THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - January 2011 NOTE: The text file is very difficult to format. Nicely formated and easier to read versions are the HTML versions, available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com, and the pdf file of the web edition available at http://www.mvrc.qzxservices.com/pdf/LO1101.pdf. It will be easy to print that edition. If you do not have the free pdf reader, you can get it at http://www.adobe.com TABLE OF CONTENTS COMING EVENTS CHRISTMAS DINNER FIBER CABLE CUT QRSS MONTHLY BOARD MEETING MONTHLY BUSINESS MEETING UNCLASSIFIED OFFICERS JOIN THE CLUB COMING EVENTS M-F 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00 AM Mon WTRA Swap net 146.88 8:00 PM Wed Net 146.64 6:45 PM MWF Informal get together Wal-Mart W (Valley) 10 AM TTH Informal get together Wal-Mart E (Walton) 10 AM Jan 4 Builder's Group 7 PM Club House Jan 8 Breakfast 8 AM Club House Jan 8 Business meeting 8:45 AM Club House Jan 12 Board Meeting 7 PM Club House8 Jan 18 Builder's Group 7 PM Club House Jan 29 Albuquerque Winter Tailgate Swapfest (Albuquerque, NM) See http://www.n5bl.org/calendar for more events. CHRISTMAS DINNER The annual Christmas Dinner was held at 6 PM at Furr's Cafeteria. There were about 20 to 30 hams and their families gathered in the separate room located on the west side of the cafeteria. The club had arranged for the drinks to be included in the usual charge for the meal. We had the entire room to ourselves and had easy access to the wide variety of food. The evening was taken up with rag chewing and food chewing. FIBER CABLE CUT AD5FE In the late afternoon of Tuesday Dec. 14, 2010 a construction crew working south of Socorro NM cut the main fiber-optic cable connecting Las Cruces to Albuquerque. This cut resulted in the loss of almost all land-line phone service in southern NM. The outage included the service to the 911 call centers in Dona Ana County as well as others, leaving the counties with no 911 service. When the extent of the outage was realized, the EOC in Las Cruces was activated and Amateur radio support was requested. The EOC ham radio room was brought on line manned by Kevin McNelis, K5KMC, along with George Kopp, KD5OHA, and with Henry Schotzko, AD5FE, the DEC running the show. Not long after the EOC was brought on line ham support was requested for the Fire Department Mobile Command Van which was stationed by the county 911 dispatch center. John Beakley, WK5C, was contacted and sent to support the FD Van. Shortly after that a request was received from the New Mexico State Police for ham support at their Las Cruces office. Dave Hassel, WA5DJJ, was contacted and sent to the NM-SP office to support them. The FD van was easy to support because of the ham equipment which is already in place in the van. The State Police building was another matter. When built, the building was constructed as a shielded building, this made it very hard to get any radio signals in or out of the building. Dave worked very hard trying to establish communications with any repeaters and ended up reaching the EOC so operators there could relay by way of the Mega-Link to stations up North. Although cumbersome, this worked, and brought the idea that things would be a lot easier with an external antenna. This idea was presented to the communications specialist for the SP there and he agreed, he even pointed out a good place on a tower for us to place the antenna. It just so happens that we have a dual-band antenna collecting dust in the EOC storage room that will be used for this antenna as well as some coax. We are waiting for all the permissions to install this antenna and run the coax. When we get this antenna installed and coax run we should be in much better shape to support the NM-SP office here in Las Cruces. This event was a great way for us, “the Ham community” to show what we can do, and how we can help when other forms of communications have failed. We should also look at other means of moving information, because a lot of the supported agencies also lost their e-mail, and needed a way to move digital data. The event opened some eyes as to how much we depend on our computer networks to get things done, and how “helpless” we are when the “network” goes down. QRSS WA5DJJ The question is "How much Power does it take to talk to Pensacola, Florida ?" When I first started out in Amateur Radio, the answer to that question was 1,000 Watts. The year was 1959 and I was a technician class amateur radio operator and on 6 Meters power was the thing you needed to work the distant stations. (At that time it would be California to Florida) Through the years the number of watts required to contact someone in Pensacola, Florida decreased from 1,000 to 200 to 50 to 20, to 5 watts. A few years ago, I joined a group called the KNIGHTS OF THE QRSS and found out that working Pensacola, Florida as well as other far flung spots on the earth took very much less power than 5 watts. Using 0 .1 watts you could get your call sign using nothing more than a dipole antenna to such places as Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia, and Belgium. It wasn’t magic and I didn’t rewrite the laws of physics. Propagation of radio waves in the atmosphere actually supports such communications. It is just that you have to use some special techniques to see it taking place. The techniques are explained on my webpage: http://www.zianet.com/dhassall/QRSS_A.html and you can read it there as there isn’t room to explain it here. On with my story. My friend Bill W4HBK runs a very exceptional internet grabber that has both a 4 hour display and a 10 minute display watching the frequency of 10,139,950 Hz to 10,140,100 Hz. If you were to put a low powered signal on the air in this frequency range, you could log on to his grabber webpage at: http://www.qsl.net/w4hbk/W4HBKgrabber.html and see your signal in real time. The grabber updates every 10 minutes, so every 10 minutes you get to see what it heard the previous 10 minutes. So, using Bill’s Grabber, I started at 0.1 watts using the FSKCW mode and watched to see if it heard me. Not only did it hear me, I was very LOUD. So, I cut the signal in half (3 dB) to 0.05 watts and waited. I still saw my signal returned on the internet. But I could not see my signal on his grabber at much less than .05 watts using FSKCW. (Using FSKCW mode, I was transmitting at a speed of 6 second dits and 18 second dahs with a constant carrier and shifting the frequency up 5Hz for a dit or dah character.) One of the theories of Very Slow Speed CW (QRSS) is that the slower you key your transmitter, the lower the power you have to use to transmit it. So, to test the theory, I built a new straight CW keyer that would allow my transmitter to transmit 80 second dits and 240 second dahs. At that rate it took about 37 minutes to send the DJJ of my call sign. I then resumed the test to see how much power it took to talk to Pensacola, Florida. With the new keyer sending the 80 second dit rate, I started with .05 watts and using Bill’s 4 hour grabber display to see my signal. I was amazed to see it at .05 watts, and .025 Watts, and .01 Watts, and .005 Watts, and .001 Watts. It was getting down to the ESP level by this time and propagation was only giving me very small sections of my transmitted signal. The propagation windows turned out to be about 30 minutes around sunrise at Pensacola, Florida. My final power output to be detected in Pensacola, Florida was 0.000065 Watts or 65 micro Watts. This adventure took almost four months to complete. More time was spent on transmitter modifications and measurements than in actual operations. It was done with a homebrewed transmitter that uses a Direct Digital Synthesis oscillator card being commanded by an ARDUNIO processor. The DDS oscillator was being frequency stabilized by a GPS Disciplined Oscillator locked up to 8 satellites for frequency stability of 1 Hz in 1 GHz. The power output was measured on a calibrated M cubed frequency/power meter. The antenna was nothing more exotic than a simple dipole cut to 10,140,000 Hz. I learned about using the ARDUNIO Processor in the MVRC Builders group and had some valuable help from that group in getting my transmitter built and programmed. There is a small group of us here in Las Cruces that operate on the QRSS Mode. They are Robert, KE5OFK, Perry, KC7VHS, Tim, KD5SSF, Evan, KE5ZRZ and me. We have been nicknamed the Las Cruces Mafia by Bill, W4HBK, because there are more QRSS transmitters on the air within 100 miles of Las Cruces, New Mexico than anyplace else on earth. Further reading on this fascinating niche of Amateur Radio can be found by Goggling QRSS. Local Elmering is available from me or other members of the group. BUILDER'S GROUP KD5SSJ The builders group has decided to take the month of December 2010 off and meet again starting in January 2011. At that time the project will be a RF Probe that was featured in the December issue of Nuts and Volts. I did the prototype using a knife and removing copper, as needed, but most of the guys thought that it best that we do a printed circuit board. The basic qualities of the RF Probe are that it has a high input impedance and has a low output impedance with a bandwidth of approximately 100KHz to 500MHz. Typically used with an oscilloscope, it can also be used with a receiver to make measurements on other radio circuits. MONTHLY BUSINESS MEETING KD5UZF No December Business meeting MONTHLY BOARD MEETING KD5UZF No December Board Meeting UNCLASSIFIED FOR SALE 1. A Kaito KA1130 dual conversion portable radio covering AM, shortwave, and FM. AM coverage from 520-1710 kHz and shortwave covering 10 bands. SSB on shortwave. Radio less than a year old and slightly used. 2. MFJ-1046 Passive Pre-selector with coaxial jumper cable. Less than a year old and slightly used. Unit covers 1.6 to 33 MHz in 6 bands. 3. Icom IC-PCR1500-25 wideband computer receiver. Reception from 10 kHz to 3300 MHz, less cellular frequencies. Modes include AM, FM-wide, FM-narrow, SSB and CW (up to 1300 MHz). Radio less than a year old and slightly used. 4. Yaesu handheld transceiver VX-8DR with APRS Enhanced. Comes with a GPS unit and special antenna. HT Go-Bag included. Radio less than a year old and slightly used. Evans Ralston evans@kf5dni.net OFFICERS Pres Robert Truitt KE5OFK 649-4173 robtruitt@zianet.com VPr Cash Olsen KD5SSJ 382-1917 kd5ssj@arrl.net Sec Melanie Jack KD5UZF 202-3363 kd5ssj@arrl.net Treasurer Fred Atkinson WB4AEJ fred@wb4aej.com BOARD Henry Schotzko AD5FE 526-1922 schotzko@comcast.net Terry Angle KF5DNS 640-9669 kf5dns@gmail.com Alex Burr K5XY 522-2528 k5xy@arrl.net Bob Bennett AD5LJ 382-0148 rpbennett1@comcast.net Cash Olsen KD5SSJ 382-1917 kd5ssj@arrl.net JOIN THE CLUB To join the Mesilla Valley Radio Club, renew your membership, or to support the repeaters, please complete the form below and send it with dues ($35 single, $45 family per year) to: Treasurer, MVRC, Box 1443, Las Cruces, NM 88004. MESILLA VALLEY RADIO CLUB CALL SIGN(S) ______________________FAMILY ___________________ ______________________ LIC CLASS (E, A, G, T, N) ______ ______ _______ ARRL (Y/N) ______ ______ _______ ARRL VE (Y/N) ______ ______ _______ Would you like to be added to the MVRC reflector? _____EMAIL _______________________________________________________________________________ STREET ADDRESS ____________________________________________________________________ CITY & ZIP ________________________________ PHONE ______________________ (OPTIONAL) INTERESTS – Computer __ Contests __ Digital __ Elmer __ Emergency Communications __ Field Day __ Packet __ Programs __ Public Service __ Publicity __ RFI __ Repeater __ Soci NAME ________________________________________________________________________________ al __ Take License Classes __ Teach License Classes __ Volunteer Examiner __ Other ___________________________ SINGLE $35 FAMILY $45