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December marks our annual membership renewal drive. If you’re a current member, it’s time to send in your membership dues again. Prices are the same as always, Full or Associate $18; Student $12; Family Membership $24. Membership is for the full calendar year from January to January. This year, I’m including a return envelope along with your membership renewal card already filled out. All you have to do is check the mailing information and correct anything that’s wrong, include a signed check made out to Portland Amateur Radio Club. Seal the envelope, put a stamp on it, and send it in. Since there’s extra room in the envelope, how about dropping a note in just letting us know how you’re doing, what you’ve been up to, or just to say "Hi"!
If you’re so inclined, we have a separate need for money to help fund a new repeater, and your donation would go a long way. If you’re a lifetime member, we thank you for your dedication to the club in years past, and look forward to hearing from you for years to come. This is our 61st year of operation as a club. We have a rich history and tradition of service to the community, sharing our knowledge with others, and keeping the club alive for the sake of the hobby. Membership makes a pretty good gift (I’m signing up a fellow ham this year that doesn’t know it yet). I look forward to hearing from all of you, and if you’re new to the area, or this is your first time reading an issue of sPARC gap, then come join us! Also, don’t forget the Club Banquet (see page 3 for details).
ARES MEETING Thursday, December 27th at Fire Station 2, 4800 NE 122nd at 7PM
All hams are invited to attend!
(Please check
into the ARES Net on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 PM on 146.840
for updates, and to confirm the date due to the Holidays.)
Chuck Morris (left) W7HDF shows off his Radio Shelter as Roger Hogue (right) N7YVK looks on.
Chuck Morris, W7HDF brought his portable radio shelter to the Rickreall swap meet Saturday, October 20th. Chuck demonstrated a self-contained portable shelter that puts new life into the phrase "ham shack".
Chuck purchased his radio shelter from a surplus dealer who was trying to liquidate about 450 of them that he purchased at the San Diego military depot. Slowly, these have been making their way into the amateur radio community, and offer several advantages to the lucky operator. First, they are double wall aluminum with an insulation barrier between the inner and outer walls. Offering a variety of lighting, wiring, and power distribution options, they have made easy adaptation to portable and amateur use.
(Continued below)
Voice: 146.840 –600 MHz
146.940 –600 MHz
Packet 147.180 +600 MHz (PARC/7 repeater)
144.910 (W7LT PARC Node)
They are also water tight to keep equipment dry in the winter months. Chuck has his outfitted with a Drake TR-7, and an SGC auto-tuner attached to a whip mounted on the outside of the shelter. Since these shelters were originally designed for military repeaters, transmitters, and Teletype installations, they already have feed thru’s for antenna connections, power connections, shelving, storage, and a good operators position. Chuck, a resident of Clackamas has used his shelter to give presentations to various groups on amateur radio. As well as his appearance at the Mid-Valley ARES swap meet, he hauled it along with a portable generator out to McGyver Park earlier this year to operate during the "Scoutrageous" event. Chuck demonstrated his radio equipment along with the theory of how it works, and made several contacts along with several scouting groups.
While I was visiting Chuck, a multi-way QSO with W6GER in Camino California, and a group of hams that were running vintage PRC-47 military transceivers along the West coast. Chuck has used his shelter with the matching whip antennas as well as long wires to carry on his communications. His operating position allows for easy entry and exit into the operating position, as well as having all his equipment ready to go and within easy arm’s reach. Another clever application of filling a need with ham radio, and in this case filling a really nice radio shack. Happy operating, Chuck.
An outside view of Chuck’s shelter on his trailer.
Editors Note:
I wrote this article back in October during the Rickreall Swap where I met Chuck. I was planning to run the article this month anyway, and when I saw the picture of the shelter provided by Chuck during the November SET, it seemed doubly important. I own one of these shelters that I’ve been using for occasional operation. They are airtight which means that keeping one of the vents open is mandatory unless you want to go to sleep and never wake up. They are built to last, and remind me of a portable vault.
I have a trailer that will be dedicated to hauling the shelter, and am planning to use it during field day, and for demonstrations (also, it can make for friendlier relations at home if the ham shack remains a little more contained).
Last month’s meeting offered an in-depth look at our 146.84 repeater installation, its history, coverage, and proposed replacement plan. Patrick Kennedy, KD7HDP, club Vice President gave the presentation. Assisted by John White (K7RUN), the two filled in the information to create a very well done PowerPoint slide show, complete with maps, satellite images of Larch Mountain, and outlined the chronic problems that have been keeping the power level down lately. From comments by attendees of the meeting, this was one of the best thought out and executed presentations in recent times. The second half of the meeting opened up a discussion regarding the current plans for the repeater, questions about cost, reliability, and other plans. A motion was made to move money from the general fund to the repeater fund for its replacement. A fundraiser committee was also formed to look at other avenues of funding, donations, fundraisers, corporate sponsorship, etc. After a "lively" discussion, Bert Younglove’s Hat was passed around the group of 25 or so people, and over $700 dollars were donated by club members and visitors to help offset the cost of replacement. Additional funds were also pledged after news of the repeater replacement got to other members of the club who could not be at the meeting. Club President, Ed Burress, who couldn’t attend the meeting on hearing the news said "If you guys can raise that much when I’m gone, I can make arrangements to be gone a lot more often."
I’d like to thank everyone who donated his or her time and money at the meeting. A special thanks to Patrick, KD7HDP who put in a lot of time with me the night before to finish the presentation, and lead the discussions. A special thanks to our repeater committee who donate their time, parts, and gas to keep our equipment serviced.
December Calendar at a
GlanceClub Banquet Sunday Dec 16th, 2 to 5 PM
ARES Meeting Thursday, Dec 28th**
Club Net Monday’s at 7 PM
ARES/RACES Net Wednesday’s at 7 PM
Club Breakfast Jan 5th
**Check in to ARES net on Wednesday to verify date and time due to the holidays.
Rather than our regular club meeting, we will be having our annual Christmas Banquet. This is a chance to socialize with other club members and their families. We will be meeting at a Mexican restaurant located in S.E. Portland. This is a no-host event for all hams, their families and friends. It’s happening Sunday, December 16th from 2:00 - 5:00 PM at:
La Carreta Mexican Restaurant 4534 Se McLoughlin Boulevard PORTLANDThe restaurant is located on the SE corner of McLoughlin and SE Holgate. All hams and their guests are invited to attend. Updates and changes will be announced on the PARC net, Monday at 7 PM on the 146.840 Repeater. All hams are invited to check in!
Here is a Schedule of Nets for all interested. All Nets are handled on the 146.840 repeater.
Sunday: Handi-Hams Net 7 PM
Monday: PARC Weekly Net 7 PM
Wednesday: ARES/RACES Net 7 PM
Thursday: Youth Net 7 PM
All Hams are welcome to listen and check in to any Net!
Articles, questions or comments about the sPARC gap?
kc7gfx@arrl.net Ed Burress, Club President and editor.
kd7hdp@arrl.net Patrick Kennedy, Club Vice President and Webmaster
n7rx@arrl.net Neal Sacon, Treasurer/Membership Secretary
Presidents
Message:There is an old curse that says "may you live in interesting times." This year has certainly been no exception. Our club started as near as I can tell as a result of like minded people getting together during a period of war to pool their talents and provide a meeting place for the commonn good of amateur radio. Although on-the-air operation of Amateur radio transmitters were prohibited during the war, receivers still were being built out of scrounged parts. Ham radio became a ready pool of potential operators to fill the need in the military services. I have often marveled at the resourcefulness of hams during this period of time. Imagine that you wanted to build some radio equipment, but that current technology vacuum tubes were not available due to the war effort, short supplies, and rationing. All that were available were older vintage sets ranging from the 20’s and 30’s. Lots of Atwater Kent, RCA, and Crosley radios were stripped of their parts to build simple regenerative radios to listen in to the foreign stations broadcasts, and of course the war in two theaters. I’m told that people still constructed transmitters, but that these were prohibited from being attached to an antenna. What emerged from WWII was a group of operators who had been keeping up on their skills and interest. Surplus gear flooded the markets after the war, and became a source of good equipment for use in the "shack" as well as a steady stream of parts for the experimenter. Those were certainly "interesting times" for the folks who were there, and came out the other side.
Sadly, each year, many of the operators from that era, and the folks that they kindled the interest in have become "silent keys". A new challenge has emerged to us as the current group of representatives of the hobby. The complexion of the need has changed, but the challenge is still there. I’m asking each one of you reading this column and the rest of the sPARC gap to kindle the interest in another person. We live in a new age of "interesting times". Although the pool of Morse code operators to serve in the armed forces is no longer the driving need, there are still needs to preserve ham radio for future generations; to foster a cooperative effort with state and local authorities; and to help serve our community in time of need.
I recently cooresponded with a fellow ham in Maryland, Al Rabassa, NW2M regarding their repeater installation. He told me that their repeater is located a mile away from the Pentagon. During the attack on September 11th, their repeater was in service 24-7 with extended periods of 100% duty cycle. It took dedicated people to staff the effort to build their repeater system, and even more to operate during the time of need. We all got our start the basically the same way. Somewhere we read an article, visited a neighbor, or knew a relative who had an interest in ham radio. For us, the start probably came from that person who peeked our curiosity. It’s our turn to pass the torch to the next generation. I’m trying to do my part by sponsoring scouting groups, and kids in the neighborhood. I’ll be active during Kid’s day on January 5th, and we’re planning to build crystal radios in my son’s cub scout group. They all think that listening to a radio station with a rock and wire is some kind of magic, I think they have it exactly right. Who knows, the worst thing that could happen is that group of 11 year olds beats us in Field Day a few years down the road!
73’s and Happy Hollidays from Ed, KC7GFX
Right:
the portable EOC with deployment in ½ hour.
The November 17th SET went off well despite a last minute change in deployments. One thing different this time was the use of ‘rovers’ in an attempt to test the simplex propagation characteristics of all 27 Portland Fire Bureau stations back to the Portland EOC. This information is valuable to have before hand should the repeater system fail for whatever reason. Judging from the initial test results, most fire stations should be able to talk back to the EOC using power levels in the five to ten watt range. A few will need further attention given to the antenna systems at the affected stations, otherwise success of the PFB project to get ham radio in all its stations looks good.
As alluded to earlier, there was a last minute change in some
deployments. The Portland EOC was still out of commission for
ham radio so the ‘alternative’ site was at the residence
of WA7AXO Bert. His proximity to the EOC made any test results
pretty close to the real deal. From that position, Bert and Frank,
N7WCF, ran as the net control for Portland. Due to an error on
my part, we weren’t scheduled in to any fire stations for
the exercise. Not wanting to be rude and just drop in (not good),
personnel deployed to areas near the intended places. All of the
objectives for the county were met in this exercise including
the use of emergency power only for the duration of the SET. Once
again packet proved to be the elusive component in the exercise.
Portland had antenna problems, while N7TL Ed at Gresham/East Co
had luck connecting with K7MBI at Shriners Hospital. HF links
were established by both EOC’s on 40 meters despite heavy
traffic on the 75-meter frequency. The PFB net teams even got
in on this one. KC7YOE and KI7GA had a good time working with
the Foster-Powell net team, integrating the use of FRS in conjunction
with amateur radio. It was a valuable experience for the net team
members too, some never having been exposed to the magic of radio
before quite like this! The ‘test message’ mantra was
used successfully and properly this exercise to a high degree.
The usage of tactical vs. personal call signs went very well also.
Gresham/East County had excellent results with their simplex test,
only having a problem with one location. The portable command
center, courtesy of W7HDF worked very nicely. This group deployed
in little over ½ hour, fully operational within 70 minutes.
That is really good guys! Congratulations! Things to work on for
the next SET would include increased packet capability, higher
formal test message counts, APRS networking, increased net team
participation. The following communicators participated in the
exercise: W7HDF, KI7GA, KC7YOE, N7WCF, KB7TMH, K7MBI, N7TL, WA7AXO,
KD7EYN, WA6NSK, KH6JJS, KD7BTD, W7TIB, KC7MBM.
Rover for East County is K7POS; rovers in Portland are KC7WCX, KD7ELV and KK7UE. My apologies if I forgot someone. Great job kids and I hope to see you all next time.
Thank you for your participation. 73 de KK7UE
Right:
David Ross N7EPI demonstrates his vintage military Teletype to
a group of onlookers at Rickreall
David Ross, N7EPI brought a military surplus PRC-47 complete with Teletype and demonstrated to groups of onlookers at the Swap meet in Rickreall this October. David had both a working display outside, as well as several other vintage pieces and military manuals for sale at a table in the main hall. His demonstration uses some unique Viet-Nam era equipment most of us may not be familiar with. His Mite TGC-14 Teletype is connected to a CV-2455 modem, which in turn is connected to the heart of the system, the PRC-47. His antenna was the standard PRC-47 whip, approximately 25 feet in length that attaches directly to the top of the transceiver.
Dave has a tradition of operating in the Saturday morning "Clatter Net" with a number of other collectors and operators all the way from LA to Seattle. Dave says "there is usually always someone on the net, and you can get anywhere from 2 to 11 people checking in on a given Saturday morning." The "Clatter Net" occurs every Saturday morning at 9:30 Pacific time on 10.137 on the 30-meter band. Dave was glad to hear that PARC had done a presentation on the digital modes, and was trying to get more operators involved in PSK-31 as well as RTTY. The interface covered in AL7W’s article on PSK-31in the September issue, can be used with different software to talk with this type of equipment. Dave said that he’d love to have us check into their Clatter Net as soon as we have some of the units up and running, and said that they already have folks that are using the sound card based equipment on 30 Meters that are involved in regular scheduled QSO’s. All are welcome and encouraged to drop by and say hi on RTTY.
I’m not sure if it was the fact that Dave was using a portable teletype in the middle of the parking area, or the fact that he was using some really nice historic pieces of equipment to carry on a QSO, or the sheer spectacle of seeing this unit in operation, but there was a constant stream of folks stopping by to ask questions, and watch his teletype banging out multi-way contacts.
Dave mentioned that he had military radio equipment that was originally mounted in a Jeep, and had been searching for one to put it in. I have been restoring an old military Jeep, but haven’t found the radios to put in it. Somehow, I don’t think either of us is interested in parting with our heavy green things, and if you ever get a chance to see Dave’s set up in action, you’ll know the reason why. Dave’s business card has a picture of his Teletype on one side, and the phrase "have Teletype will travel" superimposed over a rook on the back. I’m really glad to see that people still find the value in preserving these working pieces of our history, and keeping them on the air is part of the magic of amateur radio that keeps Davis Ross on the air.
Closer view of the Mite TGC-14 Teletype in action
Regular Club Meeting Friday Dec 21st
ARES Meeting Thursday, Nov 29th
Club Net Monday’s at 7PM
ARES/RACES Net Wednesday’s at 7 PM
Club Breakfast Jan 5th
(With apologies to W Shakespeare) by K7RUN
Recently Ed KC7GFX started an initiative to upgrade the 6.84 repeater. Driven by the aging 6.84 and 6.94 repeater hardware PARC needs two equipment upgrade packages. The exciter is the only remaining electronic component of the old 6.84 repeater; it is a highly modified Johnson radio, which includes the repeater control and audio line functions. The controller is an off the shelf unit and includes a number of hand built circuits to allow interfacing with the receiver and transmitter. The receiver is a highly modified Mitrek, which includes hand built cards to provide repeater interfacing. The PA is a modified Micor PA, which includes additional heat sinking for continuous duty. The cabinet is hand built and sturdy. Unfortunately the cabinet was built around the old components and does not support normal 19" rack mounting.
SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE REPEATER?
It’s not an integrated package. Commercial repeaters normally are integrated receiver, transmitter and control electronic packages. The present 6.84 repeater is not and uses hand built circuits, which are hard to maintain.
EQUIPMENT AGE. Some replacement components in the 6.84 repeater are difficult to obtain. More importantly, when something breaks, it needs to be repaired. There is no way to swap a broken assembly and repair later.
WHAT ARE THE GOALS?
INTEGRATED ELECTRONIC PACKAGE. This is one of the big-ticket items, something like 60% of the work to BUILD a repeater is all the modifications and hand built boards that are necessary to make the repeater function.
10 TO 15 YEAR SERVICE LIFE. Let’s face it, Repeaters are expensive, we expect it to last a long time.
FIELD SERVICEABLE. We want to repair it not send it to the factory. That means that it needs to have been built to be reparable, and that we have at least a reasonable expectation that parts will be available over time.
SWAP-ABLE SUB ASSEMBLIES. Somewhat on the wish book side, it would be nice to have as many swap-able spare sub assemblies as possible.
STATUS OF THE BUILD PROJECT.
The repeater committee has been working on a repeater package
built around Mitrek mobile products. A repeater can be roughly
divided into three major components, the RX/TX assembly, the control/interface
assembly, and the transmission assembly. That Mitrek project is
primarily the first two, since the transmission components (duplexer,
feed line, antenna) have already been upgraded.
RX/TX COMPONENT
In a real top tier repeater (Motorola or GE) the transmitter and receiver include shielding and isolation techniques that provide something like 130dB to 180dB isolation between the receiver and transmitter. In addition the transmitter is designed to operate on a continuous basis.
Using mobiles we have neither of those. To resolve the continuous operation requirement it was necessary to completely disassemble the radios to allow the case to be milled, heat spreaders to be fabricated and mounting assemblies to be built. Most of that mechanical work has been done but the radios have not yet been reassembled. The isolation is a whole other matter; it’s extremely difficult to put in place the shielding/isolation on a retrofit basis. The solution we used is to use one mobile for transmit and a second to receive. It’s a bit complicated to implement and doubles the amount of work that needs to be done.
CONTROL/INTERFACE
This is the second part of the project that needs to be done.
For those of you that have seen the 94 package it’s that
shelf no one ever looks at much between the exciter and the receiver.
(For those of you that don’t know, though old the 94 hardware
was factory built as a repeater) It contains the squelch gate,
transmit control, audio interface, and other cards. On average
this is about half of the project. And within this half is the
10% of the project that takes 90% of the work.
That entire portion of the project has been designed and the most
complicated of the three broads has been produced and is in hand.
I think Ed has completed assembly of one board at this point.
The other two need to be done and we need multiple boards loaded
with components and tested.
Also there are a lot of mods to the Mitrek motherboards that need to be done to complete the project. These are primarily component change and trace-cut and jump-mods that need to be done to allow interfacing radios that were never designed to be interfaced to the outside world.
TASKS TO COMPLETE
1 Reassemble, test the radios, and fix what got broken.
2 Assemble the mechanical components into a package
3 Make the modifications to the radios
4 Build and test the interface components
5 Assemble the complete package.
Once that is done we have one of the two upgrade packages we need.
Under ideal circumstances we ought to be able to do that in 3
to 4 months.
REALITY
Several of our technical people are an excellent technical resource,
and one I would like to make more use of. Nevertheless they (Ed
for example), have other obligations with the club, important
obligations. The club also has other activities, which are important
to the member; the 160 contests, the newsletter, and Field Day
are three examples. On the plus side, Penelope is all but done,
and off the plate. Nevertheless, I think it is optimistic to assume
that 3 to 4 months is realistic to complete the second package
we need, or to assume that the build project will solve the immediate
needs.
John, K7RUN
Editors Note: John made an attempt to replace the PA, but reported too much snow to get to the top of Larch Mountain. We may try in a few weeks using snowmobiles. Ed – KC7GFX
The proposed budget for 2002 is presented below. In addition to the usual revenue and expense items, the main feature of the budget is the expenditure of $2,000 to replace the core operating components of the Larch Mountain (WA) repeater site, including the TX/RX & control units. To fund this expense, the club raised $785 in 2001 and expects to raise an additional $715 in 2002 to bring the repeater fund balance to approximate $3,515. Of this amount, $2,150 will be expended to fund equipment replacement and repair, and an $1,365 contingency fund will remain restricted to repeater maintenance and repair expenses.
With expected fundraising, the budget forecasts an unrestricted cash ending balance of approximately $1,600 (rounded), Restricted Cash (Repeater) ending balance of $1,400 (rounded), Restricted Cash (Tower) ending balance of $700 (rounded) for an estimated total ending balance of $3,700 (rounded).
The budget detail and fund balance reconciliation follows:
REVENUE
EXPENSES
Portland Amateur Radio Club 4110 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. PMB #211 Portland, Oregon 97214 http://www.W7LT.org