SBARC-list May 2008

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12 participants
16 discussions

Weather Reader
by Bill Talanian 17 May '08

17 May '08

17 May 2008 To: SBARC ListServer From: Bill Talanian Subject: Weather Reader Experimental testing of a Weather Reader was initiated this date from the La Cumbre Peak 224.08 site. This test is anticipated to run about 1-2 weeks for evaluation. The Weather Reader will repeat the current and limited past weather data over the air via computer generated voice. Frequency: 147.555 MHz Simplex PL I/O: 131.8 Hz Output Power: 15 watts Antenna: Monopole Access code: *1234 (star 1234) When using this system please identify with <your call via K6TZ remote>. You may experience difficulty getting into the Weather Reader with a low level noisy signal. The touch tone decoder in the Weather Reader is very sensitive and does not respond well to noisy DTMF tones. This is just one of the problems we are having in systems integration. The Weather Reader was built in Australia, hence it has an Australian accent. In order to operate the reader we had to disconnect the weather information being transmitted over 144.39 MHz which is subsequently displayed on the Internet. Our next task will be to look at the RS-232 digital data and split off what is required by the Packet weather system and the Weather Reader as both are formatted differently. Observer feedback will be appreciated. ****************

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Old Timers Night, 2008
by auditron 15 May '08

15 May '08

OLD TIMERS NIGHT, 2008 by Darryl Widman, KF6DI What exactly is Old Timers Night, anyway? Well, let's say that it is an annual event that occurs at our May SBARC club meeting. It is a special time where we can once more meet and greet our "most experienced" amateurs. These folks have paid their dues and come this far along life's journey to a point where they can boast about having had experiences in the great hobby of Amateur Radio that most of us have only heard about. Yes, we did have Amateur Radio in Santa Barbara in the hobby's founding years. Remember, SBARC was formed way back in May of 1920. Radio had only been around for 10 years at that point in time. Were any of you around back then? It is possible that some of you reading this were actually around at that time but I dare say that there are not many. This special club meeting gives us youngsters a chance to be in the presence of some Amateur Radio operators who helped form our hobby, back when Spark Gaps were fading into history and AM modulation was first being used. Today we take speaking into a microphone for granted. We also have access to so many other means of communications that, from that ancient perspective, we are dealing with black magic. But it can all be easily explained. It is fascinating and it does work. But I digress. Our Old Timers look forward to attending this special gathering so that they can stand up and briefly take us down memory lane and let us in on what it was like, at least in their shacks, working with quite primitive gear by today's standards. They might tell us about how they acquired their basic building materials to put their stations together as few had commercial products available at that time. They might also tell us about how they wound their own coils, fine tuned crystals to their desired frequency by changing their dimensions and even climbed up into tall pine trees to erect fancy antenna systems. What must it have been like without a local Ham Radio Outlet, Amateur Electronic Supply, Juns or even Radio Shack nearby? At Old Timers Night, we have the chance to hear about how these folks did it. This night also gives us the opportunity to recognize those hams who have been licensed the longest. As a matter of fact, it has become traditional that we have a giant embarrassment ceremony where the President asks everyone in the room to stand and then asks those who have been licensed for 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 years or less to then sit down, with a pause between each of those numbers. At that point, he asks for those licensed 10 years or less to sit down. This continues along advancing at 5 year increments until we have the king of the evening who remembers when the earth was formed. You don't want to miss this. Another fun part of Old Timers Night is where we give our members the opportunity to show off their oldest gear from their stations (whether presently being used or not). We dig through our basements, climb through stuff in our attics and finally, with scraped shins and scratched arms, locate that disgronificator that we used way back when President Hoover gave his inaugural address. Then we bring it to the meeting and display it with duly noted features on paper that we remembered to bring along. And on that same paper, we also tell how and where we used it. It is fun reading about these old marvels. Even if we didn't actually use this gear in our stations, we still bring old electronic relics and put them on display. Perhaps you know of an Old Timer who has gotten to a point in his/her life where going out to a club meeting is not possible any more. How about your giving that Old Timer a call and offering a lift to the meeting, or at least arrange a way for him/her to come and be introduced? It would be a distinct honor for members of our club to meet these fine people who had lived through the earlier days of radio. Do you know someone? I do, and have already made that call. For those of you who have never come to our club meetings, we meet at the Goleta Union School District, 401 N. Fairview Ave. which is right across the street from the Goleta Library. It is about 0.2 miles north of Calle Real or Highway 101 on Fairview Ave. The meeting starts at 7:30 P.M. but come earlier because that will give you a chance to set up your display as well as have a look at whatever others brought with them. Also, coming earlier will give you a chance to shake a bunch of hands of hams you know or don't yet know and be able to look over the junque that is on the "Free to Good Home" table. Bring some. Take some home. Remember, Old Timers Night is Friday, May 16. Please come and help honor those who came before us and were a part of Amateur Radio in the past and in some way helped to make the hobby what it is today. Refreshments will be served! Thank you.

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SBARC Olde Timers Night
by Tom Saunders 14 May '08

14 May '08

SBARC, This Friday, May 16, is our annual Olde Timers' Night program for the SBARC monthly meeting. Members are encouraged to bring old radio stories and old ham gear, radios, or test equipment. The meeting starts at 7:30 PM at the Goleta Union Administration, 401 N Fairview (just across the street from the Goleta Library). All members, non-members, guests, spouses, and friends are welcome to attend. This will be our last monthly meeting until September, so let's make it a good one! Tom Saunders N6YX Cell 805 452 0840 Email tsaund(a)cox.net

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2 items of Interest
by kc6nah＠juno.com 13 May '08

13 May '08

1: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ 2: from a Chinese ham ------------------ "BG8AAS from Chengdu, Sichuan reported that local UHF repeater survived in the disaster. It keeps functioning from the 1st minute and more than 200 local radio hams are now on that repeater. A group of hams from Chengdu has headed for Wenchuan, the center of the quake, trying to setup emergency communication services there. BA8AB, also from Chengdu, Sichuan, is active on the 40m emergency frequency. Up to now, no further information available from the center zone of the quake. There are a few radio amatuers there, but all of the communications have been cut out, including amatuer radio. ------------------------- Yesterday, 06:58 PM Update According to BG8AAS, local UHF repeater in Chengdu keeps busy running after the quake. It helps to direct social vehicles to transport the wounded from Dujiangyan, Beichuan, and other regions. Another UHF repeater also starts its working in Mianyan, supported by generators. However, they are going to face a shortage of gas. Damage in Chengdu remains in the lowest level, but the situation is very very bad in the counties around. A few towns are said to be destroyed completely. More than 7000 died in the town of Beichuan. Casualties in several other towns are still unknown and not counted in the published numbers. It is a long and sad day. ----------------------- Today, 08:31 AM Your attention please! 14.270Mhz is now reserved for ARES in 5.12 earth quake in Sichuan, China. Please help to keep this frequency clear. A group of radio amateurs is now transmitting from Wenchuan, the center of quake. Its signal is reported to be very weak. They tried to keep communication with BY8AA in Chengdu, seeking for all resources needed. During a contact finished a few minutes ago, they were asking for raincoats, water, tents, and outdoor living facilities. PLEASE HELP TO FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL RELEVANT FORUMS, MAILING LISTS, AND NEWS RESOURCES. MEANWHILE, KEEP THE ABOVE FREQUENCY CLEAN FOR EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION. -- Michael Chen, BD5RV/4" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____________________________________________________________ Hotel pics, info and virtual tours. Click here to book a hotel online. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iiflKGMR21elBgi5bIS47BdnLe…

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SBARC system problems
by Bill Talanian 07 May '08

07 May '08

7 May 2008 To: SBARC Telecommunications users From: Bill Talanian, Telecommunications Services Subject: Down systems By now most everyone is aware of the many disparate problems that have caused our systems to go down in the past few weeks. These problems are not due to any one cause but different events all culminating at the same time. The service and maintenance is remanded to only a handful in SBARC who have the knowledge and ability with the proper test equipment and diagnostics to bring systems back on line when they fail. The complexity of our equipment both in hardware and software is not something we entrust to just anyone. It takes a lot of hard work and man-hours to fully understand our equipment and its interfaces. In most cases this requires the ability to design and engineer what is required for any particular function or interface. There is a theoretical limit in how much we can expect from individuals when they must also pay attention to their job and needs at home. We are fortunate to have the talents and time given to us but we are also careful to recognize when people are stretched to the limit to maintain Club equipment. We will focus on these issues one at a time and beat them down. So please bear with us during this period. 146.790 Repeater The first stages of this problem was noted when the system was regenerating "trash" once the receiver breaks tone squelch with the transmitter on. Several local attempts were made to isolate the problem without the use of test equipment but these basic techniques were unsuccessful. It was noted that the UCSB voting receiver was not causing a problem. Rather than shut the system down the UCSB link and La Vigia transmitter have been kept in operation until we can get the calibrated service monitor and spectrum analyzer on site for troubleshooting. The proper test equipment is generally in the hands of very few people, especially those who know how to use it. In some cases the test equipment is part of shop inventory by those in the government and private sector. In general most organizations frown upon non-official outside private use of expensive test equipment by any employee, especially with transporting it to a remote site. We are left to only one or two who have such equipment and willing to bring it to the site. Digital Communications At the La Vigia site SBARC has a rather very extensive digital systems interface to several individual systems. This includes two computers with interfaces to IRLP, APRS, Weather Data, WebCam, and variations of packet forwarding including WinLink. These systems are also interfaced with one DSL line which is also shared with the site phone going to two repeaters. After spending many man hours with our ISP troubleshooting and replacing specific units such as the Router and Modem we concluded that the particular problems may be associated with the telco line and its ability to properly "sync" up with our local modem. A request has been submitted to Verizon for an on-site service call to check out the telco line between La Vigia and the ISP. 223.92 Santa Cruz Island This system has been temporarily shut down due to regeneration of the transmitted output. Our first guess is that this problem is associated with the weather station on site. It will be the end of this month before we can get out there to do what is necessary to bring this system back on line. Portapeater In general this system needs some attention to bring it back on line. Again, a situation that we cannot trust to occur without the basic service monitor equipment. ********************

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Missing Link of Electronics Discovered: "Memristor"
by NEV 02 May '08

02 May '08

Check it out, the possibilities are incredible, and we may have to re-write the electronic textbooks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=missing-link-of-electronics http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207403521 Excerpt: PORTLAND, Ore. The long-sought after memristor--the "missing link" in electronic circuit theory--has been invented by Hewlett Packard Senior Fellow R. Stanley Williams at HP Labs (Palo Alto, Calif.) Memristors--the fourth passive component type after resistors, capacitors and inductors--were postulated in a seminal 1971 paper in the IEEE Transactions on Circuit Theory by professor Leon Chua at the University of California (Berkeley), but their first realization was just announced today by HP. According to Williams and Chua, now virtually every electronics textbook will have to be revised to include the memristor and the new paradigm it represents for electronic circuit theory. "My situation was similar to that of the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev who invented the periodic table in 1869," said Chua. "Mendeleev postulated that there were elements missing from the table, and now all those elements have been found. Likewise, Stanley Williams at HP Labs has now found the first example of the missing memristor circuit element." When Chua wrote his seminal paper, he used mathematics to deduce the existence of a fourth circuit element type after resistors, capacitors and inductors, which he called a memristor, because it "remembers" changes in the current passing through it by changing its resistance. Now HP claims to have discovered the first instance of a memristor, which it created with a bi-level titanium dioxide thin-film that changes its resistance when current passes through it. -- :-) neil

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SBARC-list May 2008