASURER'S REPORT AS OF 14 MARCH, 2004
INCOME EXPENSE
Dues 245.00 Phone 24.87
Postage 37.00
________ ______
Totals $245.00 $61.87
Balances: Checking-$1,618.15 Savings-$1,515.44
de WA1VUU
SARA Minutes of the Meeting 3/4/04
Fred K1FC started the meeting at 8:00 pm.
Officers present: President Fred K1FC. Vice President Bill Lybrandi KB1IFY. Secretary John Sabini WB1GRB. Treasure Dick Finn WA1VUU.
We then went around the room so people could introduce themselves.
Marv N1AWJ then started with a series of reports.
Squelch Burst. ” If you need to make any additions or changes to the YE OLD JONQUE BOX contact me for publication in the club newsletter.
“We also need new articles. This is your newsletter so why not write an article related to Amateur Radio. Try to write an article that you feel other members would be interested in. We also need”Ask Elmer” questions desperately.” Marv will be editing the Squelch Burst this month. Any articles or correspondence contact Marv N1AWJ.
Al AG1B congratulated Marv on the “Ask Elmer” article in the February Squelch Burst. Where did the derivation of the word lid come from?
Marv talked about some of the terms that we use on ham radio. “It would be interesting for someone in our club to write an article on these terms, and where some of these words came from.”
Public Service: no Public Service events are scheduled this month.
VE Exam: Marv mentioned that the next VE exam would be Sat. May 8, 2004. They will be held on the fourth floor cafeteria of the Stamford Government Center on Tresser and Washington B'lvd's, Stamford CT. Check in is at 9:30 AM, and the examinations are at 10:00 AM.
More information at: www.qsl.net/w1ee/exams.htm
Repeater Report Marv N1AWJ. “As you know a 440 repeater was donated to the club. I have been working on the repeater. I have completely retuned the duplexer. It is an Icom RP-4020 repeater. It is a 25-watt unit. I had a problem with the ID audio not being heard. I could not find a service manual including contacting Icom. I finally found a bad solder joint. The repeater is now completely functional. When the weather is nice, we have to bring the repeater to the site. Then we need to move the 440 antenna to
the other end of the roof. Install the coax, check antenna and make final adjustments.” (Antenna brackets and mast are already installed.) Fred “Installing the coax, might be a little tricky. We need to go in-between some air ducks.”
Note: as of 3/17/04, the 440 repeater has been installed. Coax and antenna have not been installed.
Fred, “the old repeater cabinet has been removed from the hospital. The 2-meter squelch has been lowered and can be noisy at times.
Emergency, Marv: “we are part of the city emergency planning system and the Stamford Hospital is included. They must have Amateur Radio as part of their system. This is a federal mandate.”
Norwalk ARES nets are scheduled on the First Monday of each month at 8:00 PM. All Radio Amateurs are welcome, and encouraged to check into the net.
Frequencies for the Norwalk ARES Group are 147.390R, 448.075R - PL 114.8 and 147.420. Check web site for details, www.gnarc.org/
Echo Link, Fred has had some problems trying to get Echo Link working. As of 3/17/04, Fred is trying to get Echo Link working on 146.655. He has been having problems with audio break up.
Fred mentioned Batteries Plus. (from their web site)
Batteries Plus was the first company to respond to the evolving needs of the replacement battery marketplace. The Batteries plus Mission Statement is to solve our customers' battery problems with
availability, quality, service, and technical knowledge at an affordable price. This is accomplished by
Providing superior, quality products and services at value prices.
Listening and offering technical advice as appropriate.
Maintaining attractive, clean, and well-stocked stores.
Treating each customer with unequaled integrity and service.
Batteries Plus is located at, Route 7 Norwalk - Across from CT DMV,
next to Burger King. Web Site, www.batteriesplus.com/
Brief History of the Stamford Amateur Radio Club
Joe Leferson W1LUH. Joe talked about the early history of the SARA club. The club started in 1973, which is now 31 years old.
The organizers of the club were four people. Ken Spalding K1VXH, Jim Ferris WA1BQL, who lived in Banksville. (Part of Greenwich) Bruce Balog WA1FVZ, and Chuck Benacheck, he was a plumber by trade.
Allan Vacrackin, W1EE lived in Greenwich, he was a lawyer and incorporated our club free of charge. When he died, our club changed its call sign to W1EE in his memory.
SARA Voluntary Member Information Newsgroup
Returned email addresses. W1PC, John, AL AG1B & James N1NNG. You must unblock your e-mail and add, You will receive the newsletter each month on our e-mail safe membership web page. All e-mail address have been removed except the membership page.
If you have, any questions or if you would like to be on the mailing list call me at 353-8433.
We need your ideas and input. What activities would you like the club to participate in? We also need your help in organizing these activities as well as participating in them. How would you increase club membership? Communicate your ideas and comments to any of the board members or to the editors of the Squelch Burst. Your input is very important to the continuing health of the club.
Do not forget to check our club web site. www.qsl.net/w1ee/
J/S WB1GRB 3/7/04
ASK ELMER
Dear Elmer,
I remember the days of yore, when homebuilt gear was as common as commercial stuff. In this selection of plans were a number of one tube oscillator transmitters. Trouble was, you were rock bond because they were all crystal controlled. Seems these one bottle wonders were too unstable for anything else and, I think, generated spurious oscillations of its own. They could not be modulated either.
My question is, can I feed one of these with a VFO, either solid state or vacuum tube, thereby turning this into a Master Oscillator-Power Amplifier “MOPA” design. Would it be stable enough and not generate parasitics? What impedance matching would be involved?
How about mating an FET VFO with a vacuum tube final? How's this sound?
Signed “Mighty Mo”
Dear Mighty,
You pose some interesting questions, somewhat advanced for this column, but I will attempt to answer them in general terms. Many of the circuits that you describe were designed for the Novice class licensee of the time. At that time, a Novice class operator could only use a low powered crystal controlled transmitter (75 Watts input). Single tube transmitters, which produced 25 watts of power were simple to construct using receiving type vacuum tubes and get on the air. They became very popular with the amateur community.
At the time, one of the tuning procedures was to insert pilot lamp in series with the crystal and tune for maximum brightness. At the same time, a 40 Watt light bulb was used as a dummy load for the transmitter, and the vacuum tubes plate circuit was tuned until the lamp was at maximum brightness. As far as the generation of spurious signals, careful construction and proper design of the transmitter kept them at a minimum. Keep in mind that keying these one tube transmitters consisted literally turning on and off the
current through the tube by keying its cathode circuit. This generally produced a somewhat strange sounding CW (sort of a chirping sound in a receiver) signal as the signal had to build up in level every time the key was pressed.
Could they be modulated, yes they could using an external AM modulator. This would consist of another tube inserted in the transmitters plate circuit in series with the power supply. I would suggest you to look up “Plate Modulation” in any handbook covering AM transmitters. As time progressed, and the license structure changed, there were articles written for the construction of single tube VFO exciters to drive
these early transmitters. With respect to being able to drive these single tube transmitters with a solid state VFO, the answer is a qualified yes.
One way this could be done is to construct a transformer or other broadband matching network to transform 50 Ohms to the impedance of the vacuum tube grid's circuit. Generally this would be in the 500 to 2000 Ohm range. This is not a difficult task. You must now construct a solid state VFO which has a 50 Ohm output and is capable of generating about 1/2 to 1 watt of power. Many VFO's f the time, though constructed using vacuum tubes, were capable of generating this power level. I would imagine that a search of the amateur radio publications of the 1960's through the 80's would turn up several VFO exciter designs, both solid state and vacuum tube.
If you look at the evolution of the modern Transceiver, many early ones were all solid state except for the transmitter's driver and power amplifier stages. My first transceiver was a Yaesu FT101ZD, which used this design.
The main advantage of this design is that the transmitter was more tolerant of mismatch, as you could tune it to match a moderately wide variety of antenna load impedances. The advent of the broadband solid state transmitters with a fixed impedance output, required the use of the “Transmatch” to do this job.
Well Mighty, I hope you enjoy researching and constructing your transmitter. So few operators today take the time to build and operate “homebrew” rigs. Let us all know how it worked out. You can always write an article and share your experiences constructing and operating your own equipment.
73,
Elmer
Send your comments and questions to “ASK ELMER”, c/o Marv Fleischman, N1AWJ, PO Box 113, Ridgefield, CT 06877-0113 or e-mail.
Malicious Interference
Report Form
On the SARA web site, you will see “Malicious Interference Report Form.” This form will be used to report Malicious Interference within the Fairfield County area. Fill in the information in the text fields. This form will be e- mailed to Zig N1ICL. You can also bring this form to the next SARA meeting. This information is very important and will be forward to the appropriate repeater owners, trustees, etc.
Both Norwalk 147.390 and Stamford 146.655 have had malicious interference. This report may be forward to the FCC in the future, so consider placing as much detail as possible in your reports in an effort to help them as much as possible.
Note: If you are a repeater owner or trustee and would like to have your repeater listed, please send an email to Chris Southern W1CWS with repeater information and email address of trustee or owner. You will receive all reports from all links. You will need to add this link to your web site.
PROGRAM FOR THE APRIL 2004 MEETING
The speaker for the April meeting will be Ms. Galicia Outes, American Red Cross Director of Emergency Services and Tom Lombardi, Director of Emergency Planning for the City of Stamford. Don't miss this most interesting and informative talk.
Hello!
We'd like to invite you and your club members to join us in the New England QSO Party this year.
The 3rd running of the NEQP will be taking place on May 1st and 2nd this year.
Last year we had more than 250 entries from all across New England, most states and a number of foreign countries. This is a nice low pressure operating event where New England stations are the center of attention!
Please pass this message along to club members in your newsletter or at your
next meeting!
The full rules and other information is located here (and in an attached file)
http://www.neqp.org/
Certificates are awarded to anyone making more than 25 QSOs, and there are (so far) 26 very nice plaques to be awarded. The plaques include one for the top New England club score, as well as the top school club score.
A listing of all plaques and special awards is located here --> http://www.neqp.org/plaques.html
Let us know if your club would like to sponsor a plaque.
We also hope to field a lot of mobiles so we can cover all 67 New England
counties during the contest. Last year we had ten mobiles out across New
England. Whether you plan to be on from home or while mobile, please let us
know so we can update the Reserve Your County section and work to make sure
all counties are covered -- > http://www.neqp.org/ryc.html
Very 73!! Tom Frenaye/K1KI and Bob Hess/W1RH
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.
YE OLDE JONQUE BOXXX
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 cont. 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
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; Heathkit Station Monitor Mod. 614, $50. 2 South Bend 7.5 HP Go-Cart Engines. Call for Info. Call Irv, N1ATS, 348-3425 or e-mail.
2M 30W AMPLIFIER, $25; 6M Amplifier, 10W in 150W out, $175: AM6155 2M SSB Amplifier, 8930 Tube based, Cavity Tuned, 400 W Out (not cont. duty) $325. Call Andy, KA1SLG, (203) 531-9493
MFJ ANTENNA TUNER A-1 Cond. $100; Cushcraft R4 Ant , New, $25; ¼ ? Mag. Mt. Ant., $12; ? ? Mag. Mt. Ant, $15, ? ? Trunk Mt. Ant., $10; Measurements Grid Dip Meter, $25; HP Signal Gen.; $15; Code Pract. Mach., $15. Call Milt, K1DLT, (203) 324-2723
HYGAIN CD 45-II Rotator Control w/cable and manual. Call Frank, KA1NTG at (203) 655-7378
ICOM T8A HT w/slow charger & 2 extra Batt's., $119; Radio Shack HTX 242 2m 10/45W Mobile w/o mounting bkt., $60 Call Chris, N1YNO at (203) 359-0570 evenings
ESTATE SALE (N1CML) Yaesu FT-980 HF Xcvr, $475; Yaesu FT 726R 2M all mode Xcvr $325; Yaesu YS-60 SWR-Pwr Mtr, $50; Tram Reflectometer, $15; Azden PCS3000 2M Mobile w/o Mic, $25; HP5301 10 MHz Freq Ctr. $25; Eldorado 1615 30 MHz Freq Ctr., $25; AEA PK-88 Packet TNC, $35
Call Marv, N1AWJ, (203) 438-7889 or e-mail
Send all your ad's for YE OLDE JONQUE BOXXX to Marv Fleischman, N1AWJ, PO Box 113, Ridgefield, CT 06877. E-mail.
Ad's must be in by the meeting night of the month prior to the publication. (December meeting for January
publication)
06/15/2004