[KYHAM] (no subject)

[Bill Fuqua]

Sorry for the late announcement. This has been a heck of a week.

The Radio Theory and Construction Workshop will meet Saturday, January 24, 
2004 in the basement of the Red Cross Building at 1450 Newtown Pike, 
Lexington, KY. The basement entrance is on the Left side of the building if 
you are looking at the front (Newtown Pike side) of it.The Workshop will 
begin at 1:00PM and continue until 3:00PM. This workshop is for anyone 
interested in the subject of radio theory or construction. Anyone may join 
the workshop at any time. This workshop does not really have a beginning or 
an end. It is a continuing effort to help those that are interested in 
knowing more about the internal workings of radios (receivers, transmitters 
and antennas) and/or building them. A ham license is not required and there 
are no age restrictions. I encourage young students to participate. 
Participants will have to obtain their own tools and they will need to 
purchase a beginner's radio kit (AM-550K). I have kits in stock so you will 
not have to wait. Just pay me for the kit and I'll order another to replace 
it. That way we will have some always available for new participants.
The Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society's Youth Education Program (Y.E.P.) can 
provide "Now You're Talking" books for students up thru the 12th grade 
participating in our "Introduction to Amateur Radio" and books, kits, tools 
and parts for those in the "Radio Theory and Construction Workshop" at no 
cost. This kit cost about $20 and it is perfect for learning soldering, 
component identification and basic radio theory.
If you wish to join our workshop please e-mail me so that I can add you to 
our list. I have a short questionnaire to get some information about your 
interest, experience and knowledge level. If you cannot be contacted by 
e-mail call me in the evening at
(859) 272-9523 and I will add you to a phone list. This is necessary 
because we do not hold the workshop every weekend due to other obligations, 
vacation, hamfest and license exam sessions.

News: I have completed the first phase of building a new prototype signal 
generator that should not cost more than the radio kit. It uses an 
extremely fast microcontroller IC ( price $4.20 in unit quantity) that I 
have programmed to be a Direct Digital Synthesizer. It can produce a signal 
from 80Hz to 2MHz in steps on the order of 80Hz so the frequency error 
would be a maximum of 40 Hz.  This will not be a communication quality 
generator but will be perfect for experiments with the AM radio kit, 
alignments and such.  I am planning to build it into a box that will work 
with a PC to allow the serial port to set it's frequency and sound 
interface to provide modulation when generating a signal.  The sound 
interface can also be used with this to allow the PC to function as an 
Oscilloscope, Spectrum analyzer or signal processor.  The signal generator 
will also stand alone for alignment applications and a few other things. 
This all takes time to develop and I have little spare time now days.

Also, Wednesday we started the "Applied Electronics Class" here at UK. I 
have 8 EE students and their professor along with 4 Physics students in the 
workshop. This is an advanced version of the Saturday Workshop. They build 
the same kit but we get in to more theory being that the students generally 
have a good deal of math.
73 Bill wa4lav