03 march 1998

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CONTENTS

Vo1.1 7,No.3 Morch 1998 CounterIntelRgence ..................................... 13

Reviews:

It doesn 't requ ire a thousand-dollar receiver nor a three-acre antenna farm to achieve impressive results in logg ingbroadcast stations from all over the world. What it doesrequire is an organized and well- informed effort; here aresome tools and techniques guaranteed to add success as wellas enjoyment to your radio hobby.

By Hans Johnson

ByWerner Heim

Because most NiCd rechargeable batteries do not recharge properly unlessthey have first been discharged to their design voltage, this handy little circuitcould lengthen the life of your renewable cells.

Dozens of radio hobbyists can' t wait to get their hands ona freque ncy counter, only to return it in disappointment a weekor two later. "Why, I was standing right under the tower, andthe danged thing wouldn ' t even register a frequency!" Morethan likely there's nothing wrong ; the user j ust needs a fewope rating tips 10 fully apprecia te this unique 1001.

ByJohnCatalano

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a dog eat dog business. Where elsewould the revolutionary application of today become a "has-been"-past itsrevenue producing life cycle- in eighteen months or less? John Catalano sortsthrough the competitive hype to find what advances in technology have enoughsubstance to be of interes t to high-tech hobbyists.

Parnass says the MS200 from RELM is"Imostthe best mobile scanner of thecurrent crop (sec p.86).On the other hand ,Magne wouldn 't wish the InternationalR- IIO mini-shortwave on his worst enem y (seep.88). Cata lano finishes his review of the leomPCR 1000 (p.90); it's a bargain, provided yo u supplyappropriate ante nnas. A loggi ng and control pro-gram, Ergo 3.0, was found quite useful for shortwavebroadcast and utility listene rs (see p.85).

ByHaskell Moore

1998 International CES 18

JI SillJJ1/l:' ilJt t l:'T)' J)/SC"JT~l:'T ................... ~~

Worle/-ClassDXing 21CoverStDlY

Safe SHOALSByRobert Wyman

Yo u won't dash your boatagainst these SHOALS! On thecontrary. this acronym stands foran on-going, high-tech mappingproject that is improving the safetyof coastal areas nationwide. Theproject is a joint venture of publicand private sector organizations.and its end users are equally di-verse.

What makes this project so fas-cinating is the technology that hasrevolutionizedtraditional mappingtechniques. In yearsgone by. a he-Iicopterrunningamethodicalsearchpatterncouldbeassumedto behunt-ing for something ... or someone.Not so today. Watch far thi s uniqueteamhoveringaverawaterway nearyou!

Cover photo: NOAA's modi-fied Bell 212 helicopter, photo-graphed by Robert Wyman.

Postmas ter:Se nd add ress cho nges to Monitoring Times,P.O . Box 98, Brc sstown, NC 289020098.

Subscription Roles: 523.95 in US; 536.50Ca nada; and 555 ..45 foreig n elsewhe re , usfunds. lobel indica tes lost issue of subscription. Seepage 95 forsubscriptioninfonnation.

Copyright 1998 . Period ica ls postoge pa idat Brasstown, Ne , an d add itiona l ma ilingoffices. Short excerpts may be reprintedwith appropriate credit . Complete articl esmay not be rep rodu ced without perm ission .

Address: P.o. Box98, 7540Highway 64 W est,Brasstown, NC 28902-0098

Telephone: 1704)8379200Fax: 1704)8372216124 hours)Internet Address: www.grove.net( web) or

[email protected] le-mail)Editorial e-mail: mted [email protected]: [email protected]

On the Ham Bonds 70Sobering Numbers

And Mare! 71Helping Traffic Flow withGMRS

Antenna Topics 72Is Your Antenna Resonant?

Experimenters Workshop 74WiNRADiO Secrets Unveiled

KIS Radio 76Compu/ers in the Radio Shack

Federa l File 78Nextel Farces the Digital Switch

Plane Talk 80OS[ing the Airlines

WhaYs New 82Review 85

CEErgo 3.0 softwareScanning Equipment 86

REIM MS200Magne Tests 88

International R-II 0Computers & Radio 90

Coou-to-Coost w/ ICPCR1000Letters to the Editor 92Stock Exchange 94Closing Comments 96

intem uts

Washington Whispers 4Communications ... ............ .......... ...... .... 6Sca nning Report 26

liffle Scanner Feotures That Can'tUfility World 30

Sea Change in Maritime Mobile ServiceDigital Digest 33

SITORA MaritimeNlodeGlobal Forum 34

Why Women Don't [ike DXingQSL Report 38English lang SW Guide 39Prapogafion Candifions 60

NVIS Propaga/ian in N.Am.Programming Sporlight.. 61

The EnvironmentBeginner's Carner 62

OSting 'The Blanks"Ask Bob 64

ATS909 Memory PresetsBelow SOO kHz 66

Pirate Beacons!American Bondscan 67

Digital BCing in CanadaOuter limits 68

Logging Sources

DEPARTMENTS .MONITORING TIM ES(ISSN: 08895341) ispublished monthly byG rove Enter prises, Inc .,Bra sstown , Nor thCarolina, USA.

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Example:To subscribe 10 occrs, send E-mail to majordornoOgrove.net,wilh "subscribe occrs" in bodyIna signature). Add "digest" tosubscribe 10 digesl 10 block ofmessages).

Disclaimer:W hile Monitor ing Times mak es on e ffo rt 10ensure the informo tion it publishes is cc cu-rate , it ca nno t be held lia ble for the co nte nts.The reader a ssumes any risk for performingmodification o r co nst ruction pro jects pub -lishe d in Mo nitoring Times. O pi nion o rco nclu sion s e xp resse d o re no t necessarilythe view of Mo nitoring Times o r G roveEnte rp rise s. Unso licited manu script s a rea ccepte d . SASE if ma teri al is to be ret urned .

OwnersBob an d Judy Grave

PublisherBob Grove, W8 JHDbg rove@g rove.ne t

Ma na g ing EditorRachel Baughn, KE40 PD

mteditor@grove .net

Assistant EditorLa rry Va n Ha m, N5FPW

Art Dire ctorJohn Ba iley

Advertising Sv cs .Beth Leinbach

(7041 3894007beth@grave .net

Bus ine ss Ma nagerKelly Davis, KE4TAM

[email protected]

EDITORIAL STAfF Correspondence to columnists may lx: mailed clo MonitOringTimes; any request for a replyshould Include on SASE

Frequency Manager . . Gayle Von Horn gayle@grove .netFreque ncy Mon ito rs David Dctkc , Mark J FineProgram Manager . Jim Frimmel .......... . frimmel@sta rtexl.n etAmeri can Bond scan Doug Smith , W9WI . . 72 777 .3 1.43@compuserve .comAnd More! . Jock Ellio ll KB2GOM lightkeeper@sprintmoil .comAntenna Topics W. Clem Smell. KR6A. . . [email protected] inner' s Corner .. . T.J. Arey , WB2GHA tjorey@mosqui to .comBe low 500 kHz Kevin Co rey, W B2Q MY. . KCo [email protected] a nd Ra dio John Ca ta la no . i_ca ta la no@co nknet.comDig ital Diges t Bo b Evan s reva ns@tota l.ne tExperimente r' s W kshp Bill Cheek bcheek @son.rr .comFederal File . John Fulford , WA .4VPY JO HNFOA13@ool. comK.I.S. Radio _ Richard Arlond, K7SZ k7sz@juno .netMa gn e Tests ...... .... . La wrence MagneOn the Ham Bon d s Ike Kerschner , N31KOu te r Limits George Zeller .. . Geo rqe. Zelle rfsccclink.ccrnPCS Front Li ne . . Don Veeneman . dan @decode .comPlane Talk , Jea n Ba ker , KlN9DDProg ramming Spotlig ht Jo hn Figliozz i, KC2BPU johnfig@ear thlink ,netPro pa ga tion . Ja c~u e s d'Avig non man ito r@rac .caQS LCorner . Go y e Von Horn . gayle@grove .ne tSca nning Equipme nt Bob Forness . AJ9SScanning Report . .. Richard Bornell Sca nMoster@aol .comSW Broa dcasting . Glenn Hauser . gha use r@hotma il.comSW Broa dcastlogL ...... . Gayle Van Horn . gayle@grove .netUtility World . Hugh SIegman , NV6 H dr iver 8@netcam .comWashington Whi spe rs . . Fred Maia , W5YI . . fmoio@i nterne tMCl.com

GroveNet hosts the following manag ed lists free of cha rge to the hobby.

occrs ACARS moiling listamfmtvdx ANl/ FM/ TVOX moiling listatlantic Aircraft monitoring over Atlan ticcode30users Hoka Code 30 demodulator userscodeIlis t Hoke Code 3 and Code 3 Gold decoder usersfedcom Federa l communicationshecrsct-t HecrSct-l Moiling Listmilcom Military HFI VHF/ UHF communications monitoringseen-d e Sca nner radio topics in Washington, DC - Baltimoretrunkcom For discussion a bout the new TrunkTracker scannerswun , , Wo rldwide UTE News Club Li st (Nonbroadcost SW Radio)

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o10 0 M.

By Fred Maia, [email protected]

Vermont docs not want to he a n "an-tenna pincushion." To speed the roll-out ofdig ital te levi sion. the FCC seeks to preempttower co nstruc tio n. As a result of a joint peti -tion by Natio na l Associ at ion of Broadcasters(NA B) and the Assoc iat ion for Maximum Ser-vice Tel ev is ion. on Augu st 19. 1997. the FCCissued a rulernukingf Mass Media Doc ket. No.9?- I X2) that wo uld preempt loca l zo ning au-thor ity over broadca st (hut no t amateur rad io)towers.

Formal comments closed on October 30.replies on December I . Th e NPRM limi tsState and loca l zoning offic ials fro m havingaut hori ty over the siting and construction ofbroadcast towers as the shift to digital te levi-sion (DTV) oc curs. The FCC said tha t localzo ning and land use ordinances cou ld presentan obstac le to the rapid imp lementat ion ofdigital television serv ice .

The pe tit ioners wanted the preemption toincl ude all types of broadcast antennas androwers - not j ust those nece ssitated by thesw itch to DTV . (Some A i\1!FM station ante n-nas nrc co -loc ated on T V towers.)

The FCC noted tha t historicall y the y havetried not to becom e unnecessarily in volved inlocal zoning d isputes regardi ng tow er place-me nt. " Nevertheless. we have ado pted rulespreem pting 10c;.11 zo ning ordin ances where therecord establ ished that such ordina nces wereinhibitingthe imp lementation ofCongressionalor FCC objectives. incl udi ng with reg ard tolocating satellite 'd ish' antennas and amateurradio tow ers (Fede ral Preemption ofState andLocal Reg ulat ions Pertaining to Amateur R

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7505 Technology DriveWest Melbourne, FL 32904

407-984-1414Fax:407-984-0434

SOS for Morse CodeO n Janu ary I. 199 8. many coastal stations

wor ldwide aba ndoned 89 years of moni toringfor Morse code distress signals on 500 kHz(sec Utility World). But no one expected it tobe marked by an 50S on December 3 1st.

Stonehuven Radio. ncar Abe rdee n. SCO(-land, received the initia l signa l at to a.m .from the 111/ \ ' Oak. a 13.000- 1011 vessel enroute from Canada to Liverpool. Accordingto reporter Paul Wh ittaker, the Oak wa s 790mi les west of Irel and when its cargo of wo odshifted in storm- force winds and it lost allengine power.

When Stonchaven Radio passed the me s-sage 10 the Falmou th Coast Guard. they ini-tially wondered if it was a joke. One spokes-man said, "We haven't had a Morse distressmessage for years. It was almost too perfect .But we knew straight away so meone wa s indi stress as nobody ev er sends an SOS signa las an ex e rci se ." Subsequent communicat ionwith the ship was conducted via satell ite .

March 1: Zephyrhills. FLPhinney Fest held by Zephyrhills ARC at

the Zephyrhills Lions Dub. 5827 DeanDairyRoad, 8a.m. to 2p.m. Admission $4. Talk-in147.135, Drawings, prizes. food, fleamarket.Write Zaarc . P.O. Box 1534. Zephyrhills. FL33539. call Ernie KD4VRV 8 13-783-8389 oremai l emamaeeahitts.net

March 11: Stamford. crThe Stamford Amateur Radio Association

Novice/Tec h course starts Wednesday. Marchl lth, 1998 for ten sess ions 7-9 p.m. eachWednesday. Pre-registration required;contactJim Murdock 203-322-4707. Richard Finn203-323-Q982orAndrewLaska203-53 1-9493or via internet ka ls [email protected]. No charge ex-cept materials.

March 21-22 : Bethpage, NYThe Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio

Club (LIMARC) Weekend Ham Radio Courseal Briarcl iffe College. 1055 Stewart Ave .Bethpage. NY 11714. Obtain your entry levelTechnicianclass license inone weekendcourse.Cost $35 includes workbook, lunch and re-Ireshments. Preregistration required. ContactLIMARC Weeke nd Class. P.O. Box 392.Levittown. New York 11756 or e-m'ail GeorgeTranos, N2GA at N2GA @aol.com.

6 MONITORING TIMES March 1998

COMMUNICATIONS

\Ve don 't know the outcorne o f thi s dr a-matic story. As night fell and an RAF Nimrodci rcled the ship, the nearest ship wa s still 500mi les away and the Oak was far out of therange of land-based rescue hel icopters. Asthe mas ter and crew of 26 prepared to aban-don the Oak. he sent this last optimistic mes-sage : "Happy Ne w Year. Best regards. Mas-te r."

WILS Six, FCC OneZebulo n Lee. the 86- ycar old owner of

WZLS-FM in Asheville . No rth Ca rolina. hasbeen fighting for the rig ht to opera te on 96.5M Hz since 1987. He was orig ina lly grantedan interim permit. which was then contes tedby fiv e non-local app licants. His pe rm it wa scha llenge d hut upheld five tim es. In 1993 hedecided to build the station and sig ned on asAsheville ' s only local rock statio n.

In 1994the oth er appl icaots ap pealed aga in.and th is time the FCC overturned its previ ou sruliog. say ing tha t a 199 3 federal co urt dec i-

BULLETIN BOARDMarch 14: Denver . CO

The Denver Radio League announces itsFIrst Annuai C-Rock 'Festatthe DouglasCountyFairground s, Castle Rock. CO, 8a.m. to lp.m.Talk-in 146.88. Adm: $4. Swap tables. VEtesting. prizes, special event station. Co ntact AICooley. 6199 South Broadway. Littleton.Colo-rad o 80 12 1. 303-777 -24 28 [email protected]

March 14.21,28. Apr 4: SI. Louls Co. MOAnnual SI. Louis County Skywam Weather

Obse rvation Training Seminars at various loca-tions. Level I in am. Level 2 in p.m. Forlocations call 314-889-2857 for taped message.Outs ide area attenders welcome; no advanceregistration required. Certification provided forRACES and SKYWARN at no cost. Need notbe a ham to participate.

March 22: Madison. OHLake County ARA (LCARA) 20th annual

harnfesr at Madison High School on NorthRidge Road. Ba.m. to 2p.m.Admission$5.Newand used equipment. prizes, forums, test bench,license exams, Contact Len Sechrist WS80,8550 Nowlen St. Mentor. OH 44060. 440-255-0 112.

March 22: Yonkers, NY .Westchester Emergency Communications

Assoc (WECA) annual electronics and hamfest

sion had overt urne d the FCC' s poli cy of en-couruging non -absentee owners . O pponentWZR Q -96.5 was on the a ir by Ju oe 1997.

WZLS . feel ing it had the valid license.also cont inued to transm it until threaten edw ith" $20.000 fine by thc FCC.

Th is past December, in an unusua llyquickdecision . a U.S . appeals co urt re turned thefrequ ency to WZLS. telling the co mmissio nthat it "abused its di scretion and ac ted arb i-trarily and capri ciously.'

The FCC is conside ring reva mping itslicensing rul es.

Driving Distraction No. 1There are ce rta in sounds that seem to cause

an a lmost involu ntary response : the sound ofyo ur baby cry ing in the night. the sound ofchange fa lling on the floor ... I can't stopmysel f from looking at the phon e even tho ughmy hea d tell s me that ring Ijust heard was onthe TV sho w.

Suc h reflex reactions mu st be the inccn-

at Yonkers Raceway, 8a.m. to 2p.rn. Talk-in147.060 (+6. PL 114.8). Admission $6. Newand used equipment, prizes, license exams.forums, radio clinic.Call 9 14-7416606 orvisitwww.wec.org.

March 29: Sout hington, crSouthiogton .ARA (S A RA) annua l

fleamarketatSouthington High School onPleas-antS~ 9a.m. to Ip.m.Talk- in 147.345. 224.80.444 .25, 145.49 PI.n7Hz. Adm ission $4. Ven-do rs. prizes. license exams. Contact ChetKA IILH 860-628-9346 or SARA. PO Box873. Southington. cr 06489.

Club News: Assoc of North American Radio Clubs(ANARC) chairman Mark Meece e-mail ad-dress is mmeeceerstscom.nes Boston Area DXers covers 0-30 MHz. Seeweb site at www.grove.neV-badxl or contactPaul Grave line. 9 Stirling St., Andover. MA01810- 1408. Capitol Hill Monitors has a web site:www.gruve.nets-chm Southern California Monitoring Associa-tion meets once a month. 2nd Wednesdays7p.m. at Acapulco Restauran t. 3360 OceanPark Blvd, Santa Monica, CA, For more infocontact SCMA. POBox 303 1.Culver City. CA9023 Ior w6tn v.sp.trw. comlscmalscma.htm

COMMUNICATIONS

Radio Waves: Kill ya or Cure ya?

Prohibited from using the 1296 MHzmicrowave f requency fo r prostate cancertreatment, medical researchersexperiment with A~I/FM radio implants.

Radio Clubs DeclineThe Assoc iat ion of No rth

American Radio Clubs (ANARC)reported a 12 perce nt drop in mem-

bership within its 17 member clubsover the past year. Every club acro ss theradio spect rum lost membership .

The causes for the drop are no doubtvaried. from econ omics to the Internet.

Or both : With out paying dues one ca n partici-pate in hobby news gro ups such as thosehosted by the Grove internet server and achievemuch more immediate co mmunication. It begsthe question, will the clubs beable to meet thechallenge of evolving along with the radiohobby they have helped to define'! We' rebetting many of them will.

"Man. that crazy DJ will do ----:::aanything /0 wake you up in themorning. lie almost had mewith that train whistle!"

\

tive behind a bill introduced by Rep. Vento ofMinnesota. H.R. 369 would require the FCCto prohibit radio stations from using soundeffects similar to those used as a warning bypublic safety or other traffic, such as horns.sirens. or train whistles. The Bill says " motorvehicle operators. when distracted . can posea safety risk to others on the roads."

~~ 150 Execulive ParkBlvd. #4600 san Francisco,CA 94134Factory Direct PhonB: (415) 4682066 Fax: (415) 468-2067 "Since 1971'

in leasing the posts (for a monthly rental feeof about $100 per post) to improve the prob-lem of dropped calls and to pave the way fordigital wireless networks. However, resident sare concerned about the potential health risk.

"The company claims they ' re safe whenproperly installed." sa id James Crisafulli. ofCo mmunity Board 7 in Northeastern Queens."but not a single ci ty agency is goi ng to bechecking the installation of these things or iscapable or qualified to do that"

We welcome news clippings from your worldor radio. Se nd to ed itor Rachel Baughn at MTheadquarters. or email to mteditor te gro ve.net

Thanks 10 Ihis month 's rep orting team:Anonymous. NY ; Dav id Alpert. NJ ; ShawnAxelrod. Can: Ernie Blair, AL; Glenn Blum. TX;John Brugliera , VT; David Chapchuk. PA: LeslieEdwards. PA; P. Goodwin, MA; Wm. Hcarty, OH;Maryanne Kehoe. GA; Kevin Klein, WI: JimMacDonald. NH: Bob Mills. OH; D. Parsons, AZ:Doug Robertson, CA; Richard Schultz, KY; Rich-ard Sklar, \VA; Larry Van Hom, NC: Dispa tchBulletin ; lV5YI Report

An experimental medical device calledthe Prostatron uses microwaves at 1296 MHzin its treatment of pros tate cancer. This fre-quency is in the 1240-I300 MHz band usedby air traffic co ntro l and. on a secondarybasis, by amateur radio operators. T he unithas rece ived approval by the Food and DrugAdministration. but its req uest for a waiverfrom the FCC has so far not been granted.

The ARRL has objected to granting of thewaive r on the grou nds of the potential forinterfe rence as well as the fact that there is aband already set as ide for medical devices.Meanwhile, the ARRL argues that the deviceis already bei ng used for treatment withoutthe waiverbeing granted.The FCC has openeda new public comment period on the matter.

On a higher plane (in physical location,not in frequ ency). residents in a number ofNew York boroughs outside Manhattan areunhappy abo ut a dea l to outfit as many as9,000 lamposts with ce llular antennas. Threetelecommunicat ionscompanies are interested

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Driving Distraction No. 2

FCC Seal 01 ApprovalThe around fiftypercentofcellphoneown-

ers who purchased the phone to use j ust foremergencies got some good news from theFCC. In a recent Recons ideration Order theFCC upheld the requirement that 9 11 servicemust be made available to users of' telepbonesthat have not been activated by any carrier.

The commission said many wireless 911ca lls are made by Good Samaritans, and that"m aking it easy for these messages to bedelivered to public safety organiza tions thusbene fits the public at large... It requires wire-less carriers to transmit "all 9 1I wireless ca llswithout regard to validation procedures in-tended to ident ify and intercept call s fromnon-subscribe rs."

Ju st be sure to pull over to the side of theroad before making that em ergency call.

There ' s a new program in driver ' s ed thesedays that many grown-ups need to take. It' sca lled "Sa fetalk." Participants in the exe rcisemay be asked to dial a cellular phone numberwhile driving thro ugh an obstacle course.Most students find (to their surprise) theycan't do it.

Although the New England Journal ofMedicine found that a cell phone user is fourtimes more likely to get into a crash as atypical driver (equivalent to driving dru nk).responders to a Glamour magazine surveyremarked, " How are cell phones any morehazardous than CBs in the trucks or scream-ing kids in your backseat?"

MONITORING TIMES 7

Safe SHOAMapping

projectenhancescoastalsafety

,vOrIA 's Bell 2/2 helicopter is modified10 accommodate the pod containingLIIJ.4.R and video equipment (shownunder the fuselage) .

8 MONITORING TIMES Mo'ch 1998

Traveling 700 feet over the boy at fifty knots, the bright blue and white Bell212 helicopter gets the attention of nearby beochgoers and marino workers. Itfo llows aseorch.pottern course that lead some tobelieve the police are lookingfor something ... or someone ... in the busy waterway. The helicopter remainsoffshore for over an hour, methodically covering everything from the coastlineto the deepest part ofthe channel. Unseen or ignored in themarina parkinglot,a technician in an unmarked van also watches the helicopter ... knowing thatpolice aircra ft are nowhere in the area.

Several miles away at alocol generalaviationairport, atractor- trailer rigsits next to ahangar supplying "shore power" for air conditioning, computersand telephone systems. Technicians inside the trailer await the arrival ofdatatapes from the flight so their work con finally begin.

Back at the marina, the aircraft begins a final run for the day. The technicion in the vanbegins to wrap up cobles and organize paperwork, awaiting wordto cease transmitting differential GPS' data to the helicopter. When advised, thetechnician will stow the portable antennas and radios used toreceive the satellitedifferential signal for rebroadcost to the helicopter, while ahandheld radioremains available forair-ground communicotions.

WeIcOJl1 ~ to S HO ALS, th e lat -es t high -tech e ffo rt in coas talmanagem ent.As \\ ith many modem projects. techno-

logical adv ances equate to po litically-correctnames and complex abb revia tions. and thisprojec t certainly has its share:

SHOALS is the Scanning HydrographicOperational Airborne LIDA R Survey . andit' s com ing to a seasho re, bay or lake ncar yo usoon. III 1997. it completed surveys of 75locations around the Great Lakes. North At-lantic stales , and Florida.

LIDAR is Light Detection and Ranging. asystem of laser rang cfinding tuned for wate rsurface and subsurface obse rvations .

In addition. ALBTCX. the Airborne L1-DAR Bathymetry Technica l Cen ter of Expcr-lise (in Mo bile , A laha ma) , serves as the clear-ing house for SHOA LS project managementand data analy sis.

BackgroundSHOA LS was conceived in 1985 as a

mechani sm to suppo r t the fede ra lgovcm rncms waterway survey program .Th ese hydro graph ic surveys . co nducted bythe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, encom-pass 25.000 miles of fed era lly-maintainednavigationa l channels with an annual cost ofover S40 millio n doll ars.

Utili zing the Army Engineers' fleet of 50sma ll vessels and an array a l'contrac tor sh ips.the survey assignments support mari time co n-struction projects. nautical charting. floodcontrol. environmen tal monitoring, and stormdamage assessme nt. in extreme ly shallowwater. or channels littered wi th submergeddebri s from storms. surveys arc often incorn -ple te or dangerous.

By 19XX. a joint li.S .lCa nadian develop-ment program began to design, construct andfield test an airborne L1DAR system to supple-ment surface-based data co llection efforts.LIDAR is a spinofffrom military anti-subma-rine warfare programs of the 1960s. in wh ichlasers were tested in a submarine detectionrole. Throughout the I970"s. L1DAR auractedthe interest of uni versity researchers. Navyand NAS A scientists. as well as private andgovernment oceanographic age ncies world-wide. Second-gene ration LlD AR systems,with optica l and electron ic enhancements,fueled co ntinued research in the 1980s.

A field-ready system was completed inNovember of 1993 and validation tests. flownover the New Pass federal navigational projectin Sa rasota . Florida . were co mpleted in Junu-

An illustration ofthe laserrangefinding system ill action.Inset shows a contour map ofaLake 1V0r lh, Fla. , tidal inlet.

--

..'

ary and February of 1994. SHOAL S equip-men t was accepted in the spring of 1994 andover 125 deployments occurred in the subse-quent 24 months . Duri ng this two-year mis-sion calendar, over 2.250 square ki lomete rswere surveyed. ge nerating ove r 275 millionmeasurem ents .

ManagementTh e SHOALS program is now in its fourth

fiscal yea r o f ope rational de ployments. Amode lfor joint public-private enterprises, man-agement is handled by the Army Engi neers'Waterways Expe riment Station (Vic ksburg,MS) which also coordina tes gove rnment sur-

/'0..:: .

.: . . ..' .. ' .

Y. ' . .: . :" . ':':. : . :

. . "' :

(Courtesy SHOALS )

vey clients. Operation . maintenance and coor-dination of priva te survey clients is the re-sponsibility o f Joh n E. Chance and Associ -ates , Inc. (Lafayette , LA), a con tracto r spe-cia lizing in ad vanced surveying applications.

Har dware deve lopment is credi ted toOptech, Inc. (Toronto, Ca nada ) and softwareco mes from the National Oceanog raphic andAtmo spheric Adm inistra tion (NOA A) I Na~tional Ocean Service. Heli copt ers and pilotsare supplied by NOAA's Aircraft OperationCe nter at MacDili AFB . Flo rida ,

Th e airborne system. in addition to provid-ing a survey mechanism for shallow or dan-gerous waters . is also over ten times fasterthan shipboard echo sounders. During a two-

March 1998 MONITORING TIMES 9

i I'L L-_ -_JL~ ' . !

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, l

Immediately below: Craig Bransonis the HDAR Specialist f rom JohnE. Chance & Assoc. His operatingposition is at the impressiveequipment rack in the rear of thehelicopter (pictured at bottom}.

The truck trailer hous es asupercomputing workstation /0begin processing the raw data.Army Engineers Eddie Wiggil/sand J.D. Balch process Ihe day 'saccumulated information at til emobile data center.

10 MONITORING TIMES Mo'ch 1998

A model ofpublic-privatecooperation, the project is also analphabet soup ofacronyms!

!""-"", mANSMITIER;

1r;- \,-- TFANSMmED PULSE

The principle behind thelaser rangefinding system(courtesy ofSHOA LS)

U.S. ARMY CORPSOF ENGINEERS

MO BILE DISTRICT

I7l"f;'I~

RECEI'JERAND

TIMING SYSTEM -\

JOHN E. CHANCE & ASSOCIATES, INC.

PULSE Hl:fLl:C II;)NFROM WATER SLflFACE I

------ _ 11'\--- ~----- - t. r'j I I'RETURN __._ " \

PULS= - - I I 'SEPARATION JJ I \TIME. t ..!-;-, I I

/ I I/ 1 \

// 1\, / 1 \

PJLSI: Hl:fLI:C liON I IFROM BOnCM I

I II I1

year statistical period. for ex-am ple . 180 mi llion mea sur e-ments were logged - a volumethat would take 24 years witholder aco ustic sounde rs. In onehour,SHOALS can map appro xi-mately eight square kilometersor a IOn-meter wide channe l upto 80 kilomet ers long. with115.000 measurem ents per kilo-meter!

Flight OperationsTypical dep loyments inclu de

one helicopter (of two available) .the mobile office and other crew/support vehicles.SHOALS man-age rs, techn ical staff. two da taprocessing engineers. one or twoairborn e system ope rators. twopilots. and a mechan ic comprisethe personnel roster.

Initial site planning and equ ipment setup isco mpleted in less than a day . making for ahighly mobile system: for larger coas tal sur-vey areas, a central airport is chosen as a baseof operat ions and ni ghts arc made over scv-eral days. Flight time includes 2-3 Illghts perday of about two hours eac h. with about 600 -800 hours per year. Pre-flight work invo lves areview of the survey area and establishment of" night lines" used for precise nav igation.

NOAA' s Bell 2 12 heli copters an: modi -fied withextended landing struts and an equip-ment pod co ntaining L1DAR and video hard-ware. Green and Infrared lasers arc used.direct ed by a gyro sta hilized (optica l) scannerlinked to an inertial refere nce system thatcompe nsates for aircraft motions.

Using mathematically-coordinated hard-ware and software. variab les such as aircraftspeed and att itude. aircraft GPS coord inates(differential GPSl. flight line position. laserpower. water surface wave heights. waterdensity. clarity and subsurface attributes arerecorded .

Laser pulses or "soundings" (a term or igi-nating with the older aco ustic measurementsystem) are made lip to 200 times per second.resulting inaccurate depth measurement s overa uniform four square meter gr id. Publishedvertical accuracy is plus or minus fifteen cen-timeters. 'v ith hori zontal accuracy at plus orminus three meters. Data points and supple-mental information are record ed on duulSmmtape drives with a rate of 300kb per seco nd.

Within the trailer. a Sun -4/S PARC 10Supercomputing Workstation with 160Mb ofmemory. 10Gb of di sk space and an Exa byte8500 tape drive an: used for post-flight data


Photograph and SHOALS contour map of New Pass Channel between Longboat and Lido Keys inFlorida. (Courtesy SHOALS)

I Differential GPS isadata srream of'correc tedGlobal Positionin g System (GPS ) sate lliteinform ation . used to prov ide extremely acc u-rate locati on coord inates.

environmental studies and emergency plan-ning. In each cascocusto mers are shown thatSHOA LS is cos t-effective in terms of speedand acc uracy at a level aga inst which a shore-based survcy party or vessel-ba sed acousticsystem just canno t co mpete.

Also importan t is the private-sector co n-ncction in SHOALS. Com mercial LIDARapplica tions and private research are fullyend or sed . with the expectation tha t addi tionalwork in this science will result in equipmentimprovements and cost red uctio ns.

Plans for the exper ienced S HOALS teaminclude the development of a Remotely Pi-loted Vehicle (RPV) for military applications.Harbor survey ing. amphibious assault mis-sions. and covert operat ions will benefit grea tlyfrom near rea l-time. accurate mapp ing ofhos-tile coast lines.

"Sensor fusion" is al so on the horizon,using computer-enhanced combinations ofoptica l and elec tronic ima ging to produceeven more descripti ve maps and charts .

So . the next time you look at a coastal map.hear abo ut nav iga tional channe l maintena nceon mari ne-band frequencies, or watch Emer-gency Managem ent wor kers utte r a disaster,remember this unique team project. You canthank SHOALS for providing a high-technol-ogy . user -friend ly. cost-effecti ve da ta sourcethat has improved the safe ty of our coastalwaterways.

Future Endeavors

164.075 MHz164.025MHz(Local tower/approachtreqs.)(Cellulartelephones)

SHOALS Radio Frequencies

InformationSourceJeffUllycrop. DirectorI US Army EngineerWaterways Experiment Station

Additional Information and Graphicsmay beviewed at

http://Shoals.sam.usace.army.mll

Primary air-ground:Secondary air-ground:Air traffic control:

Mobileofficecoord.:

Although heli copters. mobile work stationsand a highly special ized team arc ex pensi ve.S HOALS ha s revolu tioni zed coasta l survey -ing hy provid ing a prod uct neverbcfore ava il-able. at any co st. This gov -em mcnt-owne d. co ntractor-opera ted program serves asa technology demonstratorfor potcntialcusto mers whilefu lfill ing operat ional re -quirements o f existin g eli-ents.

T hi s "c lie nt based"met hod of marketing hasbee n par t of the SHOA LSpolicy since its incep tion .Arm y Engineer projects givelifc t" SHOALS. butequally-demanding Na vy and Na-tional Ocean Service workbroaden the sys terns ex po-sure. Sture and localgovcm-m eri ts arc also courted asen d- users. es pec ia lly fo rcoas tal zon e managemen t,

Marketing

Clickable map OI l the SIIOA LS website gives specific inf ormation about projectsunderway or already completed. The dark ened states or regions are the acti ve sites.

processing . Add itional co mputers are usedfor geographic data man ipulations (co ntour-ing . mapping, etc. ), mission planning andadministrat ion . Each hour of data collec tionrequi res an hour of da ta processing. keep ingSHOA LS staff busy on the ground as we ll asin the air. The "final product" o f survcy data -bases and two - and three-dim ensional plo tsarc written to C D ROM .

12 MONITORING TIME5 Moech 1998

Getting t~MostOut ofYourFrequerzey Counter

By Haskell Moore, KB5WIX

O ne of the favori te too ls of thetrade for any serious scanningent hus ias t is the freq ue ncycoun ter. It can be the key to unlocking some o fthe most interesting and exc iting scanningaction us it unfo lds. However. for those whodon ' t under stand the fundamentals of how aco unter works. it can be an end less source ofdisappointment and frustration. In this article.we' ll attempt 10 shed some light on the cap:'l-bilities and limitat ions of frequ ency counters.And for those of yo u who ' ve been using yourcounter for awhile. we' ll include some tips tohopefully increase your success.

First. let' s start with a short discuss ion offreq ue ncy co unter fundamentals . Briefl ystated, a freq uency counter is an electronicdev ice used to measure the frequency of anearby transmitter, The counter will on ly ac-quire an accurate reading when the signalfrom source is relatively close by (referred 10as "nea r field")and is approx imately fifteen totwent y decibels stronger than the ambientsignal level for a period long enough to ac-qui re a reliab le readi ng.

Some co unters today em ploy nne or morefilter circuits to reduce false readings. Themost elementary of these fil ters simply en-sures that a consistent signal is present for a

,

e

rour fr equency c(~ llI rter must he a dud. J OlI think. You 're standing right under thetower. hut it still call 't pick up the frequ ency! What gives?


Some scanners can be automatically tuned bya sophisticated frequency counter.

These two antenna covers hide antennas fo r 460 Mliz communications and an 800MH z mobile data terminal. But they didn 't f ool tile fre quen cy counter.

he ca n' t seem to get a single good reading.On a typical day . there' s a pretty high

probab ility that many of the transmitters areactive simultaneously.This is particularly trueif one or more of those antennas are attachedto a pager transmitter or cell phone trans-ceiver, both of which transmit almost cease-lessly. All of these simultaneo us signals ere-

ute RF chaos that simply overloads thecounter and render s it useless. Thecounter can' t clearly discern one signalfrom the other. and therefore ca nnotprovide an accurate readin g from anysingle transmitter.

Again , for you to obtai n an accuratereading. one single transmitter must besubstantially stronger than the others .Unfortunately , since the anten nas areall so close together, moving closer tothe tower usually won ', help . To furthercomplicate matters, the base of an an-tenna tower is usually where the weak -est emission of the signal is found .

Th is is the primary reason it is sodiffi cult to obta in a good reading from aweak signal source in an urban environ-ment saturated with high levels ofradiofrequency (RF) ene rgy. One only has tulook at the tops of the many buildings inthe area to understand why. Withi n onethousand fcctofmy office in downtownHouston, Texas. are at least three hun-dred antennas, some transmitting at morethan four hundred watts! Co nsequently,a frequencycounter has very little chanceof locking onto any single signal long

known as a high ambient noise floor. occurswhen mu ltiple transmitt ers in the same vicin-ity arc all emitting signals at roughly the samelevel.

A typical exa mple of what C~\I1 occur iswhen an inexperienced counter user positionshimself at the base of :'1 radio tower withfifteen or twenty antennas clearly in view. yet

Understand ing the PrincipleTo better understand how a freque ncy

counter works, we' Il try a simple analogy .Let' s say that you' re in a gymnasium withonly one other perso n who is at the far oppo-site end of the gym from you. As this personbegins to speak softly, you can hear the soundoftheir voice, butcannotdiscern what' s beingsaid.

Now let' s assume that the person speakingrepresents the signal source (transmitter) andyou represent the frequency counter. Just asyou are unable to hear what is being spoke n,the counter is unable to acquire the freque ncyof a signal that is too far away . In our gym na-sium scenario, you would have to move closeto the other perso n. or the other person wouldhave to speak louder for you to understandwhat was being said.

Correspondingly. with a frequen cy count erattempting to receive a weak signal. the signalsource would either have to incre ase its poweror, more likely, you would have to movecloser to the signa l before you could obtain areadi ng.

sustained du ration (approximately six milli-seco nds) before indicating a readi ng. Moresophisticated filters , such as those found onthe Optoelectro nics Scout ,* use a micropro-cessor which will almost eliminate false read-ings .

Another desirable feature to look for in acounter is an electronic memory to store thefrequency readings it has obtained. Typicallyfrom one to three frequencies may be stored,then reviewed at a later time and en tered intoa sca nner. Other counte rs, such 3S the Scout,can store up 10 four hundred frequencies, aswe ll as the number of times a signal W3Srecei ved at each frequency. The Scout alsooffers an ICOM CI-V interface. which en-ables it to automatically tune a CI-V con -trolled scanner (such as the AOR 8000) to 'h esame freq uency that the Scou t intercepts.

Understanding the ProblemsTo understan d another di lemma when us-

ing a frequency counter, let ' s again use ourgy m analogy . However, this time you' re sur-rounded by a circle of peop le, all at an equa ldistance, and all talking at the same time atapproximately the same volume. All you canmake ou t is aj umble of voices, a low roar, butno single voice is discernib le.

Th is is analogous to what happens whenyou try to usc a frequency counter in anenvironment where you' re surrounded by anumber of strong signals. This condition,


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~ _...~

_...-- ---

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All antenna lower with multiple antennas andmultiple users will probablyjust confuse afrequency counter and frustrate the user.

',.

Antenna configurations/or various applications, left to right: 440MHz ham; collapsible; Camel "Miracle Baby " great for 800 MHz;440/1 meter ham; cellular (800 MH z) and trunk; MA X antenna800 MHz.

Be prepared ...To screen out signals )'011 don't want, custom-fit a jilter and the antenna to your desired target. Pictured below left is afiller coupled with a greal800 MHz antenna. This collapsible antenna (middle) all an Opto MI counter can becustomized 10 the desired f requency rouge. (Right) DOli 'I be afraid 10 experiment!

- - --._--~ "'!"" ~

16 MONITORING TIMES Mo,ch ' 998

The frequency counter snagged thisYagi used by the flood control districttransmitting at 169 J\ II /;;.

enough to acq uire a read ing unless the signa l ise ithe r very strong or very close,

Counter Solutions

T here arc. however. a few tricks vou ca n useto ra ise the od ds a bi t in yo ur f

The Dog Eat Dog Worldof the 1998

(Consumer Electronics Show)By John Catalano

The consumer electronics business isone of the most insanely exciting busi-nesses in the world. Even the best prod-ucts arc conside red "o ld" and past their rev-enue producing life cycle in eightee n month sor less! You can imagine what that mean s tothe pace of work at consumer electronic com-panies.

Once a year these "insane asylums" calledco nsumer elec tro nics companies gather toshow the world, and each other. the results oftheir past twelve month s' creative efforts.Welcome to the International Consumer Elec-tro nics Show - or as it's know n in the trade.simply CES. Let' s take a tour around the 199HCE S, which was held in Las Vcgas, Nevada,Janu ary 8th- 11th .

"0" Slars of CES 1998CES pro moters proclaimed (he main theme

for (his year ' s show to be the long-awaitedHDTV. High Defin itionTelevi sion .This prod-uct. which (he po liticians of 1991 promisedwould be the salvation of the then failingwo rld economy. has finally arri ved .

HDTV initially promised to brin g a higherresolu tion picture to our TV screens.. . A TVpictu re is a collection of dots. or pixe ls. whichour bruins integrate into a whole ima ge. Reta -rive to current T V standards . HDTY ima geshave smaller pixels. Th erefore . more pixelsca n be crammed into an image giv ing the


viewer a "higher defin ition" picture with moredetail.

Th omson (RCA). Pauusonic. Hitach i. Ze -nith. Pioneer.Sharp.Jv 'C. Sony and Mitsubi sh ia ll ex hibited HDT V at CES 199H. The im-proved image qu alit y was immedia tely appar-ent. wi th (he HDT V images loo king more likea crisp 35nlm projected slidc than a TV screen.

Selectccb 's Allcontro ller lets youremote control you r compu ter.

If you have S5000 burnin g a hole in yourpocket then yo u are ready for HDTV. now !But a few of the man ufacturers whom 1spokewith do not feel that HDTV will have con-sumer acceptance until the reta il price can bebrought " much lower ," Only when they can"provide the righ t produ ct at thc right price"wi ll they fully launch HDT V intn the main-stream consumer market. Until then it will bea flag-ship. high- end. low sales prod uct.

However. HDTV wilt become a standard ifthc US government has its way . A usuallyreli able source indicates the renewa l of USTV licen ses go "q uicker and easier" if theyinclude plans and dates for broadcast ofHDTV.Currently, Harr is Co rp is busy installingHDT V tran smission gear in the fie ld . Pub licService Broad casting (PBS ) and the C BS net-wo rk were providing HDTV programmingfrom the ir ex per imenta l stations.

T here was a little "slight-of-hand" alsohelp ing the HDTV image: Most of the HDTVdemonstration s uti lized the new ly develope d.large area (3 feet by 2 feet and bigger ) flatscreendispl ays (FP D). which were first show nat Fall 97 CO MDEX last November. Th eseS 15.000 FPDs beaut ies make even ourcurrentTV images look sharpe r. Th e marri age ofHDT V and FPD makes for exci ting viewing.Add to this a Dolby Digita l Su rround soundsystem and it bec omes an im pressive experi-ence .

Blame It on EI Nino

In the early eighties the joke in the industrywas that someone had developed a ca n op enerwhich used a microprocessor . Companies re-alized that the microprocessor had capture dthe imagination of the co nsumer and could beused to "hook" sales.

Well. welcome toCES 1998 and W ind owsCE! It seems like deja-m all over again.Microsoft. not content with having a firm holdon the computer indu stry. has quie tly anddiligently been digging into other consumerareas. Windows CE (consumer electronics),is an operating system which can be co nfig-ured to run PDAs (person al data assistant s),DVDs. TV . aud io equipment ... and eve n ca rradios (remember the ca n opener") !

HDTV was given a helping hand by thenew flat screen displays, which enhanceany image.

Please Reboot Your Car Stereo

Philip s' Ni no (another effec t of ElNino?) is a palm-sized personal com-puter (PC) that uses a versio n of Win-

de ws C E calle d G ryph on. Nino ispocke t- s ized . ha s a pen-d r ive n

touchscree n, an infrared data port. abui lt-in 28 .8 kbps mod em , uses a 32 -bitRISC processo r. and is available in 4 and

8 Mb vers ions for $339 and $449 . Thiswill compete directly with a Pilot PDA.

Casio and LG Electronics (formerlyGoldStar) annou nced that they will intro-duce a palm PC March/April 98. Casio' s

Cassiopeia E- I0 will he a 4 MB palm PC andcost $399. Watch this produ ct area carefully.If the laptop/desktop big boys feel the co m-petition this co uld explode , with the con-sumer be ing the winner.

ab le for over eig ht years. but has notbeen widely accepted. The largephysica l size and deli cate nature ofthe LP record-sized disc was a nega-tive fac tor to many con sumers. Re-membe r. we we re still in the processof replacin g our LP record s withsmaller Compact Discs .

As 11 result of impro ved optica l codingmethods and electro nics. To shiba, Philips,Pioneer. T hom so n. Panasonic and JVC allintrod uced DV D players at the 1998 C ES.DV D further intensifies the ho me theate r ex-perience . One co mpany demonstrated a side-by-side compari so n o f a mo vie on video tapeand the same mo vie on DVD. The greatlyimpro ved qual ity o f the video was imm edi-ate ly obvious. The fullness of the so und wasalso qu ick ly evident.

It's Now or Never

DV D players wcre introduced in late 1997with less than the expected reception from thepub lic. Consum crconfusion between the look-alike $99 audio C D players and $500 DVDmachines didn 't help sales . Thc small num berof avail able DVD programming added toDVD' s sales pro blems.

Th is year, a ll DVD ma nufac tu rer s are plan-ning heavy ad campaigns to educate the con-sumer as to the benefits of DVD. Many newDVD titles a rc bei ng introd uced weekly andnow availab le. even in discount clubs such asSa m's and Cos tco.

Will DVD bec ome a success? DVD salesdid hit their predi cted mark at Chris tmas andhave sta rted the new year with a spike, higherthan ex pec ted. A lot of companies are belli ngI o n DVD 's success in 1998.9981nternat 10nal

Quadraphonic 1998 Style

The Dig ita l Vid eo Disc (DVD) isat a "m ake or break" stag e in itsdevelopment. This video medi acombines the phy sical size o f thesuccess ful audio Com pact Disc andthe high q uality video/audio per -fonnance o f the not-so-successfulLaser Disc.

The Laser Disc med ium has bee n ava il-

1998 The Year of DVD

Back in the seventies audio manufacture rsattempted to co nvince the consumer that theyshould replace their twenty-year o ld, two chan-ncl stereo sys tems with new four channelQuadraphonic sys tems. The idea was that 4-Channel wo uld give the audiophile listeningto records. eight tracks and compactca ssettes.new "aud ible spac ial d imensional informa-tion ."

Thi s wa s to allo w the listener to experiencethe subtle aco ustics of the record ing venue."Just Like Bein g There," read one 4-Chan nclco mpa ny ' s ad ca mpaign . JVC, GE . RCA andH.H. SCOtl. to name a few . led the failedcharge. The conce pt died a painful and co stlydeath a few yea rs later .

Since then, a ncw use for sound sys temshas emerged for which spaci a l informationadds sig nificant ly to the ente rtainment : hom etheater. Watchin g the opening sequence o ft hemo vie Independence Day and having the hugealien mother ship rum bling fro m behind you.over your head, and then acce lera ting away infro nt of yo u. is a tota l experience .

Do lby Su rround AC-3 provides five to-tally independe nt chan nels of audio: left. cen-te r, right . rear left and rear right. And for thereal audio crazies it also gives yo u a chann elju st dedicated to low frequency effect s! Themo vie title BIO\r1I Away co mes to mind.

Now, this system is not new. First pat-ented in 1992, it began to be ava ilable tothe co nsumer in mid- 1995 among the high-cost, $800 and up audio equipment, Atthe 1998 CES. Pion eer introduced DolbyDigita l among their mid priccd audioproducts . Econom ically respon sib lehom e theater is now a step closer forconsu mers.

The advantage ofdigital video disks isimmediately obvious; but will the public buy it?

Meech 1998 MONITORING TIMES 19

Sublime to RidiculousC lar ion' s Auto PC is, um... . a un ique

product. HO\\' about throwing all sorts o fthin gs into a car rad io and calling it ... an AutoPC? How about a lack of orig inal ideas?

Th e Auto PC fits into a standard DINdashboard slot. It is Windows C E controlledand includes CD player. AM fFM radio. ad -dress boo k organizer. navigational system. aninfrared da ta por t. anti a full LC D screen asused on digita l cameras. The radio pulls out ofthe dashboard and tilts up to reveal its screen.

At a recent nati onal law enforcement COIl-tere nce. data was presented which showe dthat the number o f accidents du e to "ce llphoncpre occupation" was rising to the level of alco-ho l related acc ide nts .Thi s produ ct could makedru nk dr iving numb er two!

One redee ming value of the Auto PC is itsuse of voice inp ut co mma nds. It respond s to200 vo ice requests to adjust the radio, CD andnavigational system . This is an excellent useof\Vindows CE, Its text-to-speech feat ure canalso read you the displayed text informati on .

But how many of us use our keyboardwithout looking at our displays often? T heheads-up-disp lay (HU D), used by tighter pi-lot s, had bet ter be qui ckly developed for civi l-ian automobiles, before the hum an race be-comes extinct due to high-tech road accide nts.

A Quick Walk AroundCES is co mprised of at least three separate

convention centers : Las Veg as ConventionCenter and the Hilton and Sa nds Hotels co n-ventionce nters . It' s a lot to cov er . The follow-ing are a sampling o f un ique products show nat the 1998 CES .

IBM introduced a 16 gigabi t hard drivewhich uses Giant Magne tores istive (GMR)heads. It can hold ove r seven hours o f fullmot ion video or ton s of printed pag es . Beta

The Casio palm PC is one of severalcompetitors which may brin g the pric edown,

20 MONITORING TIMES Mo"h 1998

units are now out in the field with produ ctionunit s to "follow soon. "

T homson showed a handheld scanner ,model RCA RP6198 di rected to race car en-thusiasts. The user program s the car' s numbe rinto the memory and the sca nner conve rts it toa Frequency.

Also from Thomson is an interestin g mixof equipment and funct ions in its nig ht tableclock radio with a built-in carbo n mon oxide(COJdetcclOr. The idea is that CO kill s du ringsleeping hours. usually fro m fau lty heatin gsystem s, Look for model GE7-4882 if youhave a need for such a "unique" product.

Uniden demonstrated a voice commandcord less phone , EXV98 Voice DiaL It holdsup to thirt y names and numbers that ca n beverba lly stored and then dialed by saying thename, At $ 199 it seems light of value.

Sciko' s handheld Quicktio nary co nvertsthe wr itten work of one language to that ofanother.The difference is that thc Quicktionary"pen" uses an opt ica l sensor to read the wordto be tran slated . The trans lated word is thendisplaye d on its LCD, It is planned for marketintrodu ction in late 1998 with a price aro und5250. Spanish. French and English trans lationcapability will be first.

Con trolling a screen with " the wave ofyo ur hand" describes Se lec tcc hs newAllco ntro ller wireless remote contro l prod-uct. Using paten ted infrared two -way tech-nology , the computer user j ust holds the wire-less Allco ntroller and poin ts it di rectly at thescreen position where they wan t the cursor.The "cursor follows eve ry mov eme nt of yourhand." Pretty uniqu e stuff! It works ou t to 20+feet. It also can be switched by the user to ac tas a wireless trac kball with a 40+ foo t range .In most cases no software insta llation is re-qui red . All this, and a desk mou se whichdou bles as the IR base, goes for $ 109.

New and old medi a ca pabi litie s are co m-bined in Pioneer's DV-L909 combi- player. Itcan play DVDs, Laser Discs, audio CD s andvideo CDs. The graphical user interface (GU nreally made using it simple anti easy. Watchfor it this month at aro und $999.

Texas Instruments showed a video projec-tor which was a co llaboration with NEC. Theimage could be blow n-up 10 movie thea ter(c inema) size wi th high brightness and veryhigh qualit y. At $45 ,000 it may revoluti on izethe movie theat er busin ess.

Th ere was not much really new from theradio companies . Th e exception was ICOM,which was show ing off their PC wide bandradio, the PC-ICR 1000. The rumor there wasthat ICOM was opening the software to third

The l com PC1CRIOOO was one of thefew 1Iew radios 0 11 display.part ies, so wa tch for new software add-onsand operation systems to co me fro m the usualco mmunica tions software peopl e.

Un iden wa s ag ain show ing off th ei rtru nk ing ca pab le scanner. Lots of stands , in-cludi ng Motorola and Maxon, were showingFa mily Radi o Serv ice wa lkie-talkie products- ci tizens band (CB ) far the nineties. Maxon ' sbooth seemed slanted towa rds CB with allversions being sho wn.

The CB/NOAA weathe r-capable radio isback makin g the ro unds. In fact , one co mpanywas making a big splas h concerning theirwea ther alert rad io tha t beeps whe n badweath er is approaching. I bought a very simi-lar radio in 1974 from K-Mart. Twent y-threeye ars later it ' s news again.

My Feet are Killing MeI apo log ize to all the other products that we

didn' t talk about, but I think we covered thehighli ght s. You can check out some (tho ughnot yet all) of these produ cts on the manufac-tur ers' websites,

T he atte nda nce for CES was abo ut 35perc ent less tha n for COMDEX (ComputerDi stributors' Exposition; see last month ' s MTrep ort ) which took place the previou s monthat the same venue. The twice yearly CES ofthe eighties has bee n trimmed down to anannualevent; now it's COMDEX that is go ingstro ng twice a year. Th e 1998 Con sumer Elec -tronics Show left no doubt in anyo ne' s mindthat co nsumer electronics is bein g dri ven byad vances in co mp ute r tech nology . The tailmay fina lly have begun to wag the dog.

Be Well-Informed and Organized on the Hunt

Listeners tend to overemphasizeim portance of receivers andantennas in great DXillg -the art of receiving distant stations.Othe r c ritica l c lem ents suc h as Lime.information. and orga nization recei vescant attention. A IlC: W receiver hitsthe market and ca ptures the bobby' sattention for months: The folding ofashortwave bulleti n is barel y men-tinn ed . Yet the pub lication lik elyplayed a greater role in what DXersheard than d id the receiver.

The most success ful DXcrs explo itthese cleme nts in addition 10 payingd ose attention to their recei ver and an-tenna.Thi s art icle. while pro viding some

By Hans Johnsonthe general informationon receivers and anten-

nas. will focus on these elem ent" of time .information. and organization.

Receivers

America ns love techn ological solu-tions to "prob lems" and this hobb y is nodiffere nt. Often the first question asked

The clandestine La Voz de laFederacion Mundial de Ex-PresosPolitico de Cubanos Dill)' issuedeight verification (QSL) cards. Onlytwo listeners outside of Florida wereable 10 ,-eriJythe station before itwas shut down by the FCC.


790 K HZ

Antennas are also an overrated element.Some listeners assume that they cannot hearcena instations because of theirantenna setup.Or they jump to (his conclusion after readingaboutacertain DXers elaboruteantenna setupand surmise that they won' t be able to hear thesame suuions. Yet they conve niently ignorethe other side or the ledger: that is. goodlisteners with simple antennas. What is truefor receivers also applies to antennas. as manywell-known DXcrs use simple. inexpensiveantenn as.

If possible, antennas should be strung out-side and as high as possib le. Insulated wirewill work as well as bare and lasts a 10 1 longer.Stan off with a simple piece of wire strung inthe yard. If this is not satisfactory . bewill ingto experiment and try differeru types of anten-nas. The North American Short w ave Asso-ciation (NAS\VA) Journal ' offers reprints ofseveral differe nt antenna art icles. Antennaexperime nts will be much cheaper by build-ing the antennas rather than buying themready-made.

InformationSuccessful DXers spend time obtaining

information in order to focus and improvetheir listening sessions. The well-informedDXer now knows when and where to tune.Even if only weak signals arc detected. thislistener knows they are of interest and willmake the best logging possible. The unpre-pared DXcr will be very lucky to "discover"this signa l while j ust tuning around throughthe bands. Logging it. particularly if it is aweak signal. is much more difficult as thelistener has a lot less information to workwith. The knowledgeable OXer will know oftests and special broadca sts that the ill-in-fonn ed one will miss.

Tuning and station information is avail-able via printed materials. over the Internet.and on OX shows. However it is delivered. theinfonnation can be broken down into twobroad categories. Listening guides are annual

not listen during the week.Breakthose big sessio ns down intodaily 20 minute to I hour blocksand the odds of hearing unusualstations jump dramatically . Un-usual propagation conditions donot escape the DXer who is lis-tening everyday. nor does hemiss the station that was only onthe air for a few days.

Bear in mind that pub-lished logs describe what washeard. but they do not reflecthow many times the DXer triedfor the station before hearing it.Nor are there any logs of sta-tions that a DXer has attemptedto hear for years . but failed to doso. Great catches can be luck.but theydemonstratepersistencemuch more often.

\Vhen to listen depend s onwhat the objec tive is. DXers scan-

ning the bands can listen at any time, butsome times are more productive than oth-

ers . In most areas of the world. the DXertuning the Trop ical Bands will want darkne ssor near dark ness at his location. The DXertrying for a particular region of the worldstudies loggings sections to see when thatregion is heard by other DXers in his part ofthe world and then listens at these times .

The same method is used for hearing aparticular station. If the station has not beenheard for a while. a OXer should try for itwhen other stations from the same region arebeing heard.

OHDA CORTA

FM ESTEREO PAVUNIA 88.1 MHZ

Time is when a listener tunes thc dials andhuw often. The best catche s are not audibleevery day: they may only be heard twice amonth or once a season. Alternatively, a sta-tion may only beon the air for a short time dueto political or financial circumstances.

SOIllC DXers lend to have one or two biglistening sess ions on the weekend s. but then

Time

Apartment dwellers who cannot have out-side antennas can tack a wire around the wallsof their radio room. A temporary outsideantenna. whichcan betaken in and ourquickly,should also be considered . Most DXing oc-curs at night. so the chances of the antennabeing discovered are minimal! String the bestantenna possible, but do not allow the antennato determine what stations to go after.

With an adequate receiver and the bestantenna possible. the DXcr should now focusattention on the critical areas mentioned ear-lier. Thc first of these is Time.

The Argentine station Radio Malarguewill sent a pennant along with a QSLcard for a correct reception report,

AM :

in an interview with a well-known DXer is. "What kind ofrece iverts) are you using'?"Theinterviewer assumes that the se-cret to success lies in technology- asupcriorrcceiver. Yeta studyof contributors ' pages to short-wave magazines reveals that vir-tually a ll of the well-knownDXcrs only have one receiver.Quite a few of them use rathermodest receivers. such as theSony 20 1O. Great DXing cannotbe achieved solely by purchas-ing an expensive receiver.Having said that. what consti-

tutes an adequate receiver'! Ac-curatcdial readout. whether digi-tal or analog . Single sidebandcapability. and both wide andnarrowfilt ers.A notch filter. pass-band tuning. and an automatic gaincontrol are also nice. Many new andold receivers. both tabletop and por-table models. fit this bill . OXers lackingmost of these elements in their current re-ceiver should consider purchasing a differentreceiver. Receivers arc best purchased throughmajor domestic suppliers who offer demon-stration and used equipment at reasonableprices . $600 is all it takes. from a receiverstandpoint. to be on equal footing with anyOXer.

Antennas


Resources for the Informed DXerBoth the WorldRadio Tv Han dbook and thePa"'port to WorldBandRadio are ava ilable

from Gro ve Enterpri ses.See their adverti sing insert in this magazine for more information.Listeners who cannot afford these books can write the Cumbre DX book project at : P.O.Box 392. Od enton. MD 2111 3. USA. lfavailable, an older copy of one of these boo ks willbe sent to you.

Soft-copy DX publications are generally free to those contributing to them . Here are theco ntact name s and addresses:

Finn Krone Wolfgang Bueschel Bob Padula Ulis Fleming

Conclusions

Organization

Successful DXers must do more than j ustmonitor the above media. They must organizethe gathered data in order to take advantage ofit. Use the PIVBR and IVRTH as baselines andthen pencil new inform ation into the appro-priate sections of these boo ks. The booksrem ain up to date and new info rmation isorganized and eas ily found.

Copies of Internet pub lications are bestkept as soft copies with each publi cation be-ing placed intua differeru file.The filesquicklybecome important references in themselves.as any data can quickly he located using the"search" tool.

Interesting schedules and Icngthy stationinformation from printed mate rials ca n beclipped or photocopied and then placed into aWRTH or I' IVBR.

lrnportant audio cl ips from OX shows.such as inter val signals or nation al anthems.should be record ed .

Additional processing occ urs with items ofgrea t interest . These tips are made into a "hitlist." The hit list. organized by time. also hasfield s for the co untry , station. and frequency.The list is placed near the radio and serves asan instan t and constant reminder of targetsthat a partic ular DXer is especia lly interestedin.

DXers without a com pute r and unable toafford the abo ve-mentioned SUbscriptionsshould focus on shortwave shows. Monitor-ing Times publishes schedules for these pro-grams every three month s in its ShortwaveGuid e section. The programs pro viding themost pertinent information are: lVorld of Ra-dio, DXing witlt Cusnbre. Media Network;DXPurtyiine and Communications World.

Christia n Voice ofZambia sentthis rare min i-poster to some of the fi rstlisteners to verify the station,

OX WindowBCDXEDXPCumbreDX

publ ications that either cover the entire spec -trum ur narrow the focus base d on criteriasuch as region. frequency. or station network,Other media publicize le ggings in addit ion toproviding information on new stations orchanges with existin g ones.

An informed Dx cr' s media list includesthe following resources (sec side bar for de-tails).

DXers should get both the World Radio TvHandboo k ( WR T H ) and Passport 10wortdbun d Radio (P WBR) annually.

There arc several exce llent so ft-copy pub-lications for the DXcr with Internet acce ss:DX Willdow. Broadcastin g DX (BCDXJ. Elec-tronic DX Press (EDXPJ. and Cmnbre DK.

Those without Internet access should takeout a subscription to the North AmericanShortwave Association 's Journal and theDanish Shortwave Ctub International's(DS WClJSllOrn"a"e News. Stud y the logg ingsin both and the section entitled . Listener 'sNotebook (NASWAi. World N,...s. and DXNe...s and Tips (DSWCI) .

Quer ies on subscription rates for the NASW A Journal may be sent to: NAS WA , 45Wildflower Road. Levittown . PA 19057. USA .

Querie s for Shortwave News may be sent to: DSWCI. Ta vleager 3 1. DK-2670 Greve.Denmark. Or try the e-mai l address listed above for DX Window.

Schedule tim es for Glenn Hauser' s lVorld ofRadio can probably be found by lookingat Glenn' s co lum n on page 34. or via Internet at www.grove.netl-gha user/

The latest schedule of DXing with Cumbre, which is broadcast via WHRI and KWHRis avail abl e via: WHRI. P.O. Box 12. Sooth Bend. IN 46624. USA : Internet h tlp:1Iwww.grove.net/-cumbrel or

Radio Neth erl ands' Media Network: can be reached at: P.O . Box 222. 1200 JGHilversum, The Netherl ands. Internet http:ttwww. r nw.Dlor

HCJB in Ecuador produces the DX Partyline: Casilla 17- 17-691 , Quito. Ecuador.Internet h tlp:llwww.h ej b.org or

Kim Elliott at the Voice of America hosts Communications World: Voice of America.Washington. D.C. 20547, USA. Internet htlp:llwww.voa .gov or

A receiver and antenna are necessary forDXing. but so is inform ation . Without suchinfurmatiou . every DXcr wo uld be attemptingto slowly create a rad io database from scratch!

A more expensi ve recei ver or ante nna mayimprove reception. but followin g the aboveidea s imp roves liste ning dramatically and isvirtual ly free. Use therecomm ended resourc esto obtain the latest infonnation. Organize thatinformatio n to kee p reference books currentand ro crearc a hit list .

Arm ed with your hit list. liste n daily, evenif it is only for 20 minutes. Be persistent andnever give up on a station. The greatest joyand greatest rewards await those who put intheir best. well- inform ed and org anized ef-fort.


M T PROJ ECT

ASimpleBattery

DIScharger

RL :LED:

S:

R:

2

PARTS LIST

relay, 5 vo lt de , SPDT (RS 275-243)light emitting diode, 12 volts (RS276-209 )switch, momentary, push button,SPST, normally open (RS 275- 1517)potentiome ter, 100 ohms, lineartaper, not a trimmeralligator clips or other means ofconnecting to the battery

By Werner Heim+

NO LED

depress the swi tch momentaril y. The LEDshould light up. When the LED goe s out. thebatt ery is at its proper disch arged vo ltage .Let it stand for an hour or so. then me asu reits no-load vo ltage. If it is too low. increasethe resistance bet ween the external leads alittle : if too high. reduce this resista nce.

On ce the resistance has been properlyset. it should need no further attention.

That ' s all there is to it!

RL.------- -- --

I

: NCIIIII

s

R100Q

Before usc, adju st the resistan ce bet weenthe two externa l connectors with the poten-tiome ter to 125 ohms while the push buttonswitch depressed . Some individual adju st-ment from this valu e may be necessary asthe co il resistanc e and drop- out volt age ofrel ays can vary from unit to unit.

To usc , connect the battery, observingpolarity. (I f polarity is reversed. no damageis done. bu t the LED will no t light.) Then

,

n November 199 3. the "Experi mentersWor kshop" colu mn in Monito ring Timesoutlined plans for a very fine battery

charger. Here is a simple co mpanion de-vice : a battery discharger,

Why wou ld anyone wa nt such a gadget?Most NiCd recharge able batteries do notrecharge prop erl y unless they have firstbeen discharged to the ir design voltage.The co mmon "s ix pack" of cells is full ycharged at 8.64 volt s and fully di scharged at6.0 volts. However. many pieces of elec-tronic equipm ent.especial!y hand-h eld scan-ners, sto p worki ng when the battery vo ltagedrop s (0 a figure conside rably abov e 6 va lls.To ass ure a proper charg e. the batte ry shouldthen be di sch arged to 6.0 volts before beingrecharged .

Whi le it is possible to discharge thebatt ery by simply putt ing a resistor of ap-propriate va lue and wattage across the bat -tery term inal s. such uncont roll ed disch arg-ing may drop the batte ry we ll below sixvo lts. possibly shortening its useful life.Th e simple device described here automati-ca lly xtops the discharging at bou t six volts.

The circ uit is shown in figure I. Point-to-poin t wiring is suitable and the entire de vicecan be insta lled in a very small project boxsuch as RS 270-230 . Th e part s needed areshown in the chart at top of the page.


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The World Above 30MHz~:_-----------The Little Scanner Feature That Couldn't

These are exc iting times in scanning. Some grea t new productshave deb uted in the past ycar - most notabl y the Trunktru ckcrs.REL M' s CTCSS/ DCS-ea pahle scanners, and the PCR IOOOfrom ICOM. In thinking about these and other radios. however. onehas to won der about the ir va riou s feat ures and how many of them arcactually used.

In so me ways the bells and whistles arc ak in to the op tionalaccessory list on a car, except that unfortunately. you don't have asimilar choke of features from which to pick and chouse. Whi le youcan opt to purchase a tone board for the Unidcn Bearcat BC-7 60 OfBC-9000. you ca n't . for example. elect to save ten dollars by doingaway with the Send key on the BC9000 when yo u ca ll yo ur order into a dealer.

So ofte n when co nsumers purchase product s, whether il be a cnr.1.I VCR. o r most anything else, we have the choice of spending moredollars to e ithe r upgrade a parti cul ar model with more accessories orto step up in model cla ss to a more expensive. and more feature-laden.edition. How many of us have laid out more cash for the T V withpicture-in-picture, on ly to never usc it? How many of us ha ve laid outextra dough to purchase the sca nner with 500 channels. only 10 usc300 or so"!

Here ' s a "quick-and -dirty" list of oft en little-used sca nner feu-tures. Your co mments and add itions to the list would beap prec iated .

no.) If yo u' re actually turned on by those pager bee ps and boops.please pu t this magazine dow n and immediate ly sec k assistance .

No o ne wo uld program 454.025 into their radio and no one wou ldsearch the 454~455 MHz band or any other pag ing portion of thespec tru m, anyway. Sure. if you' re receiv ing intermod from thosegrossly over-po wered pagin g tran smi tters. I suppose the data keymight hel p. And. if the manufacturer wants to thro w in that or anyother flu ff-feature o n a rad io. we ' ll take it eve n if we never use it. (Inever adjust the tilt stee ring on my car. but I did n' t choose nul to buythe car beca use this featu re was incl uded .) Just, plea se. don' t try tocharge us extra for it!

O n the TrunkTrackers. the data key also now do ub les as a key toenter into the fl eet -map programmi ng proce ss as we ll as to checkwhich bank you' re trunk ing. At lea st we ' rc ge tting our money ' s worthnow.

The Send KeyTh is is one of my favori te al l-tim e useless keys. How ma ny of us

SEND the programming o f one channel in to anothe r channel? Don 'twe all j ust reprogram the rad io?

Turbo Scan or Search

Over 300 or 400 channels

How many of us rea lly scan more than this number ofchunncls OI lone tim e on any scanner? It ' s like try ing to search the 225 ~400 MH/.military airc raft band by se tting the lim its at e ithe r end of thisspec trum. It' s too much to search at on e time, and you'H miss 10 0much.

Just like you 're counse led to narro w yo ur search ranges. yo ushould lim it the number o f chan nels you scan so yo u don 't missco nversations on chan nel three. for ex ample. when yo ur scanner isscanning by channel 437 (a lthough a fast scan rate helps ).

While it may ma ke sense to have a scan ner with sends ofchannelsif you lock ce rtai n banks out each time you sC'IIl. the best way to SC' Ulin this man ner nowadays is to usc a computer -programmab le (amico ntro llable ) scanner into whic h yo u can downl oad yourc hannel sets.

Wh y wo uldn' t you wa nt tu scan or sea rch as fast as pos siblc? Thisfeature is. we believe. more to show tha t the scanner can be sped upunli ke no other scanner....and that yo u have the option to speed up atyour own choos ing . T his foll ows along nicely with our car analogy .However. in a car the re ' s usually an understandable trade-off - youusuall y trade gas-mileage for speed . for example.

BUI. with a scanner the re ' s no trad e-off. You gain not hing bygoing slower: If yo ucan search faster. then go ahead and search faster.

Lockout ReviewThis isn' t a bad or usel ess fea ture : it' s j ust one that we lind we

hardl y eve r usc. Lockout review allows you to ste p through thechannels in the radio wh ich are locked out so you can make the choiceof whether or no! you wish to unlock them . It' s not so mething thisau thor do es too ofte n. hUI we ' ll take it.

Data Key

w hen we first saw this key on some Unide n (and later. on Unidc n-bui lt Rad io Shack mod els). ma ny wondered . "wow. can I track a trun kwith th is or perhap s foll ow M DT communica tio ns?" (Now that wouldhave been interes ring. )

Alas, thc datu key allows the scanner to skip certain pagingtran smi ssions (the bee ps and boops we co uld all cure less about).Really. how many of us listen to those paging frequencie s to beginwith? (I' m not talkin g abo ut decoding them ...which is a se rious no-

Super-High End Scanner FeaturesI ( )() kHz hand scope - Who uses it'! Signal nav iga tion? Remote

control from yo ur couch"!Notice to scanner man ufacture rs: if you wa nt to give us these

fearurcs. fhats great ! We may use them once or tw ice and perhaps ahandful o f customers will usc them daily. But give us creSS/ DCScapab ility and trun ktracki ng first! Or, now that we've got Motoro latrunkt rucking. how abo ut address ing the other trunk ing protocols?We co uld go O il and on.


If we've du mped o n anyone of yo ur favo rite scanner fea tures.please let us know. Perhap s we've underestimated its value. Ce r-tainly. we applaud the manufactu rers ' efforts to pro vide us withsomething more tha n Scan . Manu al. Locko ut, and Delay _._it' s ju stthat sometimes they give us features that we' d trade back in for cashif we could. (I ' d like to hear from yo u at Scanniastcr taao l.conu

Scanner FearsOn the lmem cr' s SCAN-L list server. Jeff Kettell recently posed

the following thought-provoking and somewhat tro ubling qu estion:"Maybe it' s ju st me or may be it ' s the fact that I am not living ncar

Metropolitan Boston any longer. But this weekend the co unt ry hashea rd about the wake of Michael Kennedy. SOil of late US AttorneyGe neral Rob ert F. Kennedy fro m Hyannisport. Massachusetts. As canbe expected. med ia from all over New England and from the nat ionalnetwor ks as well as the tab loids were all in Hyannisport to cover thestory. As I live on ly two miles from the Kennedy Co mpou nd. youwould think that I stumbled onto a gold mine.

"Well. it was not anyth ing like I would/sho uld have expected. T hescanners were qu ict .i.a scary quiet ...hopcfully not a sign o f the time sahead. As mentioned . it co uld possibly be that since this is a good onehour south of Bosto n. the city news crews could not use thei r radiosto talk with the co ntro l ruoms in Boston. Everyone was usingce llphones - everyone - police o ffice rs. still phot ographers. videophotographers. news anchor persons. even the general public thatgathered ou tside of the med ia bar ricad es. There was very littlecommunica tion heard between 450 .000 to45 1.000 MHz and 455 .00 0

to 456.000 MH z - the ' normal' pre ss/medi a channels - as thepeople at the barrica de talked back to the sate llite trucks parkedfurther down the road from the gathering area on simplex freqs.

"And ycs, there was an IFB (interruptable fold back j or two withinthe 16 1.xxx MH z band. But nor nearl y as activ e as one would expect.Th e on ly 'exciting ' thing I picked up with the O pto Scout were twowireless microph on e freqs on the video cameras , one at 185.xxx M Hzand the othe r at 209 .xxx MH z.

"Cell pho nes were probably even used as live audio feeds back tothe con tro l roo ms. (One can o nly guess. as it would be illegal to listento these comms. especially one tha t I assume would go fro mHyannisport back to the contro l room ofCNN in Atlanta ")

"Eve n the local police department was contro lling their part o f theordeal by sending info back and forth over MDTs (Mobile DataTermi nal) from the co mmand post to the station. Also. there were acouple of dist inctive beep beeps from those Nexte l radio s/phones!pagers.

" Is this the futu re ofsca nning'?Everything is becom ing impossibleto listen to on your everyday over-thecounter scanner!"

Certa inly Jeffhas so me va lid po ints. Ten or twenty yea rs ago at aneve nt such as this, the airwaves would have been rife with VHF andUHF analog communica tions to which he co uld have listened . Yettechno logy, which has bro ught us cell phones, digital pes andNE XT EL services. mobile dat u term inals (MOTs) . and the like. hasalso brought us an inc reasing nu mber of rcpcaterize d system s, so thatwe're ahle to monitor both sides of mnny conversations.

This yea r. technology brought us the Trunktracker. and. for thefirst time since the daw n of trun king (Motorola trun king, at least ).

Enhance your WiNRADiO ...with the new Digital Suite!

~1'LWaveform

Analysis

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See weather facsimi le. readpacket and ACA RS mes-sages, decode DTMF andCTCSS tones, find specificsignal types while skippingover unwanted stations. ana-lyze audi o waveforms (0-20kHz). and digitally recordand play back transmissions!

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~~ (continued)a UHF TV beam antenna and a low-band ground plane, Gary, but pleasecorrect us if we ' re wro ng .

Gary would like bette r perfor-mance on VHF as he likes DXi nghigh -ba nd police signals. He ask swhat our experience has been withsuch equipment. He writes furthe r." I need a good 10-13dB gain VHF155 MHz beam . I had the idea to buya Cushcraft A 148- 105 ten-element.2-meter. I J .2d B gai n beam for

$64.~5 . but I' ve been to ld by manypeople that it won ' t work. Th ey saythe gain falls off stee ply above andbelow the 146-148 (ham 2-me ter )ran ge . See ms like the mo re ele mentsand the more gain the more naITOWthe band width: '

Th is editor has not had a goodexperi ence with the one VHF-beamthat was tried .The professional beamwas tuned to 155 MHz and suppliedwith a 155 MH zpreamp onthctower.but the effect was marginal at best.Wh ile we have found UHF and 800MH z bea ms to be outstanding , VHFhas been sore ly lacking. If any of ourreaders has any wo rds of wisdo m forGary , please write .

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\Ve start ed the co lumn looking back at the new equipment intro-duced in 1997 . But what was showcased as com ing up in 1998 at this .year' s Co nsumer Elect roni cs Sho w (C ES) in Las Vegas?

On the scanner side of the Uniden booth. the BC-895X LT wasprom inently (and deserved ly) disp layed as the latest and greates t. Nonew mobile scanner was introduced. but Uniden did announce that anew mobile TrunkTru ck er. to be named the BC-780 (not the 765 or795 as sugges ted on the Internet) is unde r development.

The Florida-based RELM company was displaying their new MS -180 and MS-200 mobile scanners. lr' s good to see the former Regencyscanner co mpany back in the business. as competition breeds betterpricing and technology for all co ncerne d.

\Vhile we checked ourconvention guide for AOR.Alinco. Yupiteru.and GR E (Rad io Shack is not a manu facturer and never has had abooth). the unly other scanner maker with a publ ic presence at theshow was ICOM . This high -end dev elop er was touting their exci tingPCR 1noo, the black-box receiver you connect and co ntrol thro ughyour PC' s serial por t. (Sec John Cata lano ' s two-p art rev iew in theFebruary and March issues.)

Th ere was une very surprising new en trant into the scannermarketplace this past year: RCA. The GR E-manufactured RP6198scanner was displayed in the "CES Innovation s Design & Enginee r-ing" pavil ion. Besides the fact that this scanner is speci fically de-s igned fo r the auto mot ive racing enthusia st. this sca nner is alsonota ble for its color: bright red!

Watch fur more on this new equipment in future issues as Moni -toring Times returns for a closer look.

Consumer Electronics Show 1998

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03 march 1998

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