April 2002
THE SQUELCH BURST
a monthly publication of the
STAMFORD AMATEUR RADIO ASSOCIATION
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.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, or e-mail to .
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 15
MARCH, 2002
INCOME
EXPENSE
Dues 145.00
Phone 17.13
Int. 7.24 `
________
_______
Totals $152.24
$17.13
Balances: Checking-$1,668.13 Savings-$3,937.76
De WA1VUU
MINUTES OF THE MARCH MEETING
Guests: Bill, and Frank from the Novice Class
New Members - Marshall, KB1HMD
Upgrades - Mike (KB1DXC) to Extra,
Committee Reports - Marv, N1AWJ will be doing this
edition of the
newsletter. If you have any stories you would like to
see in the
newsletter, please get them to Marv (I should talk, I've
had one since last
April).
Upcoming Public Service Events - In rough order - The
Bennett Cancer Walk, Sunday June 2, The Stamford Mayors
Cup Yacht Race, Sunday June 9th, Chase Corporate
Challenge (The Chase people have posted their dates for
the race without a date in Stamford, so there may not be
one this year), and the Stamford Denmark Yacht Race on
the 8th of September. We have only been in contact with
the Stamford Denmark Yacht race people so far, the rest
are based on previous year's activities.
VE - Next Session - May 11th at Government Center. 9:30
check in, 10:00
start. If interested in becoming a VE please sign up if
you need
information on how to sign up contact Marv, N1AWJ (page
2 for contact
details). To become a VE all you have to do is sign up,
read the book they
send, and take an open book exam to return.
RFI - There was some discussion about the Danbury
machine being on a
frequency pair so close to ours that both machines are
being brought up at
times.
Website - John, WB1GRB reported the website has been
moved to QSL.net, which is both faster, and uses front
page ext's.
Education - The class was started on the 12th of Feb,
with 5 students, and
is progressing nicely.
Repeater Move - Andy, KA1SLG and Spence, W1BWK have met
with the people to confirm the details of the move of
the machine from their present location on top of Saint
Joseph Medical Center's old building to their new home on
top of Stamford Hospital. If you are interested in
Helping out, please drop Andy a note at the contact
information on page 2. Time is running out as they will
soon be tearing down the building at Saint Joseph's.
Mike, N1FOA
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
It looks like the long awaited repeater move is finally
going to happen. I have met and talked with the
electrician at Stamford Hospital's West Broad street
facility and we have a room to put the repeater in, full
back up power and, a phone line. They're working on
preparing the room for us, removing mechanical
equipment, cutting holes through walls for conduit
routing and installing power and phone lines.
The new site is about the same height above sea
level as the roof top of the buildings on Strawberry Hill
but, the vista from the roof of west broad street is
unimpaired for a full 360 degrees. It will be interesting
to see what kind of coverage the repeater will have now
that we don't have to deal with the rf noise and
radiation pattern deformities coming from the Regency
towers. There will still be dead spots after the move but
they will be in different places then where they are now.
I suspect the coastal Greenwich west of the Mianus river
to about Grass Island may need to run a little more power
to get into the machine but once you get some altitude
from these river basins, everything should be fine with a
rubber duckie and half a watt. Coverage along the I95
corridor should be improved and coverage along the
Merritt Parkway may suffer but who knows. With the
bouncing around that RF does we may end up with rock
solid coverage up to the Hamden tunnels, we'll just have
to wait and see what we get. Hopefully we won't need to
shade our radiation pattern towards Cape Cod or off
towards New jersey to protect those repeaters that we
share the frequency with.
We will need help with the move. I would like to
get the antennas and feed lines in place before the
repeater gets removed from the old site. We have spare
antennas for the 2m rf control link and 440 repeater, and
we have hardline and coax to do the feed line runs. We
need brackets to mount the masts for the three antennas
to the wall, the masts, and the nuts and bolts to put it
all together. Hopefully we can start working on this
sometime during the week of March 10. Watch the club web
site for more information on when the machine will be
down and if you would like to be involved in the move
call or email me.
Andy KA1SLG
ASK ELMER
Dear Elmer,
What are various ways to bring in a ground to the shack
from the outside? Number, size, pattern of multiple
ground rods? Size of wire and grounding strip in shack.
Can you tie in other parts of the house with water pipes,
radiators, etc.?
Signed, Rock Solid
Dear Rock,
Many books have been written in answer to your question,
and undoubtedly many more will be. It would be
impossible to cover the subject in any great depth in
this column, but I will attempt to give you some general
hints and point you in the direction of obtaining more
complete information. There are two primary functions
for grounding. The first is for safety, both from power
line problems and for lightning protection. The second
is to secure a good RF return for your radio(s) and
antenna system. My own personal rule is that "bigger is
better", which means the larger the gauge of the
conductors in a ground system, the better off you are.
With that statement I am getting ahead of myself. First
let us consider your station in the "Shack". All of the
radios should be grounded together. I would recommend a
Copper grounding strip at least 4 inches wide behind your
equipment. Many Hams cover the back half of their
operating positions with sheet Copper flashing, and rest
their equipment upon it. All of the radios are then
connected to this grounding strip using 1/2 or 3/4 inch
copper braid. A good source for this braid is to remove
the braid from some Good Quality (Not Radio Shack) RG 8/u
cable. Let us consider grounding for power line
protection. This is probably the least troublesome
grounding procedure. In most instances, a heavy wire (8
gauge is generally sufficient) from the grounding strip
to the house ground near the power company's "service
drop" coming into the house. This point is chosen since
it is the ground for your house. A secondary choice
would be a "sweat" Copper cold water pipe, connected
directly to your water main. Do not rely upon pipes
which are threaded together, as plumbers use "compound
and wicking" or Teflon seal at the pipe joints, making
them poor conductors. A third choice would be to drive an
8 foot ground rod into the earth, as close as possible to
where the power comes into the house. For lightning
protection, a simple connection using a single 4 or 6
gauge wire to the house ground would be sufficient. I am
not considering tower or antenna lightning protection
within the scope of this article. That would have to be
an article unto itself. I would strongly recommend that
you check the grounding of all of your outlets. Many
times the house wiring is not what it is "cracked up to
be". The use of the aluminum ground wire in use in many
homes, has oxidized and makes a poor connection with the
ground connection at the outlet or junction boxes. This
should be corrected by the use of an anti-oxidizing
compound on the wires before the connection is secured.
The RF grounding of the shack is somewhat less critical.
The I say that because the critical RF grounding
generally takes place near the antenna in the form of a
counterpoise, ground rod array or other low impedance
(hopefully) connection to the earth. This too is beyond
the scope of this short article. This is not to imply
that you need not RF ground your equipment. What I
personally recommend is the use of 1/2 inch or wider
copper braid from the equipment ground connection through
the nearest window to an 8 foot ground rod driven as
close as possible to the shack into the earth. The
shorter the path for this ground the more effective it
will be. If it is more convenient, the braid can be
connected to the house water main near its entrance to
the building. There is a lot more that can be said
about grounding, and I will recommend the following
resources to further your knowledge:
ARRL, "Handbook for the Radio Amateur", ARRL pub.
On the internet:
www.lightningsafety.com
www.lightning.org
ARRL Technical Information Service page on Grounding on
the ARRL.org website
www.arrl.org/tis/info/grounding.html
This information should provide you with a good
"grounding" on grounding your shack and equipment.
Until our next earthy discussion,
73,
Elmer
Send your questions to "ASK ELMER", c/o Marv Fleischman,
N1AWJ, PO Box 113, Ridgefield, CT 06877-0113 or e-mail
them to.
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.
SARA SLOW SPEED CW NET
SARA will soon have its own Slow Speed CW net. It will
be held on the SARA 2 M FM Repeater (146.655/.055) on
Sundays at 9 PM following the SARA informal Phone net at
8 PM. Watch for the official announcement of its start.
CW will be transmitted using tone modulated FM.
MESSAGE FROM BETSEY DOANE, K1EIC
ARRL CT SECTION MANAGER
Congratulations to Jim, N1NNG on having served your club
for eight years as president! I know that Jim and Kit
have both done a great deal of work to keep the club
active and fun-filled! Thank you both for your work on
behalf of Amateur Radio in Connecticut.
And thanks to you all for continuing to work together
and learn about our hobby. It is good to see some
technical work being done within the club itself.
I am thrilled that Joe, W1LUH is NCS on the Empire Slow
Speed Net. I remember the founders--Ruth, WA2VYS,
Dorcas, WA2VYT and of course Pete, W2WSS. If that is the
net that had training messages for traffic handlers, I am
looking for that set of messages. If anyone comes across
them, let me know.
I am attempting to keep up with the Connecticut Section
space on ARRL's Web Page and update it just about every
week, usually late Sunday evening. So watch for current
news there.
Enjoy the weather!--73--Betsey, K1EIC SM
YE OLDE JONQUE BOXXX
ICOM IC-2AT 2m HT w/Charger, Batty., & SS-32MP micor-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
ICOM IC-25A 25W , 2M mobile Xcvr. w/PL, good for packet
$75 obo.
ICOM IC-02AT with BP-5 and BC-30 charger, Exc. Cond.
$120 obo.
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
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
QST on CD ROM. 1989 to 1994 Unopened-$20
Call Dick, WA1VUU, (203) 323-0982
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)