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IC775 review?

Subject: IC775 review?
From: AA5BANANA@aol.com (AA5BANANA@aol.com)
Date: Fri Jul 7 10:16:44 1995
I put out some feelers a few weeks ago but 
haven't gotten much response, so I guess
I'll go public.  I'm looking for someone
to do a short review of the new IC775 for 
the next NCJ.  Nothing fancy -- no lab tests,
no schematics -- just operating impressions
from a contester's viewpoint.  Do the bells
and whistles work well, is it friendly, any
problems with the rcvr?  A side-by-side
comparison with another radio would be nice,
too.  600-1200 words (1/2 - 1 page) is all I
need . . . easy!  The only catch:  if we're
gonna put it in the next issue, I need to have
the text by Friday, 7/14.

Any volunteers?

         -Bruce  AA5B
           AA5Banana@aol.com

>From Tim S. Ellam  <TELLAM@mccarthy.ca>  Fri Jul  7 14:32:13 1995
From: Tim S. Ellam  <TELLAM@mccarthy.ca> (Tim S. Ellam  <TELLAM@mccarthy.ca>)
Subject: Canadian HQ Station(IARU)
Message-ID: <sffcff2b.060@mccarthy.ca>

The Canadian HQ Station for IARU will have a "RAC" suffix. The
old calls with a "QST" suffix have been withdrawn and will not be
reissued!

Tim VE6SH


>From Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW" <gswanson@arrl.org  Fri Jul  7 15:30:00 1995
From: Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW" <gswanson@arrl.org (Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW)
Subject: FW: Phase noise question
Message-ID: <2FFD44A3@arrl.org>


To AC4ZO:
Tony, K1KP, sent this to me, but I believe it was meant for you.
Sorry to do this via the reflector folks, I dumped the message with AC4ZO's 
address and, AC4ZO does not appear in the contesters e-mail address listing 
(recently sent by George Fremin).
73, --Glenn, KB1GW
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 --
In reference to FD, 'phase noise' may not solely be due to the PLL.
It is true that for all their benefits, PLL oscillators typically
generate more phase noise than crystal based oscillators. Phase noise
is also generated in all the subsequent stages of a transmitter, although
the contributions of subsequent stages may be greater or less than that
of the PLL. In particular, the high gain output PA stage of a solid state
transceiver may be responsible for a lot of phase noise, which is not
filtered as well as is the case with the last generation of PI - output
tube rigs.

In reference to FD, the issue is probably interference with other nearby
radios. The straightforward cure is to use receive bandpass filters,
transmit bandpass filters, or tuned coaxial stubs to reduce intererence.
Transmit filters will work to reduce noise at frequencies other than
the transmit frequency, but must be rated for full power. Receive
filters will do the same thing, but are easier to design and build
because of the lower power requirements. See my article in May/Jun NCJ.
Finally, tuned stubs work to attenuate output products at harmonics
of the transmitter output frequency. They are simple to build and
can easily handle full power; but they must be changed each time
the transmitter changes bands.


Hope this helps-

 -Tony, K1KP, fisher@hp-and.an.hp.com

>From H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil@seattleu.edu  Fri Jul  7 16:17:55 1995
From: H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil@seattleu.edu (H. Ward Silver)
Subject: Food for thought
Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9507070840.F3194-b100000@bach.seattleu.edu>


> Food for thought:
> 
> Now that Dayton is moving into May, why not move wpx cw up to the last
> weekend of April?
> 
> ================================================================
>                          Mike Fulcher
>                             KC7V

Amen!  The Memorial Day weekend is bad for both propagation and political
reasons.  I vote yes.  And while we're at it...why not move the 10-meter
contest to early October when there's some possibility of good conditions?

   -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.. .  -. ----- .- -..- -..-. --...
    ______________________________
   |  ----    ---------   o o o o |
   | |  / |  | N 0 A X |  o o o o |  "I don't know why they call it
   |  ----    ---------           |   wireless...I've never seen so
   |    () ()   /^^^\   () () ()  |   many wires in all my life!"
   | O  o o o  (o    )  () () ()  |       From the 1920's and
   | O  o o o   \___/   o o o o o |        never more true!
   |______________________________|
     \_/ H. Ward Silver, N0AX \_/
        hwardsil@seattleu.edu
  




>From Bruce Sawyer <bsawyer@cylink.com>  Fri Jul  7 18:58:31 1995
From: Bruce Sawyer <bsawyer@cylink.com> (Bruce Sawyer)
Subject: Food for thought -Reply
Message-ID: <sffd06aa.057@cylink.com>

>Amen!  The Memorial Day weekend is bad for both
propagation and political reasons.  I vote yes. 
And while we're at it...why not move the 10-meter
contest to early October when there's some
possibility of good conditions?

NYET!!!  That would conflict with CQP, the
grandaddy of all state QSO parties.  Maybe the
weekend after CQP would work, since that would
still give folks two weeks to set up for
CQWW-SSB, but certainly not earlier.  Anyway,
what's wrong with the current date?  Wouldn't you
rather be doing 10m that straggling through the
malls looking for Christmas presents?
                               AA6KX




>From aa6tt@frontier.net (William H. Hein)  Fri Jul  7 18:19:57 1995
From: aa6tt@frontier.net (William H. Hein) (William H. Hein)
Subject: High vs Low
Message-ID: <v02110104ac22faa1340c@[199.45.201.14]>

What kind of 80m antenna radiates a spot beam at 8 degrees elevation???

Bill AA6TT

>>        Ed K4SB wrote:
>>        >
>>        > 3. Do some simple trig and discover where the touchdown angle is for
>>        > a take off angle of 8 degrees. That's the problem with one of my 80
>>        > meter antennas. At 8000 miles or more, it's a killer...into Eu, it's
>>        > worthless.
>>        >
>>
>>          Well, at 8 degrees takeoff and an F2 layer height of 240 miles
>>          (which is about the highest it gets) my trig shows a one hop
>>          distance of 3415 miles.
>>
>>
>>I suspect that you can't ignore the earth's curvature if you are talking
>>thousands of miles.   I could probably have done this in my head a few
>>decades ago...
>>
>>Depends what Ed meant by "simple trig" I suppose...
>>
>>Derek AA5BT, G3NMX
>>oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu
>

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Hein, PO Bx 579, Ignacio, Colorado 81137-0579 USA
fone 970/883-2415  fax 970/883-2408  Internet aa6tt@frontier.net
AA6TT is in Tiffany, Colorado, grid square DM67fb
*** To subscribe to the 160m DX Internet mailing list, email the message
"subscribe" to topband-request@lists.frontier.net ***



>From wws@renaissance.cray.com (Walter Spector)  Fri Jul  7 04:09:45 1995
From: wws@renaissance.cray.com (Walter Spector) (Walter Spector)
Subject: W6YL FD results
Message-ID: <9507071809.AA02738@raphael.cray.com>

Tony's Internet FD Challenge posting reminded me that I should send
this to the list:

Walt kk6nr
-------------------------------------------------------------------
                FIELD DAY RESULTS - 1995

Call: W6YL
Category: 1A
Section: East Bay
Power: 150 watts

BAND            CW Qs           Phone Qs

 80               57              51
 40              230             377
 20              147             102
 15               93              90
 10                -               -
  6                2              33
  2                -             112
440                -              14
packet            26
                ====            =====
Total            555             779
 *2 (cw)        1110               
 *2 (power)     2220            1558


CW score:       2220
Phone score:    1558
Bonuses:         500 (Generator, Nat pwr, packet, SEC, VHF/UHF)
                ----
Known score:    4278

More Bonuses?:   200 (W1AW, publicity - still needs confirmation)
                ----
Possible score: 4478

Sections worked = 75 (missed NWT and VI)

Internet challenge:     75 * (2220+1558) = 283350 points

W6YL is the callsign of the old San Jose State University ARC.

After years of Really Trying in 2A, we decided to run a more casual 1A
this year.  To describe the operation in one word, it was HOT!
Record temperatures in Northern California made for searing heat
of over 100 degrees! The true challenge of this FD was to deal with
the heat.  Amazingly all the rigs worked fine, but we did have computer
problems.  The first of these caused the unrecoverable loss of almost
100 SSB Qs due to some unanticipated disk caching configuration issues.

CW ops included Ron AA6FB and Tony AE0M.  SSB and VHF ops included Larry WR6K,
Al AD6E, Celia N0BBS, Hee N6XVK, Traci KD6VZQ, and myself.  Al WB6ZLM did
the packet operation.  Steve AC6P, the callsign trustee, helped with some
bonus points.

Rigs:   FT-990 (main rig), TS-930 (spotting and backup),
        IC-551 (6 meters), FT-736R (2m/440)

Antennas: 7L 80/40 dual band wire yagi
          10L 20/15 dual band wire yagi
          5L 6m yagi
          10L 2m/440 dual band yagi
          Multiband vertical (spotting and backup)


FWIW, I delightfully admit that a couple of years ago, I ran piles on 14.230
for several hours during FD.  With a 5-element monoband wire beam on a
2000' cliff.  I kept hearing these guys yell at me "you SOB", "you A**h***",
etc. with no ID.  Then some pathetic attempts at jamming me.  Most of it was
automatically nuked by the audio filter.  Didn't affect my rates
at all.  Imagine my surprise when I learned a few months later that the
SSTV guys claim the frequency.  (But hey, I was there first!)

73,

de Walt kk6nr
-------------
Walt Spector - Field Day fanatic
(wws@renaissance.cray.com)
Sunnyvale, California
_._ _._ _.... _. ._.


>From barry@w2up.wells.com (barry)  Fri Jul  7 18:54:18 1995
From: barry@w2up.wells.com (barry) (barry)
Subject: Food for thought
Message-ID: <8kRV8c3w165w@w2up.wells.com>

"H. Ward Silver" <hwardsil@seattleu.edu> writes:

> Amen!  The Memorial Day weekend is bad for both propagation and political
> reasons.  I vote yes.  And while we're at it...why not move the 10-meter
> contest to early October when there's some possibility of good conditions?

And while we're at it, let's move CQWW CW away from Thanksgiving!

--

Barry N. Kutner, W2UP       Internet: barry@w2up.wells.com
Newtown, PA                 Packet Radio: W2UP @ WB3JOE.#EPA.PA.USA.NA
                            Packet Cluster: W2UP >WB2R (FRC)
.......................................................................


>From oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills)  Fri Jul  7 19:40:37 1995
From: oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) (Derek Wills)
Subject: Food for thought

        The Memorial Day weekend is bad for both propagation and political
        reasons.  I vote yes.  

        And while we're at it, let's move CQWW CW away from Thanksgiving!

Yeah!   Let's not forget that these are all MURRICAN contests run 
entirely for the benefit of MURRICANS!   Who cares what all those
pesky furriners think, they are there to give us points, and they
should be grateful that we let them take part.  The "WW" in "CQWW"
means "W!! W!!" - murricans!!

Oh well.
Derek AA5BT, G3NMX
oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu

>From Ray Rocker <rocker@datasync.com>  Fri Jul  7 19:57:34 1995
From: Ray Rocker <rocker@datasync.com> (Ray Rocker)
Subject: Food for thought
Message-ID: <199507071857.NAA05738@osh1.datasync.com>


> > Amen!  The Memorial Day weekend is bad for both propagation and political
> > reasons.  I vote yes.  And while we're at it...why not move the 10-meter
> > contest to early October when there's some possibility of good conditions?

Wasn't the 10m contest put there because (a) it's near the winter 
sporadic-E peak and (b) the Geminid meteor shower is around that time?

Shoot, without sporadic-E and meteors, at this time of the cycle we'd
just as soon rename it the Argentina QSO Party.

I second/third/whatever the idea to move WPX CW. I always have a trip
planned for Memorial Day weekend. To be sure, that is a great time
propagation-wise (mainly thinking 20 meters here in 5-land) though.
Late April or early May might be even better if there's a free weekend
on the contest calendar. 73,

-- 
Ray Rocker | WQ5L | rocker@datasync.com
Datasync Internet: THE Internet Provider for the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Shell, SLIP/PPP, and more! info@datasync.com or http://www.datasync.com/
Voice: (601) 872-0001 (Ocean Springs) or (601) 452-0011 (Pass Christian)

>From n2ic@drmail.dr.att.com (LondonSM)  Fri Jul  7 14:24:30 1995
From: n2ic@drmail.dr.att.com (LondonSM) (LondonSM)
Subject: KLM KT34XA HIGH SWR ON 10M - HELP !!!
References: <950706211806_26822149@aol.com>
Message-ID: <9507070724.ZM16779@dr.att.com>

On Jul 6,  9:22pm, JimP911@aol.com wrote:
> I've had great luck with the KT34XA so several thoughts come to mind:
>

>
> 4.  If you have a relatively old antenna, it would make sense to write to KLM
> & get the updated measurements.  They changed the antenna specs a few years.

> Jim KC1SJ
>
>-- End of excerpt from JimP911@aol.com

If you go with the latest set of antenna dimensions, you will need to have the
latest set of capacitor caps.  There are significant operational differences
between the older black, white and green caps, compared to the current blue
caps.

For anyone with the energy to rebuild their XA (I have now rebuilt 3 of them
!), a new set of capacitor caps is a very worthwhile and inexpensive
investment, at $0.25 per cap.

73,
Steve, N2IC/0
n2ic@dr.att.com


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