QRZ! Ham Radio 5/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 5.iso/digests/infoham/940169.txt

Internet Message Format | 1994-11-13 | 27.6 KB

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 94 11:43:43 PST
From: Info-Hams Mailing List and Newsgroup <[e-mail]>
Errors-To: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Precedence: Bulk
Subject: Info-Hams Digest V94 #169
To: Info-Hams


Info-Hams Digest            Thu, 17 Feb 94       Volume 94 : Issue  169

Today's Topics:
                Amateur Radio Newsline #861  11 Feb 94
                 Commercial Advertising via Internet?
                  Communications links with Sarajevo
                                 HELP
                            Icom2SRA mods?
                            kits (2 msgs)
              starting campus radio club faq, need info
                             Ten Tec PM2A

Send Replies or notes for publication to: <[e-mail]>
Send subscription requests to: <[e-mail]>
Problems you can't solve otherwise to [e-mail].

Archives of past issues of the Info-Hams Digest are available
(by FTP only) from UCSD.Edu in directory "mailarchives/info-hams".

We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text
herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official
policies or positions of any party.  Your mileage may vary.  So there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 20:42:16 GMT
From: gulfaero.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com![e-mail]
Subject: Amateur Radio Newsline #861  11 Feb 94
To: [e-mail]

"I am concerned that you continue to move forward and keep pace with
 the commercial side, so that the technologies you have on the
 air will in fact provide you all of the kinds of feature rich
 functions that are going to be available to the general public."
Ralph Haller N4RH, FCC

Dahhh you mean like 20 WPM CW as a requirement?

Dave Parker, KD6RRS

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 94 18:13:36 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Commercial Advertising via Internet?
To: [e-mail]

Alexandr writes:
>
Hi, world!
>
>   Anybody  know where   can   I   find  a  few  quartz  resonators  for
>governmental  TV  station  in Novosibirsk,  becouse  component plants in
>^^^^^^^^^^^^ (read commercial)
>Russia are stay or closed and component distributors demand minimal order
>in $1000.

What the heck is this? This should have never wound up on the this forum.
Maybe Alexandr needs to read the FAQ for this group.

I am getting exceedingly annoyed at the folks in the CIS pleading poverty.
They found it no problem to spend 30% of their GNP for 40 years to "bury us"
with their commie rhetoric & propoganda. Don't buy this feinged plea for help
as genuine. Its just another attempt at the CIS apparatchiki trying to extort
Western merchandise, monies, and/or aid thru pleas that play on our sympathies.
                73 de Walt - K2WK

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 20:09:41 GMT
From: world![e-mail]
Subject: Communications links with Sarajevo
To: [e-mail]

Even the biggest supporters of ham radio will admit that it can't
substitute for a conventional telecommunications network;
hams can't be expected to take the place of regular phone and
postal service indefinitely.

Yet that is what the hams of Bosnia-Herzegovina have been trying to
do for almost two years now. Serbian nationalists besieging Sarajevo,
cut off postal service in April, 1992, and cut off
telephone lines to the city in July, 1992. Sarajevans have been under
a communications blockade ever since.

So, for this city of more than 300,000 people, there is
virtually no way for them to contact loved ones outside. And,
people in the rest of the world with family and friends in Sarajevo
have almost no way to find out if their loved ones are OK.

As a result, the few hams able to still operate in Sarajevo are
overwhelmed with requests to try to pass messages in and out of
the besieged city. They are doing heroic humanitarian work, but
this can't substitute for restoration of phone lines. They really
need our help to try to get their regular phone links back.

It turns out that the telecommunications equipment which could restore
phone service between Sarajevo and the rest of the world IS SITTING
IN A WAREHOUSE IN DALLAS, TEXAS, BECAUSE THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH
COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES REFUSES TO ALLOW IT TO BE FLOWN INTO
SARAJEVO AIRPORT. The reason? U.N.H.C.R. says the equipment isn't
"humanitarian aid!!!!"

I think hams more than anyone understand that providing communications
during times of crisis is in fact a great humanitarian issue.

Several U.S. Congressmen, including Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of
the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance, are working
to try to get the U.N.H.C.R. to reverse its decision and allow
the equipment to be flown into Sarajevo's airport (which is under
U.N. control).

Markey's office is trying to get as many people as possible to contact
their senators and congress(wo)men by Tuesday, Feb. 22, and ask them
to co-sign a letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees urging
that the equipment be allowed in.

I am hoping that some hams might consider helping this effort --
and our colleagues under siege in Sarajevo -- and make a few calls
to your legislators urging them to sign onto the letter. The text
of the letter, and Markey's correspondence to other Members of
Congress, is below (taken from soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna).
If you know who your representatives are but don't have their
phone number, you can call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Thank you.

73, Sharon KC1YR

---------------------------------------------------------------------


This is the letter that Congressman Markey is asking his
Congressional colleagues to sign (and that you should ask your
legislators to sign):

Ms. Sadako Ogata
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Case Postale 2500
CH 1211 Geneve 2 Depot

Dear Commissioner Ogata:

We understand that the UNHCR has rejected a request to permit
transport of telecommunications equipment into Sarajevo submitted
on behalf of the Bosnian government by Mr. Muhamed Sacirbey, Bosnian
Ambassador to the United Nations. As concerned Members of the United
States Congress, we are writing to urge you to reconsider this
decision and end the communications black out in this besieged city.

Although we respect the need to monitor closely all shipments into
the Bosnian capital, we firmly believe that the telecommunications
equipment constitutes humanitarian aid and should be airlifted at
the earliest possible opportunity. Because telephone links have been
severed by Serb militants throughout the 22 month siege, those with
relatives and friends in Sarajevo are left to agonize daily over the
possibility that their loved ones have been injured or killed by the
relentless shelling of the city. Additionally, the total lack of
communications equipment further isolates the residents of Sarajevo
and prevents rapid access to emergency services. In fact, similar
equipment is currently supporting humanitarian missions in Somalia
and other areas. Therefore, we believe that this shipment to Sarajevo
does constitute humanitarian aid, and lifting the ban on the
transportation of telecommunicatoins equipment would be a humane action.

We urge you to allow the telecommunications equipment to be shipped
to Sarajevo. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

----------------------------------------------------------------------
And this is the letter Congressmen Markey and John Dingell are sending
to their colleagues.

               RESTORE SARAJEVO'S LINK TO THE WORLD
                        February 14, 1994

Dear Colleague:

Last week, the international community watched in horror as scenes
from the bombed-out marketplace in Sarajevo were beamed into homes
around the world. For those with relatives and loved ones in the
Bosnian capital, these images were even more frightening. Because
telephone links have been severed by Serb militants throughout the 22
month siege, relatives and friends were left to agonize for hours and
even days over the possibility that their loved ones were injured in
the blast.

While residents of Sarajevo suffer under a total communications blackout,
the telecommunications equipment needed to lift this informational
embargo sits, packed and ready to go, in a warehouse in Dallas, Texas.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which controls
shipments into the Sarajevo airport, has refused to allow the
equipment to be delivered on the grounds that the materials do not
constitute humanitarian aid. If relieving the anguish of thousands
of Bosnians and their loved ones outside of Sarajevo does not qualify
as humanitarian aid, then we do not know what does.

The U.S. Department of State, which has the authority to recommend
to UNHCR that the equipment be sent, has refused to intervene because
it was advised by the Defense Department that the materials could have
military value. Clearly, the export of materials with a potential dual
use should be carefully controlled. Within the United States government,
the Commerce Department strictly regulates the export of American
products with military applications. The claim that the telecommunications
equipment bound for the Bosnian capital constitutes military
assistance, however, is completely groundless. In fact, the
identical equipment which UNHCR is denying Sarajevo can be
shipped without a special export license to Iran, Iraq, China,
Syria, and Pakistan, among others. If this equipment is so
dangerous, why does the U.S. government allow it to be exported
so widely while refusing to send it to Sarajevo, a city under siege
with virtually no means to defend itself?

As NATO prepares for possible airstrikes, further shelling of
Sarajevo by Serb forces is likely. Unless the UNHCR permits the
transfer of this telecommunications equipment immediately,
Sarajevans and their loved ones outside the city will be subjected
again and again to the agonizing uncertainty resulting from a
preventable communications embargo. After almost two years of
bitter siege, Sarajevo's residents have been deprived of all civil,
personal, and social rights. Everything that makes for regular
urban living has already been taken away from Sarajevo and its
citizens, and still the UNHCR continues to deny Sarajevans one
of the most basic of all rights, the right to talk to each other.
While we agree that UNHCR must monitor shipments into Sarajevo,
we find some of their decisions rather curious. For example,
the UNHCR blocked a shipment of surplus underwear headed for the
Bosnian capital because of supposed military applications.

Lifting the ban on telecommunications would be a humane action,
especially considering the inhumane inaction which has characterized
the international community's response to this bloody conflict up to
this point. If you are interested in signing the attached letter to the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms. Sadako Ogata,
urging her to permit the transfer of the telecommunications
equipment, please contact Mark Bayer of Representative Markey's
office at 5-2836 by the close of business on Tuesday, February 22.

Edward J. Markey
John D. Dingell

--
electronic address: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 17 Feb 94 17:11:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: HELP
To: [e-mail]

I found some 7062 tubes...what are they...12au7's or what????

Clark Fishman  WA2UNN   [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 16:39:44 GMT
From: loral![e-mail]
Subject: Icom2SRA mods?
To: [e-mail]

Can someone email me mods for the above or point me to a location
where I can obtain them via an ftp mail server (as I cannot ftp directly)?

Thanks,
[e-mail]

--
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 17:25:36 GMT
From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!news.cerf.net!megatek![e-mail]
Subject: kits
To: [e-mail]

In article <2jull5$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Derek Wills) writes:
>[e-mail] (Fred McKenzie) says:
>
>>>I think the kits [Ramsey] sells are aimed towards people like
>>>ourselves, who are quite willing to go through the ordeal of
>>>de-bugging a kit, for the feeling of accomplishment from getting
>>>it to work!  Unfortunately, we are like dinosaurs about to become
>>>extinct.
>
>>>The modern ham seems to think a kit is something you merely plug the parts
>>>into, like assembling an IBM-clone computer from modules.  From that point
>>>of view, I'll admit that John's kits are not "modern".
>
>   Something that has not been clear to me from the start of this thread
>   is why the people who are smart enough to de-bug assembled kits that are
>   obviously in dire need of it are not smart enough to assemble the things
>   from their own components in the first place.   Is it cheaper buying one
>   of these kits than it is buying the individual components?
>
    Depends on where you live. The answer is often "yes".

-jim

>
>Derek Wills (AA5BT, G3NMX)
>Department of Astronomy, University of Texas,
>Austin TX 78712.  (512-471-1392)
>[e-mail]


--
Jim Campbell    "The Tye-Dye Guy"    |    "Remember to tweet!"
[e-mail]             | When in doubt, you're probably
WB6ZPB NSS ASA TNS            |      unsure about something

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 15:59:09 GMT
From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!emory!wa4mei.ping.com!ke4zv![e-mail]
Subject: kits
To: [e-mail]

In article <2jull5$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Derek Wills) writes:
>
>   Something that has not been clear to me from the start of this thread
>   is why the people who are smart enough to de-bug assembled kits that are
>   obviously in dire need of it are not smart enough to assemble the things
>   from their own components in the first place.   Is it cheaper buying one
>   of these kits than it is buying the individual components?

It can be, but mostly it's *easier* to buy from one source instead of
chasing down components from a bunch of different vendors, all of whom
seem to have minimum orders well above the price of the components you
need from them. I hate having to deal with vendors who are geared to
PO numbers and 1000 unit pricing for my little onesy twosy purchases.
I can easily run up a *phone* bill as high as the kit cost just tracking
down vendors who will sell me the parts.

So I'm willing to pay a premium to the kitmaker because he provides a
real service by acting as my purchasing agent for project components.
Where some of them fall down is in the *design* of their projects. Their
services are rather useless if they supply you with the wrong parts for
the wrong circuitry to do the job properly. I think the kit designer has
a responsibility to produce a kit that can meet it's claimed specifications
when assembled by someone competent to follow instructions. If a lab full
of test equipment and ad hoc circuit changes are required for the project
to successfully meet FCC specs, that should be stated up front in the
advertising.

My main gripe with the Ransey transceiver kit is that the builder is
led to believe that he can successfully complete the project with only
a frequency counter, power meter, and DVM. That's not true. If you follow
the instructions to the letter, you'll have a radio that won't meet
advertised specs, and will have an output spectrum that looks like a
comb on the spectrum analyzer. You *cannot* just peak that PA for maximum
output and have a clean spectrum.

Note: Ramsey isn't the only offender here. Hamtronics kits are at least
as bad. In fact, just getting a clean oscillator that will start reliably
in their 70cm converter is just short of impossible with the circuitry
they provide. You can either get an easy starting comb generator, or
you can get a clean spectrum on an oscillator that won't start. Sheesh!
A simple design change fixes the problem, but you shouldn't be expected
to have to do that.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

------------------------------

Date: 15 Feb 94 20:40:18 GMT
From: gulfaero.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!prism![e-mail]
Subject: starting campus radio club faq, need info
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Jeffrey Luszcz) writes:
>Hello,
>   I would like to start a FAQ for Collage Amateur Radio Clubs. If you know
>of a radio club on campus could you send me some info about it. IUm looking
>for

   << INFO DELETED >>


Well, I'd like to start with my own club, The Georgia Tech Amateur Radio Club
(W4AQL). We are at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and have undergrads, graduates,
alumni, faculty and staff, and a few others as members. Our officials are:

Sponsor:  Dr. Paul Steffes ([e-mail])
President: Dave Kunkee K0DI ([e-mail])
VP: Jeff Tucker N9HZQ ([e-mail])
Treasurer: Dave Huggins N4RMM ([e-mail])
Secretary: Carrie Carter N9JSR ([e-mail])
Shack Steward: Mike Whaley KD4UGI ([e-mail]) (that's me!)
Shack phone: [phone]
Shack Address: Room E-180, Electrical Engineering Bldg, Georgia Tech

We have a repeater on 145.15 (input 144.55) located on the GT campus,
with a remote site on 145.05 in Duluth, GA. Our shack is very well equipped,
with 2 Kenwood TS-940S's, an icom and a Yaesu VHF rig (ferget the numbers)
two Alpha 77 amps on the Kenwoods, and the following antennas: TH-6, 10,15,and
20 meter beams, 2m and 70cm satellite antennas, and 80 and 160 meter dipoles.
We probably have more up there, but between the 3 towers I can't remember
all of it :-)

GTARC was started by 1927 for sure, and we believe that it may have existed as
early as 1911- we're still trying to corroborate that info.  We have approxi-
mately 50 members or so, who operate on all bands and all modes, especially
while contesting! The club has an email server at [e-mail],
or you can send mail to the club account at [e-mail]. We
would be very happy to hear from any interested folks out there, especially
those who are or have been associated with Tech or the club.


>Even if you canUt answer all the questions, oh well, its a start. I will
>put the
>info on a ftp site and/or post if people are interested.
>Thanks,

>-Jeff Luszcz N2TIQ
>[e-mail]
>Cornell Amateur Radio Club W2CXM

Well, there's the Rambling Wreck contribution. Good luck to you on this
project--- and if anyone else out there wants to organize some sort of get-
together between Tech and some other school (UGA excepted ;-) let us know!

73 de KD4UGI


*******************************************************************************
* Mike "Gator" Whaley             K    Chief of Aerospace Engineering         *
* [e-mail]      D    George P. Burdell Engineering Inc.     *
* [e-mail]        4                                           *
* Georgia Tech Box 40265          U    "Ipecac- isn't that a Genesis album?"  *
* Atlanta, GA  30332              G                         --- Joel, MST 3K  *
* [phone]                  I                                           *
*******************************************************************************
* I absolutely refuse to put a disclaimer here: All opinions expressed above  *
* are EXACTLY what Georgia Tech would tell you, VERBATIM, with NO DIFFERENCES.*
*******************************************************************************

--

*******************************************************************************
* Mike "Gator" Whaley             K    V.P. of Aerospace Engineering          *
* [e-mail]      D    George P. Burdell Engineering Inc.     *

------------------------------

Date: 16 Feb 1994 14:26:20 -0600
From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu![e-mail]
Subject: Ten Tec PM2A
To: [e-mail]

Anyone have a Ten Tec PM2A manual they could copy? I will pay
duplication and shipping.

thanks

73

Jeff, AC4HF

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 20:30:16 GMT
From: gulfaero.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <2jqi1t$[e-mail]>
Subject : Re: Nude amateur radio clubs

In article <2jqi1t$[e-mail]>,
John W. Meaker <jm6033@pegasus> wrote:
>Alan Bloom ([e-mail]) wrote:
>
>: How many people have received their free QSL card from K4NBN "No Bad News"?
>: (He used to have a monthly ham ad in QST.)  The nude lady in the QSL photo
>: was indeed a kind of centerfold, although not the type you might expect.
>: It was done as a promotion for a nudist colony in Georgia or somewhere.
>
>: AL N1AL
>
>   I'm curious about nude QSL cards.  Would anyone be offended if they
>received a QSL card in the mail with nude people on it?  Would it be

It would depend on who received it.  Some people would feel offended,
others not.

>better to mail the card in an envelope?  The envelope increases the
>cost of mailing a QSL considerably, and cost a consideration when you
>mail many cards.
>
>                                         John Meaker -=- kr4ah
>
>       Disclaimer - I am not responsible for the actions of
>                    any Alpha-Hotels other than myself.
>
>
>


--
===============================================================================
| Scott Ehrlich            Internet: [e-mail]     BITNET: wy1z@NUHUB  |
| Amateur Radio: wy1z          AX.25: [e-mail]                    |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|    Maintainer of the Boston Amateur Radio Club hamradio FTP area on      |
|            the World - world.std.com  pub/hamradio               |
===============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 17:03:09 GMT
From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!emory!wa4mei.ping.com!ke4zv![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <bote.760946660@access1>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
Reply-To : [e-mail] (Gary Coffman)
Subject : Re: Medium range point-to-point digital links

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew Francey) writes:
>[e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>So an 8 bit system would have a SNR of 10*log(2^9)=27 db.
>
>heywaitaminute.  isnt the SNR a power ratio?  you've
>done a voltage ratio here ...

Heh, no, I did a power ratio when I was dealing with voltage ratios.
As Jon noted, I should have used 20*log(2^9)=54.18 db.

>>per second. That requires a very good brickwall filter, however,
>>so sampling is usually done at a somewhat higher rate, say 3X
>>or 4X the highest audio frequency. Lets pick 3X. So our required
>>bit rate is 16*15,000=240 kb/s.
>
>but after your oversampling and filtering, you don't bother with
>the "in-between" samples anymore ... you still end up transmitting
>10kbps (in your example).

No. The best we can do is cut the number of samples down to the
Nyquist limit of 2xFcutoff by decimation and multiply by the
number of bits per sample. So we're down to 10 kilosamples/sec
times 8 bits per sample or a 80 kb/s digital bit stream. (But
I think you meant that.)

>tho i would say that 8kilosamples/second @ 8bits is quite accepatable.
>64kbps.  using an ADPCM encoder you can chop this in half.

Yes, data compression can reduce the required transmission bit rate.
I've been dealing with only the raw sample data so far.

>if you have a soundblaster, you can experiment with both sample rate
>and resolution ... 4k samples/sec is too low, 6k is passable.  fewer
>than about 5 bits would probably make things very irritating.

Yeah. If you further reduce Fcutoff, you can lower the sample rate,
and if you reduce the SNR, you can use fewer bits per sample. But
we were trying for "broadcast grade" transmission here. And we didn't
even make that because we restricted Fcutoff to 5 kHz. If we'd insisted
on a 15 kHz Fcutoff, the required bit rate would be 3x more, or 240 kb/s.
Applying the *correct* formula, 5 bit samples would give a SNR of
20log(2^6)=36 db. That actually looks fairly acceptable for ham grade
channels. But there's another effect we haven't discussed. That's
intermodulation distortion. With a 5 bit sample, we have products
at 5 times the sample rate mulitiplied by each frequency in the sampled
waveform. If our D/A isn't linear out to a fairly high frequency, we can
get mixing products, or beats, between the various sample products that
can wind up down in the audio passband. That'll give us harsh buzzing
artifacts in our audio that simple filtering can't remove. The higher
the sample rate, the less these step products become noticable. They
tend to converge to an infrasonic frequency that's easily filtered.

>>Or we can abandon voice grade radios for the links and use purpose
>>built digital radios with higher baud rates.  If we take a 56 kb
>>WA4DSY RF modem (GRAPES), and couple that with an on the fly
>
>or you could just get a pair of gunplexers.  pricey, but you also
>get the beginnings of a *very* high speed (>1Mbps) data link.  voice/packet/
>whatever.
>
>price/performance/future:  how much are gunplexers, how much are
>the WA4DSY modem/radios and compare what both are eventually capable of.

Well the WA4DSY modem is $250, and then you need a transverter. That
can run from $150 to over $300, and you need the digital driver to
generate and control the bits to the modem. Say the total is $500-$600
per end for the package. That means a link is going to cost $1000-$1200
plus feedline and antennas. Paths of 30-40 miles are fairly routine,
barring major terrain blockage, and good high sites can do much better
than that.

M/Acom 10mw gunnplexer transceivers are available for on the order of
$350 from SI, or raw gunnplexers can be found for $30-$70 on the surplus
market. But you have to design an AFC system, and the high speed digital
modulator/demodulators for them. Find dishes for them, and find line of
sight paths for the links. Costs could be similar, around $1000 per
link, but site selection would be much more restricted, and likely
range as well (only a couple of miles for reasonable sized dishes
and average terrain). Ten watts and 4 foot dishes can give 50+ mile
paths at video bandwidths under good conditions, but that's serious money.
It could be worth it for the higher throughput in some cases.

Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     |

------------------------------

End of Info-Hams Digest V94 #169
******************************