K7JEB AM Log: 01 May 2007 - 01 July 2007

Sunspot Minimums Suck!


* 01/May/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

George, W8QBG, is experiencing power-line noise and decides
to build an ultrasonic arc detector.  First order of
business: find a parabolic reflector that works with sound
waves.

New VHF-AM station, Dick, W7SV, from waay out there near
K7SC's QTH.  He's a retired RF engineer from Harris.
George fills him in on his experiences integrating a Harris
HFL-1000 amplifier with a KWM-2A to form a high-powered,
standalone sideband base station.

Discussion of possible EMI/RFI from compact fluorescent
light bulbs.  Tentative conclusion: stick with major brands.
Minor addendum: another bunch of switching power supplies to
worry about.

Jim, K7SC, advises he gets good results from using
ratchet-drive sockets and wrenches on Greenlee punches.

Lock, W1ZD, reports slow but steady progress on his ART-13
power supply.

Larry, KO6SM, wonders if we have reached the bottom of the
sunspot cycle or whether we have to endure another year of
fading propagation on HF.

* 02/May/Wed evening/3870 kcs

Good conditions tonight and a nice net, hosted by NI6Q.
Brian thinks NA7RH is a Canadian station (VA7RH?).  Bob may
be soft-spoken and not have a rock-crushing signal from his
single-6DQ5 homebrew rig, but surely he can't sound that
strange, eh?

Some traffic about the AMI get-together at the QTH of
George, WA6HCX.  Sounds like it will be a well-attended,
fun event.

* 05/May/Sat morning/3855 kcs

K7JEB complains about very slow (1 kilobit/sec) upload
speed on Cox Cable Internet connection and suspects some
peer-to-peer file-sharing (aka: Kazaa) going on in the
neighborhood.

W8QBG arc-detector work proceeding -- trying out cut-down
aluminum dish.

John, WA6JUS, advises that the museum aircraft carrier
'Midway' will be on 7293 AM this date.

Max, K7CAX, gearing up for a garage/yard sale of his excess
stock of AM and boatanchor goodies later this morning.

* 08/May/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

Jim, K7SC, working through a circuit analysis of a modded
Knight VFO.  Says mods are good, enhance the performance of
the unit, but are undocumented.

George, W8QBG, reports that the printed-circuit cards for
the ultrasonic arc detector are done.  For some reason, he
also finds himself becoming a collector of Meissner Signal
Shifter VFO's.

Phoenix Art Museum has a show featuring exotic, high-$,
custom cars from the 1930's as works of art.  Opinions pro
and con on whether those qualify as sheet-metal sculptures
or are even "art".  K7JEB thinks that anything that costs
big bucks can pass for "art" in Arizona.

* 12/May/Sat morning/3855 kcs

Joe, W7ISJ/XE2, is trying to determine the extent of
interference from the 2nd harmonic from XBEZ (970 kHz)
currently booming in on 1940 kcs down in Baja.  He asks
everyone in the Phoenix/Tucson area to listen for it.

Joe also advises that there is AM activity on 7290 kcs
on Friday nights around 7pm California/Arizona time.
Apparently VOA gets off that frequency soon enough to let
this happen.

The yard/garage sale at K7CAX continues this morning for
all interested parties.

Art, KB7LOQ, is making a start on converting/restoring
N7AF's father's old rig (250TH's final and mods) to modern
AM operation.

* 13/May/Sun morning/3855 kcs

John, WA6JUS, is taking John Gehman, WB6BKR on a tour of
the "Midway" aircraft carrier this morning.

Bob, NA7RH, is having problems with his recently acquired
Heathkit Seneca transmitter.  He is seeing hum on the
signal when excited by the internal VFO and strangeness
when tuning the final on the 2-meter band.  Much discussion
about the intricate mechanical design of the Seneca in
order to get operation on both the 6- and 2-meter bands.

Damon, W7MD, reports garage/hamshack coming along slowly.
He is having problems getting a reliable 220 VAC feed into
the shack and procuring a lift for installation between the
house and the garage for moving boatanchors around.

Damon also reports that his gardening efforts are proving
highly successful in feeding the local rabbit population.

Research by K7JEB into slow upload speed brings up the
not-so-widely-known problem of 'uncapped' cable modems.  It
seems that the hackers have discovered how to reset certain
Motorola modems to allow them to enjoy much higher speeds
than authorized by the cable ISP.  This further explains
why Jim is currently seeing 800 bits/second on his
connection.

* 15/May/Tues evening/7293 kcs

W7MD is trying out an 'electronic' mouse trap, aka "Old
Sparky" for rodents.  Damon reports success with a number
of victims accounted for.

Ken, K6CJA, reports 10 meters nicely open for sporadic-E
propagation and that his "new" Corvette handles well at 95
mph.

Note at bottom of page wonders aloud whether the old Gates
BC-50B used WL5891's or had been converted to 5671's.
Probably a landline QSO with Jack, AD5VO.  Who else would
be interested in these copper-finned monsters?

* 15/May/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

W1ZD, Lock, reports working the Scarborough Reef DXpedition
and that work continues on the power supply for the ART-13.
Web pictures of the 'operating positions' for this endeavor
(http://www.scarboroughreef.com/4rocks.html) reveal a new
highpoint in ham-radio... well... endurance.

W8QBG has his ultrasonic arc detector working (watch out,
SRP!) but sees need for a deep-focal-length, transparent,
plastic reflector.  The shallow, cut-down aluminum one is a
no-go.

Discussion comes around to connector reliability and Jim,
K7SC, relates Moto's problems, way back when, with the
cards in the 'Works in a Drawer' TV sets.

Larry, KO6SM, has acquired a Heath SB-400 and is looking
into the possibilities of getting it working on AM.

* 19/May/Sat morning/3855 kcs
 
Max, K7CAX, is looking for some battery packs for his
IC-2AT handy talky and K7JEB decides to "make him an offer
he can't refuse".  Jim swaps all his IC-2AT/Radio Shack
stuff, some 4 HT's and numerous battery packs, for Max's
up-to-date IC-V8 with a waaay-too-small display and arcane
menu-programmed controls.

W7MD reports monsoon-like weather in the Tucson area and
more gruesome successes with his "old sparky" rat trap.
He finds himself compelled to deal with Vista on his XYL's
computer before retreating back to the warm environs of
open-source Linux.

Bob, NA7RH, reports improvements with the Seneca by adding
bypass caps in parallel with the original 1000pF feedthroughs.
He is still experiencing hum on the signal, however.

"Old Fartes" get-together previous Thursday saw AMer's
WA0KDS, K7SA, W7SVJ, W7JQW, NE7X and K7JEB in attendance.

* 20/May/Sun morning/3855 kcs

Ken, K6CJA, is making some RFI filters for his plasma TV so
that he can enjoy both NASCAR events and ham radio
more-or-less concurrently.  Ken also bemoans the fact that
he was unable to sell a rather hefty modulation transformer
at the recent Fontana ham-radio swapper.  But he was able to
sell some other transceivers, so it wasn't a total washout.
These transactions were needed to infuse the 'new Corvette'
project with cash.

Speaking of cashing-out autos, Martin, K7BDY, reports the
satisfactory sale of his classic Jaguar through the
Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale.

Art, KB7LOQ, opines that we might see Bill, K7VZP,
operating golf-cart mobile now that he is a bona-fide
resident of Sun City, AZ.  There is also speculation that
such a vehicle might be a valuble addition to the fleet of
vehicles Bill uses to support his HVAC busines, provided
some accomodation can be made on the golf cart for Freon
tanks.

John, WA6JUS, announces that he will be on the air from
the Midway later in the morning.

* 22/May/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

Mark, AC7AZ, advises K7JEB of the existence of an AM
boatanchor via FM, e-mail and internet.  Looks somewhat
promising, maybe W8QBG might be interested.  However, George
has just acquired two T-368's and two BC-610's from an
estate sale and has his hands full.  Photos show a very
peculiar tube lineup: a 4-250 modulated by a pair of 6DQ5's
on six meters.

* 26/May/Sat morning/3855 kcs
 
W8QBG definitely has his hands full with his 4-xmtr
acquisition.

Bob, W6OOQ, is on the air with a rubber chicken that speaks
with humorous effect.

WA6JUS gives a 'command performance' on the Midway aircraft
carrier.

* 27/May/Sun morning/3855 kcs

'Arizona Ted', WA8ULG, announces he has just returned from
Dayton after placing an order for a software-defined radio
from the Flex-Radio folks.  Looking forward to hearing on
the air making flawless AM.

Martin, K7BDY, expresses disbelief at the high gas prices,
particularly up on the Rim.  This is K7VZP's cue to offer
to send Martin a CARE package -- old clothes, canned foods,
fuel vouchers, etc.  Now that he's out in Sun City, can we
still call VZP 'Phoenix Bill'?

Damon, W7MD, reports a milestone in the ongoing garage/ham
shack saga:  He can now park his car in the garage for the
first time.  But he is encountering problems getting the
electric lift he needs to move material in and out of the
structure.

* 29/May/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

Lock, W1ZD, reports getting his house festooned with toilet
paper at 2 in the morning... without having a teenager in
residence.

K7SC wonders about usage of the CW-exclusive portions of
the 6- and 2-meter bands.

George, W8QBG, is hard at work developing a
repair/refurbishment strategy for the four,
recently-acquired boatanchors in his garage (aka Studio B).

Bob, NA7RH, checks in via e-mail relay through K7JEB.  The
Seneca is now making 45 watts on 2 meters but still has
spurious-oscillation problems.  Looking forward to hearing
you on 2M AM, Bob.

W8QBG and W1ZD make tentative plans to work K7SC in Chicago
after he makes his annual snowbird migration.

* 02/June/Sat morning/3855 kcs

Avra Valley Bill, W7XH, says 10 meters is wide open right
now.  He has worked all over the Western US, but on ssb.
He couldn't find any AM activity around 29.00 Mcs.

K7JEB had made a pilgrimage over to W8QBG to document the
big boatanchor refurbishment activity and now is posting
the pictures on the website:

http://www.arizona-am.net/PHOENIX/W8QBG/Bauer/project2.html

Bob, NA7RH, is seeing funny stuff around the clamp tube on
his Seneca.  One has to think that Bob will definitely be
the Seneca expert after this spate of problems bottoms out.

George, W8QBG, also reports seeing a dust-up between a pack
of coyotes and his resident hawks out in the back yard over
a rabbit carcass.  The coyotes won.  Ah, nature, bloody of
tooth and claw!

* 03/June/Sun morning/3855 kcs

Bill, K7VZP, is dropping by 3855 regularly.  He reports
acquiring an NC-300 receiver from Max, K7CAX, but still
having to curtail his AM activity due to lack of A/C in his
Sun City hamshack.  Talk about the cobbler's kids going
barefoot!  However, Bill thinks he will have the necessary
mods to the garage done soon.  He is also thinking of
joining us on the Tuesday evening 2-M AM net, but needs to
get a decent VHF antenna up.

K7JEB gets the big, red mobile rig emission-tested.  It
passes, barely.  Decides to ditch the W5GYJ callsign
license plates and wait for a new vehicle before getting
K7JEB ones.

Max, K7CAX, advises he changed the memory-backup battery in
the HTX-202 he acquired from K7JEB and the HT is now
working right fine -- news JEB really didn't want to hear.

K7BDY advises he will be off the air for a while so that he
can help his daughter with her house in Wittman.

* 05/June/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

W8QBG and W1ZD get into a long, involved discussion about
vacuum relays and design variants on T-368 transmitters.
George is running into very significant differences between
the two T-368's he is refurbishing.  Neither one can accept
either decks or VFO's from the other without significant
backplane rewiring.  It's interesting to see
configuration-management problems in DoD equipment from way
back when.  George is definitely feeling the burn from
working on the four rigs pretty much around the clock.

K7JEB gives a spiel about the SuperSmith program he and
WB6BLD are working on.  It is in a somewhat final form and
beta testers are needed.  This program is basically an
impedance-matching workbench that has a Smith chart display
and a library of transmission lines, stubs and LC passive
components that plug into the network.  W8QBG and W1ZD
agree to give it a spin, although George won't be able to
do it right away.

* 09/June/Sat morning/3855 kcs

High winds inflict damage on the antennas of both Ken,
K6CJA, and Martin, K7BDY.  Hopefully this is last big blow
of Spring, 2007.  Martin expects to be able to reconstruct
his 160 vertical at his Show Low QTH soon.

Ken, K6CJA, gets a satisfactory price for his telescope at
the Chino swapmeet and also unloads some other junk.
General comments about lightening one's load in life.

W7MD and KO6SM also interested in performing beta testing
of SuperSmith program.  Follow-up needed.

* 10/June/Sun morning/3855 kcs

Tim, AL0F, informs the world he is the proud owner of an
new Harley-Davidson 'Street Glide'.  Just the thing for
those long commutes into work.

George, W8QBG, has the first of the recently-acquired
T-368's on the air on 40 meters.  He is finding many
discrepancies between his schematic data and the actual
wiring on both of the units - 'new' decks don't work in
'old' cabinets.

Ted, WA8ULG reports that his Flex-Radio SDR has arrived but
he is denied satisfaction.  The host computer he had, the
only one with enough horsepower to run the Roland sound
card, had its power supply give up the ghost a half hour
into initial testing.

WA8ULG also has been in contact with Jack, AD5VO, over in
Dallas about using the WA8ULG HF mods for the Collins 820D
broadcast transmitter.

* 12/June/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

Ailments all around:  John, K7JWA, is receiving
chemotherapy, Lock, W1ZD, going in for an MRI and George,
W8QBG, is beginning to realize he is almost 69 years old.
K7JEB commiserates with tales of eye problems to round out
the walking wounded on frequency.

George is starting on the second T-368 refurb/repair.  The
xmtr looks bad on the outside but is OK internally.  He
finds the needed high-current twist-lock power connectors
at Apache Reclamation after striking-out at Graybar
Electric.

Also noted, K4KCL, Don, out in Riverside goes SK on the
11th of June.

* 14/June/Fri afternoon/7293 kcs

Happen upon AE8O, Tom out in Rio Rancho NM.  He is doing
OK, exploring the microclimates of mountainous New Mexico.
Ranger II plus SB-220 amp putting in a good signal.  He is
on the lookout for 'real' D-104 elements, being a bit
dissatisfied with the Mouser/Kobitone substitutes.

* 16/June/Sat morning/3855 kcs

Jim, K7EWE, shows up on 75 AM, having had his ears beaten
with static crashes for the last hour on 160.  HF ops can
be tiring when the noise is high.

Damon, W7MD, is in the process of digitizing his music
collection for playback while on the computer and piping
around the house.  Open question about running the Smith
chart program under Linux using WINE.  That would be great
to have that capability.

Randy, W7CPA, sounding great as usual on his SDR, renounces
digital stuff and begins restoring a KWM-2A as a kind of
self-help psychotherapy.  One wonders if there is a
twelve-step program for manic-depressive digirati.

Speaking of digirati, Ted, WA8ULG, is on the the air with
his Flex-Radio 1000, but something isn't quite right.  He
is getting a kind of reverb feedback that gives his audio a
'boingy' sound as he stops talking. 

John, WA6JUS, has been restoring/repairing his somewhat
newly-acquired R-390 receiver and is becoming more and more
impressed with its design and performance.

Bob, NA7RH, is still seeing an HF oscillation around the
finals of his Seneca.

* 17/June/Sun morning/3855 kcs

Ted, WA8ULG, fixes the 'boingy' sound on his Flex-Radio.
He also sets up a webcam in his shack, providing an
interesting multi-media experience for K7JEB.

W8QBG contemplates the previous owner of his transmitters
keeping the two BC-610's in a storage unit for 20 years.
Toting up the numbers puts that cost at $18K.
QBG and JEB try an air check of T-368 #1 on 160 in daytime,
but it is barely copyable in Glendale.

* 19/June/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

W1ZD reports finding 40 meters open for both local and
long-distance propagation this noon.

Both W1ZD and KO6SM are sent the download link for
SuperSmith.  First beta tests are under way.  Lock also
downloads the 'Tower' program from the same site:
http://www.tonnesoftware.com/

* 23/June/Sat morning/3855 kcs

Damon, W7MD, has house painted different color so that it
will blend in with desert landscape better.  Other progress
noted on garage/hamshack: Damon is doing preliminary designs
for operating consoles and storage cabinets.
 
WA8ULG reports spotting International Space Station with
the shuttle Atlantis attached to it from his backyard in
Parks, AZ.

George, W8QBG, still working tirelessly on refurb of second
T-368, takes time out to enjoy a birthday celebration at
the ballpark with family and friends.

* 23/June/Sat morning/7293 kcs

Run across K6PBJ on AM just before Field Day melee starts
on 40 meters.  Interesting rig, a 4-1000 modulated by a
pair of 833A's and driven with a TS-830 as a CW exciter.
Antenna is a two-element wire beam and doing a nice job
getting into Arizona.

* 26/June/Tues evening/144.45 Mcs

Larry, KO6SM, goes to Flagstaff with Thunderbird club for
Field Day operation.  K7JEB works 65 stations over the
weekend, mostly on 40.

Lock, W1ZD, continues work on ART-13 power supply and sends
K7JEB photos showing progress on the unit.  It is taking
shape as a set of nice, rack-mounted decks.

Lock and Larry provide some initial feedback on SuperSmith
program.

* 30/June/Sat morning/3855 kcs

K6CJA spends Field Day over by Victorville operating a club
station.  He recounts the old days when Field Day consisted
of hiking up to a mountaintop with batteries and little
2-meter AM transceiver.

K7JEB reports that the driver-side seat is wearing out on
his 1986 Chevy pickup and K7VZP opines that it might be due
to excessive weight being placed there.

Damon, W7MD, now has A/C installed in his new hamshack, but
has yet to get reliable 220 VAC service to it.  So he
thinks he will escape to the Pinetop cabin QTH in spite of
the monsoon making everything muddy up there.

Bob, NA7RH, apparently has bottomed-out on the Seneca
oscillation problem, finding that it is coming from the
screen-grid clamp tube feeding the finals.  He is still
disappointed with the power output on two meters though.

* 01/July/Sun morning/3855 kcs

W8QBG continues to experience excessive line noise from
arcing insulators.  He can locate the problems with his
ultrasonic detector, but the problem is in getting SRP out
to fix it.  They give priority to service restoration,
particularly in this high-heat season, so George has to
wait.

K0ZGG breaks into the roundtable to inform Clyde, N7IOK,
that he is being heard on the 160-meter subharmonic of
3855, 1927.5 kcs.  K7JEB tells Clyde to just call it
simulcasting, or frequency diversity, and classify it as a
feature, not a problem.

Ted, WA8ULG, announces his open house scheduled for Sat.
afternoon, July 7, at his Parks, AZ QTH.


AM HONOR ROLL...
(stations logged this period)

KO6SM______K7SC_______W7SVJ______W8QBG______W1ZD
NI6Q_______K7CAX______WA6JUS_____WA6TJN_____W7ISJ
KB7LOQ_____WA8ULG_____W7CPA______NA7RH______W7MD
AL0F_______W6MAU______K6CJA______K7VZP______W7XH
W6OOQ______K7BDY______WA9JMU_____K6EC_______AE8O
K7EWE______K7LHR______K0QIG______W7SV_______K6PBJ
N7IOK______K0ZGG