RADIOACTIVITIES
Newsletter of the Argonne Amateur Radio Club
Volume XLV, Number 9 November 2004
ARGONNE AMATEUR RADIO CLUB9700 S. Cass Av.
PO Box 8283, Argonne IL 60439
¾¾¾ Interim Officers ¾¾¾
PRESIDENT Jim Jorgensen K9RJ
VICE PRESIDENT Charles Doose KB9UMF
SECRETARY Loren Thompson KB9CTJ
TREASURER Dale Travis AG9H
DIRECTOR Dick Konecny K9IB
DIRECTOR Torben Lauritsen KF9MI
DIRECTOR
DIRECTOR
e-mail:
www.bigfoot.com/~w9anl / MEMBERSHIP is open to all who are interested in amateur radio. This club is sponsored by Argonne National Laboratory. Employees of ANL or DOE-Chicago are eligible for full membership. Auxiliary membership is available to non-employees.
W9ANL/R is an open repeater, coordinated on 145.19 MHz (600 input). The AARC repeater has been in operation on this frequency pair continuously since February 5, 1982.
CLUB NETS: 2 meter fm 1) Regular, every Monday evening at 9:00 and 2) the Night Patrol every night at 10:30, both on W9ANL/R. The Peanut Whistle Net (PWN) every Sunday at 1:30 p.m., and many evenings at 8:30 p.m. on 1932 kHz (cw/am/ssb), QRP. / RADIOACTIVITIES is published monthly by the Argonne Amateur Radio Club as a nonprofit newsletter intended only for the use of its membership. Material appearing here does not represent the official position of Argonne National Laboratory or the U. S. Department of Energy. Please give credit to the author and to Radioactivities or the Argonne Amateur Radio Club, when using original material published here. Deadline for submissions normally is the fifteenth of the preceding month.
EDITOR Dale Travis AG9H
EVENTS
SKYWARN ACTIVITIES Deni Lamoreaux W9DS
Please send club and editorial correspondence to the club address, or to Please include “AARC” in the subject.
Club Meeting
The October meeting of the Argonne Amateur Radio Club will be held Tuesday, November 2, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm in a private dining room at the Argonne Cafeteria. The speaker will be will be Torben Lauritsen, KF9MI. Torben will speak about indoor antennas and will display some of the indoor antennas he has used with good success. If you want to attend and do not have an Argonne badge, call or email Jim Jorgensen (252-5513; email: ), who will arrange clearance at the Argonne Visitors Reception Center.
We wish to thank Loren Thompson KB9CTJ for an excellent presentation about PSK31 today. Also, a special thanks to Vic Guarino, KC9AEW, for setting up his portable 20-meter vertical. Using this antenna and Loren’s Yaesu receiver, it was amazing to see how well we could copy many signals from Europe and Russia.
The Treasurer’s Computer
by Dale Travis, AG9H
Members: East 26; West 2; Associate 68; Newsletter 6; Retired 22
Balances: Checking $5571.25; Cash $0.00; ANL fund = $69.00
Distributed as: Club $1097.89; Equipment $1303.26; Repeater $1987.03; Packet $1183.07
For the period Sep 24, 2004 thru Oct 21, 2004:
Income: Dues $0.00; Club $0.36 Eqp $0.43 Rptr $0.66; Pkt $0.39; ANL $0.00
Expenses: Club $27.50; Eqp $0.00; Rptr $0.00; Pkt $0.00
REMINDERS
CLUB BREAKFAST: Always the 2nd Sat. of each month, 8:30 AM. This month it is the 13th at:
OlduCountry Buffetu
59th Street and LaGrange Road in LaGrange
CLUB NETS: Thru our Club Repeater 145.19.
SKYWARN NET: Mondays in season
7 PM – Denny, W9DS.
THE CLUB’S 9PM NET: every Monday with
Dave & Renae Graczyk, KC9EUY & KC9EUX.
THE NIGHT PATROL: every night at 10:30 PM
with Paul, W9FNM.
THE BREAKFAST CLUB: every morning at 8 AM.
THE NOONTIME NET: every weekday at noon.
Mil’s Corner for November
02 / WB9THV / Joe / Downers Grove, IL04 / W9WJL / Charles / Madison, WI
11 / N9WBK / Sherman / Downers Grove, IL
20 / W9QBH / Bob / Riverside, IL
24 / WA9CW / Leo / Hinsdale, IL
28 / WB9VUT / Fred / Plainfield, IL
AARC Election
The following people have agreed to run for office for 2005: Pres: Jim Jorgensen, V. Pres: Chuck Doose, Sec: Joe Kilar, & Treas: Dale Travis. Additional nominations from the membership are desired. Please send nominations to Jim Jorgensen.
Newsletter Distribution
(Hopefully!) Starting early 2005, members who have an e-mail address will receive the newsletter via e-mail. The newsletter will be an attachment in Microsoft Word 2000 format.
What’s Propagation Got to do With It
by Deni, W9DS
DXers can’t live without it. Sunspot cycles run about eleven years high to low. The sun rotates every twenty-seven and a half days. Look for something to happen twenty-seven days later again then maybe fifty-five days later. It’s not an exact science; guesswork knowledge and experience are keys. There are seasonal effects caused by the angle of solar radiation hitting our planet in March and again in September around the equinoxes when the earth is flat on the sun directly over the equator when our atmosphere gets the same amount of solar radiation above and below the equator. Cold December up north is caused when the angle of the sun is greater and the effect of this radiation is greatly reduced. No solar heating! This causes fewer ions in the ionosphere and reduced refraction of radio waves; making for bad band conditions. As days get longer, the angle of sun improves band conditions. In summer the churning of the atmosphere reduces maximum useable frequency (MUF). This churning in the winter is called strat warming, again lowering the MUF.
Skew paths can take place in the winter caused by stratosphere warming. DXer’s follow strong signals peaked at not normal long or short path headings. Common paths are around the North Pole. Mr. DX points his beam twenty to thirty degrees to the side of direct heading away from the North Pole. Example: direct path is fifteen degrees; try thirty-five or if heading is three hundred forty degrees, try three hundred twenty.
Another skew path can be found over the Atlantic Ocean and sometimes this intense ionization locates near the equator. Swing the beam further south toward this intense ionization and you may find stronger signals. Swing your beam to either side of the normal beam heading and maybe find back scatter so beam South Europe comes in as direct route is closed.
Strong sudden ionospheric disturbance (SID) makes bands go dead. Your receiver won’t find any signals when you check everything; check WWV. Where did it go? Now you know your antenna works. It’s a SID blackout. This happened to me on forty meters. I called till I was blue in the face, and got one fella in Indiana. Long distance stations won’t be heard until it is over; a few hours, days, or a week. If you do hear WWV, watch K index. K7 means lots of noise and maximum K index of nine means no propagation anywhere below thirty megahertz.
The Brewster Angle
by Deni, W9DS
Before Brewsters angle there is Brewsters law named after Sir David Brewster, physics. An expression of the fact that when light reflected from the plane surface of a transparent substance is plane polarized, the tangent of the angle of incident is equal to the index of refraction of the substance. In the RSGB book called HF antennas for all locations by L.A. Moxon G6XN, Brewster angles are given for certain reasons. They are: dry ground 28 degrees; average ground 17 degrees; very moist ground 10 degrees; fresh water 6 degrees and sea water 1 degree.
These angles are what make lower frequency propagation work for DX, high vertical radiation 40 meters and downward but hurts vertical radiation 20 meters and up unless your antenna is at the edge of the sea. DXers should use horizontal polarization on 20 meters and up. For verticals toward the horizon there is almost complete cancellation of signal because of ground reflection. There is a 180 degree phase shift in the reflective ray on the horizon. This phase shift causes signal cancellation at some angle, the phase shift is 90 degrees and the reflected ray is no help. Above this angle the reflected ray tends to add to the direct ray. Here is the angle called the “Pseudo-Brewster” angle.
I can remember my first vertical, it was the remains of a gothum with 160 meter coil. It was broken in shipment and insurance paid for it eventually, and the remains were given to me anyway. Here I was my first ticket KN9UMH and a broken aerial. I put up my Uncles Windom K9IZJ. Later, I took a section of the aluminum, the coil, installed an in ground fence post outside my window, cut an inner tube into strips, tied the aluminum tubing to the post, put down a ground rod, soldered a shield to it, and coil to the bottom of the aluminum center of coax here with alligator clip and clipped my way up to twenty meters and with my third ticket novice-tech-general, I put K9UMH on CW. I tried phone band but no one heard my DX-40 VH-1 combo. Only if I had known about the Brewster angle back then I would have stayed with the Windom.
Radioactivities November 2004 Page 2
Odds and Ends
by Deni, W9DS
Mobile – If you are not using link coupling or inductive matching, use shunt capacitors to ground matching center loaded whip for HF at 100 watts rated at 300 VDC. Values are 40 meters 680pf, 30 meters 430pf, 20 meters 22pf, 17 meters 150pf, 15 meters 50pf, and 12 and 10 meters none.
Having trouble with meters vs feet well – 150/freq MHz is 492/freq MHz feet. Feet converted into meters multiply length by 14.3048. ½ wave in meters 143/freq MHz.
L.A. Moxon, G6XN, favors the use of nylon rope instead of insulators in his book “HF Antennas for all Locations”. He says to use nylon use this formula: ½ wavelength 478/freq feet or 145.7/freq MHz meters.
The Greek scientist Archimedes was playing with circles when interrupted by a roman soldier who ended his life. Today we deal with circles in coils. Bending a coil into a circular configuration, the ends of the inductor each being of opposite polarity are now in close proximity to closed loops within the toroidal geometry and self shielding characteristic results. The proof of self-shielding property no dip can be found at resonant frequency. This is characteristic of any toroidal inductor. So the fewer the turns the more difficulty in tap point on a coil when matching impedance.
Nicola Tesla used coils to generate lightning and fluorescent tubes ball fire in his Colorado site with high power at low frequencies. Coil loops have been used in the 1920’s and in the 1980’s rectangle loop for sub surface receiving antennas. How about today?
Try out 160 by using an autotransformer to get you onto the band. I found an article by W2LT Nov 1973 in 73 Magazine. He says antennas don’t have to be self-resonant, but one plate of a capacitor of a parallel tuned circuit; the other plate being Mother Earth. Simply add a coil to resonate that capacitance. Ohla! One radiating system. Maximum current is at resonance. If you have many antennas, tie the feed lines together coax centers to shields all lumped into one wire this one wire will be used to tap the top of a coil. That one wire is over 160 antenna and must match the low impedance transmitter to the high impedance aerial. Now the autotransformer. W2LT used a 5cm diameter 13cm long coil tapped 40 to 50 turns. Bottom end is grounded to our transmitter coax shield the center put 5 inch wire with alligator clip on the end to tap up from bottom end to tenth turn. Try the antenna clip at the 30th turn for starters. It would be easier to use SWR meter for minimum power on transmitter changes the taps. Change the antenna tap for maximum antenna current. High RF voltages are present at key down. Do your adjusting at key up.
I have just tied my quad coax shorted to my long wire position on my MT3000 tuner and it loaded up fine. It is 7:30PM noise S5 strong signals are S6 some Illinois and Michigan not what I hoped for here along the power lines. Guess I need a loop for receiving under these conditions.
The Delta Loop
by Deni, W9DS
Loops have been around since the dawn of radio, invented by Nicola Tesla his patent beating out Marconi by a few months. Tesla was a genius, leaving Edison who Tesla came to this country to work with him over patentable ideas that were Tesla’s. Some say Edison was a thief in their respect. New interest comes about when new people come along and reinvent things. Enter the kissing cousin of the quad; the delta.
You can make a 40-meter delta from one pole or three using wire lengths by the formula 1005/freq MHz or 136 feet one wavelength. After you get it working think about 80 meters and add to each corner of the delta forty feet upon each then cut equal sections off each end until you reach the 80-meter frequency desired. There are larger delta’s possible the one and a half wave delta with ¾ wavelength per side fed at the base the top left open and the 3/2-wavelength delta.
At 30 meters and lower in frequency low radiation angles demand higher heights thus vertical polarization would work better. The delta fed at a corner produces a 27-degree radiation angle based near ground and if the base is inverted fed corner at top the angle is 20 degrees. The simple delta 136’ on 40 meters is 80 to 100 ohms. At higher frequencies the delta is smaller and best suited for horizontal polarization.
I came across an article by W4NVK in Oct ’69 issue of 73 Magazine titled “Super Gain Antenna”. He used a folded dipole 63 feet 2 inches using 3 poles and hung it at 7 feet. Under the dipole is a screen mesh 12 feet wide. W4NYK filed for a patent and I don’t know if he was successful or not. I figure a delta could do a better job than an old folded dipole at this low height, also using horizontal radiation working 200 miles by day and 600 to 1000 miles by night with a super signal.