August 201 3, Issue 8, Volume 61
From Your Editor Benjamin Straw, KC9UNS
Hi everyone hope things are going well, and hope youve been having a fun summer We would like to inform you that we will be having some Special Guests, at our August meeting. Who you might be wondering? Well some guys from the National Weather Service in Romeoville and Skywarn. That's right they are taking some time off from chasing storms and looking at radar, to come out and talk to YOU about THE CORRECT PROCEDURE FOR REPORTING SEVERE WEATHER. There might also be a real life Forecaster tagging along, but... we won't know who till the day of (sad I know). For those of you who have never been to one of our meetings OR want to tell a friend, we meet on the second Friday of each month, this month being the 9th of August. We meet at the Lake County EMA Building, NOW the New Lake County Health Department. It's located at 2900 W 93rd Ave. Crown Point, Indiana. We will have a sign out front that says "HAM RADIO" with an arrow pointing out which drive to come up. The General meeting starts at 7:30 pm, So please arrive early as we just might pack the house. Hire a sitter, send the XYL to the mall, and take the night off to enjoy a cool presentation from your local club, The Lake County Amateur Radio Club. If we don't see you, we hope to hear you on the air.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Meeting
Lake County Amateur Radio Club Lake County Dept. Homeland Security Building /New Health Dept. Building August 9th @ 7:30pm. Board 6:30pm
Picnic/Operating Event
Indiana Parks on the air (INPOTA) Where: Indiana Dunes State Park Tremont Shelter When: September 7th. Event 1 1 am-5pm. Setup @ 1 0am.
Hamfest
Sun Aug 4, 201 3
Hamfesters Radio Club Hamfest Will County Fairgrounds
The next club event will be INPOTA (Indiana parks on the air) and club picnic. The date is September 7th and we will be operating the 1 x1 callsign N9D from the Indiana Dunes. Net The Club has reserved the same shelter as last year, The Tremont Shelter. LCARC Weekly Information Net This shelter offers grills to cook out on, so if you want bring something to gill. The club Clubs VHF & UHF Repeaters willbe providing Water and Charcoil. We set up at 1 0AM, IMPOTA begins at 1 1 , and Every Thursday @ 8pm munch food at around noon. It’s unfortunate that we can't operate INPOTA the full 8 hours, but 6 of those should be plenty, around 5 pm we will start packing up and head out. If you would like to attend, just come out and bring a dish. For cars, trucks and campers, the entrance fee is $5 per vehicle for Indiana plates and $7 per vehicle for out of state plates. Map of park is on the last in the advert fot this issue. For more info on this event please email Ben @ KC9UNS@Gmail.com On another note Short Skip YES the one you're reading! Needs help from Short Skip readers, it needs material to add to its pages. Writeing consists of writing anything pertaining to amateur radio and or computers. Things we are looking for are Hints and kinks, antennas, technical talk, operating tips, public service, classic radio, club activities, or etc. We are also looking for people to partisapate in other means like its core! People who can Design, edit, or prouf read. All articles must be in by Sunday Aug 25th for it to be in the next issue. Copyright rules and permission apply to all submissions. Last but not least did you know LCARC has a net? We do, every Thursday night @ 8 PM. Anyway I hope everyone has a good and safe summer and we hope to see you at the August meeting. Benjamin Straw - KC9UNS, Secretary, Short Skip Editor, and Net Controller, Lake County Amateur Radio Club.
In this Issue of Short Skip
2. LCARC Meeting Minutes 3. New Member, Heard on the Repeater 4. Another Lost Publication 5. 6.0 to 1 .0, CQWW Rule Change 6. Best Chinese DB HT 7. Songs to Avoid, Five Megs 8. Antenna Switching 9. N9D Operating Event & Picnic
ARTICLES N EEDED!!! If you have anything pertaining to amateur radio that you would like to contribute to, and share with others in Short Skip, we would be happy to include your offering in any future edition. Anything you would like. Hints and kinks, antennas, technical talk, operating tips, public service, classic radio, club activities, etc., would be heartily welcomed!!! All articles must be in by the 20th of every month. Copyright rules and permission apply to all submissions. Please send your submission to: KC9UNS / Short Skip Editor kc9uns@gmail.com I hope you enjoy this month’s Short Skip as much as I did putting it together!
Bob WB9NUG If we missed your birthday or get it wrong, please let us know
LCARC May Meeting Minutes
201 3 Officers President: .............. WD9EZB
Benjamin Straw, KC9UNS
Meeting called to order at 7:40 PM Attendance:
Bob Wiberg
1 3 Members 0 Guests.
Vice President: ....... KB9HO
Russ McComb
Reading of Minutes:
The minutes of the previous meeting June 1 4, 201 3 was approved as read.
Secretary: ............. KC9UNS
Treasure Report:
Treasurer: ................ KF9EX Jim Harney Trustee: ..................... WV9O
Treasurer Report read by Jim KF9EX.
Committee reports
Repeater: Mark reported the repeaters controler locked up and had John W9WY visit the site to cycle power. This brought up a problem of not being able to access the site on weekends and or during the night, with a vote of confidence the board asked Mark to look into the equipment to cycle the power via remote. Marv also mentioned they will also be looking into a UPS unit but is down the lane. The Repeater Committee presented John W9WY a “No Guts No Glory” award for his bravery. Red Cross: Bob WD9EZB reported he has got ahold of Gordon, he has been moving around to different sites within the chicagoland area. Contesting: Ben KC9UNS reserved the Tremont shelter for INPOTA and Picnic at the Indiana Dunes State Park. DX: Mark K9MQ reported 6 meters is open and has been working to get is WAS on that band. VE: Ben reported that that PCARC will have theirs on the 1 3th (next day) and Hamfests VE will at the Karsfest, July 21 th and Hamfesters, Aug 4th both in Peotone, IL. Net: Ben reported the net has been doing good in, he reported that we only had 2 nets since the last meeting due to the 4th and personal issue. Mark K9MQ said he would be up to being a net control op
Old Business:
John W9WY reported about the Brickyard run on July 4th 201 3
New Business
Board approved the funds to have Bartronics do ground work to the clubs tower. Est. cost was $450 Ben KC9UNS asked for help with Short Skip. Bob WD9EZB mention that he was tasked to find a place to have our christmas party for December.
Program: None
Meeting adjourned at 8:1 5 PM local.
Benjamin Straw
Marv Boetcher
Directors Bill Young ................. N9QLS Ken Brown ................ KE9TC Bob Nelms ............ WD9FNY
Mark Skowronski .......... K9MQ John Gianotti ................. W9WY
Editorial Staff Editor-in-Chief ...... KC9UNS Benjamin Straw
(kc9uns@gmail.com)
Club Resources
W9LJ/R ......................... 1 47.000 + PL 1 31 .8 W9LJ/R (St. John) ..... 1 47.240 + PL 1 31 .8 W9LJ/R ......................... 442.075 + PL 1 31 .8 Repeater Nets Thursday Night @ 8 pm: LCARC Weekly Infomation Net
Meetings
July 1 2, 201 3 BOARD MEETING LCEMA OFFICE, 2900 93rd Ave Crown Point (41 .449555,-87.36893) (Across from Gov. Ctr.) 6:30 p.m. July 1 2, 201 3 CLUB MEETING 2900 93rd Ave Crown Point (41 .449555,-87.36893) (Across from Gov. Ctr.) 7:30 p.m.
LCARC is an IRS-certified 501(c)3 charitable organization and donations are deductible pursuant to the IRS rules. If you have working radio equipment and ancillary equipment that you can and wish to donate to the club, please contact one of the board members and we will be happy to talk to you about the process. Many companies will either grant or match employee’s gifts to nonprofit organizations like LCARC.Please determine if your com pany is among these and contact a board member so we may help fund and grow LCARC. We cannot accept certain donations, and have to place some restrictions around them (no hazardous materials, nothing we could not sell, etc.). If you are interested, look me, or any other board member up at one of the meetings, or contact us via email (our addresses at the end of this newsletter)
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Things heard on the repeaters John Gianotti W9WY
Since our repeaters have been upgraded I have noticed an increase of use. This is GOOD. What I have also noticed is an increase in ‘unusual’ operating procedures. For instance Someone will make a call such as “W9XYZ listening”. This is the normal way of announcement that you would like a contact from anyone on the repeater; so far so good. THEN, after a few seconds the station will say something like “W9XYZ negative contact”. Why? It is obvious that the calling party did not make contact with anyone so why bring it up again?? A similar situation occurs when after making a call and no one responds the calling party says “W9XYZ clear”. Why? XYZ has made a legal transmission when he made the call (i.e. he has identified his station with the first transmission). There is no need to tell anyone listening that he/she is clear. So why, if I heard these things did I not respond to the calling station? Well, I may have been pulling into the garage and getting ready to shut down the radio and did not want to become involved in a long conversation. I may have been getting into the shower (how is that for a mental picture!) or been on the phone or any number of other reasons for not responding to the calling party. Some hams don’t feel comfortable talking with strangers (perhaps they got into the hobby for tech reasons rather than social ones). When I hear a call on the repeater, and have a few minutes, I always respond. I think most of our repeater users would also. Another grip is when someone says “W9XYHZ FOR ID”. Why in the heck would you announce your call if it were not for identification? I mean if you just want to transmit something why not say “this is W9XYZ for the purpose of identifying my transmission to comply with current published FCC requirements as it pertains to the amateur radio service?” Heck that takes even longer and really would mark someone as a person of intelligence – NOT! What is a comeback? As in “thanks for the comeback”. I have never seen a comeback. If the transmitting station meant thanks for the call, then why not say thanks for the call? And then again there is the ever present use of Q signals on the repeater. Plus what is a QSO” Do we say Bee Tea Double U (BTW if you hadnt already get it) when we mean By the Way? We do if we are texting or sending CW but not when we are on phone!!! So am I being picky? Perhaps, but we are all judged, rightly or wrongly, on our actions and our speech. Remember a number of people are listening to our repeaters who are not hams. During our Parish festival a number of the committee volunteers were listening to our 1 47.000 machine for weather warnings. How we present ourselves to non-hams as well as our fellow hams is important. End of rant from a grouchy old ham. (BTW the last line was redundant and in the same category as saying “negative contact”).
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Meet the newest LCARC Member
D A N O ' D A Y KC 9 Z E K
Presentations and demonstrations at LCARC are a fun part of our meetings. Come join us! Not a LCARC member? It doesn't matter you’re welcome to attend our meetings. No strings! No pressure! Vol. 61 No. 8
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Monitoring Times to Cease Publication
Arrl News “It’s time for us to retire,” begins the announcement that Monitoring Times magazine will cease publication at year’s end after 33 years. “We will publish through the December 2013 issue,” publisher Bob Grove, W8JHD, told ARRL. “The decision wasn’t an easy one, but economics played a greater part than personal. Judy and I are in excellent health, but the gradual drift downward of subscribers and advertisers made the decision clear.” Grove said that if a subscription runs beyond the end of the year, subscribers should email or call the office at 8004388155 to arrange a refund. Monitoring Times, which promotes itself as “The World of Radio All in One Place,” covers — among other topics — shortwave and broadcast listening, scanning, military, maritime, and aviation monitoring, equipment reviews, clandestine stations, and public safety monitoring. In a separate statement Grove said, “We are grateful for the dedicated efforts of our fine staff of writers for the excellent work which has kept MT alive for all these years. While we know the discontinuation of MT, with our December issue, will be a disappointment to our readers and writers alike, we realize that a combination of a downturned economy, as well as the ready availability of free listening and technical information on the Internet, has reduced sales and subscriptions throughout the market place. I would like to thank you personally for your knowledge, your dependability, and your professionalism in making MT the publication that is most often referred to in the radio monitoring hobby. It is a legacy that we have all inherited.” Grove has a new ebook out with stories from his past, Misadventures of an Only Child. Commented Dan, VR2HF, after the news item appeared on QRZ.com, “Sad to see them go. They were best in their class!”
YesSubmit i ts barticles l anand k fitowont r abe rBLANK! e aso n !
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Changing from application GirlFriend 6.0 to Wife 1 .0 From DXmaps.com
Last year a friend of mine, system administrator as myself, changed the application GirlFriend 6.0 by Wife 1.0 and found that the update was not very successful. First of all Wife 1.0 leaves very little system resources for other applications, not only this, but he has also realized that Wife 1.0 is a prolific processor of Babys 1.x, which are additionally consumers of valuable resources. There was no mention of this particular fact neither from the product manufacters nor in the warranty, altough some colleagues had inform me that this was expectable, due to the nature of the application. But surprises didn't end up there, additionally Wife 1.0 configures itself so that it always starts when the system is initialized, from where it can monitor the rest of the processes. My friend is noticing that some applications like: NightOfPoker 10.3, BeerParty 2.5 and PubNight 7.0 no longer can be run, because Wife 1.0 locks the system when they are selected (even so they always worked fine before). During the installation, Wife 1.0 installs automatically services not desired, like MotherInLaw 55.8 and the DEMO version of BrotherInLaw. The most outstanding effects of these services are the progresive and daily degradation of the system. My friend is very seriously considering to change the version of the application Wife, but there are some features that he would like to be added to the next version (Wife 2.0), these are: A "Forget me" button and another for minimizing. A new option that allows to install Wife 2.0 with an option of "Desinstall at any time", without losing the cache and other valuable system resources. An option to run the network controller in "promiscuous" mode, that allows to the system to try shareware version of different applications, to have a better knowledge of the market. I have decided to avoid all the headaches associated with Wife 1.0, continuing with GirlFriend 2.0. Even so, I have found many problems. Aparently you can't install GirlFriend 2.0 on GirlFriend 1.0, you have to desinstall GirlFriend 1.0 first. Additionally, aparently, the versions of GirlFriend have conflicts to share the same I/O (Input/Output) port. The technical support has said me that it is a known bug and that they are looking for some way to bypass the problem, because it seems to be implemented in the kernel (heart) of the application and it is not a good idea to change it. Even worse, the program to desinstall GirlFriend 1.0 doesn't work very well, leaving unwished traces of the application in the system. Another problem: all the versions of GirlFriend continually give anoying messanges about the advantages of changing to Wife 1.0. After talking again with the service they suggest me to ignore those messages, and when I point that for that solution it was not necessary to phone them, they go back again on the explanation of the former problem (bug in the kernel). WIFE 1.0 INCOMPATIBILITIES: If you try to install Lover 1.1 before desinstalling Wife 1.0, this erases the files MS Money, and after it desinstalls itself. Then Lover 1.1 won't install, claiming that system resources are too low. To avoid this effect, try to install Lover 1.1 in a different environment and never run a file transfer application, like LipStickSpot 6.0. Also try to avoid renting applications, because it's known that they can transmit viruses that can affect Wife 1.0. Another solution is to run Lover 1.1 through a network provider with and anonimous name. Once again, avoid viruses that can be accidentally loaded. IMPORTANT: More problems have been detected with Wife 1.0
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CQ World Wide DX Contest Rewrites Its Rules
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Arrl News
The sponsor of the CQ World Wide DX Contest has completely rewritten the contest rules, effective with this fall’s SSB and CW weekends (RTTY is not affected). “The CQ WW DX Contest rules have evolved for over 50 years,” said Contest Manager Randy Thompson, K5ZD, in announcing the updates July 1. “Changes in technology, operating practices and enforcement efforts caused the rules to become increasingly complex.” The primary goal of the rewrite, he said, was “to make the rules simpler and easier to understand.” The rewrite already has generated considerable online discussion. One change offers a “Classic Overlay” category for singleoperator, allband entries. “The Classic Overlay category is intended for the radio purists who want to participate in the most traditional way,” Thompson explained. Entrants will use a single radio and operate without outside assistance, and only the first 24 hours of actual operating time will count toward the operator’s score. Also new is a “Rookie Overlay” category for operators licensed 3 years or less. The CQ WW is doing away with the “Xtreme Contesting” and “Team Competition” categories, and “Checklog” is now listed as a noncompetitive entry category. The rewrite creates two categories of Club Competition — US and DX. Entrants must log contacts as they occur and may not edit their logs after the contest ends. The updated rules also address “unsportsmanlike conduct,” such as having an excessive bandwidth, and disqualifications. “Red and Yellow cards have been removed in favor of one action — disqualification,” Thompson noted. The SSB event takes place October 2627, the CW event November 2324.
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What’s the best Chinese dual-band HT? Hans Van Rijsse PD0AC hamgear.wordpress.com
This simple question is asked a lot. The answer isn’t that simple. Most radios I reviewed had something they were really good at, but producing a radio which ticks all the right boxes is not easy. What is important to you? Anything you want me to add?
Best battery life
1 .) Quansheng TG-UV2. Keeps on going. Battery is rated 2000 mAh @ 7.4V. 2.) Baofeng UV-5R. Rated at 1 800 mAh @7.4V and a real stayer. 3.) iRadio UV-588. Also 1 800 mAH @ 7.4V and almost equal to the Baofeng UV-5R.
Best receiver
1 .) Wouxun KG-UVD1 P/2P/6P. Good front ends, no intermod. 2.) Quansheng TG-UV2. Could as well share the #1 spot, difficult to decide. 3.) Baofeng UV-B5 / UV-B6. A notch below the #1 and #2, but only just.
Best TX Audio
1 .) Baofeng UV-3R. One of the few things this radio is good at. Loud, bright, and everybody loves it. 2.) Baofeng UV-B5 / UV-B6. On par with the UV-3R, just a tiny bit less punch. 3.) Wouxun varieties (later models). No complaints.
Best RX audio
1 .) Puxing PX-888K. Worthy of a HiFi label. 2.) Wouxun models. Not HiFi, but excellent. 3.) Baofeng UV-82. Larger enclosure, better acoustics? Just sounds right.
Best Harmonic suppression
1 .) All Wouxun models. Super clean, excellent. 2.) Quansheng TG-UV2. Just a notch below Wouxun. 3.) Most UV-5R’s I have tested, and the the UV-B5/B6Vs are fine too.
Best build quality
1 .) Quansheng TG-UV2. It’s an ugly thing, but built like a tank. 2.) Puxing PX-888K. Excellent build quality, thicker and stronger plastic than average. 3.) Wouxun models. I found out that they can take a beating. There are limits, of course.
Best Price / Performance
1 .) Baofeng UV-B5 / UV-B6. Hard to beat at just $43. A ‘no frills, no thrills’ radio which does almost everything right. 2.) Quansheng TG-UV2. An older and almost forgotten radio, but performance-wise still at the top. Price indication $70 – $75. Worth every dollar. 3.) Baofeng UV-5R. Lot’s of options, and generally good performance. Has its share of flaws, sure, but at $45 – $50 just live with it. Read more from Hans at Hamgear.wordpress.com
STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE CURRENT HAPPENINGS OF THE LAKE COUNTY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB ON FACEBOOK. TO FIND US TYPE LCARC IN THE FACEBOOK SEARCH BOX OR HTTP://WWW. FACEBOOK. COM/LCARC
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Songs to avoid while winding toroids… John Harper AE5X
If an accurate turn count is important to you when winding toroidal inductors and transformers, the following songs are best avoided while winding them: • • • • • • • • • •
Gimme Three Steps – Lynyrd Skynyrd Knock Three Times – Tony Orlando 99 – Toto Seven Bridges Road – Eagles Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover – Paul Simon One – U2 Eight Miles High – The Byrds 9 to 5 – Dolly Parton 5:1 5am – Mark Knopfler Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady – Commodores
However, the following are perfect for radio-building background music: • • • •
The Iguanas - 9 Volt Heart Nanci Griffith - Listen to the Radio Joni Mitchell - You Turn Me On I'm A Radio R.E.M - What The Frequency, Kenneth?
John Harper AE5X.com
Five Megs
Jeff Davis, KE9V
Most US hams avoid 60 meters like the plague. That’s probably due to the many onerous warnings that attend almost any discussion of operating in that slice of spectrum. For US hams it’s a secondary service that’s channelized, power restricted and bandwidth limited. There might as well be a big yellow warning sign on the front lawn of the 60 meter band that says “STAY OUT”. And that’s really too bad given that 5 Mhz provides interesting propagation results that are a curious mix of 40 and 80 meters properties. I worked a friend of mine this morning on 60 meters who lives just about 1 00 miles from here. Excellent copy on both ends and compliance with the rules — which means we were barefoot and on frequency. He was using an 80 meter dipole and I was using my 88-foot center fed antenna which works very well on 40, 20 and 1 5, but it’s just about perfect for 60 meters. Some of the rules for US hams on this band were changed in 201 2. Just a few of the highlights included: • The FCC adopted the use of the name “60 meter band”, to refer to 5MHz amateur radio in the frequency range 5330.5-5406.4 kHz, but USA hams are still only allowed to transmit on 5 specific channels in the band. • The FCC changed the rules to allow: Phone (Upper Sideband), RTTY, Data, and CW; with specific new limitations on the use of these modes. • General, Advanced, or Amateur Extra Class license only. • The maximum allowed power level is 1 00 Watts PEP (ERP) effective radiated power referenced to a halfwave dipole. If another type of antenna is used, the station licensee must maintain a record of either the antenna manufacturer’s data on the antenna gain or calculations of the antenna gain. • Upper SideBand Phone, Data, or RTTY transmissions may use dial (VFO) USB suppressed carrier frequency as listed. Transmissions must not exceed the 2.8kHz bandwidth channel. RTTY modes such as PSK31 must not exceed 60Hz necessary bandwidth. Data modes must not exceed 2.8kHz bandwidth. • CW bandwidth must not exceed 1 50Hz bandwidth and the CW frequency must be at the center of the channel. It’s hard to say just how valuable this morsel of privilege actually is to the amateur service, especially given that 80 and 40 meters are just a button push away. But it certainly feels like most US hams consider 60 to be more trouble than it’s worth. Remore of John's Adventures on his blog Smoke Curls @ KE9V.net/blog
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Antenna Switching Dan Dooley WB5TKA
For a long time I worked my antenna/radio switching system with 4 coax switches. One of them, a reasonable two position one in performance specs. One, a multi-port mystery from earlier days which may have had its origins in the CB radio world. I don't know for sure but when I took it apart recently my suspicions were roused. Another one a home brew job of my own making and though probably ok loss and isolation wise under 30 MHz, well, I needed more. The last one a relic of the WWII radio era, I think, so there again, questionable for the higher frequencies. I do a lot of 6 metre work here.
Just for the price of the bulkhead UHF dual female connectors (roughly $2.00 each) and some time spent making holes in the cover and soldering on male connectors on the ends of lengths of coax, it's done.
Not a bad price but I figured I could build my own for even less. Much less. Initially I thought of the metal box housing method of construction but metal boxes are not cheap, especially one of a suitable size and dimensions. Since each coax run is self contained, there's not really a need for the housing to be metal. I elected to use what is available here and the actual location available. Just a matter of making a front face for an already existing "cabinet" shelf sitting right next to the radio desk.
I know, the jackets on these patch cables don't look the cleanest. The cables are good though and I may eventually replace them.
Obviously each person has their own individual need. I have the ports on the left In spite of the number of switches, I did not have enough labeled for my existing ports. Nor enough flexibility to switch between radios and radios plus a possible to switch a tuner in and out, I needed something more future addition. On the right, the bottom port is the input to flexible. Besides, coax switches may introduce losses the watt/SWR meter. The output of that meter goes to the (unless you pay a fortune for each switch) and may not common port of the one remaining coax switch. The have the best isolation. output of that switch goes to either the next port above, or to the input of my Dentron Super Tuner. If the tuner is not I started thinking about a coax patch panel. A patch panel in the line the output of the coax switch (as shown here) keeps each coax lead independent and thus totally then goes through the patch cable directly to the Butternut isolated. At most, for losses, what little might be expected antenna. through the use of barrel connectors and PL-259 UHF connectors. There is, as far as I know, one commercially With the use of two patch cables, I can switch any of the produced panel on the market suitable for ham radio use. radios to any of the antennas either through or around the That's one MFJ either currently puts out or did. They can tuner. Right now I only have one HF antenna but I have be bought on eBay for $79.00. two unused ports for possible future additions.
Dan WB5TKA Dooleystreasurechest.com/wb5tka
Takeing a dose of my own medicine Dan Romanchik KB6NU
Last week, I wrote a blog post on blog post said, "Heat kills." preventive maintenance for one of my writing clients. Not only should you vacuum any dust out of a cabinet, you should also clean Afterwards, I decided to take a dose of the fan filters, if your gear has them. my own medicine and do a little Dusty filters prevent air from flowing preventive maintenance around the smoothly through equipment, and that shack. I started with the Astron RS- means the fans don't cool as well as 35M, which provides the DC power they should. that runs HF transceiver and my VHF/UHF transceiver in my shack. I Once that was done, I did a visual had started noticing a few little things, inspection. One thing that you want to such as the voltage adjustment being look for are components that look like a little fussy, that I wanted to correct they're getting too hot. Another thing to before the supply failed on me. look for is evidence of arcing. Whatever is causing the overheating After removing the cover, I vacuumed or arcing will eventually cause a unit to all the dust out of the supply. The RS- fail. Fortunately, I found neither. 35M wasn't very dirty, but even so, getting the dirt out of a piece of Next, I checked to see that the equipment is probably the first thing components mounted to the enclosure you'll want to do when performing were securely screwed down. In the preventive maintenance. Dirt impedes RS-35M, the transformer, the bridge air flow. That can lead to higher rectifier, and an electrolytic are operating temperatures, and as the mounted to the enclosure. Oddly lab manager that I interviewed for my enough, the bridge rectifier was quite
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loose, so I tightened it down. Also loose were the output terminals. I tightened these down as well. Finally, I squirted a little cleaner and lube into the voltage adjustment pot and worked it back and forth. That seemed to do the job. That pot now works smoothly and cleanly. I put the cover back on, reconnected the power cable, and got back to making QSOs. It should be good for another couple of years. ============================ = When he's not keeping the gear in his shack in tip-top shape, Dan, KB6NU enjoys working CW on the HF bands and teaching ham radio classes. For more information about his operating activities and his "No-Nonsense" series of amateur radio license study guides, go to KB6NU.Com or e-mail cwgeek@kb6nu.com.
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INPOTA Operating Event and Picnic Saturday September 7th 10am - 5pm Indiana Dunes State Park Tremont Shelter Bring Good Food and Good Company More info email: KC9UNS@Gmail.com
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Visit the Lake County ARC on the web at http://www.w9lj.org