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ffiew$ffi*effitrIrrty Editorial

Sadly I have to say that I am writing this editorial atthe very end of my annual holidays and by the time you allread this I will unfortunately be back into the full swing ofthings. As always at this time of year a timely reminder to"watch what one does say" over the air, as you neverknow who is listening.This year during my trip to Spain I took along my SONYReceiver to see what I could hear but more on that later.

So what has happened this month. Well there havebeen contests, 6M Trophy, PW QRP Contest plus ourown 10M Contest. As I write this some of the above arestill to happen but I am sure that fun will have been had byall and that fuller reports will be written in the future. Alsothis month the club put on a Demonstration Station atboth the Cockenzie & Port Seton and the Macmerry GalaDays, again hopefully fuller reports on these at a laterdate. I personally see the demonstration stations as big as-sets to the club calendar. Yes I know we sometimes getsome or even no response from "Joe Public" but if at somepoint in time it does produce a future Amateur then wehave done our job. We must remember it is a useful tool tosell this great hobby ofours so we should take every op-portunity to do so.

To events happening this month. Obviously the 2 bigevents of the month are \lHF Field Day which is thisweekend, if you can't come then why not work us to giveus some points, and the other event is the IOTA Contestfrom Tiree. Good luck to you all with that one. There areother contests around on the VHFAIHF front but I am notsure ifanyone is taking part in these or not.

Through the editorial l would like to remind you allabout our Junk Night in August. As always in that event,as well as turning up, my contribution from you would bemost grateful. i.e. the home baking for the refreshments,Raffie Prizes (these can either be given to me beforehandor you can just bring whatever along on the evening) orlastly any monetary donation to help to cover the costs.Remember whatever we make on the night, along withwhat we have already have raised, is donated to ouradopted Charity the British Heart Foundation. Thanks inadvance for whatever help you give.

Ok that is it from me asain this month so eniov thenewsletter.

Vrlilre 7,1${o 7

On Tuesday evening 8th June I, (GM0NTL) wasvisited at home by Bill Hardie VE3EFX and his XYL Tess\fE3HIR. I'd spoken to Bill on several occasions on l{Fand also worked them both last month on FIF using2SONTL.

Bill originally comes from Hawick and he'd promisedto drop in and see me with some QSL cards during his tripacross to Scotland.I decided to take them down to the"Ship" to meet some of our club members but as it turnedout only Ron GM4IKU and Cambell GM1AVA were pres-ent. However, we all had a good chat with them and it wasnice to see some new faces on a Tuesday night. Both Billand Tess are still very keen hams and spend a lot of timeon the radio with Bill's main interest these days being inSatellite working.

I hope to arrange a sked with them on their return toKincardine, Ontario and I'11 publish the details for anyonethat's interested.

73 Ron GM0NTL

I am once again undertaking another Novice Classand I have at this point in time 4 candidates plus a possi-b1e 56. I am mentioning about the class in case any one ofthe above candidates decides not to take the course thenit would open the door for possible others that may be in-terested. Due to limited space and facilities the maximumthat I can cater for is 4 people.

This year there is a significant change to when I amrunning the course, which might not suit everyone. This isunfortunately due to my work as I can not guarantee thatI will be available through the week, so the change is thatI am running the course on Sunday afternoons from 13:00to 17:00 instead af2x2 hourly evening slots. I hope thischange will work out ok but I can only try it. To be hon-est I have enjoyed taking the courses even though theyhave been difficult at times and knowing that there arepeople very interested in taking the course I could not letthem down.

I intend starting the course on Sunday 28n August inpreparation for the December 1999 Novice Exam. If youknow of anyone interested please let me know ASAP.

Visitors frornVE Land

Novise GlassH

Bob GM4IJYZ Bob GM4IIYZ

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R.C. Page 2

Events Golrrrnn

Once again here is the program of club events scheduled for the coming months. lt is very disappointing that out of a totalmembeiship of some +o oJa regulars at the club night only a nucleus oiabout 7 or eight iegulirs take fart in these activitiesso why not come along and support YOUR club and ENJOY yourselfl Or is it just a drinking club you want?

Time for the big one again...VHF National FieldDay! Here are the details together with all the otheramateur radio happenings in the area...

JULY2nd Club night in the Thorntree Inn, Port Seton,7pm till late3/4th RSGB VHF National Field Day atMainslaughter Law 14-14UTC. We hope to be onsite between 9 and 10am to set things up in timefor the 3pm start. As ever, activity shouldbe on 7jMIIz, l44NftIz,432\/tr{z and 12961vfr12.The more the merrier so come along and lend ahand or practice your operating skills. Alternativelyall contacts on these bands will be appreciated.4th RSGB LowPower Contests (3.5 & 7MI{z CW)*SEE NOTE*l.lth 2nd RSGB 50MHz Backpackers Contest 11-l5UTCl7th RSGB l44l\/tr12 Low Power Contest 14-22UTC *SEE NOTE*18th RSGB 432l\/trIz Low Power Contest 08-14UTC "SEE NOTE*24/25th IOTA Contest 1999 (12-L2UTC). Thisyear there will once more be a club entry from theisland of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides. At the mo-ment 9 or 10 people are making the trip. Look outfor us on 40m or 80m in the late evening. ContactJohn MM0CCC or Cambell MM1AVA for moreinfo.AUGUST6th Club night in the Thorntree Inn, Port Seton,Tpmtilllate13th Annual Junk Sale, Community Centrs, MainHall, Port Seton. Bring along your own'Junk" and sell it yourself. Tables on a First Come ** NOTE {<** TIIE CONTESTS ABOVE WHICHFirst Served basis. Entrance fee f I for everyone. REFER TO THIS NOTE ARE THOSE WHICHMoney Raised DONATED to the BRITISH THE CLUB "MAY" TAKE PART IN. THOSEF{EART FOLINDATION. 6.30pm to 9.30pm. WITH NO REFERENCE TO THIS2ll22nd Lighthouse Weekend at Barns Ness. Yet NOTE ARE ALREADY DEFIMTES.another Northern Lighthouse weekend atGB2LBN. Lots of fun and frolics by the sea! See you asain next month.SEPTEMBAR3rd Club night in the Thorntree Inn, Port Seton,7pm till late

,,,1t.,.,.,.- ' ' , .,, ' ,,.:.., ' , ,r, i.r ' t,,, r,-,,, ' , ., i '", 1..,, ' ,- ' , ,,,,:.t ' l ' ' -,..GM4IKU, ,

18th GMDX Convention, the GMDX Groups veryown convention which will be held in the KingRobert Hotel, Stirling and starts at 12.30. After-noon lectures include "Antennas For The DXer" byChris GM3WOJ and "TheZL9CI Expedition" byDeclan EI6FR. The latter lecture includes the firstUK showing of the ZL9CI expedition video!! In theevening the GMDX Group annual dinner will takeplace. Entry f,5 convention and f 14 dinner.19th Scottish Amateur Radio Convention(SARCON), McRobert Pavilion, Ingliston. Doorsopen 10:30am (10am for disabled) until 5pm. Fur-ther info from Tommy Menzies GM1GEQ onTel.No.0131 445 3928. I expect help will be re-quired again so watch this space.24/25th Leicester Amateur Radio & ElectronicsExhibition a few from the club normally travelto this event so ask around for info.OCTOBERlst Club night in the Thorntree Inn, Port Seton,7pm till late15th Video Night in Port Seton Community CentreMeeting Room (upstairs) from 7.30pm-9.30pmVideos should be "Aerial Circus G6CJ" and"Satellite Fuji". Normal f,l entry applies.Z4thGalashiels Rallv. Contact Jim GMTLUN forfurther info.NO\rEMBER5th Club night in the Thorntree Inn, Port Seton,7pm till late12th GMDX Group AGML9th "Contesting" atalkby Tom Wylie GM4FDM.Starts 7.30pm in Port Seton Community Centre27th Proposed date for the club Christmas Meal.

73 de Colin (GMOCLN)

I must admit very enjoyable all round. The big-gest difference that is very obvious is costs,apart from the weather. At home the touringholiday for two nights cost about the same as 1week in Spain, no wonder we all go abroad.Enough of that and back to my topic.

I decided this year that I would take alongmy Sony ICF-SW7600G receivei whilst onholiday in Spain just to see if there were anyremarkable differences in reception. The Sonyreceiver covers all the HF Bands with all rea-sonable strong signals being received ok using

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R.C. Page t

Receiving Abroad

My summer holidays this year, along with my XYL VK's about 5&9 for about an hour- These were being the onlyYvonne, we ventured for a week in Sunny Benidorm on stations on the band. On the same day on 2A, 15 and l8MSpain'sCostaBlanca. Aweekyoumayquestionwhynottwo \{K's and JA's plus all the normal European stations werein the sun? The reason is that both Yvonne and I feel that a heard. The other 2 days that I listened I am afraid nothingweek is enough for us plus we both fancied touring some of really exotic was heard plus the bands were only open as far asScotland during our second week. A huge contrast I know but 15M. Over the 3 separate days of listening I found myself lis-.: ::'1ff'#"*Y'#':T fJ' i':::tr;#.:"Ti;

my head. (I had no choice as I didn't have anypaper or a pen with me to write any'thing down).

,'Listening whilst lying To be honest I enjoyed the CW more than I did

sururarnrng the sSB listening. I know that Ron GM0NTL has

a''hep"'Ii" rjl?;#*f1ikj**n*#;?ll:J#;only ever heard 2 GM's and they were both on

9Y y* I didlear a few.SM's on SSB who were

all a good 5&9 so the bands were open to thethe attached whip antenna. Better reception is achieved by at-taching the Sony supplied Compact Antenna (wire) to thewhip and extending the wire as far as it can stretch.

I first tried listening to all the IIF Bands whilst in mybedroom trying both the whip and wire antennas. Sadly to saythat nothing much was heard due to the excessive electricalnoises that were around. Over the course of the week I triedthis same procedure but sadly in every case I was not verysuccessful. Apart from trying to listen whilst in our room Ialso managed on three different days whilst lying sunbathingunder the shade at the pool. The pool in the hotel that westayed in was actually up on the roof. On all three days thatwe used the pool we managed to get a position where I couldrun out the Wire antenna and it was not in a position to betripped or fallen over by anyone. On each of the days I lis-tened for about approximately 3 hours on different bands. Ononly 1 day did I hear lOM open to VK managing to listen to 2

Port Seton GaIa IDay Station

On Saturday 12 Iune, the club put on a demo station as last year. Unfortunately the wx was poor with a very wet start tothe day but it faired up as the afternoon progressed.

The tent was donated by Longniddry Scouts ard was erected by Euan (2M1EUV ) and his brother Calum (2MIDZS )with the help of a friend. When I arrived on site, which was in the park adjacent to the Community Centre, I was greeted byRon (GM4IKU) and Bill(MMO BI(K ). While we waited on the arrival of the tent, we set the radio up in the my car but foundthe bands were in very bad shape. We then had the arrival of Robert (MMIBQO) and Cambell (MMIAVA). Robert kindlysupplied 2 very large batteries which kept us going all afternoon and the antennas were supplied by Tom(GM4LRU) and Ron(GM4tKU).The station was duly set up in the tent and Robert also set up his IC706 and tried out RTTY etc during the course of the day.We got on the air around ll-15Z, using the call ZS4UYZ, and made a couple on contacts on 40 metres then I took the deci-sion the work on 20 metres. We were all pretty hungry by this time, so Cambell went to the local cafe and came back with ba-con rolls and cups of cofee which went down a treat. Thanks for that Cambell!

We did not have many visitors coming to see us, due mainly to the wx, which resulted in all the events being held in theCommunity Centre but we did have a short visit from Liz (2MLGLD ) the mother of Euan and Calum.The station was closed at l5 0AZ after having made 42 contacts with 17 different countries around Europe. Not at all bad inmy opinion especially with conditions being as they were.I have decided to set up a similar station for Macmerry Gala Day which will be held on Saturday 19 June and can only hopethat the wx has improved by then.

Ron GMONTL.

North.Overall I was a bit disappointed in what I heard as it apr

peared no better that here at home, ah well maybe the nextvisit will be better.

For your information on my 4 days touring aroundScotland although I had taken my 2W70cm and 10M radios Inever actually switched them on, basically I never found timeto do so. Strange though when we visited John O'Groats thegentleman who takes the official photographs turned out to bea GM8. How did I know well his car was parked next to hisbooth with the door open and the Orkney repeater was boom-ing out the speaker? Yes I did have blether before you ask.Just goes to show you eh!

I wonder if any of you have taken your receiver'sabroad and I wonder what your results were like? Why not tellus all? So to the next holiday and SW listening.

Bob GM4UYZ

1.

Cockenzie & Port Seton A,R.C. Page

Arrraterrr Anagrartrs

It's brain ache time again. Anagrams of words with an Amateur Radio link are given below. When you figure out what thewords are, they can be entered horizontally in the grid provided. Any black squares represent spaces between words. When thegrid is completed correctly you should have another word in the highlighted vertical box. See how well you get on thismonth....

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.7.

This months clues are...

cop DUEL, 2. A MORTAL COP, 3. OUTERMOST & 4. SEEN VISIT, 5. IRONING TOM" 6. NOT CONNTVE,EARTI{LYPEG

JUNE T999 ANSWERSI. COVERAGE,2. MAGNETIC STORM,3. DISTORTION,4. CURRENTPROBE,5. BALANCED,6. CONNECTOR"

7. PENTII'M

The vertical word last month was 'ENTRANT".

73 Colin (GM0CLN)

Glub Vistt

The Following was received by Bob GM4UYZ FollowingKent's visit to our last club nisht

Subject: Thanks for visit

I would very much that you send my best regards to all of themembers in the club. I had a very nice evening together withyou, which I will remember for a long time.Please express my wann greetings to Kenny that made this pos-sibly for me and the way he was engaged in setting me offat theairport and everything. I really appreciated that.I did look through my log when I returned home and found thatwe have not been in contact, Bob, but I have been in contactwith other members of the club. GM0IILK and GMOICF/? bothfrom 1997 but I have not received any QSL cards. AlsoGMOWDF, John and manytimes on 2 m Aurora from Stock-holm with GM4IPK.I hope I will be able to work more of you nice fellows andmaybe also see you all again.Once again thanks for a nice evening best ofgood luck to youall.73'sde SM0ELV, ON9CLVKent

V

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R.C. Page 5

^ finnrral Tables Updatc

VHFAJHF $cores are th€ lotal number of DXCC countries and Maidenhead locator squares $rork€d on each band.

Cockontie S PgnFo-tqn ARC AnnUCLHF Taple A$ Of :t6& {un6 tggg

Cockaqrie & Port $9ton ARG Alnpal VHF/UIfF Tabte As Of t€gr Jlrne- 1909

gellaaqnLast

UsdfitoSOilHz TOMHZ 144MHa 432MHz

Tatsll'quarETotal

giand

Totaletrv Ssr Ctrv gor Ctrv Sqr Ctrv SorIITMOBQI tSJun-gg o o 3 I 39 '128 1€,7

13-Jun- 0 o I 2A 15 58 73dMoccc f 9-Mav-9€ 2 3 t 2 4 22 1 z I 29 37?M4uY.E 1&May-g{ o o 7 5 2 7 1 2 4 14 1B

'OCLN16^Jun-991 0 s o o 2 4 o o 4

GMONTL 16-Jun-991 0 n 0 o 1 2 3 5

:allsienLast

LlndatcB.nd tMHz) (irianq

Totalt(}ral

DXCC1.8 3.5 7 to 14 18 21 24 2ABQI 15-Jun-99 36 63 z3 34 339 1?O

3MONTL l6'Jun-gg 21 21 32 0 335 139[noBEx 10-Jun-99 o o 33 o 4? AR 46 6 24 18S s3GMOCLN 18-Jun-gg o 2 18 2 s1 20 36 2 12 143 69

t9{ilay-9{ ?s 16 o 25 2 13 o 10 a7 51UMT}AMV 1 1-Jun-99 o 42 I 10 g 61 463M4UYZ 16-Mr o 1 J 16 I 10 1 41 2A5M4e\,/J 2O-Jan-€l€ o z t) 0 3 o o 1 a I I3M4WLL 13-Jun-99 0 o o u 0 o o 7

HF Scafes are the total numher of DXCC countries wsrked on each band-ffi,-q-',ffiffi-';;q = Band Leading score For Each Band

Annual Tables Update As Of 16th June 1999

What's been happening on the bands this month then? Not toomuch is the probable answer. Lots of people have been busywith holidays and other summer activities so there has been anoticeable drop in new ones this month. The new 2N2S/27prefixes are still available until 3lst July so make the most ofit! Some of this months highlights have been...

Ron GM0NTL/2S0NTL has had a very quiet month which isin total contrast to 1000 plus QSOs in his log the last time. Iguess he burnt himself out with all the talking! His new onesthis month are... 141vff{z: Mexicop(E\;ZaTvfIIz: Aland Is.(OH0); 29\/ftIz: Guyana(8R). An increase of 3 on [IF.

David GM4WLL/2S4WLL has had a quieter month, mainlydue to nappy changing duties (congrats again David). How-ever, he has managed additions on both 4m and 10m. Theywere... zSIvIHz : Cyprus(SB), Czech Republic(OK), Hungary(HA), Slovenia(S5); 70MHz : IO77(GM). Plus 4 on IIF and 1more on VHF.

Wallace MM0AMV/2A0AMV fell victim of work with no ad-ditions, as he had no time to play radiol

John M0BEX has had another reasonable month with a fewuseful additions. His new ones are... TNfrIz: N.Ireland(Gl);lfil\ftlz : Azores(CU), Lichtenstein$fBO), Luxembourg(LX),Belgium(ON)" Denmark(OZ), USA(W); lSMI{z : Japan(JA),Greece(SV); 2l\&Iz : Uganda(SX), Slovenia(S5); 24WIz :Zambia(9J); 28MI{z: Libya(5A), Sweden(SM). An increaseof l4 on FIF.

A very active month at GMOCLN/2S0CLN. This was helped

greatly with some access to 7MIlz,lOMHz, l8Mllz and24A&lz New ones this month have been... TWIz . Germany(DL), Eire@I), Belarus(EU), France(F), England(G), Wales(GW), Italy(I), Czech Republic(OK), Slovak Republic(OM),Belgium(ON), Netherlands@A), Slovenia(S 5), Poland( SP),European Russia(UA), Asiatic Russia(UA9), Ukraine(UT),USA(W); l0MIIz : Italy(I), European Russia(UA); 14Mt{z :Belarus(Ell), Isle Of Maa(GD), Jordan(fY), Belgium(ON),Denmark(OZ), Bosnia(T9), Iceland(TF), Kaliningradsk(UA2),Uzbek(UJ), Romania(Yo); 18MHz : Croatia(9A), Guade-loupe@G), Hungary(HA), ItalyO, Japan(JA), US Virgin Is(KP2), Bulgaria$,2), Finland(O$, CzechRepublic(OK), Slo-vak Republic(OM), Brazil(PY), Sweden(SM), Poland(SP),Asiatic Russia(UA9), European Russia(UA)" Ukraine(UT),Canada(VE), USA(W), Romania(YO), Gbraltar(ZB);zll:s/*Iz: Georgia(4l), US Virgin Is(KP2), Bulgaria(LZ), Ro-mania(YO), Macedonra(23); Z Wlz : Libya(SA), Germ!any(Dl.)- That means 56 more on HFYet another good month for Jim MM0BQI which at long lastsees him squeezing his way to the top ofthe IIF table in addi-tion to the lead he already has on VHF. Well done Jim! Hisnew additions were... l.SMlIz : Croatia(9A), Balearic Is(EA6), Antarctic(EM), Belarus(EW), England(G), Slovenia(S5), European Russia(UA); 3.5MIIz : Antarctic(EM), Be-larus(EW), Guernsey(Gl), Slovak Republic(OM), Sweden(SIvD; TMHz : Canary Is(EAS), Moldova(ER), HungaryftIA),Denmark(OZ); lOMHz : Moroco(CN), Cuba(CO), MarketRee(OJ0); l4Mllz : Antarctic(EM), Scotland(GM), Svalbard(JW), Corsica(TK), Kazakh(IJN), Venezuela(YV); l8MHz :Morroco(CN), St Paul Is(CY9), Canary Is(EA8), San Marino(T7); 2tVfrlz : Cyprus(5B), Moroco(CN), Jordan(JY), Leba-non(OD), Crete(SV9), Hong Kong(VS6), Bulgaria(YO);2 4\,frI2 : Zarbia(9 I), Palestine@4) Z8tvftlz : Croatia(9A),France(F), HungaryftIA), Lichtenstein(IB0), Czech Republic

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R,C. Page 6

(OK), Slovenia(S5), Sweden(SM); 50MHz : 41 new squaresand the following new countries... Canary Is(EA8), Estonia{ES), FranceA total of46 new ones on F{F and 9 countries/4l squares onVHF.John MMOCCC is the subject of this month's focus. Locatedin Tranent, John uses an FT1000MP barefoot (@100W) onHF to a ll2 size G5RV. With the FTl000MP tuner this coversfrom TMHz up to 28MHz and, at a push, some parts of3.5MHz. John says the wire anteilna and low(ish) powermeans working DX stations on SSB in a pile up is difficult,however, despite this John has had some surprise DX alreadythis year. He admits to having let his CW slip a bit and onlyever ventures onto tIF CW during the contests as, in all hon-esty, he "can't be bothered with the long drawn out format ofsome CW QSO's". To improve his station John hopes to add asecond, probably vertical antenna for either 21 or 28MHz. Hesays that in the interest of neighbourly harmony "an increase indBW is NOT an option".On \{HF John is QRV on 6m,4m, and2m. The 6m and 4mstation consists of a Mutek TWF57a trarsverter, driven bythe FT1000MP. The l000MP has a dedicated transverter portwhich makes the station that bit simpler to use. The antenna isa Tele G3FDW Log Periodic Yagi, of which, the three outer-

Once again we departed on Sunday 20th June to our normalVHF Contesting site at Mainslaughter Law. the operating teamthis year being Colin GM0CLN and myself with CambellMMIAVA! John MMOCCC, Iain MM1CPP and lastly RickyGMIPLY providing the physical backup. Ron GM4IKU justcame to check that we had done everything right. This year weused 2 x 14 MET Yagis stacked horizontally polarised,switchable with a 10 Element Yagi in the vertical position. Thetop aerial being 20 feet off the ground. Accommodation wasthe luxury of a caravan, many thanks Ricky for allowing us tocontest in luxury.

They say that at Midsummer it should be hot and sunny. I amafraid to say that it did not happen in this years PW Contest.While setting up everyone was so cold that we could hardly fitthe nuts on the aerial clamps. Later on during the day we werein the midst of extremely heavy showers, thunder and lighten-ing along with hailstones the size of penny pieces. Summer...you must be joking!

The band conditions were the worst we have ever experiencedin all the years that we have taken part in the contest. It was sobad we thought we had radio and aerial problems. The onlydim lights to brighten the day and get us on the edge of ourseats were a few meteor bursts and a short 2 to 3 secondburst ofltalian. Overall our results, 54 aontacts and 14 squares,are well down and we know we were beaten by DavidGM4WLL/P so we won't be retaining the Frank Hall(Tennamast Trophy) this year. Hopefully David has won it(nice to see another club member do well) and, if he has, itcouldn't have gone to a better person as he works hard on allthe \{HF/IIHF Contests. He thoroughly deserves the win andmust have thousht it was his luckv dav....

most elements are resonant on 6m, and 4 inner elements reso-nate on 4m. This is a very short boom length yagi and is idealfor his QTH as he is restricted to 2 chimneys on the roof tosupport masts. On 2m the station is either a Kenwood TR75le(@25W), or a Mutek TV\iFl44a (this time driven by thel000MP via a PTT switching resistive network), togetherwith a Tokyo l20Watt solid state amplifier. This feeds a lOeleJaybeam, mounted about 2ft above the Tele Log Periodic.John says "unless I move QTH, I cant see me getting QRV on70cm SSB due to the space restrictions for firrther antennas,however, hopefully a solid state amplifier can be added for 4mfairly soon". He continues "4m usage looks like increasing,and this will be compounded by the recent 4m allocation forSlovenia (s5) and the forthcoming Poland (SP) allocation,Iwonder if Radio Gdansk has gone QRT?

Please make sure that I receive your next updates by Wednes-day 2lst July at the latest.

That's all for now so 73, good DX and I'll see you again nextmonth.

Colin GM0CLN

Fathers Day, his Birthday and also winning the Tennamast Tro-phyl !

I spoke to John MOBEX, my work colleague, on the Mondayto see ifthey had been out to do the backpackers section. Hesaid that they had and the conditions for them werejust as badas we experienced. The only Scottish station that they heardwas David. Even they were wondering if we had wentout for the contest. Anyway one consolation was that Bandconditions were bad all round.

Our best DX was G0KYS/P in IO91GI Square at a total of505km.

That's it then not our best ever contest but still enjoyed by eve-ryone who was there, anyway there is still next years contest tolook forward to....

Practical Wireless QIIP Gomtest

Bob GM4UYZ

For $ale

I have a tower/trailer for sale it is not of thelattice type it is of the antenna mast sort with thesquare tubing it is 3 sections and going up to 30ft

full extended. I am looking for f 150 for it.Can'be contacted at either my Email address at

WeeDevil2@aol.com or my mobilenumber (0468-037990)

' : ' ' . , f t6ss'swl:Rs174245 , ' '

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R.C. Page 7

Introductiorr to llatacorrlrrrsSometime last year I promised Wallace/MMOAMV I wouldwrite an article for the newsletter as an introduction to data-comms and try and take some of the mystique out of what is ba-sically a very simple form of communications...."Cafe de Joe's oo Introduction to Data-Communications...It would of course be impossible to enter into this subject with-out a very simple and hopefully entertaining and painless cover-age of the mathematics necessary to get a grasp of data-conms.... so before you flip over the page and readeth no moreof this tome... just walk over to the first electric light switch tohand and flick the switch on and off and then say to yourself"I've cracked it"..No not your super duper osram fully halogenised long life"ampoule" (kermit-talk for bulb or valve). Just the basis of datacoflrms eg on ofl high low, 1 0, mark space, plus minus etc...It is difticult to say exactly where or when we mathematicallyadopted ten as our base for counting but it is most definitelylinked to the influence of the abacus from the Orient with itsstrings of ten beads or even the possibility that homo sapien wasborn with five digits on each hand... whatever we should con-sider ourselves luclcy that we didnt continue down the road ofthe ancient Babylonians whose base was 60 from whence ourtime notation 60 secs one minute 60 minutes one hour and 360degrees in a full circle originates. Or even closer to home theRomans who had no 0 in there numerical system and subtractedby placing any number to the left if it was less than the next..

1=I5:V4: IV

and to the right you added the twoVI=6

The Romans thence became traumatised when it came to multi-plication and division. (Didnae stop them conquering Englandeh? Oops sorry Ancient Britain)Question for the next quiz night what base 10 number doesMM0CCC represent....?So we can thank our lucky stars that we are stuck with base 10and of course we all know that

3 ro is 10002ro is 100lrois l0

I dont remember ever being told that 10 is any single digit be-tween 0 and 9 maybe (Granny Scott my first teacher used to tellus that the first string of beads was from 1 to l0 and believe menobody argued with Granny Scott... Tawse tawse and "Youdunderhead youl" more tawse).As an aside (and nothing to do with datacomms) it can also besaid that numbers existing between say l0randl0zeg 10r a which is obviously a number between 10 and 100 in thiscase 64 so therefore if we added 10 r.e and l0r.ait would give us10:o the equivalent of multiplying 64by 64 ie 4096.... thismethod called logarithms was invented in the mid seventeenthcentury by a Scotsman known as Sir John Napier, Earl of Mer-chiston the first true step forward in the simplification of calcu-lating modern mathematics since the abacus. In my day it was abook oflog tables nowadays a less than pocket size black boxknown as a calculator....So what has all this to do with communications??? not a lot! not

a lot! do I hear one say... well ifthe above is water of a duck'sback the rest should be even easier. ...Electro-mechanical devices such as teleprinters or telex ma-chines of a bygone era and modern day computers which havetaken over for transmitting data are not so clever as we are ledto believe and certainly cannot handle such complex bases asten. Remember when you switched that light on and ofl Wellthat is the extent oftheir understanding - the simplest base pos-sible 0 or I ie base 2.. . . . . . .From now on remember that we can only have a 0 or I andnothing else... so dont be greedy.Let us look at base 2 then, represented by a nasty looking beas-tie something like .... 1101.But is it so nasty??? take the decimal equivalent of base 2 as wedid with base ten... .2'ie (2x2x2) is the equivalent of decimal 82z:4 "t - t

2o: either 1 or 0Binary numbers are shown as a string of l's and 0's eg 1101where the left hand digit is known as the msb (most significantbit) and the right hand digit the lsb (least significant b10

I 101msb lsb

Using only the four powers above we should therefore be ableto ascertain, the decimal equivalents from 0000 to 1 I I I .

Powerz222Decimal 8 4 2 1Binaryexamplel 1 0 1Adding only the the decimal equivalents of the numbers repre-sented by 1's and ignoring the 0's in the example above we havethe decimal equivalent of 13 viz a high on 8 a high on 4 a lowon 2 and high on I giving 8 + 4 + I a total of (decimal) 13....dead easy eh???exercise I (and the only one)....0000:00001 : I0010:20100 = 41000: 8Write down all the binary numbers between I and 15 that havebeen omitted eg3 5 7 etc etc until you reach an all time high eg1111for 15clue 1l0l unlucky for some..,.1011 legs. . . .Everybody happy???? Poke ofPandrops to the first one thatshouts bingol!l!There is no need to go into binary addition, substraction ormore complexly multiplication or division we will leave that tothe experts...

Lets now look beyond 2: by continuing to multiply by 2 and youwill notice we start arriving at numbers that will become familiarto most Personal Computer owners when we switch on andwatch the screen during the POST (power on self test) ....

2rdecimal 16,

2 deamal32-

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R.C. Page I

2rdeamal 64,

2 decimal l28,

2"decimd,256,

2 decimal512 ,o

and the biggy 2 decimal 1024.....whenever you see mega on your pc in reference to memory it isnot one million straight but one million and twenty four thou-sand thingie-ma-jigs...Another aside to give your mind a rest before the next step...Many of us get confused by what is known as BCD binarycoded decimal and standard binary.... BCD is simply a way ofrepresenting a binary number in decimal form to give for exam-ple a presentation such as frequency on your rig, using either aseven segment led display or liquid crystal in the more"corstorphine" rigs...eg you will agree that 26 in binary is 1 1010 (high on 1 6 high on8 and a high on 2 (16+8+2: 26). To achieve the BCD equiva-lent I1010 is processed through what is known as a Binary toBCD decoder and we end up with the following...

Binary 11010BCD 001001 l0or 0010-01 10Decimal2 6

If we have got this far and hopefully all is understood we canstart the practical side ofthings.... to do this i am going to takeyou back to neanderthal times when we used electro mechanicaldevices known as teleprinters....Since our alphabet consist of 26 letters we do not need to goany further in base 2 than 2s ie (16+8+4+2+ 1 ) including 0 giv-ing us 32 unique combinations, more than enough to cover A toZ.Starting with binary 00000 and ending with I I I I i.eg letter A: 1 1000.letter Z = 10001So what about figures and punctuation marks?Simple, on an electro-mechanical device such as a teleprinter,you provide one ofthe six extra characters available to movethe type basket as in an old fashioned typewriter between uppercase (letters) and lower case (figures etc) giving you a further32 permutations if required....This was achieved by sending 11111 to line when you wanted(capital) letters printed and I1011 to line when you wanted fig-ures or punctuation marks.... the four remaining non alphabetpermutations took care ofcarriage return, line feed and spacesbetween the words....This code shown below was known as ITA2 (InternationalTelegraph Alphabet 2) other names are Baudot or Murray codeand became the basis for (almost) all future automatic signallingeither via landline or radio until the anival of SITOR (SlmplexTelegraph Over Radio) and its amateur derivative AMTOR.....with more complex signalling to follow such as PACKET, PAC-TORand CLOVER...

Taking the simple circuit above with two teleprinters connecteddirectly to each other, it is obvious that without some form ofcircuit and character synchronisation a string of 1's and 0'swhen sent to line would appear as a jumble of indecypherablecharacters at the other end. The machines themselves were sodesigned that they came to rest at the end of each transmissionperiod in readiness for the next (Stop Start mode). Also there isa necessity for the teleprinter to identifr the beginning and endof each character whether it is letter, figure, punctuation markor function.For simplification we will refer to a 1 as MARK and 0 asSPACE.On the cofilmencement of each character or at the start of atransmission period the first thing that would go to line wouldbe what we refer fo as the START SPACE ie "0" which wouldkick the receive teleprinter into action... after the start space thecharacter to be transmitted would be sent eg the letter A 11000ending with the end of character function which was known asthe STOP MARK which was "1" plus half (in time) of another"1". the letter A would look similar to the graph

A.

below..... " , ,

II

'0 ' - - . - . Is/s

I II II ------------I

t 1 000 s/mIn ITA2 (Baudot-code) each character going to line always con-tairs seven and a half bits (please note bits not bytes) of infor-mation.. two and half for circuit synchronisation and five bits forthe character itself..Tralsmission speed known as the baud (bit) rate varied between45 to 300 bauds (bits) per second forIIF working. eg ifeachcharacter period is l0 milliseconds (1/10 sec) at 7 and halfbitsper character then the character rate is 75 bauds per second...Amateur baud rate is generally 45 baud.The above teletype circuit with tfc flow being only in one direc-tion at any one time would be referred to as SIMPLEX opera-tion.. if trafiic flow was both ways simultaneously it would beknown as D{JPLEX operation...Well we have talked about teletype circuits directly linked. Sohow do we get this ITA2 Baudot Code on to a radio circuit.perfectly simple... by giving the l's one audio tone (1445 lz)and the 0's another {1275lr) with a frequency difference (shift)of 170 hz and modulating the transmitter accordingly. This is

Nobody argued withGranny Scot!

Cockenzie & Port Seton A.R.C. Page I

known as AFSK audio frequency shift keying and is by far themost popular in Amateur use... another method is to changethe actual frequency ofthe RF output by 170 hz shift and thismethod is known as FSK frequency shift keying... It doesntmatter what two audio tones are chosen (the Americans begto differ and use 2125 and2295l1z) as long as the difference isl70hz and they fall within the normal passband of an SSB fil-ter. The receiver with its appropriate demodulator or modem(modulator/demodulator) should be able to resolve the signalperfectly...Rule of thumb in the old days was that all datatransmissions should be in lower sideband.:The category that this type of transmission before ever5rthingbecame letters and numbers was known simply as Radio Tele-Type RTTY and became popular on the amateur bands afterWWII when surplus teleprinters became readily available...now all rtty and its siblings amtor pactor packet clover etc arealmost all handled by PC's with modem cards or external mo-dems and appropriate software to resolve the variousmodes....RTTY or Baudot is still a very popular part of Amateur activ-ity but it does have its drawbacks simply because of the num-ber ofbit changes I's and 0's per character which can beheavily affected by IIF conditions such as interference and fad-ing. The FCO Piccolo system (Nov 98 PW) was a big stepforward in combatting the shortcomings of standard RTTYbut never really caught on anywhere else. Instead ofall the bitchanges per character a different tone was transmitted foreach ofthe 32 characters 320 to 640h2 each tone separatedby 10hz and a 33rd 650h2 to maintain circuit slmchronisa-

tion... The modulatorconverted standard baudot into a tone eg the letter A was 320hz the letter B 330 hz and so on. The demodulator recon-verted the tones back into standard baudot to run a 75 baudteleprinter...It was not until the arrival of SITOR used by the MercantileMarine radio service with its built in error correction facilityadapted for amateur (AMTOR) use by Peter Martinez/G3PLXdid things change.....As I said this was intended as an introduction into datacommsand some of you may say that all the mathematics blurb wasunnecessary but ifanyone ofyou who did not understand bi-nary before and understands it now we have achieved some-thing.I personally think it is necessary to have a smidgin of binaryunder your hat to understand practically all oftoday's digitaltechnology and for those that don't they tend to shy awayfrom something that is not really very difficult and hopefully Ihave explained very simply...e.g.Take January's Radcom Pic "Irf'Mix diagram on page 19 andyou will see that the main IC PIC 16C84 outputs to a BCD toTSegdecodea

0, , .on lines RBO RB I RB2 RB3. . Well for RB substitute 2 2 2 2yes good old I 2 4 8 or a four bit binary number with the leastsignificant bit on RBO and the MSB on RB3... a dawdle eh..

Best 73'sMalcolm/F 5 VBU/GM3 LIIN

Copyright Port Seton and Cockenzie Radio Club

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