Broadcast - 9 July 2023
I know the Centenary Open Day at Ulverstone was covered previously in length, but I would just like to add from our perspective Eric VK7EV, as Coordinator and his team of helpers achieved an awesome outcome in organising the venue, the internal infrastructure and the assistance provided to anyone with an exhibit.
Thanks to club members Rob VK7FUJ, with his working display of radio equipment for the visually impaired, voice synthesis certainly has improved in the last twenty years and Peter VK7KPC, for his functioning 6 metre military transceiver display. Peter even worked some contacts.
Also thanks to Fran who brought along a tray of magnificent apple cakes to complement the lunch time cup of tea and sausage as well as Kay’s “well infused” dark fruit cake that evidently she stayed up all night making. Hi-Hi
The last Club room Technical night proved popular with some members having arrived before the doors were open, even at the earlier time slot of 18:30.
The first items of interest came from Peter VK7KPC, a two piece military 6 metre transceiver. The receiver normally is mounted on a helmet and can be used with an ear piece or the inbuilt speaker that vents to the outside world via a flat pressed metal circular horn with the opening positioned at one ear.
The handheld transmitter is pure simplicity, Channel 1 or 2 selector, a tone or voice selector and a dual direction twist to talk knob.
The combination was the first American military field equipment to incorporate Integrated Circuits in their design and subsequent production. These are not the present day surface mount devices or the tradition dual inline black chips but were more like a metal “canister” transistors but with many more leads.
Unfortunately replacement originally specified batteries have long been unobtainable, but Peter recently purchased a mint condition original battery for the transmitter. Needless to say the battery was somewhat discharged and completely flat after thirty or so years. So all Peter has to do now it find his scalpel and surgically open the military grey cardboard outer casing, remove the contents and replace them with a combination of readily available batteries. Unfortunately the same problem applies to the receiver, except this time he is hoping to find some suitably sized copper tubing and batteries that will fit to overcome the problem.
Equipment link is included in the text version.
http://k4che.com/PRRPRT/PRR-9PRT-4Battery.htm
Ross VK7ALH, arrived early with a radio in a box, well not exactly, but a collection of boards, parts and modules in a cardboard box. They originated from various faulty Yaesu FT1000s over the years that he had collected hopefully to resurrect a working unit.
Main control and audio boards suffering from various problems and questionable repairs or modifications.
Antenna Tuning Module excellently designed with the maintenance technician in mind with a hinged control board giving access to all relays and coils.
Receive / Transmit switching and band low pass filter board which led him a merry chase through the circuit until the fault was isolated to this board and a “leaky” relay allowing RF signal into where it shouldn’t have been was identified. Ross certainly has his work cut out but the box couldn’t be in better hands.
Lionel VK7ZLB, produced a couple of samples from his affordable hand held test gear collection, a newer style “TinySA” Spectrum Analyser with the larger display. The modest screen size increase does make it quite a bit easier on the eyes when trying to operate the unit. This is certainly nice and portable. One surprise to me was his compact Vector Network Analyser (VNA), sporting “N” type connectors, this is rather a nice variation from the usual small SMA connectors. A version that I hadn’t seen in the flesh before.
Also recent arrivals on his door step was an assortment of SMA RF cables, adaptors and attenuators to augment his patching accessories as well as a very nice beefy looking 25W dummy load, incorporating a 10db pass through and “N” type connectors.
The last item from Lionel was almost totally unrelated and purely for show. It was an item that literally went off with a substantial BANG earlier in the day. A Duracell - ProCell 9 Volt battery blew the bottom out of its metal container, luckily it did this while not in use or installed in any equipment or in anyone’s pocket, but was sitting next to him on the bench. I believe the sheer volume and closeness of the bang was somewhat disconcerting! I know it’s “Best before” date had passed and it didn’t get accidentally shorted but still quite an unexpected surprise.
It was somewhat fortuitous of Lionel to bring his TinySA as Lewis VK7IT had his latest equipment acquisition with him, a Quansheng UV-K5 hand held transceiver. Lionel’s TinySA was soon pressed into service as a low-level signal generator to put Lewis’ new hand held through its paces.
This one still has the ex-factory software version and is sold as a 5W handheld transceiver with transmit enabled on the 2m and 70cm bands. It has a substantial receive range of 50-600MHz and includes AM mode for the air band section. Lewis has yet to delve into some advanced features like a frequency counter and ctcss decoder. An interesting little radio and looking at the web there is the ability to experiment with different software that might expand the receive coverage quite considerably. No doubt we will see what Lewis does with it in the future. There is a very informative review conducted on Hayden’s VK7HH YouTube channel and a link is included in the text version.
Quansheng UV-K5 (BETTER Than a Baofeng!) - NEW 2023 Radio | Ham Radio DX
All in all a very interesting technical night.
Further developments on Nic VK7WW’s “Cent” CW Transmitter. These updates have now been added to the NTARC Website under “Projects”. They include a Diode for Reverse Polarity Protection, RF Choke notes, Crystal Oscillator improvement, modifications for 40m band operation and the option of adding Sidetone via an additional module. Nic has certainly been studiously beavering away on this Centenary project.
Hot off the press.
Peter VK7KPC has obtained 36th place World Wide in the Single Operator, 20 metre band, category for the Alessandro Volta RTTY competition held earlier this year and has just received the certificate to prove it.
While we are congratulating Peter on this activity, he also has taken out 4th place for Single Operator, 10 Watt, All Mode section in the 2023 VK Shires Contest, and appears to be the only Tasmanian to have entered! Doubly well done Peter on your achievements.
Now to finish off, Nic VK7WW, has had yet another successful long distance Morse Code contact on 3.580 MHz, using his recent transmitter project called the “Cent”, which is a celebration of 100 years of Amateur Radio in Tasmania. This contact was with ZL1KFM conducted a couple of nights ago at 8pm. Spanning a distance of 2449 Kilometres, from Legana Tasmania to North Waikato, Auckland New Zealand using only 1.01 Watt with a received signal report of 549 to 569 QSB. That’s pretty impressive QRP using one watt Nic!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Club Technical Night – will be replaced by the Midyear Social Evening on Wednesday the 12th of July. The venue is “The Park on Invermay”, in the “Tramms Family Bistro” area, not to be confused with the “Inveresk Tavern” a little bit further down the street. Time is 6:00 for a 6:30 meal. Those who wish to attend please register by e-mailing the Secretary.
Coffee Morning - held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon and we look forward to seeing you all there. Why not pop in and join us for a cuppa, there is endless tea and coffee along with biscuits available for a donation.
The TestNet and TechNet session - Wednesday the 19th of July. TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7pm till 7.30pm…. and a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30pm till about 8.30pm. Your host for the evening will be Nic VK7WW.
FINALLY - A reminder to all members that if you have any items of news you would like added to our weekly roundup, no matter how trivial, then please email them to the Secretary at the following address news@ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 5pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
That’s all folks,
73 from Stefan, VK7ZSB, Secretary NTARC Inc.
