) SPRAT om THE JOURNAL OF THE G QRP CLUB DEVOTED TO LOW POWER COMMUNICATION [ISSUE Nr.107 | ©G-QRP-CLUB | SUMMER 2001 The EP-3 80m SSB Transceiver by VE7QK — in this issue [With Club Kit Offer] MINI-CONVENTION — EXTENDING CRYSTAL PULLING UR-QRP CLUB EXPEDITION — HOME BREW LADDERLINE SUBHARMONIC RESONANCES - NOTES ON PSK31 - LIMPY ARNOLD QRP FREQUENCY COUNTER - ONER RECEIVE CONVERSION ‘SPACE JUNK — RECYCLING BITS - FUN ON LONG WAVE RESONATOR VFO - EPIPHYTE 3 [CLUB OFFER] TUNABLE CW/SSB FILTER - LOW POWER SCRAPBOOK [RSGB OFFER] CLUB SALES — A. A. A. COMMUNICATIONS NEWS - NOVICE NEWS. VHF NEWS - SSB & DATA COLUMN - MEMBER’S NEWS.JOURNAL OF THE G QRP CLUB ©GQRP CLUB St. Aidan's Vicarage, 498 Manchester Road Rochdale, Lancs. OL11 3HE. England TEL: 01706 - 631812 FAX: 0870 056 7345 (overseas tel: +44 1706 631812) Internet : g3rjv@garp.com Homepage : www.gqrp.com Rev. George Dobbs G3RUV EDITOR! AL This issue of SPRAT was completed with the kind assistance of Graham, G3MFJ. My visit to the Dayton Hamvention this year was extended to include a retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Unfortunately this will run over the critical time for the submission of SPRAT to the printer, so Graham kindly stepped in to complete this issue from the “raw articles”. Our congratulations to Duncan, and the team, at the Junction 28 QRP Convention for a good day. The event will be repeated next year. I look forward to seeing many of you at the Rochdale QRP Convention in October. Details may be found in this issue. Agen 7213, G3RIV EDITED BY GEORGE DOBBS G3RJV ARTWORK BY A.W. (MAC) MCNEILL G3FCK Printed by G QRP Postal MailingTHE G QRP CLUB MINI-CONVENTION SATURDAY 13th OCTOBER 2000 J ST. AIDAN’S HALL SUDDEN ROCHDALE V ADMISSION £1 - DOORS OPEN 10am - TALK-IN S22 LARGE SOCIAL AREA - LECTURES ON QRP SUBJECTS BRING & BUY - SURPLUS - JUNK - COMPONENTS - KIT TRADERS FOOD & DRINK ALL DAY - INCLUDING THE FAMOUS PIE AND PEAS n Is located on the A644 Manchester Road, about 3 mins away from Junc.20 on the M62. There is ample free Parking around the church and at the side of the large Tesco Supermarket across LOCAL ACCOMMODATION The Royal Toby Lodge - Tel: 01706 - 861861. Fri/Sat Tariff : £39.95 per [This is a group rate — please contact G3RUV for details) All rooms en-suite each with a double and single bed. Restaurants and Public Bar Also within close of th 1e Norton Grange Hotel : 01706 - 630788Extending Crystal Pulling range lan Braithwaite G4COL, 28 Oxford Av. St. Albans, AL1 5NS Even in these days of direct digital synthesis, the variable crystal oscillator still has its place in relatively simple home-brew gear. Obtaining as wide a pulling range as possible is the main challenge. This short note shows how the pulling range of a single crystal can be extended by using it in two oscillator circuits. Most variable crystal oscillator (VXO) or voltage-controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO) circuits use the crystal as a series device in a single transistor circuit. Good behaviour and pulling range can both be obtained quite easily, though the pulling range depends crucially on the parameters of the crystal itself. Criteria for good behaviour are: ‘The circuit shouldn’t oscillate without the crystal in circuit. Oscillation should always be controlled by the crystal. Badly-behaved oscillators become free-running, losing stability, or oscillate at some remote frequency. The circuit should oscillate over the whole of the control range. My favourite circuit is shown in figure 1. The crystal is a series device, and there is insufficient gain for oscillation without the crystal. A low-Q collector tuned circuit prevents oscillation at emote frequencies while giving enough gain at the crystal frequency to keep oscillation going over a good pulling range. Using a series inductor, the frequency can be pulled both below and above the series resonance, However, as the frequency is pulled upwards, towards the parallel resonance, which requires a very small capacitance in series with the crystal, the oscillator loop gain falls and oscillation ceases. ‘This means that there is still “unexplored territory” around the parallel resonance. Access to this can be gained by a second oscillator which uses the crystal as a parallel element. A suitable circuit is shown in figure 2. Two transistors are used to give the required gain and phase shift for oscillation, with very small (2p2) capacitors next to the crystal. The aim is to keep capacitance in parallel with the crystal to a minimum, so as to reach as high a maximum frequency as possible. ‘The gain of the circuit, which can be set by the emitter and source feedback resistors, must not bbe made too large, or the circuit will oscillate without the crystal, risking losing crystal control. T modelled the circuit using the TINA circuit analysis software, using a representative crystal equivalent circuit, and when built, it worked perfectly first time. With a 10.106MHz ORP frequency crystal, the series oscillator gave a range of 10.0910 to 10.10940MHz (10.3kHz range). The parallel oscillator covered 10.10842 to 10.11208MHz (3.66kHz range). Both used a control range of 0 to 13V. This could have been made greater, but since there is overlap, there is no point. So, the total in-band coverage from the two oscillators is over 12kHz, not bad for a crystal not specially designed for pulling. In theory, the crystal could be pulled above its parallel resonance frequency, by using an inductor in parallel with the crystal. However, this runs the risk of oscillation without the crystal present, and has not been tried. ‘To make full use of the technique, the crystal must be swapped between oscillator circuits. This could be done by transferring it between sockets, or by using a switch or relay. This is left to the ingenuity of the reader. The variable capacitance diodes can share a common control voltage.Transformer 750-6 toroid +12 = 10.0n at tot 27007 V wares am . 10.0n Bct107 am T— 100.0k Tunin BB800 voltag fem Figure 1: VCXO using the crystal as a series device 100.0% = Praning vote Figure:2: VCXO using the crystal as a parallel device 5UR-QRP club expedition Peter P Grytsay US1REO E-mail us1reo@urqrp.ne.cq.ukrtel.net Between 4 and 11 of May 2001 the Ukrainian QRP Club held its first Radio expedition to the Crimean Mountains. Special call - EMSQRP. It was arranged in 2 stages: 1- (4-8 May). Mountain Ai-Petri, 1200m above sea level. I1- (9-11 May). The suburbs of the town of Bachchisarai. Members of the Crimean QRP-pedition: RK3ZK, UR6IRL, UR7IRL, USIRCH, USIREO, UUAICQ, US-1-555, UAIWX. 562 QRP QSO were held with 45 countries of the world ‘Among them DX: JY, 4S7, JA, N8, 9H, EA9, HL & UAO. Two antennas: GP and GPA-30, one LW - 41 meters were set, the latter with Antenna tuner. ‘We worked in some shifts on 80, 40, 30, 20m bands taking into account propagation. Home- made transceivers were used on 80 and 40m bands. Unfortunately they were out of order some of the time because of a high humidity due to the clouds which covered the mountain most of the time, In WX-reports we often said: "We are in the clouds" or "above the clouds". Only a military QRP TRX worked without any problems from the very beginning to the end. Portable FM transceivers with the output power of about | Watt were used for work on a 2m band. We had some RTTY QSOs on the 20m band. For this we used an old Notebook IBM 486SLC-50, software HamComm 3.1 and a home-made radiomodem. Software JVFAX 7.0 was used for receiving weather charts (7880 kHz), but we didn't manage to have any SSTV QRP QSO. The members of the expedition greatly enjoyed working on QRP bands. They also could admire the unique nature and the view of the plateau Ai-Petri Unforgettable also, is a delicious Crimean wine. We hope new QRP-expeditions, meetings with new friends, fresh impressions are awaiting us in future. All our QRP-expedition contacts will get special QSL-cards. 72/131 Peter Grytsay, USIREO President of the UR-ORP Club In the right hand picture, left to right, front row ~ Dima UU4JCQ and Igor RK3ZK, back row ~ Sergey US-I-555, Nick UA3WX, Vlad URTIRL, Pavel UR6IRL, Victor USIRCH, and Peter (the author) - USIREOHome Brew Ladderline Seab Lyon AA1MY, 99 Sparrowhawk Mtn Rd, BETHEL, ME 04217. E-mail: sslyon@megalink.net Having experimented with various forms of twinlead, ladderline and other commercial balanced feeder, the need for economical and robust line drove the effort to home brew my own. It seemed that most twinlead lacked strength and suffered fatally from wind-whipping. 450-ohm “window line”, while more robust, still suffered from wind and ice loading. Both de-tuned significantly with rain and ice, esp. with high SWR antennas like the Lazy-H. The cost of commercial spreaders for 600-ohm (and higher) “open” line put them out of reach since I was making antennas like Sterba Curtains for instance, and feeding them from 250° down the hill. A real drain on the feeder/frustration budget. Most articles on the subject suggested spreaders of waxed or lacquered wood, PVC pipe, lucite (perspex) blocks, even plastic forks. All were big in terms of weight and ice loading, not to mention fabrication problems, Considering the needs of robust ladderline, it occurred to me that there really isn’t a great deal of lateral force on the conductors, so all I have to worry about is keeping them from ripping apart, The nylon inspiration struck one hot afternoon while re-loading my weed-wacker*. The line is strong, durable, - and cheap! After trying several variants the following version seems to provide the combination of performance, reliability and economy that fits my needs, Note that while I chose 600-ohm line, you can follow the guidelines in the ARRL Handbook to make any other impedance you'd like. Materials and techniques described here represent a lot of trial-and-error and variations should be carefully considered. You may be able to improve on this, (and I hope you do), so treat this as a starting point rather than the ultimate solution, By all means share your knowledge and experience. ‘Twelve-Step-Program to 600-ohm (nominal) balanced feedline: 1.) #16 or #18 wire, bare or insulated. _ (0.051/0.040 inch, 18/19SWG, 1.27/1.01mm — G3MF3) 2.) Roll of 95 mil round weed-wacker line, 3.) Cut wacker line to 4" lengths while enjoying libation, snacks, TV. 4.) Bend nylon ends around a small hot solder iron tip. Make %” hooks with i.d. to fit your line conductors. Use gloves, more libation, ete. 5.) Make two 4” stakes with plywood “T” near top, with notches 3.5” apart. 6.) Pound the stakes into the ground, about 30! apart. 7.) Unwind the spool of wire & double it. Stretch it through stake slots. 8.) Tension the wire with concrete blocks on ground outside of the stakes. 9.) Hook spreaders on the wire 12-18" apart, then hot melt glue in place, using a “saddle-blob” over both sides of the loops and wire. 10) Use hot air gun to remove glue stringers and melt glue to wire. 11) Advance your ladderline to the next segment. Roll up made section. 12) Happily apply your 250’ of prime, lo-loss feeder/phasing line! “(Note by G3MFIJ — a ‘weed-wacker’ is the US term for a petrol engine driven grass/weed trimmer ~ sometimes known in the UK as a ‘strimmer’. This uses thicker line than a domestic electric-motor driven model — US grass is probably tougher than the UK equivalent!)Notched spreager biockis) sf Supports: 36".40° nigh ‘and 30 80 feet apart. ~~ Take-up spoo! \ Cement block(s) y | | re Fig. 1. Tensioning Fixture for Ladder-Line fabrication. Keeping ine under tension he'ps keep spreaders n place while guung. Notches # blocks are wider than spreaders te maintain width tension, Fig. 2. Spreaders are hooked over the wire, then hot-melted Spreaders are spaced 12°18" depending on amount of pwist anticipated Spreaders on fst. adjust the spacing, then giue them. Ensure dlue bonds securely to at east 1/4" of wire fis the spreader loons Fig. 3. Robust Wire Terminations ing Lugs are creeped, soldered. thon bobbed witn hot melt gue te flex fatigue ailores, Notes: (practice, practice, practice) Melting/smoking nylon won’t ruin solder tips, but your marriage... hmmm, Stranded wire for low-stress segments, solid for higher-stress. Use “heavy-duty” (if available) hot melt glue for best cold wx & U-V tolerance. ““Batch-process” spacers, etc. for efficiency. (~170 for 250" of line) Blob more hot melt glue on the end terminations to prevent flex failures. Application Hint: [pre-cut 1/2 wave sections of it as well as 1/4 & S-wave single wires (for a couple of bands) and crimp/solder ring lugs on the ends. That enables spur-of-the-moment-bolt-together assembly of an amazing assortment of antenna types. It brings great joy to lift an idea from such green pastures as WARNL's web page and actually build a killer antenna in an afternoon ~even on windy, freezing, rainy days! Balanced Tuners have become objects of great interest thanks again to L.B. Cebik’s remarkable body of work on his now-famous web page 8Destroy Subharmonic Resonances in Transistor PA Circuits — Part Il - or Help for TenTec 1320/30/40? Ha-Jo Brandt DJ1ZB Eichenweg 7, Frontenhausen, D-84160, Germany email: djtzb@darc.de In SPRAT Nr. 91 (Summer 1997) the author had reported on problems encountered in multi section low-pass filter tank circuits in QRP transmitters and how they can be solved. No comments were received so far, and QRP groups and even companies continued to employ such filters in PA circuits. Just recently, however, it became evident that these problems are still existing, not just under the surface. This became apparent on the Internet server of the German DL-QRP-AG www.dl-qrp-ag.de founded in May 1997 by Peter Zenker, DL2FI. On this server (usually in German), anybody can raise almost any question on any technical problem, any kit or any equipment on the ‘market, just as on similar servers of this kind, Due to the variety of subscribers and their specific knowledge, in most cases a practical answer and solution will be given. With the beginning of this year some of the problems which were addressed had common symptoms. The rigs mentioned were showing normal behaviour on a dummy load, but it was impossible to tune a matchbox between these rigs and an aerial, some even did not operate properly on an aerial with had been tuned for low VSWR employing another rig. A cross- needle“ VSWR meter may show equal readings on both forward and reflected power, and the CW monitoring tone sounds bad. I asked the owners of these rigs to send me the circuit diagram, containing at least the driver and PA sections up to the aerial output. The rigs were mainly TenTecs, and one Norcal 40, and what was common to them: All these rigs were using a double section low-pass filter (Z = 50 Ohms) in the transmitter output! As outlined in the first article, this kind of PA output filters will pass not only the wanted frequency to the output but also subharmonics which may be generated when the PA transistor is driven hard, as usual in class C amplifiers. The insertion of a series resonant circuit of a recommended operational Q of about 5 into the first low-pass filter section (converting it to a peaked low-pass filter) eliminates this problem. Speaking independently of frequency, the solution is as follows: The usual inductance of the low-pass filter has a reactance of 50 Ohms. For a Q of S an additional reactance of 250 ohms is needed. Both reactances can be combined into a single coil with a reactance of 300 ohms. The tuning capacitor in series wil! also have a reactance of 250 ohms, The practical cure for all rigs is simple, as shown in Fig. 1: Replace the coil in the first low- pass filter section (L8 in TenTecs, L7 in Norcal 40) by a coil of higher inductivity in series with a foil trimmer of 90 pF. It is even possible to use the removed toroid and rewind it for this higher inductivity. For a 20-m-rig about 3 uH is needed, for a 30-m-rig 4,2 wH, and for a 40 m tig 6 uH. For 40 m rigs, a fixed NPO capacitor of 47 pF will also be needed in parallel to the trimmer. For tuning the foil capacitor, the rig is connected to either a dummy load or an aerial with low VSWR for the desired band, and the trimmer is tuned for maximum power output or maximum forward indication of a VSWR meter. Afier this modification the TenTecs 1320 and 1330 modified so far could immediately be used for QSOs. No loss in power output has been reported. 9‘The owner of one of the rigs modified, a TenTec 1320, reported, that before the modification his rig usually had been quiet when connected to a well tuned aerial, but could not be used in combination with an ATU. Furthermore he had observed that sometimes during keying the VSWR meter suddenly showed high reflection for a short moment (triggering the generation of a subharmonic?). But now these problems have disappeared completely, he now can tune his ATU behind the rig, and even during tune the CW monitoringtone is good. ‘The single Norcal 40 mentioned L see text needed further treatment and now has I scp a tuned driver circuit corresponding. to those in the author’s FO Transmitters (SPRAT 64, Autumn 1990, see Fig. 3), with L2 = 6 uH). This has a coupling capacitor Ck to toPA am — the PA transistor (2SC799 in this case) of 220 pF. The 100 ohms a resistor from the PA base to ground has been retained to avoid using a choke. The resistor between driver ‘77 collector and resonant circuit shown Fig.1: Modified PA output fiter in Fig 3 should be at least 27 ohms but DLSFDW who has tried out these modifications has even increased it to 100 ohms without any loss of output power. This resistor is needed to suppress parametric oscillations (showing up when the driver resonant circuit is detuned towards smaller capacitance only). On the DL-ORP-AG server, however, two other Norcal 40 owners have expressed their concern on the amendments done to the Norcal 40, arguing that those problems mentioned and cured were well known for TenTecs but not for the Norcal 40. The author cannot judge this, he is using his own homebrew QRP equipment and has little information on the behaviour of ORP rigs on the market, DLSFDW, however, has found these modifications necessary and now is also very fond of this rig. ‘The author would be pleased if any of these rigs mentioned (and similar) showing these symptoms could be put to normal operation by these modifications. Comments would be ‘welcome to either SPRAT or email: djlzb@darc.de Notes on PSK31 — Tom Sorbie GM3MXN ‘The article in Sprat 106 on PSK31 will encourage readers to have a go at this new mode, which is amazing, as Richard says, my contacts at 4 watts affirm this statement. Regarding the isolation transformers, I am using 88mh cores connected as a transformer - 2 x 44mh,they give good isolation and transfer of audio. The Macros [or prepared files) make it easy for poor typists like myself, in fact I had a QSO last week without touching the keyboard. For those who do not have a P.C., Small Wonder Labs have a TRX kit at $100 where the input is by a cw key and the received PSK is seen on an LCD display. [Note by G3MFJ— 88mH (actually 2 x 22mH — as there are two windings on a common toroid, which, when they are series connected, makes them 88mH) toroids are available from club sales ~ see p27] 10The True Story of Limpy Arnold Geert, G/PE3GRT/MM on board the Dutch flagged vessel Sarai Pe3grt@amsat.org RG58 Cable The brother in law of our radioclub secretary in Amstelveen, came home to. Holland a month ago after emigrating to Dimensions New Zealand in the fifties. So far not inmm. remarkable. His first name in Holland was Jan translated in New Zealand into Rib and he also is a Ham. Anyway he brought with him an antenna for the 2 metre band and 85 65 with the following story. From top of pve tube Somebody, working for the same consultancy as Rib, brought with him an antenna that he had found somewhere. Coil, 12tums anti. Sifce the antenna was unknown and clockwise covered with tape and cable jacket, Rib from top suggested making an X ray photo of the on 3/4" pve tube amtenna, there was a possibility to do this with almost no cost. As the photo was developing besides the 6 Metre Version antenna there appeared also some letters as above with forming a name: ARNOLD. Top: 1530mm ‘There was no explanation how this name came on this picture. Magic? ‘There is more in Heaven and Earth... . Rib made a drawing that you will find by this story. The prefix “Limpy” came because this is a hanging whip antenna. On board my boat I taped a piece of bamboo along Arnold so that he can look proudly over the top of the mast. The top of Arnold I made 2 cm longer to tune by cutting to the proper frequency. I measured in free hanging position, a SWR of 1.03 : 1 Coil: 11% turns. on 2" pvc tube Lead to transceiver What I like is the KISS principle of this antenna: no exira connectors, ready within 10 minutes, no expensive material (could be Dutch) other a some length of RG 58 and if you cut to much off the top when tuning to the frequency, by pushing and pulling the “coil” you can start again with cutting the top after removing also some of the braiding material and cable jacket. For outdoor use I used self vulcanising rubber tape and cable jacket to make Arnold water tight. The Big Surprise came on the Isle of Wight on the River Medina near Folly Inn, when I had a QSO with an OM in Southampton on... ..70 cm!! See also the ARRL Handbook 20.17 (Resonant Feed-line Dipole) and RadCom, March 2000, over Feedline Verticals for 2m & 6m by Rolf Brevig, LALIC. MlA GRP FREQUENCY COUNTER Olivier ERNST F5LVG 2 rue de la Philanthropie, F-59700 MARCQ-EN-BAROEUL, FRANCE ‘This frequency meter is inspired by the Frequency Adam of G4SGF (SPRAT 68). Its functioning is simple (figure 1). One transistor is used as an RF amplifier and adapts the de voltage to the de input (1.4 V) of a 74HCT4020 IC. This IC converts the sinusoidal wave into a square wave and divided its frequency by 1024. A CR circuit (680 pF, 1 KOhm x 2, 4.7 KOhm, 100 Ohm) converts the square wave into a series of positive and negative pulses (differentiation). A second transistor converts the series of positive and negative pulses into a series of positive pulses (detection) that feed a RC circuit (100 Ohm, 100 nF). This RC circuit is an integrator, therefore, the higher is the pulse frequency, the higher is the output voltage. This voltage feeds a digital voltmeter and you obtain a digital frequency meter ! Set up 1 Adjust the 100 KQ adjustable resistor to obtain 1.4 V on the collector of the BCS49C. 2 Put the switch on the calibration position. The first transistor is a 18 MHz Pierce oscillator. 2 Adjust the 1 K@ and the 100 Q adjustable resistors to read approximately 180.0 mV on the digital voltmeter. 3 Adjust carefully the 4.7 K@ potentiometer to read exactly 180.0 mV. 4 Put the switch on the other position to do the measurement. ‘The 680 pF capacitor must be a good quality ceramic capacitor. The 100 nF capacitor is a polyester capacitor (mylar*, MKT). If there is a thermal drift, exchange the 100 nF capacitor by a mixing of ceramic (negative temperature coefficient) and polyester (positive temperature coefficient) capacitors. For a 2000 point voltmeter, the last digit corresponds to 10 KHz up to 200.0 mV (20 MHz) and to 100 KHiz from 200 mV up to 500 mV (50 MHz). This frequency counter can be used for a superheterodyne receiver. All you have to do is to modify the output circuit. The modification for an oscillator with a frequency lower than the received frequency is described figure 2A while the modification for the opposite case is described figure 2B. In both cases, you have to adjust the 100 K@ resistor to read the value of the FI on the digital voltmeter while the emitter of the BD137 is connected to the ground, 100K = +5V 470K 100K ‘voltmeter 10K i Awav regulator av 10nF ZT L 220 pF OUTPUT DIGITAL VOLTMETER iy ls 10 nF Ad RF INPUT Figure 1 ntrolled Clocks These clocks feature 24hr readout, offset to GMT with continuous seconds and date display. Dual alarm with snooze facility. Ideal for the shack or for Field Day. £14.95 each + £1 p&p any quantity. Cheques payable to Martin Peters, 11 Filbert drive, Reading. RG31 5DZ Check int http:// freespace.virgin.net/ martin, or SSAE for more details. Email - radio.clocks@virgin.net (G4EFE/ GQRP 1 176) erst MEMBERS ADS EMBERS ADS - MEMBERS AD: EMBERS ADS - MEMBERS ADS. FOR SALE: MFJ-9020 (Sw 20m cw) with PSU and CTU-3 atu. This rig has worked VK ! £130 (plus p & p). Richard Limebear G3RWL (QTHR), 020 8366 4297 (eves) or e-mail YAESU FT707 ELF. transceiver + 20 amp switch mode p.s.u. Both excellent condition and working order. Offers around £200 for both, will split. A.S.Bowmaker Tel: 01282 774878 FOR SALE: Drake R4 — C Manual, S00KHz filter, has just been checked over - £230 CFX-514 Triplexer 6-42 - £25 Twin TSA6001 - £15, Pye power unit, 12v 4Amp with speaker - £7.50. Bill GMOKMG 0141-562-4571 13ONER Receive Conversion Oleg V. Borodin, RV3GM, Cosmonaut street 19 — 74, Lipetsk, 398043 E-mail: master72@lipetsk.ru ANTENNA ONER RECEIVE vray CONVERSION TO ONER LPF RX oo of hs Hz PHONES ors TO ONER rr] COLLECTOR Tat 40} L Thave built this receiver board for the ONER transmitter of GM3OXX. My version was for 40m with L1 (18 turns of .33wire] and L2 [6 turns] on 8mm core with a ferrite core. I have had QSOs with Ukraine, Poland, and Germany etc. (Note by G3RJV - Try 35 tums on a T50-2 with a 350pF variable capacitor this should tune from 80-20m.) NOTE by G3RIV: Oleg has recently written to me about the problems he had with the Micro-80 and “Froggy” kits of some years ago. Several members wrote to him with orders, which were not fulfilled. In was in the days of the old Russian regime and Oleg had problems with the authorities because of receiving US currency in the mail. He invites disappointed members to contact him. QRPproj eCCt - anp and Homebrew international, Berlin Germany ORPDYOJOCE aw wennacnenaoe mene Official distributor of I Hands Electronics, Wilderness Radio, Small Wonder Labs, OHR, DL-GRP-AG and Uim-key. 1 QRP-Kits and more. All kits with Warranty of Functionality (WoF), Alignment Service, , Helpdesk (e-mail), German or English manuals, Supported by QRPeter DL2Fl l Visit our homepage http://www.qrpproject.de or ask for free catalog ' All orders can be done by e-shop system or surface mall. I QRPproject, Saarstr. 13, 12161 Berlin, Germany. 14 ‘Tel: +499085961323, Fax: +499085961324 e-mall: sales@qrpprojectde __!Space Junk (or how to get useful radio bits out of old computers) Tim Ostley, MSTIM, 16 Oldfield, LITTLE MILTON, Oxfordshire, 0X44 7PY ‘A recent discussion on the GORP email reflector highlighted the difficulty we will have in the future obtaining leaded components. This discussion coincided with having a shuffle round’ in the shack (tidy really wasn't the word). Amongst the nuggets unearthed was a heap of old computer boards extracted from a defunct 386. What a cornucopia of useful bits! Its not an obvious link from defunct computer to radio construction but read on... One of the most useful things to start with is the power supply. Extract the power supply ‘module from the computer case (saving the screws / nuts / bolts as you go) - usual precautions apply. Undo the case and extract the PCB. You will find that the power supply case itself is good for recycling - typically 8x6x4 inches in metal. It usually has at least one IEC mains connector plus a switch and sundry bits of cabling of a reasonable thickness. The PCB will have a wide variety of useful leaded components - capacitors, transistors, resistors, coils and toroids - the list is endless (sneaky thought, since the IRF5x transistors are designed as switching transistors for power supplies maybe those fitted in the power supply being dismantled would be ok for a bit of RF?) There were even two 200v clectrolytics in the ones I dismantled (be careful - they may still be holding a lethal charge!) - must dig out those old valves ... The computer motherboard is also worth a look. There will be at least one crystal / crystal oscillator module, loads of decoupling and electrolytic capacitors plus sundry resistors, transistors and sometimes a voltage regulator. A serial or multi 1/O card has many useful bits including one or two crystals, but the best of all is an old sound card. This is chock full of ordinary leaded components, a crystal as well as at least three PCB mount jack sockets and usually an edge mount variable resistor (volume control). Old printers can provide some useful bits, however the electronics is typically fairly simple and may only yield a few capacitors and maybe the odd connector. What they do offer is a supply of stepper motors (sometimes two per printer) and an optical encoder together with a toothed belt designed to give high precision positioning information. Some ink jet printers also have a separate mains power supply. Lalso have a very old 1200 baud modem which I haven't had chance to investigate yet but it should provide sundry LEDs and a line interface transformer at the very least. Disk drives don't provide many useful bits - they have used surface mount components for many years. It is worth a quick glance but unless you want to recycle smd resistors and capacitors ‘A. couple of general points, the components you extract wis. = ly have very short leads, ‘enough to solder to but not much longer. Either a solder sucker ur solder braid is a must for extracting the components. So next time you find someone throwing out an old computer, stand over the bin - you can always throw away the bits you don't want later! ‘Introducing QRP’ by Dick Pascoe GOBPS (QRP columnist in ‘Ham Radio Today’ for 10 years until its demise). An introduction to QRP in the UK Special summer sell-out at just £5.00 (including UK shipping). Dick Pascoe. Seaview. Crete Road East. Folkestone. CT18 7EG 15101 things to do with a Dead Mouse Part of an occasional series Roy Walker GOTAK, 3 Elderberry Ci. THORNTON-CLEVELEYS, FY5 278 Take one dead Mouse, itis preferable to use a two button mouse if available, Cut off the plug/socket from its tail, leaving enough tail to reach from mouse to rig. Take out the working parts, carefully preserving them, except the ball, (this can be saved to make up your set of rubber covered marbles). Isolate the micro switches (which lie underneath the buttons) from. the rest of the circuitry, by cutting the tracks around them, retaining sufficient track to make connections later. Carefully cut the "works" down the middle from front to back. Carefully cut the case down the middle from front to back, retaining the switches... Solder pairs of wires from the tail to the tracks leading to the switches. Identify the wires at the other end of the tail. re insert and secure the two halves of the works in their respective half shells. Attach the two halves base to base with suitable glue (polystyrene) with the two switch buttons at the same end, but now vertically polarised. (You may have to provide a suitable base for the unit mine has a magnetic material sheet under it, which matches a similar one on the operating bench) Attach a suitable three connection jack plug to the end of the tail. You are now the proud owner of a "Mobile Morse Mouse” which will last for years, which is light ON the pocket and IN the pocket, whose’ calibration will not become "mal-adjusted” in transit, and which will, if you are lucky, sport one of the "Big Names" , mine is called Compaq (tm) SPECIAL OFFERS FROM BOWOOD ELECTRONICS 100 1N4148 Signal Diode 20 BC5S8B PNP Transistor 415 220uF I6v Rad.Caps 75 1N4001 Rectifier Diode 20BC839 NPN Transisior 410 PP3 Snaps High Quality 50 1N4002 Rectifier Diode 208840 PNP Transistor 208 Pin DIL Sockets, 50 1N4007 Rectifier Diode 20 Asstd. Above Transistors 15 14 Pin DIL Sockets 30 1NS401 Rectifier Diode 4741 OPAMP 415 16 Pin DIL Sockets 5 WO02 1.5A Bridge Rectifier 4LM1458 Dual OPAMP 4 28 in Zif Socket 30 Ass. Zener Diodes 400mw —4LM324 Quad OP-AMP 4 Stripboard 5.78056 Voltage Reg. In. Tab 2 TDABZOM Audio AMP (@ tracks x 25 holes) 5 7812 Voltage Reg. 10.4043 Dual Flip Flop 5 3A 12 Way Connector Strip 20 BC 1821 NPN Transistor 10 4049 Hex buFfer 100 100mm Cabie Ties 20 BC212L PNP Transistor 8555 Timer ICs. 410 ins. Croc. Clips Red, Black 20BC327 PNP Transistor 25 4u7 25v Rad.Caps (Blue, Green, Yellow) 20BC337 NPN Transistor 25 10uF 25v Rad.Ca ‘stessons 20 BC547B NPN Transistor 25 ZuF 251 Rad.Caps 250 gm. Ferric Chloride £1.99 20 BC557 PNP Transistor 20 47uF l6v Rad.Caps 20 BC548 NPN Transistor 20100 uF I6v Rad.Caps wer caer cay. 7 Bakewell Road, Baslow, Derbyshire, DK45 1RE. Tel: 01246 583777 ‘email: enquiries @bowood-electronics.co.uk 16Two Way QRP QSL Labels and Blank G-QRP QSL Cards QRP Labels: Black Lettering’on Gold with Club Logo : 200 labels £2. Post inc. Blank QSL Cards: You complete your address and call, Blue lettering on white card, 5.5" x 3.5". 100 cards £4. Post inc. Sample from : M.L. Prickett [Max] G3BSK, 260 Haslucks Green Road, Solihull, West Midlands. B90 2LR. Cheques: "M.L. Prickett" (The G QRP Club benefits from each order] ---o- ee ee ee ee ee 4 ' N.B.T.V.A 1 | The Narrow Bandwidth TV Association (founded in 1975) is dedicated to low definition and I 1 mechanical forms of ATV and introduces radio amateurs to TV at an inexpensive level basedon home construction. NBTV should not be confused with SSTV which produces still pictures ata | 1 Much higher definition. As TV base bandwidth is only about 7kHz recording of signals on mini | cassette is easily achieved. A quarterly 12 page newsletter is produced and an annual exhibition is ; held in April/May in the East Midlands. If you would like to join, send a crossed cheque / postal J otder for £4 (or £3 plus a recent SPRAT wrapper) to Dave Gentle, G4RVI, 1 Sunny Hill, Milford, Derbys. DES®OQR, payable to "NBTVAY ee = QRP BESIDE THE SEASIDE September 22™ 2001 - Opening at 1400hrs. at the United Reformed Church, Back Lane, Gorleston, Nr. Great Yarmouth Further information: David Buddery G3OEP, 33 Addison Rd. Gorleston, Great Yarmouth. NR31 0PA. QRP PLUS PARTS AND TRANSCEIVERS Stan Yarema, K7SY, has all QRP+ and QRP++ parts in stock. He even has some new ‘complete radios ready to ship. You can contact Stan at: bg783@scn.org or Stan Yarema, K7SY, 3457 12th Ave West, Seattle, WA 98119, USA. Tel: (206)285-8941 QRP MASTERS CORRECTION Some errors crept into the list of QRP Masters in the last issue: QRP Master 14 should be G3IQF and QRP Master 86 should be G3ICO Amateur Radio Design Assistant - This is a many faceted calculation program — which is Windows 95/98 compatible, and was written by an ex-member. It was reviewed in Sprat some time ago, and is still available. Tony Edwards has now changed his address — he is now at 4 Shearwater Drive, Bradwell, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. NR31 9UL. There is a web page about the program at www.members.aol.com/agegraphics/index.htm Micro Radio Projects | Introduce Special Projects for Novices 11 Boosted SW Crystal Set I VLF Converter Mini RX agcivogad 15 watt audio power amp | Ssmetertdriver for RXs RF meteriprobe Micro size DC receiver I Dedicated CW superhet circuits 1 Electronic QSK changeover 0 SSB superhet RX/TX for 80m Many other radio and related projects available ready built or kits - for list and prices send s.a.. to: Micro Radio Projects, 46 Victoria Apt. Guy St. Padiham, Nr. Burnley. BB12 8PX Tel: 01282-774878 [Tony] or 01322-381303 [David] 17FUN ON ‘LONG WAVE’ - BUT IS IT QRP? Steve Rawlings GW4ALG, 14 The Paddock, Chepstow, NP16 5BW, UK ‘Yippeeee! We did it! We did it! - Such was the excitement of making my first QSO on 136 kHz! ‘That was back in March 1998 when I worked Graham, G3XTZ for my first QSO on ‘long wave’, over a distance of 157 km (100 miles). Not very far, perhaps, but after weeks of experimentation and construction, that CW QSO with Graham was every bit as exciting as my very first contact, almost 30 years earlier, The contact with Graham confirmed that - even from a small plot - it is possible to make low frequency (LF) contacts over an appreciable distance, using simple equipment. At the time of the contact, I was running 15 watts to a small delta loop of 65 m perimeter. (See ‘Adapting a GSRV for 136 kHz’, Pat Hawker G3VA; Technical Topics’, RadCom, May 1998.] What's really amazing is that, at 136 kHz (a wavelength of 2200 km), I was probably only generating one or two milliwatts effective radiated power (ERP). Dealing with antenna efficiencies in the range 0.0001 to 0.001 is all part of the fun of experimenting with electrically-small antennas. On 136, you're doing really well if you manage to generate the maximum permitted power of one watt ERP! In practice, many stations find that they need to generate about 100 watts to realise an ERP of, say, 50 milliwatts, But let's not be too concerned with the numbers: the important thing is that we can get out on 136 kHz, using antennas similar in size to those we might use on, say, 80 m. As there is very little commercial gear available, home-brewers will find lots of like-minded constructors on 136 kHz. Indeed, I have already contacted many fellow members of the G- ‘QRP Club on 136 kHz, including: EI0CF; GOUPU; GOVXG; G3BDQ; G3CCH; G3KZU; G3LCB; G3LDO; G30LB; G6RO; G8PX; GI3PDN; and MOAYF, all on 2-way CW. Of these, Peter Dodd G3LDO, the well-known experimenter and author, deserves special mention. Peter has written several articles on LF topics and is also editor of ‘The Low Frequency Experimenter's Handbook’, (available from the RSGB) - essential reading for anyone thinking of joining the growing band of LF experimenters. Every constructor has his or her own unique approach to designing and building their LF station to cover the 135.7 to 137.8 kHz allocation. ‘My solution was to build a 15 watt transverter using junk box components (and using many circuit elements that will be familiar to regular readers of SPRAT !) With three NPN output transistors connected in parallel, the design provided enough power for my first “barefoot” QSOs; and enough drive for use with a succession of external power amplifiers. Further details about my LF station can be found on my web-site at: http:/www.alg.demon.co.uk/radio/136/intro.htm — From this site you will. find links to many other sources of information. ‘The external connections available on the FT707 make it ideal for transverter operation. Also, with an allocation of only 2.1 kHz, the digital readout and built-in CW filter were very welcome. Using this set-up (plus the occasional use of a balloon-supported vertical), I have worked 16 countries on 2-way CW. 18Delta Loop 12m 65m perimeter Vertical FT707 Transceiver Variometer 10 MHz I 136 kHz Tapped Transverter ATU Loading Coll Power SWR Antenna Matching Amplifier Bridge ‘Switch Transformer Getting Started ‘A.common mistake made by newcomers to LF is trying to listen on 136 kHz without using a tuned antenna, The results are always disappointing! A good start is to resonate your existing station antenna with one or more series-connected loading coils. Tuning will be quite sharp, 0 at least one of the coils should be a variable inductor: a ferrite rod partially inserted in a broadcast band long wave coil is ideal. The strong carrier close to 138.8 kHz can be used as an initial signal source. Once you've got the antenna tuned, try listening for amateur signals on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the CW segment, 136.0 to 137.4 kHz. Butisit ORP? ‘As most LF operators often need to run several watts to realise a few tens of milliwatts ERP, many ORP operators may not be so keen to use so much electrical energy to deliver so little radiated power. While 5 watts at 136 kHz may enable you to make QSOs up to a distance of, say, 200 km, many newcomers to LF, having only an average-sized back garden, find that the task of sending their first CW signal across town is enough of a challenge! Most of the LF operators I’ve met are enthusiastic home-brewers, who have embraced the challenge of QRP (or, at least, ‘QERP’) operation. Nevertheless, LF operators do tend to have slightly higher electricity bills than their HF QRP colleagues! Radio Projects for the Amateur by Drew Diamond, VK3XU (Reprinted, with permission, by the G QAP Club) Workable plans for the construction of receivers, QRP transmitt. test equipment, and some handy construction hints for the practi Available for £6.00 (plus UK postage £1.40, EEC postage £2.50 ) trom : G-QRP Club Sales - Graham Firth G3MFJ, 13 Wynmore Drive, Bramhope, Leeds, LS16 D0 Please make out cheques to G-QTP Club - An addressed label helps! 19A Resonator VXO T.T. Mani, VU2ITI, Mod Eng College, Thrikkakara, BMC PO, KOCHI, 682021, INDIA ‘The circuit described here is actually a modification of a circuit from SPRAT. It was observed that the oscillating frequency of a ceramic resonator can be pulled considerably. This property is used in this circuit. It was found that the ceramic resonator for 3.58 MHz is able to operate from 3.5MHz to well above 3.6MHz. This ceramic resonator is commonly used for telephone dialer circuits, low cost clock modules etc. Hence ceramic crystal for the above frequency is easily available in the local electronic markets. A Colpitts oscillator configuration is selected and was also noticed that the amplitude of oscillations decreases as the frequency CRO and was found perfect. This circuit gives an output frequency from 6.99 MHz to 7.125 MHz. This range may slightly vary from resonator to resonator and can be adjusted by changing the value of the feed back capacitors C6 and C7. The output voltage was also found constant at about 1.2 volts pep on no load and more than 500 mV when a load of 100 ohms was connected across the output. The frequency stability is very good compared to the I.C. tuned VFO, but don’t expect a crystal stability from this VFO. The output frequency slightly varies with the supply voltage, hence a stabilised power supply for the VFO is recommended. A zener diode regulated power supply is a low cost solution. The current taken by the circuit is less that 10 mA. ALIGNMENT Testing and alignment of the circuit is very simple if you have a frequency counter and an RF probe. Switch on the device and connect the RF probe to the emitter of BC 148 transistor. Place the tuning of variable capacitor midway and observe for the deflection in the meter. If there is deflection in meter, measure the frequency at that point by connecting the frequency counter. The ‘counter should indicate a frequency in the range 3.5 to 3.6 MHz. Observe for awhile and check for stability. ‘The next step is to tune the transformers; connect the RF probe to the secondary of Tl and tune the coil for maximum deflection. Then check the frequency of signal at that point. The counter should read the doubled frequency. If not check the coil and the dise capacitor connected across the secondary. Repeat the same procedure for T2. CR = 3.58MHz Ceramic Resonator Tt =P: 11t. 34swg. S: 4t. 34swg. T2 =P: 4t. 34swg, S: 4+6t. 34ewg Both wound on standard IF core 20The Epiphyte-3 80 Metre SSB Transceiver Derry Spittle VE7QK, jds@vcn.bc.ca 1241 Mount Crown Road, North Vancouver, BC, Canada, V7R 1R9 jds@ven.be.ca The original Epiphyte was a simple SSB transceiver with a power output of one watt and very limited frequency coverage. Construction articles for it were published in both SPRAT and ‘ORPp. The EP-2 which followed included a VFO and 5 watt power amplifier. Hundreds of both transceivers have been built worldwide and they have served to introduce many amateurs to both single sideband and QRP operation. The interest they have generated has undoubtedly resulted from the simplicity of the design and the large readership of these journals. But "scratch building” even the simplest SSB transceiver from a circuit diagram is a laborious task for most amateurs, Many of us do, of course, make our own circuit boards but my hat goes off to the French amateur who built an EP-2 on perf board wire-wrapping all the connections! In 1998 Doug Hendricks, KI6DS decided to make the EP-2 a "NorCal Kit" project and asked me to update the design. So how does the EP-3 differ from the EP-2? - The circuit board has been completely re-designed and professionally manufactured with plated-through holes, solder resist and screened parts overlay. - The antenna connector, power connector, switch, RF gain control and lowpass filter are now installed on the circuit board thereby reducing the number of external connections to be made. ~ A simple audio-derived AGC has been added to the receiver. + Polystyrene capacitors have been replaced with smaller and more readily available NPO/COG ceramic capacitors. ~ The PA has now been mounted horizontally and heat sinked directly to the base of the enclosure significantly improving the heat dissipation and permitting higher power output. Some of you may have already seen the prototype EP-3 I brought with me to Rochdale in 1999 and have possibly been wondering what became of it. The best laid plans do not always progress on schedule due to unforeseen circumstances. But in the Fall of 2000 NorCal was pleased to announce that one hundred EP-3 kits were now available. They sold out in less than 48 hours! Credit for their popularity goes to NorCal, the QRP Club of Northem California, which throughout has funded the cost of producing both the prototypes and the final printed cireuit boards. ‘At PACIFICON 2000, Doug Hendricks, KI6DS generously donated 50 EP-3 PC Boards to the G ORP Club with the proviso that any profits derived from the sale of these be donated to St. Aidan’s Church, Rochdale. Some of the components have been difficult to obtain but the Club has now (with the help Peter Thomas of JAB Electronics] assembled 50 kits for sale to members. A photograph of the completed board is shown on the front cover, and a block diagram together with the full circuit diagrams is on the following pages. Now that there are some kits available for members of the G QRP Club I hope. you will will have as much fun with them as I have. The kits are available from Graham Firth G3MFIJ, 13 Wynmore Drive, Bramhope, LEEDS. LS16 9DQ. Cheques to “GORP Club” The cost is £80 including postage. As there are limited numbers, Graham asks that, if you are ordering anything else, that you send a separate cheque for the kit, then this can be returned if the kit is sold out. The kits include the PCB, all components mounted thereon including connectors and the 10-turn tuning pot, together with the full assembly manual. 2122A TUNABLE CW /SSB FILTER Daniela Vignudelli IK4NPC, via Turati 43/2, 40134 Bologna. Italy Some time ago I needed a very selective CW audio-filter, so I built some circuits taken from several books or magazines and, among them, the NIAL “Tuneable band-pass filter” (published on QRP CLASSICS, page 192), that was a single-pole tuneable RC active filter. ‘The fact that it was a single-pole means that its selectivity was suitable for SSB only, but { realized this design was very interesting and I decided to add it a Second pole (for improving its selectivity), achieving a great result: a very selective tuncable CW filter! (More than I needed) ‘Then J also realized that, adding a rotary switch (S1) it was possible to by-pass this filter (“a” way), to hear the SSB signals, using one pole only (“b* way), or hearing the CW signals, using both poles of this filter (“c* way). ‘SCHEMATIC AGIAN OF THE TUNABLE Le Pi ‘CW /$8B FILTER T oa? wl oe 7 JRL tn 2 2. + 4 a) why + pate, $ This tuneable CW/SSB filter is a two-pole RC active audio filter with a gain of 1.5 and with the property of tuning its centre frequency (f0) from 350 to 2000 Hz by varying the dual-gang potentiometer VRI. This operation doesn’t change the gain of the two amplifiers Ula and U1b or the filter Bandwidth (B), because the Quality factor (Q) increases with the frequency (£0). Tused a dual-gang potentiometer because a two poles audio filter works excellently only when the first pole is identical to the second one. This means that VR1a and VR1b must always have the same value for avoiding that a signal pass the first pole and have a great attenuation in the second one. In fact the secret to make a good two-poles audio filter is to use, in the second pole, electronics components having exactly the same values of the components used in the first pole so, R1=R6, R2-R8, R3=R7 and C2=C3=C5=C6. For example, if R1 is 683720 R6 must be 68372Q if R2 is 334Q, RB must be 3342 and so on. 25For this reason I advise to use 1% tolerance resistors (so it is easy to find two resistors with the same value) and to use 4 capacitors with the same value (or very similar values), otherwise an attenuation of the A.F. signal may happen. ‘Anyway, this problem can be resolved adding a 1W audio power amplifier, like those with LM380, LM386, TDA7052, and so on. U1 is the op-amp TLO72 because it works very well in this filter, but also other op-amps like the TL082, the LS4558 and the MC1458 work equally good. The resistive divider R4 and RS creates a “synthetic ground”, so U1 can operate with a single supply voltage. At last, place this filter inside a metal box then connect the dual-gang potentiometer, the rotary switch and the IN / OUT jacks to the PCB using screened cables only. ‘The input signal must be taken from the earphone jack of a receiver (or a transceiver) and the output signal must be sent to earphones or to an audio power amplifier. COMPONENT SIDE OF THE TUNABLE CW /SSB FILTER WARNING ; If this filter is connected to an RTX may happen that, during the transmission operations, the CW tone be poor; this means that the filter is not tuned on the sidetone signal, so there is a difference between the filter centre frequency (f0) and the sidetone oscillator frequency. ‘This problem can be solved turning the rotary switch (for by-passing the filter manually) or putting a small switch circuit (for by-passing the filter automatically). Editor's note — the PCB etching layout diagram is on page 32 26Low Power Scrapbook ‘The NEW “Best of SPRAT” book from the RSGB The RSGB say: “The G-QRP Club are renowned as the leaders in Low Power and this book contains 133 of the very best projects from the. Club's magazine Sprat. This book is 320 pages of the original material, brought together in a handy A5 book. Choose from dozens of simple transmitter and receiver projects for the HF bands and 6m, including the tiny Oner transmitter and the White Rose Receiver. Sample the many VFOs, tuners, accessories and antennas on offer. Learn from the construction techniques of experienced constructors.” Price £12.99 - RSGB Members £11.04 Special G-QRP Club members offer - £9.74 — which Is 25% off the retall price Plus postage - £1.50 UK, £2.00 rest of the world Orders: The RSGB Shop, R.S.G.B. Cranborne Ad. Potters Bar, Herts, EN6 3JE Telephone: 0870 904 7373 or www.rsgb.org/shop You must quote your G-QRP club membership number to get the discount! GQRP Club Sales (For all tems lated tormery from @3¥CC) Graham Firth, G3MFJ, 13 Wynmore Drive, Bramhope, LEEDS. LS16 90Q Currently available: Radio Projects for the Amateur by VK3XU. £6 } plus postage - £1.40 UK GQRP Club Antenna \dbook. £5 } £2.90 EEC, £3.50 DX 6 pole 9MHz SSB crystal filter 2.2kHz at 6dB, 5000hm in/out £12 [50p post] 6 pole 9MHz CW crystal filter 500Hz at 6dB, 50ohm in/out £12 [50p post] Pair LSB/USB carrier crystals HC18U wires - [9MHz + 1.5kHz] £6 pair 88mH Torolds - £1 each [+ post each - 30p UK, 50p EEC & DX] MC1350 at £2.25 each; IRF510 Power FETs £1.25 each [both inc post] Crystals: All 25p each + post 25p any quantity. [UK only — 1 first class stamp each — no extra for postage!!! ] 3.579545 fundamental; 48.0125 3” overtone. Back issues of Sprat — 50p each - | have most Issues from 80 — (except 84 & 98) - plus postage: UK : 1" magazine 33p + 17p each extra magazine EEC : 1" magazine 75p + 24p each extra magazine DX =: 1* magazine 75p + 30p each extra magazine An addressed label helps Gheaves (UK) or Visa/Mastercard. Please quote full card number/expiry ‘We can only send the goods to the card owner's registered address! Yo can check availability (or even order) on (+44) (0)113 267 1070 or e-mail to g3mfj@gqrp.com. If, with your order, you give me an e-mail address, this allows me to inform:you quickly of any problems with supply. 27ANTENNAS - ANECDOTES - AWARDS Gus Taylor G8PG _37 Pickerill Road, Greasby, Merseyside, CH49 3ND THE GIBRALTAR SPECIAL Captain G. Smith, 4.N. Retired, 282GS. P.O. Box 211, Gibraltar Figurs 1 shows the dimensions for a 145 Miz version of thie antenna It consists of a full wavelength of vire vhich is fitted to a centre mast with spreaders so that it forms four diamond shape: ‘The vice is a continuous length vhich starts at (a) on the diagran and is then routed via (b),(c),(d) etc until it is terminated at (1). Av (b),(d),(£) etc the wire fits into grooves cut in the ends of the spreaders, and at (c) and (g) it is passed through suitable metal hooks. The spreaders are passed througn holes drilled in the mast, one above the other, and are glued into place (securing screve would be necessary in a larger, nf version }. End (a) of the vice is connected to a terminalblogk which is in turn connected to a second block and thence to the outer of the co-ax feeder. end (I) is connected to a 50 pf trimmer wired between the two terminal blocks and terwinated on the inner of the co-ax feeder. Thi tcimmer is connected in circuit to allow adjustment for lovest swe. The antenna is directional, maximum signal being transmitted from a point half vay between (f) and (h) in Figure 1. If mounted outdoors the terminal blocks, 50 pf trimmer and co-ax connection should be made fully vaterproot . Using the information given in Figure 1 the dimensions can be scaled up for hf frequency banda. It is also possible, by using a spreader length suitable for the lowest trequency,to nest antennas for several bands one inside the other, and excite them from the common co-ax feeder. As far ag results are concerned, using the version shoun hung outside bis window and fed vith 25 MILLIWATTS of rf 2B2GS had no problens in working through the Canary Islands repeaters situated sone 800 miles avay. ANNUAL AWARDS OF OUR MAJOR TROPHIES ‘THE G2NI TROPHY is awarded to Bill Kelsey, NET, G QRP Club American Representative. Bill has looked after our U.S. affairs for many years, dealing with subscriptions, queries and sales. He also holds our Dayton stand materials and sets up the stand each year. He has been # truly international link between our tvo continents. THE SUPPOLK TROPHY is awarded to Andreas Seereiner, OEGEIP, for his excellent "NAXOS" 20 meter cv transceiver published in SPRAT No.104. The design shows good technical merit and also @ very high standard of home construction ‘The PARTRIDGE TROPRY is awarded to the late Ghislain DE SMEDT, ONSNO, for his home brey mobile antenna design published in SPRAT No. 105. Sadly Ghislain suffered a fatal heart attack at the beginning of September, 2000. The Trophy plaque is being sent to his family, to vhom all Members extend their sympathy in their tragic loss. 28ERRORS WE APOLOGISE FOR In the diagram on page 26 of SPRAT 105 the vice sizes for the coils were given in cm not mm. Actually 16 sug for the 15m coil ‘and 22 svg for the other bands should be fine- On page 27 of SPRAT 106 the last word in the 3rd line should rea "halved" not "doubled". Thanks to ceaders for reporting the above. AWARD NEWS ORP MASTER. PACBRO,/PASRZ,G4NBI and DJ3LR are velcomed to the Worshipful Company.Well done gentlemen ! ORP COUNTRIES. 100 F6BLK; 75 PAORZ,/0J3LR; 25 G4UNL, MoCDP. WORKED G QRP CLUB. 1100 G2DAN (FB!), 560 G4NBI; 260 GM40SS,G3BPM: 220 GoUTP; 200 GWoMYY,DI3LR; 140 GWOVSW: 80 G3CQR,MoCDP; 60 G4YND. TWO-WAY ORP. 40 G3BPM; 30 PASRZ: 10 G3COR, MocoP. Conratulations to all the above. G320F ADDITIONS 7O THE L-NETWORK G320F has made some useful additions to the L-network circuit described on page 28 of SPRAT 104. Firstly he has connected 2 250p variable capacitor between the coil and the antenna terminal with a evitch across it which allows it to be shorted out if not required. The capacitor provides an additional matching element for very avkward antenna lengths. Secondly he has fitted a double throv switch to the ground side of the co-axial output socket vhich allows connection either to yround foe normal co-ax feed or to the inner of the co-ax , allowing the inner and outer of the feeder to be connected together and the antenna to be tuned as a random length vice. He has also increased coil sizes to cover 60 and 160m, and says he can even match a@ wire 2.7m long on the latter band [ MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE 1 Jack, G3KKP recently sought our advice on improving his 160m results. He was using a 132ft doublet with tuned feeders, but only 15 feet high because of local resteictions.Our suggestion vas to add 66 feet of vire to each end of the antenna in the shape of a series of Us, say 6ft long and 2ft wide. The thinking behind thie suggestion vas that this would (a) increase the radiation resistance of the antenna and (b) get much more current: in the centre, straight portion thue further increasing efficiency. Jack reports much improved results vith this set-up. The moral is plain - if you cannot change your existing set-up try and think of ways to improve its efficiency. POWER - DATA MODES ETC AND TWO-WAY QRP To count as ORP maximum power on data aodes should not exceed FIVE WATTS RF. Please also note that to count as a two-way ORP QSO the whole contact, including initial colle, must be made with both stations using laid down QRP power levels. Contacts where either station uses power above the laid down levels at any time ducing the gso cannot count as two-way QRP. The above is in line vith our long-accepted practice, and also falls inte line with the wishes of our new Data Manager, 29® © are QS Lire SteeOaRo ss C8008 aNd RANK, A ek MY oo chase Os e SPREMTERS Raanks oe WK RELL 7 SOtE hus COR wit Eeax mine rf [Fi9.2] ‘The assembly resembles 8 right angled triangles where the hypotenuse (259mm) is the wire, and the other two sides are 183mm. Examples - ‘Measurements for 2m (144MHz): Measurements for 6m (51MHz): 300/145MHz = 2.069m 300/51MHZ= 5.88m Length of hypotenuse = 2.069/8 = 259mm Length of hypotenuse = 5.88/8 = 735mm 20mm. 66mm Spreader length = 2 x 260m: Spreader length = 2 x 183mm = FREE SOFTWARE - HAMCALC version 48, with many new programs and upgrades of existing programs. Over 250 Painless Math and Design Programs for Radio Amateurs and Professionals, used ‘worldwide as a design, reference and learning tool since its introduction in 1993. Most programs can be run in either metric or Imperial/USA units of measure. Contains much information not readily found in current Amateur handbooks and literature. Easy to use by non-technical hobbyists. How to order: For a free HAMCALC CD-ROM send US$7.00 check or money oder (no stamps or IRC's please) to cover cost of materials and airmail anywhere in the world, to George Murphy VE3ERP, 77 McKenzie St., Orillia ON L3V 6A6, Canada (e-mail ve3erp@encode. corn). 30COMMUNICATIONS AND CONTESTS Peter Barville G3XJS, 40 Watchet Lane, Holmer Green, High Wycombe, Bucks HP15 6UG. E-mail: g3xjs@gqrp.com The last few months has seen me nearly snowed under with logs for the various recent G-ORP events. Don't get me wrong - the more the merrier (the postman may not agree!), but this copy of SPRAT sees the backlog of result details cleared. CHELMSLEY TROPHY Few entries were received, but it's true to say that Y2K rather overshadowed the event this time. Following his outstanding efforts during the year, Valery RW3Al is the Chelmsley 2000 winner. SOMERSET HOMEBREW CONTEST I failed in my efforts this year to organise this event on an otherwise contest free day. Consequently, participants had more than their fair share of qrm to contend with, but it seems “a good time was had by all", Tim Walford's generous first prize (£50 voucher towards any Walford Electronics product) goes to Alan, G4GLV, who used his home made Bruton rig to good effect, with 5 watts of cw and ssb to score 47 points. He commented that he finished last in 1999, and was hoping to do better in 2000. You certainly managed that Alan, congratulations! With details of the homebrew equipment used, and points scored, here are the other entries received: G3VAJ (8w H/Brew ssb) 35, RW3AI (Sw H/Brew valve) 35, GOOTE (Sw Taunton) 27, G4MRH (Sw Howes 2000) 25. This event is one of very few to actively support (and encourage) the use of home built equipment. I suppose this particular entry requirement excludes many other potential entries, but I hope most view it as 1 do - a positive attraction, and benefit 1o our hobby. YEOVIL AMATEUR RADIO CLUB FUN RUN 41 ORP stations took part in this year's event, with 11 entries received. Results were as follows: Call 80m points 40m points Total G3GC 490 470 960 G4DDx 480 380 860 G3BPM. 465 355 820 G4PRL 335 270 605 G4MRH 250 340 590 PA3CLO 370 135 505 OK1FVD 355 135 490 G3NVG 365 10 375 DL2BQD - 320 320 DKSRY 105 135 240 G4EVI 70 30 100 31Eric, G3GC, is therefore the winner of all three sections. The lowest power used award went to G4EVI, who used 2 watts for all contacts. Although other stations were active using lower power (eg GWOKZW 500mW), none of them submitted an entry. Check logs were received from F6GGO and G4JBL. ‘The Challenge Contest was won by Peter Welch, G3OFX. The distance he achieved was 21ems, and the frequency he measured was within 6Okhz of the resonant frequency of the test circuit. The Yeovil Amateur Radio Club extend their thanks to everybody who helped to make the event a success. Next year's Convention (the 18th) will be held on Sunday April 21st. 2002, with the dinner taking place the evening before. CZEBRIS 2000 Congratulations to Ron, G4MRH, who scored a total of 137 points in his winning entry. Once again the boys from OK and OM seem to have been a little thin on the ground (except maybe on 20m), but Ron certainly found plenty of QRP activity from elsewhere to fill the log sheets. ‘You may be interested to see a break down of his points per band: 80m: 10, 40m: 20, 20m: 92, 15m: 8, 10m: 7. The equipment used was a TenTec Argosy (5 watts) and Carolina Windom antenna at 7m. My thanks to the following stations for their support during the event, and entries: G4FDC (76 points), GM4XQJ (40), G3ESP (40), G4GSA (38), F6UIG (36), GODJA (28), MOANO (8), G8PG (Check). That's it for now. Items for inclusion in SPRAT 108 should reach me by the beginning of August please. In the meantime, even if conditions have been disappointing of late, let's fill the bands with QRP activity! Have fun .. 72. de QRPeter Tuneable CW/SSB filter — layout of the copper side of PCB. Not to scale! 32NOVICE NEWS _ Steve Ortmayer G4RAW 14 The Crescent, Hipperholme, Halifax. HX3 8NQ. Tel: 01422-203062 email: GGRAW@GQRP.COM No news from members this time, Please let me know what you are up to. DX worked or projects you have undertaken are always of interest. Why not try this Morse oscillator, it has a nice tone. It is from the web site of VE6GC. Output Xtmr nag04 | |1200:80hms 3 | ers g { INTERNATIONAL QRP WORKING FREQUENCIES cw: 1843, 3560, 7030, 10106, 14060, 21060, 28060 kHz SSB: 3690, 7090, 14285, 21285, 28360 kHz KEEP THESE FREQUENCIES SPECIAL FOR QRP - CALL "CQ QRP* OFTEN! G QRP CLUB LOGO SHIRTS With Club Logo + William of Occum Quotation (Callsign added as option) Tee-Shirts [in white or grey - heavy quality] - Logo+Quotation £8.50 with your callsign added £9.95 Polo Shirts or Sweatshirts {white or grey - heavy quality} Logo+Quotation £14.50 with your callsign added £15.95 Available in L, XL and XXL. Postage and packing on any item £2.95 BKC, 183 Yorkshire St. Rochdale. OL12 ODR. 01706 631776 Credit Card orders via email to sales@bkcgroup.fsnet.co.uk Quote: Visa or Mastercard, Full name & Address, Card Number, Expire date 33VHF MANAGER'S REPORT John Beech G8SEQ, 124 Belgrave Road, Wyken, Coventry CV2 5BH 024 76 273190 & Fax: 024 76 272709 E-mail: g8seq@gqrp.com; Packet: GESEQ@GB7COV Continuing with the alternative energy theme, this quarter’s article is about wind power. In the past I have experimented with all of the designs shown, with varying degrees of success. If you watched the TV programme "Scrapheap" you would have seen an H-Rotor type (fig 1) and a Fan-type horizontal axis mill (Fig 3). The H-rotor is very efficient but will not self start, but could be combined with a Savonious rotor (Fig 2) to make it self starting. Both of these designs have the advantage of accepting wind from any direction. The fan type will start at very low wind speeds (4 mph ) and is the type often seen being used as water pumps on farms. I made one of these with a 4 ft diameter fan driving a 50 watt permenant magnet motorcycle alternator. The current one I am working on is like the one in Fig 4, This is basically similar to the fan type but is more efficient, (2-blades are the most efficient, but 4 blades give more starting torque.) It uses an 8 ft diam. propellor and a 600 W car alternator. This should start producing power at 8 mph and full power at 20 mph. The bevel gear box increases alternator speed by a factor of six and also allows the fin to steer it into wind. If a long drive shaft is used the alternator can be mounted at the bottom of the tower, reducing the elevated weight. Not shown on any of the designs is the overspeed brake. I have incorporated the centrifugal clutch from a lawn mower on mine. It is also a good idea to use electric braking -- switch the output of the alternator to a water heater when not charging a battery. Alll the above designs need some sort of gearing to increase alternator speed. I have successfully used pulleys and belts as well as bicycle chains for this. If you don't fancy doing the engineering work yourselves then there are several firms which can supply ready made units. ‘A very low power wind turbine (3W) can be made by attaching vanes to a bicycle wheel with a hub dynamo. It is possible to make the vanes from aluminium with tabs on so they clip onto the spokes at about the right angle (approx 30 deg.) ‘Try these websites: hitp://solarsales.com.au/soma.html & www.dse.com.au Also KEYSOLAR SYSTEMS as advertised in SPRAT do wind & solar power. 73 de John G8SEQ THE G QRP CLUB ANTENNA HANDBOOK How QRPers work the world with under five watts The complete collection from SPRAT - have you bought your copy yet? Special member's price £4.50+£1.43pp (UK), £2.24pp (EEC). US/DX $14 Inc surface mail Mail Order from Club Sales — see page 27 34SSB & DATA REPORT Dick Pascoe GOBPS, Seaview, Crete Road East. Folkestone. CT18 7EG Tel 01303 894390 - Email: g0bps@gqrp.com Roger G3XBM went on 70cms SSB in a contest for a few minutes and managed his first ever SSB QSO on that band using his FT817 on a % wave whip indoors at 2.5W. On 15m SSB he was heard in Siberia by UAOAV using the FT817on internal NiCads with just the loaded whip. Sheldon MWOELR writes: QRP ssb seems to work well with HC1AJQ and then ZP6VT at 59 both ways on 18MHz. On 21Mhz | got a 59 from PYSEG and LU4FXI and a 57 from HR1RMG. CP6XE was nice signal ! came into the shack to find JA7BEW booming in on ssb calling "CQ Contest", surprisingly he came back with the standard 59 but with a request for a callsign repeat! Good fun this HF lark, beats the hell out of listening to white noise on VHF. Tim GOTYM writes; | worked D68C on four bands, they were quite easy to contact and congratulations to them for having such a prolific station set-up. Another Tim - M5TIM. One night had a G - GW PSK31 QSO on 80M each QRP. Martin G4EFE worked a WJ4 station during the week, best dx so far on PSK31 - on 10metres using 5 watts to a dipole. First thought he was Florida - until he announced Puerto Rico - hurrah! Relying on the laptop's on- board mic picking up the rig's speaker output and then just using the rig's mic to pick up the laptop's speaker for the transmit side. An Email from Pete PE1MHO it seems that the Es season is off to a good start: LZ, |, 9A, SS, SV, 4X and 5B4 one morning, all with 10W PEP. Operating time has been somewhat restricted over the last year of Dan GWOEGH by arrival of child No. 2, but he switched on rig & worked JT1BV in Mongolia and shortly afterwards D68C. Both contacts were 10w SSB with TS120V into 23metre end fed wire and ATU. Rod G3TXAG has been using PSK3, RTTY and MFSK at a level of 10watts or less for well over a year now and like others are finding they are modes well suited to low power levels. Brian GM4XQJ sent in an impressive list of contacts and writes; “I must admit that as a cw operator | find PSK-31 is an excellent QRP mode’. As I mention power levels there are moves afoot in the USA to round off all QRP power levels to 5 watts. All modes would be limited to this power level. It could make things easier in some ways. Before putting this to the ‘committee’ I would like your thoughts on the matter. Please write or email me. Readers may not be aware that I am also on the Board of Directors of the American ARCI so able to link thoughts on this. News and views on SSB or Data to me please by August 15th. 36MEMBERS" NEWS by Chris Page G4BUE Highcroft Farmhouse, Gay Street, Pulborough, West Sussex RH20 9H). Tel: 01798 815711 Fax: 01798 813054 E-mail: g4bue@adur-press.co.uk Packet: GB7DXS on UK DX PacketCluster It never ceases to amaze me what QRPers achieve. When I first became interested in QRP inthe early 1970s, our ambition was to make two- way QRP QSOs across the Atlantic with our five watts. Not only did this quickly become ci mon place, but two-way QRP QSOs with stations in VK and ZL, soon became the norm. We then started reducing our power and ‘milliwatting’ became very popular. I was amazed to find it ‘was possible to make QSOs across the Atlantic not only with milliwatts, but with microwatts! All that pales into insignificance with what SVIUY and ZLABK have recently achieved. Read on. SVIUY describes some two-way Pedestrian Mobile ORP QSOs he has made with ZL1BK on mitted the QSO to Bonnie, KQOXA, who runs the HFpack Hall of Fame, and this was the reply he received: It has just been VERIFIED and listed in the HF pack Hall of Fame that Demetre, SVIUY/PM, of Athens Greece and Max, ZLIBK/PM, of Auckland New Zealand es- tablished a new Distance Record of 17549 kilo- metres for Pedestrian-to-Pedestrian contact on 14MHz via CW at 06:25 UTC and SSB at 06:45 UTC on 28 FEB 2001. Both operators complied with all guidelines of the 5 Watt Pedestrian Mo- bile Category 2 of the HEpack Hall of Fame, ex- changed signal reports and provided QSLs._ In addition, the operators have repeated their con- tacts on other days since the initial QSOs. These QSOs are now the longest distance record for all categories in the HFpack Hall of Fame. Demetre says, “We were both using portable antennas and we were walking while we did these fantastic QSOs". He used a five watts multi-band transceiver with a centre loaded 2 metre tall whip bolted on the heatsink of the radio with four tri- ple radials each about 3 metres long, * I just left the radials trailing behind me when I was walk- ing” at Mount Ymittos, east of Athens. ZLIBK also used a five watts multi-band transceiver with a half size hand-held dipole antenna with centre loading coils on a mast about three metres high. ‘Max was walking in a park near his home during the QSOs. Demetre doesn’t give the make of transceiver that was used “in case anyone thinks Tam advertising” but says he will be pleased to provide further information to anyone interested, . ‘G3XBM has been using the FT817 for Pedes- trian Portable and for others wanting to use it for pedestrian work, Roger says “I recommend buy- ing an ATX15 15 metres telescopic antenna on the rig's top BNC connector and using it also on i2and 10 metres. Using a counterpoise wire cut for 15 metres, the antenna works well on the higher two bands by pushing the telescopic whip {in until the SWR isnear 1:1 on each band. Using this T managed a 55 report from across Europe this morning on 10 metres SSB using the rig hand- held indoors with no effort at all. Although an ATX12 or ATX15 might be a dB or so more effi- cient, the ATX15 works well and is much lighter than the ATX Walkabout, which is unsuitable for set-top use due to the weight”. ‘Writing later in May, Roger says “Now this is. what I call enjoying ham radio: Bright, warm English Spring sunshine with the birds singing and a nice glass of wine in the hand sitting on @ chair in the garden relaxing. Take the FT817 in hand, attach the 15 metre ATX whip and small ‘counterpoise and a gell cell, tune to 21393kHz, SSB and hear OX3NUK calling CQ. Call him, and immediately get a RS52 solid report back. ‘Then follows a solid five minute QSO chatting, about this and that. Say 73s, put the rig down and continue to sunbathe for a little while longer, then the XYL brings out a cup of tea. What a truly lovely May day this has been in Cambridge today!” PEIMHO says the “Es season is off to a good start on 6 metres”, On 13 May Peter worked 1, 9A, SS, SV, 4X and SB4 with 10 watts PEP. Writing in his regular What's on Six news col- umn of the UK Six Metre Group's Six News maga- zine, under the heading of The Magic Band what ‘you make of it, GAFVP writes “I am reminded from time to time that what is DX for one opera~ tor may not be for another. Since I try to write this column with all operators in mind, hopefully you will enjoy reading a personal example of ‘TheMagic Band’ at work. In northern Europe there were terrific auroral conditions during March and, April and during one of these on 31 March, 1 made a QSO with G8BTK in West Sussex IO90TT. Perhaps there is nothing unusual in this until you find out that Colen, G8BTK is op- erating with just nine watts from an FT680R to a 0cms loop inside his flat. Despite this, the sig- nals were $7A/53A. Colen is greatly restricted with aerials and is not allowed to puit up an ex- ternal aerial or even one in the loft. It was really nice to make this QSO and give Colen, a new grid square. Even with this extremely modest station Colen has over 400 contacts and worked 37 countries, all with nine watts”. G8BTK_ angus on A Si Geel Bees fy 8 wea FT 6BOR, BB com rom 2G het sreeeorne Taneame; © gent pe eimnmon latin LZ2RS used his K2 at 5 watts in the ARRL DX Contest and made 448 QSOs with 124 multi- pliers on 20, 15 and 10 metres in 22 hours of operating. Rumi has completed a WAS using, just one watt all CW. On 3 March G3XBM achieved “one of my long-time ambitions - a hand-held QSO across the pond using 15 metres SSB”. Roger used a FT817 and an ATX whip and counterpoise while sitting on his bed indoors! He made QSOs with stations in New York and ‘New Hampshire and three QSOs with European stations. He says, “I can’t wait to try HF hand- held from a cliff-top in Devon”. G3XBM made his first PSK31 on 24 Febru- ary on 15 metres using Digispan software on a PC. Although Roger used 20 watts to make the QSO, he says, “It is certainly an amazing mode. ‘This evening signals I could hardly hear were workable. All the stateside stations worked were running 40-30 watts rather than the usual kWs. can recommend this to those who have yet to try it. Tomorrow I’m going to give it a serious go with QRP”. Within a space of 45 minutes on 5 May, G3XJS worked VK9CXJ (G3MXJ on Cocos-Keeling Island) on 15 metres, and then 9VIPC on 21060kHz and on 28060kHz, both on two-way QRP. The following morning Peter had a two-way QRP QSO with JA6PA on 21060kHz and then ten minutes later found him on 28060kHz and then again on 7 May on 14060kHz to complete a hat-trick of QSOs! Congratulations to PA@RDT who QSO'd D6BC on 40 metres with just four watts into a22 metre doublet 12 metres high. There have been many D68C QRP stories, but here is Roclof's, which confirms that patience is still the main quality to work DX with QRP. “It took me four evenings to work them and I even considered getting up in the middle of the night for the mom- ing grey-line peak at the Comoros. Saturday night the signals were quite good around 1730z, but there was a large pile-up, so I had dinner, watched Dalglieish and got back at the radio at 20302. Conditions were very poor. D68C was just S3-4 and there was a contest going on with very strong signals. But the pile-up had disap- peared. He even started to call CQ! I tried to work him, but conditions were too bad. Gradu- ally his signals got stronger and stronger and when he was S-6 Imade the QSO. Never thought Twould make it! Best DX for years”. G3JNB was delighted to QSO D68C on two bands at under one watt, plus three SSB, four CW and one RTTY band/modes with five watts, all on a sloping 40 metre extended doublet. Victor says, he is gradually nearing the 100 country mark. G4ELZ was planning to be QRV as CTI/ G4ELZ/P at the end of March with his four watts of CW. While using a “telescopic whip out of the window”, Carl, GWOTQM, used two watts CW to make a QSO as EA7/GWOTQMM with Claude, EAG/HB9MX, who was also using two watts to a whip. RK3ZK, UR6IRL, UR7IRL, USIRCH, USIREO, UU4ICQ, UYIAW and UZSRR of the UR-QRP Club were planning the first ORP Pedition to Ai-Petri Mountain in the Crimea between 4 and 11 May as EMSQRP us- ing homebrew QRP transceivers. FSMOG was planning to be QRV 28 April/7 May from cas- tles in Corsica, including Giraglia Island (EU- 164), with his K2 as TK/FSMOG. GMONWI will be QRV 30 October/24 Janu- ary from New Zealand, mostly CW with some ‘SSB on 20 and 40 metres. Andy will use a K2 (if he has finished building it) or an IC-706 and dipoles. GOSWC will be QRV from 15 May from East Falkland as VP8DBR with QRP SSB 40-6 metres and “Possibly 80 and 160 metres if Tan find something to stop the wire being blown away in the wind”. Roger may try QRS CW and some PSK31 with a kit that he intends to build down there (either the Hands DAT-20 or the PSK-20 from Small Wonder Labs in the USA). ‘GM3MXN and G3MYZ made a QRP SSTV ‘on 40 metres recently “pictures received were ‘very good at both ends”. Congratulations to Tom and Peter. Is this a first? 9VIPC is planning to be QRV again on 15 metres in May, June and July with ahomebrew three watts transceiver andlong wire antenna. Peter will be QRV at 1600- 17002. at weekends on 21060kKHz. GOAYD, , has just acquired a HW8as his “trusty old G3TSO has finally curled up its toes in big style”. Dave says, “If anyone has any information on the HW8, 1 will answer all e-mails and letters. Ifanyone has a non-work- ing model then I would be interested in that "GAGTU is QRV again “after a decade practi- cally QRT" with five watts from a IC-735 to a Carolina Windom 20 “which tunes beautifully 20-10 metres (including 30)”. Steve initially had the old PL259 braid connection problem, with dry joints and snapped off braiding. He switched to the new style connectors which compress the braid onto the body and don’t need soldering. He says. “A cinch to wire up and a perfect con- nection every time”. If you want to reduce the IC-735"s (oF the IC-728) output to QRP, then N2TO describes how to do it. Kevin | says, “My IC-728 was very similar to the IC-735, and there should be two pots on the motherboard. My IC-728 only tuned down to about ten watts output on 20me- * tres from the front panel pot but by ad- justing the low power pot on the moth- erboard I was able to get the front panel pot to go down to one watt out as a mini- mum, giving me I to 100 watts” GW3TMP mentions the New Zealand beacon on 28200kHz located near Masterton being a good propagation in- dicator. On 21 April Howarth heard the beacon at the one watt power level with his 160 metre doublet. After the beacon its call about 20WPM, it send a one second tone at reducing power lev- els, 100, 10, 1 and 0.1 watt. N2CQR is now QRV 0530-07302 daily as CU2JL. Bill says, "I have moved to the Azores and QRV on 14060kHz with QRP. Tam building aQRP DSB rig for 17 metres and have more information on my web site at ”. ZLIABB has regularly been making two-way QRP QSOs with Europe, including LZ2RS and CTIDRE. Bryce is QRV 0700-0800z Monday to Thursdays on 14060kHz. MWGQELR tested a RDX109MP that he had Just built and found it worked well on QRP SSB with QSOs to HCIAJQ and ZP6VT at 59 both ways on 17 metres. Sheldon then tried 15 me- tres and worked PYSEG, LU4FXI and HRIRMG with it_ MOCDP worked VQ9IO ‘on 15 metres on 8 May but “didn’t manage to break the bigger pile-up for 3B6RF”. Paul will be QRV from Kaly at the end of Jie from his hotel room with his Sierra (two watts) and ZM-2 ATU. He is wondering what antenna he should try from the hotel balcony, perhaps an ATX vertical? NSAF has worked lots of DX stations on 30 ‘metres with four watts from Texas this spring, including and VP8SDX, JA7DLE (to complete his 30 metres CW QRP WAC), 3GY, EASWH (several times), TS7N, ZL2CD and lots of Eu- Topean stations. Sam uses a dipole antenna For those wanting more information on the Slinky antenna described in my column in SPRAT 106 (page 38), KA7ZVW has kindly sent me a copy of an article on page 22 from the October 1974 OST called Apartment Dweller's Slinky Junior Antenna written by W7CZB. Iwill bbe pleased to send anyone a copy of the article on receipt of a SAE. Doug also mentions the Antenna's West Website at under the heading “Heltrix’ as a good source of information about the Slinky and variants of it. (Ito r) G4RVW, Mike, ZL2CC and Phil, ZLZANQ. In January G4RVW visited ZL2CC and was QRV from Mike’s QTH in Gisborne for eight days. Phil worked 25 DXCC but only one two- way QRP QSO, with HB9OU on CW. He met club member Phil, ZL2ANQ, and came home with a new portable rig and several new keys given to him by members of the Gisborne club Ifyouare planning to be QRV from somewhere other than home, then please let me know in good time so I can mention it in this column and allow. other members keep an ear open for you. Please remember that the lead-in time for SPRAT is sev- eral weeks and my deadline for this column is the 20th of the month prior to publication, ie 20, August forthe Autumn ec n (108) to be pub- lished on 30 September. (This column is being written on 22 May). I also need more photo- graphs for this column please, they can always be returned afterwards. Let me know how your Summer goes. 73 de ChrisRig Broken or needs alignment? Commercial/Homebrew equipment repaired & aligned ‘Ten-Tec repair specialist, spare parts ordering service av: Adur Communications ble Belmont Buildings, The Street, Bramber, West Sussex. 01903 879526 Ten-Tec Kits Now In Stock www.g3tux.com Kits: Howes Keys: Bencher QRP: Equipment Kanga Kent, Samson. bought, sold MFJ Schurr, TiCK, and part - ex. Ten Tec Palm, Swedish 08/2001 SSB and CW 5W TCVR kit - Multi-band by plug in cards All bands 10 - 160m available - Cards for single or pair bands Version for 2 cards = 4 bands — Very sharp adjustable filters Full hang AGC, RIT, etc etc. - Manual £5, kits from £129 See www.users.globalnet.co.uk/walfor or send SSAE to Walford Electronics ‘Upton Bridge Farm, Long Sutton, Langport, Somerset TALOONS One Cell of an offer ‘A rechargeable battery pack containing 4 x AAA-L cells. The AAAL cell is the same diameter as the AAA, but the length is the same as the AA cell. Therefore an ideal cost effective replacement for an AA cell should you, with a little ingenuity, find a suitable sleeve to build up the diameter slightly. They are NiMH reportedly being of !Ahr in capacity. A Test by G4XAT showed 850 mA/Hr. These cells are all new, manufactured by Toshiba. We received a large order and tagged on a few extras at the right price especially for the amateur market. We offer as follows 4 packs, that is a total of 16 cells, for £7.00 including UK P&P. 10-4 offers - a new list is now available SSAE please. Look out for us at the rallies, or use mail order: - JAB Electronic Components. PO Box 5774. Birmingham B44 8PJ Fax 0121-681-1329 e-mail Peter@JAB.demon.co.uk Cheques or Postal Orders (payable to P A Thomas please). MasterCard/VISA also welcome. 40THE SPECIALIST QSL CARD PRINTER from (Chris Page, G4BUE) High quality designing and printing but cheap prices and fast turn Artwork and proof included in the price - minimum order just 250 cards Multi colour and two sided QSLs - standard thickness or thicker card Lots of amateur radio elip-art available or your drawing seanned to size canes No extra charge for coloured ink or card - guaranteed satisfaction details to: Four cheaper basie designs te choose from for contest / general QSLing Highcroft Farmhouse, Gay Street, Pulborough, West Sussex RH20 2HJ. Telephone: 01798 815711 Fax: 01798 813054 Mobile: 07980 040348 E-mail: g4bue@adur-press.co.uk (hp -GABUE — Wambr a Th Both Pt Scot VAT 620 59 54 OMCs 1 aL Te) CULE Ue Signal Filters ETT W9GR DSP-3. DDS3 16 Function 13 bit fitor for 4 0 41MHz VFO or ‘ssbiow and data. Includes ‘Signal generator. @RP ‘auto notch, de-noiser, brick- jnoludes a Dei6 die- wal, 100 and SOHz CWDS) ath program, 0.1-30 Watts modes. Fable offecte £159 assembled £185 assembled £150 assembled £129 cased kit £169 cated kit foe EUS R Se tite Tle) Lael ne naa . aa 8 Rene ro ene psa 4lSPRAT BINDERS Holds 12 editions of SPRAT but cari hold more with additional wires (10p each) due to larger spine (44mm). Covered in high quality black balacron with gold blocked logo. Matching binders available to hold other AS radio magazines. £4.95 inc VAT ADUR VILLAGE PRESS lus £1 Highcroft Farmhouse, Gay Street, iO cae eae etc, __ Pulborough, Wast Sussex RH20 21. f2inEEC Telephone 01798 815711 Fax 01798 813054 Email: gébue@adur-press.co.uk Chrisopboe J ag Mamba f The Bish PistogSoity AT 620 5019 54 ez Of interest to all CW operators, whether veteran or novice, this unique bi-monthly magazine provides an invaluable source of SEI Ors ett enn eee ving Moe nny pl tka present and future. Annual subscription (6 issues) £13 to UK, agny tcat £14.00 Europe, £17.00 elsewhere, or send £2.50 for a sample issue. All cheques payable to The Nilski Partnership. “The Nilski Partnership", The Poplars, Wistanswick, Market Drayton Shropshire TF9 2BA Tel: 01630 638306 - Fax: 01630 638051 - E-mail: zyg@morsum.demon.co.uk I-Q Electronic Design 69 Angus Close, Chessington, QUARTZ CRYSTALS Surrey. KT9 2BN ‘400KHz/£3.95. ‘455.2kHz/£1.75 TMHz/£2.95 1.4MHz/£3.95 2.00MHz/£2.95 3.560MH2/£3.50 4.00MHz/£1.00 6.OMHZ/£1.54 7.030MHz/£3.95 8.9985MHZ/22.95 | 9.0MHz/£2.95. ‘9.0015MHz/£2.95 10.0MH2/£1.54 10.106MH2/£3.50__| 10.245MHz/£1.54__ | 10.7MHz/£1.54 11.0592MHz/£1.60 | 11.155MH2/£3.50__ | 16MHz/£1.54 21,040MHz/£4.75, 21.060MH2/£4.75 | 28.060MHZ/£3.75 | 41.0MHz/£3.75 ‘41.5MHz/£3.75 42.5MHz/£3.75 | 45MHz/£1.75 48MHZ/£1.95 P&P £1.25 +VAT Parallel res. 30pF Load C. Range of Crystal & Ceramic Filters ‘9MHz xtal Filters SSB/CW from £30. 10.7MHz 10kH b/w Filters £10.50 5,6,10MHz OCXOs £12.50. Wanted Sweep Freq Gen & Scope to 25MHz Xtal Circuits, Applications Booklet £5.00. Ceramic Resonators, Applications Booklet £3.50 Tel: 020 8391 0545, Fax: 020 8391 5258, email:japj69@netscapeonline.co.uk 4 GLANMOR CRESCENT KEYSOLAR NEWPORT GWENT NP9 8AX SYSTEMS TEL/FAX 0633 - 280958 Small Scale Solar and Wind Power New Range of P.V. Modules with 6 & 10 yr Warranty. DIY Wind Generator Plans & Parts Book and Booklets on all types of Power Generation and other projects Ring or FAX for special offer PV Plates and details of our range of “repaired” modules For Info Sheets enclose SAE SPRAT Size + 38p stamps 42The Kits with ALL the Bits ! LAKE Electronics 7 Middleton Close, Nuthall, Nottingham NG16 1BX Tel: (0115) 9382509 E-Mail : radkit@compuserve.com Internet : http://ourworld.compuserve. com/homepages/radkit TU4 The “DTR” series of Single Band CW Transceivers, all of similar basic specification, now come in three versions DTR3-5 (80m) DTR7-5(40m) DTR10-5 (30m) Allfeature ; Internal power adjustment, 25mW (or less) to 7W (or more) ‘Low-pass output filter : better than -50dB harmonic attenuation. Receive (DC) sensitivity < 1,V MDS, selectivity about 250Hz @ -6dB. ‘Stable VFO covers 100kHz up from the lower band edge. Receive attenuator 12dB, RIT +4kHz Power requirement - 1A (key down) at 12 - 14 Vde (For @ completely independent assessment and an objective comparison with other QRP rigs, see Peter Hart's review in October 1995 RADCOM) Kit price, including ALL components AND hardware £97.80 plus £4.00 postage These kits can be specially built to order for £172.00, inclusive. TU4 Antenna Tuner Frequency range 1.5 - 30MHz Power rating 80 watts (CW) Very sensitive SWR meter - less than 1/2 watt for full scale reading ‘$0239 for co-ax, terminals for end fed wire and balanced feeder. 4:1 balun included. Kit price - ALL parts and hardware - £68.00 plus £4.00 postage Ready Built - £88.00 plus £4.00 pp. 4BKANGA PRODUCTS NEW KIT The Add-on Amplifier is an LM386 audio amplifier on a 2“ x 1” PCB mounted on a volume control. It's the ideal final stage for an experimental receiver. Price £6.95 without switch, £8.95 with switch. See us at Lincoln Hamfest (9th September) and Leicester Rally (21st & 22nd September) Send 2 first class stamps to Kanga for a copy of our catalogue. Kanga Products Tel O15 9670918 Sandford Works Mobile 07710 898970 Cobden Street Fax 0870 0568608 Long Eaton E-mail: sales@kanga.demon.co.uk Nottingham http: mww.kanga.demon.co.uk NGIO 1BL