Ham Radio/Ham Radio CD-ROM (Emerald Software) (1995).ISO/news/inham05/853

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INFO-HAMS Digest            Wed,  8 Nov 89       Volume 89 : Issue 853

Today's Topics:
                       ALUMINIUM TOWERS-CRACKS
                         A pair of requests!!
              are QSL cards really necessary for awards?
                  Guest operators for direct QSLing
                             IF Filters?
         INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING ?INT. RELS ACAD. CONTACT
                   Kenwood RZ-1 Wide Band Receiver
             Letter from the FCC: 20M Maritime Mobile Net
                             short raves
                      SW frequencies list wanted
                      TAPR 9600 PacketRadios ??
                     Unknown satellite on 432.875
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 89 20:42:42 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpscdc![e-mail]  (Rick Karlquist)
Subject: ALUMINIUM TOWERS-CRACKS

I remember reading an article talking about masts to mount
beams to a tower.  It said that you could design an aluminum
mast that, according to theoretical calculations, was stronger
and lighter than an equivalent steel mast (although perhaps
thicker walled).  But then it went on to say that the
aluminum mast will work fine for a while until it
becomes brittle and suddenly "crystalizes."  At that point
your christmas tree comes down.  The article strongly
recommended *against* aluminum for structural members,
if steel could be used instead.  Perhaps this is also
a bad omen for aluminum towers.

Rick N6RK

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 08 Nov 89 08:19:53 EST
From: bill gunshannon <[e-mail]>
Subject: A pair of requests!!

I have two requests today.  One directly related to ham radio and the
other only of minor interest but I'm sure someone here can help me.

#1:   Is there anywhere online that the VEC question pool is kept?
      My daughter is going to have her NOVICE real soon now and I
      would like her to go straight ahed for at least a TECH but
      hopefully her GENERAL.  And being as I am spending a lot of
      time working with the code to get her thru this I am even
      considering going after my EXTRA just for the fun of it.

#2:   Can anyone point me to any articles online or not that discuss
      the effects of extremely strong magnetic fields on the human
      body??  I know research has been done recently and although
      I didn't pay a lot of attention to it before (I don't live near
      any big power lines) I have been asked about it recently because
      of a situation here at work.  Apparently they rea arranged some
      offices and now we have a person sitting on the opposite side of
      a wall from an ~25KVA transformer.  The immediate effects are that
      her PC monitor is trashed by the magnetic field and when ever she
      sits at here desk the amount of static electricity in the air makes
      her hair stand up (like the old experiment with the VanDeGraff
      generator).  I think a field that strong warrants some investigation.
      A call to NIOSH didn't reveal any concrete information other than
      their oppinion that the transformer should not be located inside the
      building.

Any help will be, as always, greatly appreciated.

KB3YV

                                          bill gunshannon
                                       [e-mail]


------------------------------

Date: 8 Nov 89 16:50:49 GMT
From: agate!shelby!csli![e-mail]  (Goh Kawai)
Subject: are QSL cards really necessary for awards?

Will writes:

> If a "fill-in-the-blanks" generic QSL card is good enough for whatever
> purposes you want the card for, why not just fill in the blanks yourself and
> make up your own card if the other guy is too picayune to respond to your
> request, after you've tried once with a SASE?

Now here's something to think about.  This is the way I feel:

*  I'm not sure whether sending and receiving QSL cards is an inseperable act
   from the actual contact itself.  There are other ways to confirm a contact
   asides from receiving a QSL card.
*  I don't want to forge contacts.
*  If getting a QSL card is too much of a hassle, then I might as well forget
   the award, and work somebody instead.

Say, for example, you tape-record all your contacts.  Then, by
listening to your tape-recordings, anybody can verify you have indeed
worked the stations you have claimed to have worked.  There would be
no need for obtaining QSL cards.

Likewise, an honest person can simply enter the contact in his logbook.
Awards bring nothing but personal satisfaction to begin with, so there
is little reason to cheat.  I wish awards were given out using the honor
system.  Brings back some humbleness into the hobby, doesn't it?

Many award issuing organizations require possesion of QSL cards.  I
interpret this as a requirement for objective proof of the contact.
It so happens it is the least bothersome to validate from the award
issuing organization's point of view.  Unfortunately, getting the QSL
cards seems to be as difficult as getting the contact itself.  It
appears that the integrity of the award is being maintained at the
expense of time and effort of its applicants.

If an award is given to people who are not only capable of working a
set of stations, but also managing to obtain QSL cards from them,
that's fine.  But such requirements should be explicitly stated in the
award requirements.  Most awards state that they require proof of the
contact in the form of QSL cards.  The first half of this proof
requirement is fine; the second half is debateable, because it means
that the applicant is measured by a scale that is not deeply connected
with the actual contact itself, but by a scale that measures an action
that is separate from the contact.  In other words, you find that to
qualify for an award that is given to people who work, say, a hundred
DXCC countries, you not only need to work them, but you need to get
QSL cards back, which means that that award is actually given to
people who know both how to work people on the air and through the
mail.

I love sending and receiving QSL cards - my room is plastered with
them - but feel it's a hassle securing QSL cards to qualify for a
reward after you've worked them.  If DXCC plaques are given out only
to those who work people once on the air and once on the ground, then
so be it.  Unfortunately, this diminishes my enthusiasm for DXCC
awards somewhat.  I can still work countries, and say that although I
haven't got a card from many of them, I have worked over a hundred.
This is what I have been doing, and I suspect there are a lot of
covert DXers like me - quite possibly much more than those who
actually claim awards.

Bottom line is this: if awards require QSL cards, I will not forge
cards to get that award, but I may not try very hard to get QSL cards
back, either.  I hate forgeries and can't spend extra time and money
on what I view as an optional task.

(In fact, since QSL cards cost so much and major awards signify
substantial investment on part of the receipient, they should do away
with QSL requirements, and ask for an application fee that would
be used to support QSL bureaus in DX countries, so that everybody
can start getting cards if they want to!  Kidding here...)

>goh<
([e-mail] [arpanet]) (76056,1726 [CompuServe]) (n6uok [radio])

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 89 08:02:43 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Guest operators for direct QSLing

List of recent operators of W3LPL (single op contests):

1988 SSB SPRINT        WB2EKK
1988 IARU HF        WB3JRU
1988 SSB SS        K3ZZ
1988 ARRL 160M        WA8MAZ
1988 ARRL 10M       WA8MAZ
ALL RTTY CONTESTS    W3EKT

All have the logs for the contest they worked, and will QSL one hunnert
percent.


------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 89 21:10:23 GMT
From: hpda!hpcuhb!hpscdc![e-mail]  (Rick Karlquist)
Subject: IF Filters?

Order your filter as a replacement part for a
tranceiver.  Most all of the commonly available
HF transceivers have a 40 to 70 MHz. "roofing"
filter for the first IF, which is usually 20
kHz. wide.

Also, TOKO (Mt. Prospect, Ill.) just announced
an 82 MHz. SAW filter for cellular radio
first IF's.  You should be able to buy small
quantities of them.

Rick N6RK

------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 89 09:08:56 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!tcdcs!csvax1.cs.tcd.ie!swift.cs.tcd.ie!vax1.tcd.ie![e-mail]
Subject: INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING ?INT. RELS ACAD. CONTACT

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I am currently researching a PhD in Political Science (Int. Rels) on the
politics of international HF broadcasting and the global HF spectrum regime,
with particular reference to the HF WARCs of the 1980's.
I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE ANY EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE WITH US OR CANADIAN
ACADEMICS WORKING IN ANY RELATED AREA, OR, WITH EMPLOYEES OF INT. BROADCASTING
ORGANIZATIONS.

E#SPECIALLY  INTERESTED IN  DIALOGUE WITH ACADEMICS FAMILIAR W/ IR THEORY ON
INTERNATIONAL REGIMES...(IE. arising from body of literature in INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATION over past few years and represented by writers such as Robert
Keohane, Stephen Krasner, John Gerard Ruggie etc.).
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
DEREK LYNCH : C/O DEPT. OF POLITICAL SCIENCE : TRINITY COLLEGE : DUBLIN 2 :
         IRELAND
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
               PS: I do quiite a bit of bHF radio  monitoring
 using  a Drake R7A
 (0-30 MHz) communications receiver.

------------------------------

Date: 8 Nov 89 15:34:47 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!usc!merlin.usc.edu!girtab.usc.edu![e-mail]  (Cliff Yamamoto)
Subject: Kenwood RZ-1 Wide Band Receiver

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eric Benson) writes:
>
>Does anyone have any
>personal experience with this unit, or knowledge of other reviews that
>have been published?  Does anyone know of any competing units, or
>whether Kenwood has a follow-on product planned?

I was seriously going to buy one several months back.  So serious in fact
that I drove over to Kenwood (only about a 10 minute drive) and I bought
the RZ-1 service manual.

Well me and my friends just critiqued the thing to death.  Everything above
30 Mhz is handled by a modified cable TV front end.  Yep, just one of them
varactor tuners!  There are about 4-5 separate front ends for the shortwave
stuff.  Again, not a very impressive design.

Don't think about modifying it unless you like toying with surface-mount
parts.  Also someone else who did buy one said the front panel bulbs burned
out in about a month.  Very hard to get to and replace.

If you want more technical stuff, let me know.  I've got a $10 manual for
a radio I'll never buy.

Cliff Yamamoto
KA6JRG

------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 89 23:21:50 GMT
From: cadnetix.COM!cadnetix![e-mail]  (Rusty Carruth)
Subject: Letter from the FCC: 20M Maritime Mobile Net

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Clay Jackson) writes:
...
>  I have no doubt that the FCC will (eventually) act,
>and that the majority of hams WILL NOT LIKE the action they eventually
>take.

I'm afraid you've got the nail right on the head there.

>My view of the FCC is sorta like a sleeping bear who's letting
>letting you borrow a part of HIS cave.
>...take the toys away from BOTH of you, so NOBODY wins.

It seems that thats the way the FCC appears to think of it too, at times.

>Clay Jackson
>(Reaching for nomex longjohns)

I hope you won't need them...

In any case, my questions are - what can we do about it now?

and, How can we avoid getting the FCC awake next time?

(OR at least how can we keep from getting the FCC wide awake.
It sounds to me like *some* of the activity on the nets *might*
(PLEASE note the highly qualified nature of this statement!) be
illegal.  It also seems to me that, regardless of the legality
of the patches/3rd party traffic, the responses of the hams who
jammed were also illegal.  In any case, it would be nice if we
had a place to turn with authority somewhere between the FCc and
individual hams.  Something like binding arbitration?  I dunno, just
thinking  out loud - a dangerous activity on the net, for sure!
Anyway, my question is - how to solve problems like this one
without getting the FCC quite so involved?  Ideas?)


Enough raving for now, time for the nomex longies.... :-)

---Join the usenet un-net, 28.410 and/or 28.390, 1600Z to 1700Z saturdays!
Rusty Carruth.                  Radio: N7IKQ              ^^ or later :-)
DOMAIN: [e-mail]      UUCP:{uunet,boulder}!cadnetix!rusty
home: POB. 461, Lafayette 80026

------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 89 23:01:35 GMT
From: vsi1!daver!lynx![e-mail]  (Neal Woodall)
Subject: short raves

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

[stuff about various portable shortwave radios....]

>........This new Panasonic RFB-65 sounds good and I think you can find it
>for $200, but I may be wrong

The EEB lists is as 259 $ (from memory). I recently looked at one of these
up close, and spent about two hours playing around with it at Quement's (a
South Bay electronics/ham store). I decided not to buy it. "Why?", you ask...
I was impressed with the RF performance of the radio, but I thought the
"human interface" sucked.

There is a dial on the front with two speed settings, "fast" and "slow"....
the frequency increments chosen by "fast" and "slow" depend on the band that
you are in: for the MW band (AM) the increments are 10 KHz for "fast" and
1 KHz for slow, for the SW band the increments are 5 KHz for "fast" and
1 KHz for "slow", etc. So far, so good.....however, the dial itself is
"wombly" and doesn't feel substantial. Also, if you rotate the dial fast,
the frequency display "lags"....I suspect that the internal microprocesor is
not quite fast enough to keep up with the number of pulses put out by the
frequency knob when it is spun fast.

Also, there are frequency "up" and "down" buttons on the front of the radio.
Each push of one makes the frequency jump up or down by an ammount that
depends on the setting of the "fast" and "slow" switch associated with the
frequency knob. Now, I would intuitively expect that if you held either of
the "up" or "down" buttons down, the frequency would change until you let
up on the button. Well, it does NOT work like this. If you hold either of
the buttons down, the radio goes into "scan" mode, and continues to run
up or down until it finds an active frequency. This would not be bad if
the unit had a squelch control, but it does NOT! The end result is that
the radio in scan mode keeps stopping on noisy frequencies....very annoying!

In all, the radio has good RF selectivity and sensitivity.....however, the
poor human interface turned me off so much I decided to not buy the RFB 65.
I did not like using the radio because of the human interface, and I decided
that I probably would not get much use out of something that I did not enjoy
using. All in all, another case of piss-poor human engineering ruining
what would have otherwise been a great product!

Now, SONY makes a radio called the ICF 2003 that is about the same price
and size as the RFB 65.....does anyone have any reports on this radio? I
am still in the market for a good, nice-to-use portable shortwave radio.
I am looking for a store that sells the ICF 2003....does anyone know of
a store in the South Bay area that sells the SONY ICF 2003? I would like to
get "hands on" before I decide to buy.......






Neal

------------------------------

Date: 7 Nov 89 20:11:59 GMT
From: portal!atari![e-mail]  (Mike Nowicki)
Subject: SW frequencies list wanted

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John McVey) writes:
>I have a SONY 2001 Radio and like to listen to shortwave.  However,
>I don't know what frequencies to listen to, so I usually spend most
>of the time just hunting around.  I bought the Radio Shack (no flames
>please) guide to shortwave listening and was disappointed.  Is there
>a good listing of SW stations out there somewhere.  I would think the
>list should be posted to this group.  It should have broad interest.
>

  Get a copy of Monitoring Times. Each month they have a very long listing
of English language SW stations audible in the U.S.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Michael Nowicki   N6LUU      Atari Corp,Sunnyvale CA      {ames!atari!mn} |
|............................................................................|
|  char *disclaimer="Views expressed are my own, not my employer's";         |
|  char *good_quote="  'Nyuk,nyuk,nyuk,nyuk,nyuk'  -  Curly Howard";         |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 08 Nov 89 07:43:41 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: TAPR 9600 PacketRadios ??

Does anyone know the status of the TAPR 9600 baud radio/modem
project??  The original description made those things sound
attractive.  Also, as I recall they could be used to creat a full
duplex node.  Another question, do THEY have to be tuned in pairs or
are they non-critical?

[e-mail] 128.104.198.10
608-262-2747  Days

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 89 09:04:11 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Unknown satellite on 432.875

The satellite is probably not Polar Bear.  Polar Bear (for Polar
Beacon Experiment and Auroral Research) is a modified U.S. Navy
Navigation Satellite System (Transit) satellite that hung in the
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum for about 8 years (I have a slide I
took to prove it) before being refurbished for launch. The transmitting
frequencies are believed to be about the same as those used by the
Transit system plus an L-band channel.  Frequencies are probably
149.981, 399.962, and around 1575 MHz.

I believe that both the Kettering Group and the Dallas Remote Imaging
Group are trying to determine which satellite is actually transmitting
on 432.875 MHz.


Richard B. Langley                BITnet:  [e-mail] or [e-mail]
Assoc. Prof.                      Phone:   [phone]
Geodetic Research Laboratory      Telex:   014-46202
Dept. of Surveying Engineering    FAX:     [phone]
University of New Brunswick
Fredericton, N.B., Canada
E3B 5A3

------------------------------

End of INFO-HAMS Digest V89 Issue #853
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