K7JEB AM Log: 16 July 2006 - 01 August 2006 7/17/Mon Some SSB QSO's in the morning - medical problems and weather - not much there. 7/22/Sat George, W8QBG, continues to see strangeness with the Bauer 707. This time a faulty 'xmtr start' switch inexplicably causes the rf choke on the 4-400 grids to burn up with the usual nasty smells. One is assured that there is a logical explanation for this, consistent with Kirchoff's circuit laws, and probably due a sneak path engendered by midnight, bailing-wire repairs performed on the transmitter in its former role as the news/talk/sports voice of Palm Desert, CA. Damon, W7MD, is still going through his pioneering phase with wire antenna placement experiments at his Vail QTH. Couldn't hear any difference up here in Phoenix. He is also trying to achieve some progress on getting a garage constructed after a contractor meltdown. K7CAX, Max, checks in with his Icom 718 and amp. Not sounding too bad with a bit of fiddling with mic gain. Max claims he needs an emergency AM fix after suffering Johnson-500 withdrawal symptoms. He also advises he is having cable modem problems - of particular interest to K7JEB who is also having them. One wonders how those folks who rely on their Internet connection for land-line telephone take these outages. John, WA6JUS, continues to get into a bluegrass frame of mind. Were those some banjo licks we heard in the background of that last transmission? Chuckles all around when W7MD suggests to digital-averse 'JUS that he explore a new Internet music site (www.pandora.com). George continues to be impressed with his Behringer "Shark" mic preamp/compressor and its setup menus. Larry, W0OGH, decides to send his R-388 into "an expert" to resolve the tricky mechanical issues with the cam-actuated tuning slugs in the front end of that receiver. Tom, AE8O, out in Rio Rancho, NM, checks in on 40 with his Valiant as a work in progress. He has cleaned it up, is in the process of re-capping it and will go on to the audio mods shortly. The thing sounds good over here in Phx, as well as can be deduced through the rotten propagation at noon on this band. 7/23/Sunday Tim, AL0F, on the 3855 roundtable, reports still getting used to the Arizona heat. W7XH, Bill, chimes in with the 'helpful' observation that he once saw a scheme for putting air conditioning on a motorcycle, AL0F's favorite form of transportation. This leads to a long discussion about A/C, the lifeblood of urban Arizona, but it also provides the insight that the A/C unit on the Prius hybrid car is electrically powered - ugh! Randy, W7CPA, lets us hear his newest gadget, a Software-Defined Radio doing AM. Sounds very good, but a bit strange with a pronounced controlled-carrier effect. CPA advises that is programmable, along with just about everything else in the setup. Randy shows off some of the other capabilities of the unit by changing his transmitted bandwidth on the fly with a few keystrokes. This unit is definitely a contender for doing low-level-modulation AM. W8QBG continues to work out the problems with the Bauer in scorching heat in "Studio B" (his garage) using a system of forced-air cooling on himself. He is tackling small odds and ends - this time rebuilding the airflow switch that interlocks the filament and plate supplies with a new microswitch and one of his wife's measuring cups. Also taken care of: the antenna-relay sequencing and the drive selector switch which cleverly disables the internal oscillators and buffer by turning off their filaments . He still needs to rework the front door to make it fit this model of the transmitter (apparently more than one kind of 707). 7/25/Tues eve. (2M AM Net) W8QBG reports more progress on getting the Bauer set up for an external drive source. He discovers the purpose for an auxiliary circuit board and strange output meter - this particular transmitter is equipped with an automatic power control so that the DJ at the control point doesn't even have to tweak that. Needless to say, this particular "feature" is needed or wanted for the amateur-radio application. Much discussion about keyless entry systems for cars for some reason, started off by someone recounting that old saw about being able to open one's car door by holding the cellphone up to it while "dialing" a special number or some such thing. I mention I am working on an ASIC project and Jim, K7SC, recounts his involvement at Motorola with a project to produce an RF ASIC in Gallium Arsenide. I am beginning to think that we have all been around the hi-tech block a few times too many. Lock, W1ZD, mysteriously disappears from the air in the middle of the net. Local thunderstorm activity present in the area and is the suspected cause. 7/28/Fri on the Internet Surprised to see a mention of Larry, W0OGH, in the ARRL propagation forecast written by K7RA. Larry sent in a report of his observations on current 10- and 6-meter propagation and it was duly published in that official ARRL bulletin. Fame comes in mysterious ways! 7/29/Sat On the 3855 roundtable: Ken, K6CJA, also reports 6-meter openings as well as extended groundwave work establishing a path between himself and Leo, WA6MTZ, in the Barstow area. George, W8QBG joins in with the news that he worked Swain Is. CJA rejoins that he really doesn't cotton up to DX operations, particularly ones that use up 40 kc of space on 20 meters. W1ZD's sudden disappearance on 2 meters the other night is explained. Lock heard that peculiar rough whining noise corona makes when it is leaking off one's antenna and decided that shutting the station down was a good idea. Ted, WA8ULG, stops in briefly to announce that he is getting loaded and will hit the road shortly. Uh, Ted, maybe you'd better choose some different words for that. Randy, W7CPA, checks in with his Software-Defined Radio again. This time he really sounds like, well, you know, really bad, and has his amplifier kicking off on him. We all try to diagnose his problem over the air with our golden ears up against our receiver speakers when, suddenly, with a mouse click, in the middle of a transmission, his audio suddenly clears up. Randy had turned on the "grunge-a-fier" to play with our heads (and golden ears) a bit. Hmmmmm. Speaking of head trips, W8QBG spots a listing on E-Bay for a "64-pill" amplifier capable of 5 kilowatts output in "amateur" service. George gets hold of the listing party via e-mail, asks what amateur bands it covers and gets the snarly answer back "a bunch of them". Yeah, like the 11.05-meter band, the 11.77-meter band, the 11.98-meter band, and maybe the 10.001-meter band. W8QBG continues to tackle and solve control-relay problems on the Bauer. 7/30/Sun 3855 again. WA8ULG, Ted, on from the high country, but with a weaker-than-normal signal. He is trying out an AF-67 he got at the Williams 'fest for 75 bucks. It sounds good, there is a bit of AC hum on the audio, but it is making 100% mod. Not bad for out of someone's trunk. Ted also outlines his design idea for a gadget to harrass the guys with the "ground-pounder" car stereos. Basically it is a large solenoidal inductor with a ferrite core that is driven with a kilowatt of audio from a siren-like waveform generator and positioned in the vicinity of the offending automobile. Just might work. Ken, K6CJA, describes how he uses a small AM BC transistor radio tuned to an unused frequency as a lightning detector to know when to disconnect his antennas. 'ULG remarks that the commercial lightning detectors pretty much do the same thing, except at 15 kHz and with a bigger magnetic-field pickup coil. All this transistor radio talk causes WA6TJN to reveal his hidden vice: he collects early-model transistor radios. Those things are becoming scarce, aren't they? 7/31/Mon 7293 favors us with some propagation and a few bits of info. W7MD's antenna farm is almost complete - just waiting on some wires to be pulled through now-buried conduit. WA6FIZ, Mickey in Big Bear, has been having old McIntosh computer problems with now-unsupported OS software. One gets the feeling there will not be a boatanchor subculture for computers as there is for radio equipment. Ron, K0ETD, now firmly ensconced in Tucson, reports solving a vexing intermittent problem by replacing a faulty fuse holder. Those things hardly ever go bad, but when they do, it apparently gets very weird. 8/1/Tues 7293 is so-so today. AE8O puts the finishing touches on the restoration of a very woody Farnsworth model ET067 table radio and is quite pleased with the results. Tom's restoration of his Valiant is also complete with the case being repainted to an accurate rendition of its original Johnson purplish bloody dog-vomit color. W8QBG is getting audio through the Bauer after dealing with the now-usual hassles. First was an oscillating modulator 4-400 tube, cured by replacing both modulator jugs with nice Amperex ones with graphite plates. It turns out that the Shark mic preamp/compressor will not drive the Bauer to anywhere near full modulation. George now contemplates an audio driver inline, possibly made from a small Radio Shack stereo amp. Ted, WA6TJN, advises George that he thinks he has a scheme for making the Shark do EQ by manipulating the band-stop notches the unit uses to kill acoustic feedback in PA applications. As if George didn't have enough problems, his back is out of whack, making it impossible to tote that heavy iron or lift that boatanchor rig. Damon, W7MD, works Swain Island on 17 and 30 with wire antennas - apparently easier on CW than phone. He's still waiting to have his antenna wires pulled out to his towers. I get into the 2-meter AM net late, but in time to join the chorus bemoaning the scarcity of good electronic surplus in the Phoenix area now that several major electronic firms are no longer the major presences they once were. AM HONOR ROLL... (stations logged this period) WA6TJN _____ K6CJA ______ W8QBG ______ WA6JUS W7MD _______ K7CAX ______ K7BDY ______ AE8O AL0F _______ K7JWA ______ W7MD _______ W7XH W7CPA ______ NA7RH ______ K7SC _______ W1ZD K6TLA ______ WA8ULG _____ W7CCC ______ WA6IPD WA6FIZ _____ K0ETD ______ W7CML ______ KO6SM W0OGH ______