President Dick Bremer, WB6DNX 1664 Holly St. Brea, CA 92621--714-529-2800 --rabremer@juno.com
VP Ken Halford, WB6DTA 2901 Joaquin Dr. Burbank, CA 91504 --818-848-9059
Recording Sec Dick Kolbly K6HIJ 26335 Community Barstow, CA 92311--760-253-2477 --rkolbly@compuserve.com
Corresponding Sec Larry Johnston, K6HLH 16611 E. Valeport Ave Lancaster, CA --805-264- 4110 --ljohns@qnet.com
Treasurer Dick Kolbly K6HIJ 26335 Community Barstow, CA 92311 --760-253-2477 --rkolbly@compuserve.com
Editor Bill Burns WA6QYR 247 Rebel Rd Ridgecrest, CA 93555 760-375-8566--bburns@ridgecrest.ca.us
ARRL Interface Frank Kelly WB6CWN 1111 Rancho Conejo Blvd. #501 Newbury Park, CA 91320 --805-499-8047--fk@event1.com
FCC Interface Dave Laag K6OW 11614 Indian St. Moreno Valley, CA 92557 --909-924-1517
W6IFE License Trustee Ed Munn W6OYJ 6255 Radcliffe Dr. San Diego, CA--92122 619-453-4563--edmunn@compuserve.com
The 1 October 1998 meeting of the SBMS will have Doug, K6JEY talk about
basic spectrum analyzer operation. The SBMS meets at the American Legion
Hall 1024 Main Street (south of the 91 freeway in Corona, CA at 1930 hours
local time on the first Thursday of each month..
Last meeting Bill, WA6QYR covered some operating aids for the field. Ideas
of having a list of pointing angles from the planned site to other popular
sites in the area; for full duplex operating such as with gunnplexers on 10
GHz one can use the boomerang to give a signal return that allows the
operator to check his rig performance (and make adjustments for improvement
like setting the feed in the dish focus); the use of two compass rose on a
sheet of paper to set the angle of a non-moveable compass rose on your
tripod to a known direction (like on of the beacons) and then know the
reading needed for any other direction from the tripod. Thanks Bill for the
ideas. Visitors were Peter Lyman, K6PTL of Pasadena; Mike Danford, KD6FAM of
Romoland; John Stephensen, KD6OZH of Brentwood; and Gary Becda, K6ENS of
Redondo Beach. New member present was Mel Swanberg, WA6JBD of Riverside.
Welcome to all. It was voted to reply to the ARRL context rules committee
request for feelings on changes to the 10 GHz contest. The membership would
like to see operation from 6 pm Friday through 6 p.m. Sunday. They would
also like to open the contest to all microwave bands 2.3 GHz and up with
scoring per band and possibly an overall winner. Frank, WB6CWN will be
responding to the ARRL request. K6OW noted that the church next door will be
having Thursday night meetings now. SBMS should be aware of parking in front
of meeting hall and not spill over into the side or back streets where cars
have been broken into. 34 people present.
It is with sadness that we report the passing of microwaver and great guy,
Lloyd Novak, AB6SM. Lloyd is a member of long standing in SBMS and Cactus.
Lloyd was always out in the field with his microwave gear even if it had
problems. An example to all of us to keep doing our best. We wish his family well.
errata- I goofed on the date of the Miller High School (Fontana) swap meet.
It is the second weekend in the month. Thanks George for keeping me straight.
Wants and Gots for sale
Want Siemens 10 GHz TWT power supply Frank WB6CWN 805-443-2902 fk@event1.com.
Want WR-42 waveguide switch Dave WA6CGR 909-612-5888.
Scheduling
5 Nov. meeting tech talk TBD.
3 Dec. meeting tech talk TBD.
7 Jan 99 meeting tech talk TBD.
4 Feb. meeting tech talk TBD.
Activity reported at the September meeting: Dick, WB6DNX was out on Heaps PK
for the 1st weekend of the contest; Paul, N6LL was out for a few contest
contacts before his rig broke; Chip, N6CA was out on contest and helped set
up the WSWSS web page; Al, K6LJM was out fixing ATV equipment on Heaps; Gary
W6KVC did some ATV work; Jim, K6ML was out for a few 10 GHz WBFM contacts ;
Gordon, WB6YLI operated from home and collected 3K points, and is building
the WA6EXV waterpipe feed; Larry, K6HLH now has a 2w 10 GHz amp; Ed, W6OYJ
was out to the ARRL SW convention then did some contesting on 10 and 24 GHz;
Mel, WA6JBD got some 24 GHz contacts; Doug, K6JEY brought in his new 24 GHz
rig to show and was out for the contest; Dave WA6CGR is back in SOCAL , had
his 24 GHz SSB rig to show, and had 30 Q’s in the contest; Eric, KD6GLP had
one contact with his new rig in the contest; John, KD6OZH worked the
contest; Joe, WA6PAZ did a tech talk at the West Coast ARC and was out for
contest; Gary, K6ENS had 13 contacts on the contest; Dave, WB6OVZ had a
MACOM transverter to work with; Derek, KN6TD is building parts; Bob, W6SYA
heard the PV beacon on his new narrowband 10 GHz rig and had 10 and 24 GHz
WBFM contacts; Bob, K6ITU is building a 10 GHz rig; Frank, WB6CWN is
rebuilding his TWT supply; Bill, WA6QYR finished the 1.2 and 2.3 GHz loop
yagis, modified the Qualcomm 1152 MHz synthesizer board, checked out the
mixer RFI mods to his 24 GHz rig and did some roving to find more sites for
the 2nd contest weekend; Chuck, WA6EXV roved during the contest, but too
much water in air for long 24 GHz contacts, had a few 10 GHz contacts,
rebuilt his TWT into a better box for 10 GHz EME operation; Phil, W6HCC sold
his Cherry Valley house and is finishing his move to Colorado (going to miss
you Phil); Dave, K6OW did a tech talk at SW ARRL convention (some 30 NEW
people to his beginning microwave talk- GREAT)and was out for contest;
Robin, WA6CDR did a tech talk at convention and was out for the contest.
Comments from folks on various sites during the 2nd weekend of the 10 GHz and Up contest:
Here are a few words on the operation at 6000 ft Heaps Peak DM14kf on the
second weekend of the 10 GHz Cumulative Contest for 1998. I arrived at Heaps
Peak early Friday evening and unloaded most of the equipment needed for the
contest. Saturday morning I awoke early (there is not much to do at Heaps in
the evening, so I went to bed much earlierthan usual) and after a great
breakfast I set up the equipment and made some checks on it's performance,
then waited for the contest to begin. At 0818 I made my first contact with
WA6QYR/6 and then proceeded to make29 more over the weekend. This was not a
very productive contest for me!
Shortly after the contest started, I received a call from Gary, K6ENS on the
liaison channel stating that he was at the Heaps Peak gate and was having
trouble finding the correct lock to open (there are a zillion locks on that
gate!). Gary arrived on site in a short while and began to set up his
equipment. The two of us continued to work stations through out the day.
Gary said that he had several locations that he would like to work from in
the LA area the next day, so departed Heaps Peak when the contest ended on
Saturday.
About mid morning on Saturday, the wave guide relay on my 35 Watt TWT
decided to get very sluggish and finally totally quit. I was then forced to
install my one Watt PA and continue the contest. What a bummer! I was not
able to work Bill and Mel (WA6QYR) in the San Joaquin Valley after that.
Conditions were not very good, as I was not able to hear most of the
Northern California stations which I have heard on many other occasions.
Early Sunday morning, Dick, WB6DNX joined me on Heaps Peak and set up his
equipment. Conditions looked even more bleak this morning, a very strong
inversion hung over the LA basin and did not break up all day. In fact by
mid afternoon we were completely engulfed in fog, to the point that we were
not able to see the tops of most of the towers on Heaps Peak. The highlight
of the day came when Dick was attempting to work Robin, WA6CDR/XE2 and Jack,
N6XQ/XE2. The normal bounce path off Palos Verdes DM03ts to Mexico (DM11pr)
was not working at all and Dick was just barely hearing signals from them,
but not able to make copy. I then suggested to Dick that he point his
antenna up into one of the towers and see if they were reflecting the
signals. I had done this on earlier occasions when working the San Diego
group. This time it worked great and Dick was able to work both of the
stations with his antenna pointed about 40 degrees up! This took place late
in the day and it was bitter cold with dense fog, I thought that Dick's hand
would freeze up at any moment and the key would be locked down, but he
persevered. By 1830 most of the other stations had closed down and it became
so cold at Heaps Peak that Dick and I decided to pack it in and left the
hill. 73, Chuck WA6EXV
During the contest, the first 24 GHz narrowband contact in Southern
California occurred the evening of September 19th at 19:58 PST in Hesperia,
CA. between Dave Glawson - WA6CGR and John Stephensen - KD6OZH within the
same grid square - DM14HK. This was witnessed by David Gill - KE6FYF of
Hesperia.
The following day, the first 24 GHz narrowband contact between Northern and
Southern California. Dave Glawson - WA6CGR on Frazier Mountain (DM04MS) and
Brian Yee - W6BY on Music Mountain (DM07IB) established communication on
24.192102 GHz at a distance of 160 Miles (257 km)!. The signals were 30 dB
over S-9 on both ends. This was witnessed by Joe Saddler - WA6PAZ. Also from
Frazier Mountain (DM04MS) WA6CGR worked KD6OZH at DM05KL at 49 miles (80
km). The signals were 5 and 9.
The radio used by WA6CGR is running 120 mW output and an approximate 3 dB
noise figure on the receiver. The system is phase locked to within +/- 1 KHz
@ 24.192000000 GHz using the WA6CGR phase lock system.
I don't have any details on Brian's radio. Dave - WA6CGR
I had expected Saturday to be a warm up for Sunday, but I lost a fuel pump
in Ventura on the way to Santa Ynez Sunday morning. Missed working Bill.
Rats. I worked some guys and made some points. Frank-WB6CWN
16 stations were on the air in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern
California during the 1998 10 GHz and Up contest, including a lost soul from
Southern California. Being GREAT hosts that we are, Dave K6OW was allowed to
have the best distance at 889 km working XE2/N6XQ and XE2/WA6CDR at DM11PR
from Mt. Vaca CM88wj. Second best distance was our local DX'r Ron K6GZA at
875 km from Mt. Tamalpais CM87qw also to DM11PR. W6ASL had a great
year...Jim did not run over GZA's dish during teardown, and finally heard
Jack and Robin in DM11 with S7 bursts. ASL is mailing SWL cards to both.
im-W6ASL
When Jack and I arrived at Punta Banda (Baja, Mexico DM11pr) Friday night,
the wx was cloud cover down on the deck- fog. we set up anyway, except for
the dishes because it was blowing- Saturday morning, we finished the setup,
drying off the stuff that got wet- my LO PLL wouldn’t lock until I stuck 2
150W floodlamps onto it for 20 minutes or so, after letting it all air out
for an hour- I did cover it with a tarp the night before, but that wasn’t
enough, apparently..... after that, it behaved normally.
I went to Mexico expecting it to be HOT!- I took the Gazebo that I use on
Mt. Wilson, and other sun protection stuff- I like cold weather, but that
was COLD!- wet gloppy fog until 10-11 on Saturday, then cleared for a while,
but it never got really warm.. Jack says it was my fault- I took a gazebo
for sun protection. so it rained (or at least fogged!). Murphy Lives!! I
thought conditions were poor on Saturday with signals from NorCal poor to
missing and only moderate beacon strength- like s9 or so, with Frazier
louder than PV.. but- Sunday!!! GAWK!!! The Frazier beacon was threshold the
entire day, and PV was essentially missing the whole day- I think I detected
it a little in the morning, but most of the rest of the day it was gone-
Jack could just detect it on his better rx, but absolutely amazingly BAD!
Signals from Heaps were best when they pointed at the towers and we pointed
direct path! worked on it for quite a while to work WB6DNX on Sunday- his
signals were weak bouncing off the towers, but were NOT THERE bouncing off PV!
Signals from LA stations were barely SSB, and sometimes CW only on Sunday.
Jack and I were truly amazed that there was any path to NorCal at all on
Sunday- working K6OW at Vaca CM88wj was really tuff, but it happened. K6OW
commented that he was very surprised that the known path from Vaca to Heaps
didn’t work- the dense cloud cover and no inversion killed it, I guess.
Anyway- 3 longest paths were to K6GZA on Mt. Tam, 875 KM; K6OW on Crystal
836 KM and K6OW on Vaca, 889 KM; and the next 5 longest qsos were with
WA6QYR, 557 KM, 580 KM, 646 KM, 666 KM, 622 KM.
21 qsos on Saturday, 14 qsos on Sunday for 35 qsos from XE- 73 robin-
WA6CDR/XE2
The plan of this rover was to hit 23 sites in the California Central Valley
and get a bunch of points. I had Mel, WA6JBD for copilot and helper. The
pickup was loaded with gear and towed a trailer with the 4 ft dish. We
arrived in Tulare on Friday afternoon and found a starting location. By
Saturday morning Murphy had hit. I was sick and at the throw-up threshold.
We traveled to the first site and set up, but signals just weren’t
propagating. The TWT decided to start blowing fuzes and not wanting to
reset. We only managed to make 4 sites on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. With a
total of 32 contacts from 11 calls, things just didn’t work out as great as
the plan. It paid off to have the CMOS Super Keyer 3 to work all those CW
contacts at the noise level. While sitting next to a cotton field near Los
Banos, a deputy sheriff stopped by asking if we were out cloning cell
phones. You sure get a lot of strange looks when out in the agricultural
areas with a 4 ft dish on a trailer and a pickup with a GPS dome and other
antennas. Thanks to all those stations on Northern and Southern California
mountain tops for providing contacts. Thanks to Mel for being a great
helper. I think we have a new microwaver in Mel. Special thanks to Jack,
N6XQ and Robin, WA6CDR for traveling to Mexico for some long distance
contacts and to Dave, K6OW who visited various Northern California peaks and
provided lots of contacts. EVERYONE- SEND IN YOUR SCORES AND LOGS FOR THE
CONTEST, EVEN IF YOU ONLY HAD ONE CONTACT.
Bill, WA6QYR
A Test tool: The Boomerang
If you are looking for a simple tool for checking the operation of your full
duplex (receive and transmit at the same time) microwave system, i.e. the
old ROCKLOC(Relative Or Crystal Local Oscillator Control) rig or one of its
later generation WBFM rig, the boomerang will do the job. The boomerang is
just a simple crystal oscillator running at your IF frequency, 30 MHz, that
is connected to a detector on a waveguide of the correct frequency band. Say
for the current folk running the 10 GHz gunnplexer, this would be a 30 MHz
crystal oscillator in a metal box with say a 9 volt battery. The output of
the oscillator is feed through a piece of coax to a WR90 waveguide detector
mount. The open waveguide end is pointed at your gunnplexer. The 10 GHz
energy from the gunnplexer enters the waveguide and mixes with the 30 MHz
driving the 1N23 diode. Now you have your 10 GHz transmit frequency plus and
minus 30 MHz and harmonics coming back out of the waveguide toward your
gunnplexer. Instant second station to hear in your WBFM receiver. Now you
can put the boomerang on a fence post and adjust the gunnplexer position at
the focus of the dish. See how far you can hear the boomerang. See if adding
the 30 MHz preamp to the gunnplexer IF output improved the performance of
the rig. Since the boomerang depends upon the amount of power your gunn puts
out, the distance heard is related to transmit power and sensitivity of the
receiver circuits, --system performance.
With the ROCKLOC rig using the polarplexer feed, the transmitter was put
into one port of a circular waveguide transition and the receive energy was
taking out at an orthogonal port 90 degrees away. We transmitted on say 45
degrees to the right of the propagation path and received 45 degrees to the
left. Placing the boomerang in transmission path with either vertical or
horizontal polarization, enough energy to be captured by diode and
re-radiated so one could check station performance. Making polaplexers out
of coffee cans on 2 GHz, steel beer cans on 3.3 GHz and brass toilet tank
fittings for 10 GHz was easy. Now in the aluminum pop can days one has to
shop the supermarket closer to find materials to build antennas with.
Pointing helps.
With all the polluted air these days and ability to work stations beyond
line of sight on the microwave bands, one needs tools to find where to point
for that other station out there. Enter the Boy Scout compass and the
computer. One you know where you are either by the GPS device in you pocket
or looking on a topographic map/ AAA map with the latitude/ longitude marked
in the margin. You can enter that data into the basic program BD
(bearing/distance) found on the ARRL webpages or from a friend and come up
with the Maidenhead grid square you are standing in. Some GPS devices read
out in Maidenhead coordinates. Learning what grid the other station is in
will allow you to punch in to BD that grid square and read out what the
distance and heading to the station is from your position. Now all you need
to do is figure out what direction that is. Now you pull out the magnetic
compass and read the heading- right? No the magnetic compass points to
magnetic north which in most cases is not the same as true north. In
Southern California magnetic north is about 15 degrees to the east of true
north. So you need to subtract 15 degrees from the true heading and find
that magnetic heading on the compass rose. In other parts of the country you
may need to add or subtract a different amount, so one may wish to consult
the data on the bottom of your topographic map or a Boy Scout Handbook. Now
holding the compass level and still, allowing the needle to rotate freely
and settle to magnetic north, you now position your eye to look over the
center of the compass to the heading degrees and spot some object on the
horizon in the heading direction. Now you can point your dish toward that
object and connect up with the other station. Once contact is made you can
log the contact, grid squares, and write down the distance from BD. Planning
in advance as to what hill top you are going to and the locations of other
good sites, one can make up a list of pointing angles for that site so in
the next contest you’ll know exactly where to point for those rovers. Some
does and don’ts for compass use might be in order. Since a compass uses
magnetic fields to point, standing next to a metal car may effect your
compass. Don’t lay the compass and your map on the car hood and expect it to
point correctly. This goes for the picnic table with metal bolts too. The
data on your computer disks may not like the magnetic compass needle. In
other words keep the compass away from metal and magnets. I know one Boy
Scout who liked magnets and his compass. Placing both in the same pocket
resulted in a compass whose needle would point south.
Some microwavers pick up military surplus tripods and other devices for
holding up a dish antenna. Some of these support devices have a compass rose
mounted on them. Some of the compass roses are adjustable, rotate in azimuth
and can be locked with a set screw. On others the reading just rotates with
the dish and no way to reset it. A tool to help finding a azimuth direction
with the non-adjustable compass rose is to build a translator. If one draws
on paper a circle and using a protractor marks off a compass rose of 360
degrees, this can serve as the ground heading desired. If you make a second
smaller diameter compass rose that would fit inside the first, now you have
a compass rose that represents the one on your tripod. Cut out the smaller
circle from the paper and place it over the center of the ground larger
circle. Use a small screw or tack to hold the two circles in place while
allowing the smaller one to rotate. Now say you are on a hill and have a
beacon in a known direction you can receive. Peak up on the beacon signal
and note the reading on the tripod compass rose. Take the tripod reading on
the inner paper compass rose and align it to the correct heading on the
outer ground compass rose. Now you have a translator for where you would
like to point to from your location to the heading you should set on the
tripod compass rose. If you don’t have a known beacon direction to point to,
you can use a magnetic compass to find say an east object on the horizon to
position your dish optical alignment tool on. And now you can read the
tripod heading. If you want to keep everything in true readings, then you
will have to convert the east magnetic heading to true heading. Some of the
military compass roses read in a clockwise direction around the device and
others read counterclockwise. So when laying out your inner circle take that
into account. Some military (usually Army equipment) compass roses read in
mils, 6400 mils per 360 degrees. This is fine, you just need to make 6400
divisions around your inner rose instead of 360. So you have a degrees to
mils translator.
Bill WA6QYR
Above is Dave Glawson, WA6CGR showing off some of his microwave rigs in
about 1996.
73s Bill