[FARC] [Fwd: next fri March 6 food and other info]

[Bob Moroney]

Here's Rolan W3FDK's reminder about the monthly Ham luncheon 
get-together at the Golden Corral a week from today, along with some 
other interesting info on HF digital stuff he's been doing.

73, Bob K9CMR

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	next fri March 6 food and other info
Date: 	Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:12:08 -0500
From: 	Rolan O. Clark <rolan.clark at comcast.net>
To: 	A Whole Bunch of Hams



QST
 
Our first Friday of the month lunch wil be be next Friday, March 6 at 
1130 at the Golden Corral in the FSK mall complex in Frederick.
 
For those who are interested, the below site contains some information 
on hf digi modes and the folks in western pa are experimenting with 
these modes.  I have been checking in at 10 AM on Sat and Sun when 
possible on 3.5835 and have had no problem getting it running about 25 
watts and my 43 ft vertical. The guys in western pa are looking for 
persons to join them as part of their experimenting.
 
http://www.pa-sitrep.com/NBEMS/index.html
 
 
Using Olivia 16/500 I workd Switzerland the other eve on 3.583 mHz  for 
a 1/2 hr plus and the band was still open when we signed off, about 
2300L and I was running about 25 watts and he was runnng 40 watts and 
the same with Flordia stations so you may want to check out some of 
these hf digi modes.
 
To see what is going on you can download  FLDIGI, at the below site,  or 
Ham Radio Deluxe and these are free, and you can take your audio out 
from your hf rig, speaker jack or wherever, and go to your sound card 
input just to see if you like the mode but of course you won't be able 
to tx this way. That is an easy way to check it out without going the 
interface route and spending money for that.
 
I bought two 600 ohm 1:1 miniature audio transformers from Radio Shack 
for about $3 each, to use as isolation transformers, and made my own 
interface, radio audio out to sound card line or mic in using one xfrm, 
sound card audio out to tx mic audio in using the other xfmr.
 
I didn't want to use serial port keying for tx so I use VOX on my Omni V 
but the TS-50 doesn't have VOX but the mic jack has 8 V so I used that 
to power a 741 op-amp, the output of the op amp to a diode and a 50UF 
capacitor to amplify and rectify the tx signal from the sound card and 
then to a voltage divider to the base of a 2N222 with the collector to 
PTT and it works great and all is packaged in a nice little box I got at 
Radio Shack. I'll be glad to send a schematic to anyone interested.
 
Any rate, back on hf mobile again HOORAY ! I put the TS-50 in the old 
blue car, got a LDG auto tuner made for TS-50 and one of those tri mag 
mounts and using home brew  ant with  Reinartz homebrew loading coil 
inside a 4 ft piece of 1/2 PVC with a 5 ft whip on the top and I think 
its going to work ok. This is the same antenna I used on the van I 
used to have.  Worked TI2BGY last night about 1745 on 20 mtrs with a 54 
rpt so I will play more with it on 40-10. The auto tune on TS-50 sure is 
nice, beats the old manual way, key the tx, keeping ur eyes on the road 
and glancing at the meter while making adjustments for a low enough vswr 
to keep tx happy, even with preset settings still some manual 
adjustments needed most times with the old swr es tuner method. The auto 
tune doesn't take the place of the fun of turning knobs for best match 
but  'whats a person to do HI' !!
 
Enough for now,
 
73 de rolan w3fdk