The VE2ZAZ blog

After more than 30 years of tinkering, studying and designing electronics and radio-related stuff, I felt I should start communicating my findings and thoughts in a more frequent manner. And I am quite curious about other people's approaches as well. So I have decided to modernize my communication methods. The blog form is the best vehicle in that sense. I write a post, you add on to mine using the | Comments (x) | link above the post..

Let's see where all of it will bring us...

Bert, VE2ZAZ

Useful links

My Amateur Radio and Electronics website: http://ve2zaz.net
My Amateur Radio and Electronics blog: http://ve2zaz.net/blog
My Youtube Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/VE2ZAZ
My email address: ve2zaz_at_rac_dot_ca
No, I am not on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedLn or any such...

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They seem to be more and more popular. They show up in every electronics store flyer. Their price tag makes me choke on my morning toast every time I see them. I am talking about those very expensive headphones, such as the Beats and Bose brand names. How in the world can a company charge so much for a tiny pair of wearable speakers? Actually, the real question is how in the world can someone justify this purchase!!!

And I am not even talking about cordless headphones here. At this price you can get a corded version... You can also buy a bluetooth-fed pair of headphones for that price tag, But that would still be $350 too expensive for me...

The local ham club I am a member of was handed several decommissioned or defective K-band police radar heads similar to the one shown on the right. We knew these contain a gunnplexer and can potentially carry Wideband FM (WBFM) radio contacts. This would allow our club to add a band to the ARRL June VHF QSO Party. At the last club meeting, I raised my hand when it came to who would try to put these 24 GHz police radar heads on the air. So here is my report on how things are progressing.

Here is my report on the January 2012 VHF Sweepstakes that took place January 21-23. I completed 72 QSOs from grid FN25. This is despite a seized rotor due to cold weather and inability to activate my 1296MHz setup. Still, it was a lot of fun, especially on Sunday afternoon, thanks to the 6m band opening. The GN29 grid (Newfoundland) was a nice surprise!

Bert, VE2ZAZ

Band    QSOs    Value    QSOPts    Mults
 50      33       1       33        14
144      24       1       24        13
222       0       2        0         0
432      15       2       30         5

Totals:  72               87        32   

Claimed Score: 2784

You will not hear me on D-Star anytime soon. I don't see any compelling reason to add D-Star to my ham setup. Don't try to convince me, it will be a waste of time from your part.

It is high tech, for sure. It offers some distinct possibilities that no other mode of communication can offer. The internet gateway capability is a real plus; its Digital Data is a nice feature. In fact I admire those who test and implement this digital mode. I can appreciate the dedication and the amount of work involved.

And I like technology, have no doubt about it. In my professional career, I have been has been designing and testing fiber optics transmission systems using cutting edge technology for the last 20 years.

But here are four reasons why I am not a D-Star user.

I have built or repaired several VHF and UHF RF power amplifiers in my ham career. Some were solid state (transistor-based), some had power vacuum tubes (valves). It has been a mixed results experience so far. Lately, I have been receiving comments from some other hams who claim that the dual-3CX100A5 tube 1296MHz amplifier I am putting together is outdated and that I should switch to power transistors in my design. No doubt that the transistors offer some advantage over tubes, but they also have drawbacks. The following is my view of the pros and cons of both technologies.

For some time, I had been contemplating the purchase of a pocket oscilloscope for up-the-tower or car fixing work. A few months ago I came across this oscilloscope listing on eBay. It was from a Canadian seller called "nooelec". The unit is a JYE DSO 082. It is a single channel, 10MHz bandwidth, 50Ms/S sample rate, LCD display digital storage oscilloscope. The specifications looked promising, so I went ahead and ordered one.

Today, August 31st 2011, marks the end of an era in Canada. The analog NTSC television signal broadcast. Well, I must vent out on one statement I have been hearing and reading in the Canadian media: "Now that we are transitioning to digital TV, the rabbit ears antenna era is over..." I have been hearing this false statement over and over in the last year. How to confuse the viewers when it can be stated clearly. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ANTENNA! The same radio spectrum is more or less used. It is all happening in the TV set. Just buy a converter box if you have an older TV set with an analog tuner. Hook up your rabbit ears, or any TV aerial, to that converter box, and hook up the box to the TV set and you'll be in business. You readers all know this, of course, but you are not the average Joe-Blo person if show any interest in my blog.

Let me try to come up with possible reasons why they have been making this false statement over and over:

Just to give you a heads up, I just ordered a NEScaf CW audio filter from the New England QRP Club . I will be using it with the FT-817ND. I figure it will be more helpful than the optional Yaesu or W4RT CW Filter module, and at a small fraction of the cost. $31 for a full-featured switched-capacitor audio filter kit is a very good deal. It is not an IF filter, but it will sure help a lot on the CW copy. Its variable bandwidth and center frequency will be a plus. I intend to carry it around when going portable-QRP.

Update (30/08/2011): Just received the kit yesterday and have started assembling it. Instructions are very clear. It total, it should take me about 90 minutes of assembly time before firing it up. I will report back on the unit as soon as it is assembled. So stay tuned!

Update (31/08/2011): I managed to find time to wrap up the assembly process and power up the NEScaf board. Here are my first comments on the assembly process and the filter operation.

The last time I escalated King Mountain for my mini VHF expedition, I brought along a 12 Volt, 7 Ah, sealed lead-acid battery to power up my FT-817ND radio. That battery weighs a hefty 6 pounds (2.7Kg). Luckily, we only had less than 30 minutes of hiking to reach the top of the mountain. Besides, I use that battery in my home alarm system, so I had to find a better mountain-top power solution for my next portable radio expedition.

While reading the FT-817 Yahoo! group, I learned about this 12V,6800 mAh Rechargeable Li-ion Battery sold on eBay for $19 (U.S.), including charger and shipping. I elected to order one from eBay seller "sinedya" directly from China. This is a super-power seller, with more than 208,000 feedback entries!

This past weekend, I climbed up King Mountain in Gatineau Park (330m altitude) with my older son Vincent (age 11). I brought along the FT-817ND, my hand-held Arrow-style VHF/UHF antenna (6 elements on UHF, 3 elements on VHF), battery, morse code key, cables, tripod, etc.

The intent was to contact my friend VE2ASL, who is located 200 Km to the east. On 432MHz, Robert has a pair of K1FO beams at 15m height and 100W of output. On 144MHz, he has a long boom yagi at the same height and 100W. Prior to the meet, I did a radio link study between the two stations with the Radio-Mobile software (see my other blog entry on this matter).

I have had several requests from readers of my QEX and QST magazine articles. They specifically wanted to know about the techniques I used to get professional looking lettering on the enclosures I show in the articles. Here are two approaches I use:

I have been discovering the capabilities of the Radio Mobile software, by Roger - VE2DBE. This is one heck of a wonderful program, and it is free! This software is a tool used to predict the performance of a radio system. If you deal with VHF/UHF/microwave propagation, or if you would just like to know what your station range is, this is definitely a program you want to try. This is actually a professional package that got turned into freeware by the author. The maps are public domain and they get automatically downloaded from the web when you specify the coordinates you want to cover.

OK, I have to confess, I tend to go overboard when it comes to telecom electronics. But I seldom buy new. So I don't spend a fortune. Since my young age, the telephone has always fascinated me. Of course, having several phones in the house is useful. I am sure that most of you have that. But how about having a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) in the house? Sounds overkill? Maybe for most, but read through; I will try to sell my point.

You must have already bought a radio or test equipment that had a display window with scratches. Or maybe you have scratched it yourself? Well, be aware that there is a simple solution to removing scratches off the surface of clear hard plastic. Light scratch marks will disappear and deeper ones will be much reduced.