Voice Blaster

Tue Aug 30 19:38:38 EDT 1994

One Quick Question.  Will Voice Blaster software work with a
Thunderboard by Pro Audio?  The Thunderboard lists itself as
Sound Blaster compatible but is it really?  

Thanks de KI8W/Barry
ad196 at leo.nmc.edu

--

>From modular!liddy!eric at cs.arizona.edu (Eric Gustafson)  Tue Aug 30 23:44:00 1994
From: modular!liddy!eric at cs.arizona.edu (Eric Gustafson) (Eric Gustafson)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 94 15:44 MST
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <m0qfbul-00009bC at liddy>

To: arizona!ATK.COM!sfraasch
CC: CQ-Contest at TGV.COM,
	srkelly at agora.rdrop.com
In-reply-to: <2E638433 at msm.ATK.COM> (arizona!ATK.COM!sfraasch)
Subject: Re: PIN Diode Reference

Steve,

Don't appologize for excessive power ratings on HF pin switches.  Most
output networks in modern amplifiers can handle SWRs up to 3:1 or so (even
at 160 M if adequately designed).  The switch has to be designed for the
maximum voltages and currents that it will encounter in practice.  I do
this from time to time for money to buy food and support my shelter.  I
have found that it isn't gross overdesign to shoot for 50% more E and I
than you expect to encounter.  The combination of 50% (at least) overkill
and high voltages / currents due to SWR result in a legitimate need for a
much higher than legal power requirement in a PIN switch design.  Even the
ERP police have to recognize that.

73,  Eric  N7CL

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Gustafson  N7CL                  | The mountains are high and the Emperor
6730 S. Old Spanish Trail             | is far away.
Tucson, AZ 85747                      |
INTERNET: modular!eric at cs.arizona.edu | You can't work 'em
     CI$: 71750,2133		      | if you can't hear 'em.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>From Robert Penneys <penneys at brahms.udel.edu>  Wed Aug 31 01:36:36 1994
From: Robert Penneys <penneys at brahms.udel.edu> (Robert Penneys)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 20:36:36 -0400
Subject: NERDS needed for Sprint!!
Message-ID: <199408310036.UAA28887 at brahms.udel.edu>

The N.E.R.D.S. are hot after a good showing on NAQP.

We want to field great teams for CW and phone Sprint.

Requirements are doing your darndest and getting the log in.

Let me know!!!

Tnx Bob

Bob Penneys, WN3K     Frankford Radio Club      N.E.R.D.S.
Internet:  penneys at brahms.udel.edu       Work: Ham Radio Outlet, Delaware
U.S. Mail:  12 East Mill Station Drive    Newark, DE 19711    U.S.A.

>From scott at 6.microbbs.us.com (Scott Lieberman)  Wed Aug 31 03:40:10 1994
From: scott at 6.microbbs.us.com (Scott Lieberman) (Scott Lieberman)
Date: 30 Aug 94 18:40:10 -0800
Subject: 1995 CW Sprint Dates
Message-ID: <bb9_9408301911 at microbbs.us.com>

 "K> 4. CONTEST PERIODS.  0000 through 0359 UTC.  CW Sprints 
 "K> are September 11, 1994
 "K> (Saturday night, September 10, local time) and February 19, 1995 (Saturday
 "K> night, February 18, local time).

Isn't Feb. 18-19 the weekend of the ARRL CW DX Contest?

                         Scott N1EE/6
--
|Fidonet:  Scott Lieberman 1:143/6
|Internet: scott at 6.microbbs.us.com
|
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

>From Gary Sutcliffe <gary.sutcliffe at mixcom.mixcom.com>  Wed Aug 31 03:16:10 1994
From: Gary Sutcliffe <gary.sutcliffe at mixcom.mixcom.com> (Gary Sutcliffe)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 94 21:16:10 CDT
Subject: Stacking A3's - Summary
Message-ID: <199408310216.VAA14644 at mixcom.mixcom.com>

A while back I asked if anyone has had any experience with stacking small
tribanders such as the Cushcraft A3.  Since the summary is fairly
small and becase of the number of requests for a summary, I decided to
post the summary here.

As background, even a die-hard 10 meter fan as myself has come to the
conclusion that my 4 over 4 ten meter stack will not be of much use for
the next few years, and it is time to do something different on that tower.
The tower in question is 60', on the edge of a hill overlooking a marsh and
lake towards Europe, giving me a higher effective height.  Currently there
is a 2 el 40 at the top of the tower, a 4 element 10 about 8 feet above it,
with the lower 4 element 10M at about 30'.  Some changes would need to be done
to convert to A3's, probably including adding another 10 feet of tower.

I really became a believer in having multiple antennas on a band with it,
along with a TH7 on another tower (with a feed system allowing me to feed
1, 2 or all 3 antennas at once on 10M).  Hopefully even though a two stack
of small tribanders is not optimum, it will prove to be worthwhile.  The
responses seem to indicate it is.

I plan to go ahead with the project if time & money permit before the snow
flies at this cold Wisconsin QTH.    Thanks to everyone who responded.

73 - Gary W9XT

           ****************************

ORIGINAL POSTING:

Has any had experience stacking small tribanders such as the Cushcraft A3?
What heights, spacing, matching system, etc. did you use?  What were your
results?  Is it worthwhile?

****
Sender: "AI7B" <AI7B at aol.com>

Try contacting Jay WX0B..    H makes a phasing system for this
type of application.  He is on Internet.

73'd de bravo

****
From: Steve Miller  WD8IXE <millersg at dmapub.dma.org>

Hi Gary,

I have a 402CD about 3 feet above my TET tribander. I used to have TVI
problems on 15m. Eventually I found the 40 was receiving a couple watts
of 15m power. When on 15, the energy received from the 40 (which was
grounded via a shorting B&W switch) was modulating my station ground.
Once I started terminating the 40 into a dummy load, the TVI was
substantially reduced (only my neighbors cheap TV is affected now).
I know there is interaction on 15m but it didn't seem to affect the
TX/RX performance to any significant degree. Just a little higher
VSWR on 15. 10 and 20 seem to perform the same as when the 40 was not
there. If you can increase the spacing, you should have less trouble
but even with my close spacing, the situation is managable. The 402CD
was a great improvement and well worth the "compromise" of the
tribander. Hope this helps.  73, Steve WD8IXE millersg at dmapub.dma.org

*****
From: Steve Merchant <merchant at crl.com>

I've stacked the A4S and the 40-2CD with as little as 5.5 ft 
separation with no ill effects, Gary.

You might want to consider the A4S for next up cycle (4th 10m element).

Now that I'm back out here in 6-land I've reverted to being a KLM bigot 
-- we need the extra aluminum!  Good luck.

73, Steve  N4TQO
merchant at crl.com

*****
>From n0bsh at aol.com

Gary,

Sounds like you just described the former station of Tony, KM0O (St. Paul)
where I did Phone SS a couple times.

Not being a technical guru type, I can't offer you any hardcore technical
info on the setup but it was pretty straight-forward.  And it worked!!!

As best I can recall the tower was about 60' and the antennas were an A3 at
65', a 2 el 40 at ~60', another A3 at about 40', and  a  dipole of some sort
for 80 close to the top.  The top A3 and the 40 rotated, the bottom A3 was
fixed ESE.

>From what Tony told me, the ONLY thing he did when hooking the two A3s
together was to feed them with equal lengths of feedline, brought together
with a T-connector, and plugged into the radio. No fancy phasing harnesses or
anything.  

I'm sure there was some interaction between top A3 and the 40 - probably more
to the 40 - but Tony, like me, believes in just using what you have and
getting on and operating.  (IMHO, with all the modeling software out there
these days, I think way too much time is spent trying to optimize stuff of
which you will never actually notice the results - like trying to find some
way to get one more .00013 dB out of an antenna.  I'm all for it to get you
as close as possible to where you want to be but...)

The bottom line is that the station played well.  The 40 was louder than I
really felt it was (the first year) and I operated accordingly the second
year.  The A3s played exceptionally well.  The only thing that I found bad
was that I probably spent too much time using them in "stack configuration",
ie. both pointed the same way.  But I always got GREAT signal reports on 15
and 20 (10 was not a factor so I didn't use it much but Tony saw good results
as well on this band.)  I should have had the top A3 pointed west more but I
think I kept it east because that was where 40 would then be pointed.

Obviously, there are probably ways to optimize this setup but Tony made do
with what he had available.  Simple and effective!!

Today, however, this setup is no longer in service.  Tony replaced the top A3
with an optimized 204BA to better take advantage of 20 for SS, etc. in light
of current condx.

73  Mike  N0BSH
n0bsh at aol.com

****
Sender: "WX0B" <WX0B at aol.com>

Gary, call Dunestar Systems and get some lit on the Stack matching system
SM-03.  It  makes stacking Tri-banders easy!
Cu Jay WX0B    Mr. SM-03

****
From: Victor Burns <vburns at netcom.com>

Not stacking small tri-banders, but the tri-bander 40M problem is a tough 
one and you will get 10 answers.

YES they will interact, even with 12-15' spacing which 
I have.  The thing to do is put them at 90 degree angles to each other as 
this seem to minimize the interaction, probably due to the 15 meter/40 
meter resonances.   GOOD LUCK! and hope you have a crank-down tilt-over 
or like ot climb a lot.

****
From: "Fred Hopengarten" <k1vr at k1vr.jjm.com>

K1VR:  I, of course, have stacked TH6's, which have a 24
foot boom.  But in writing the feature article with N6BV
which appeared in February QST, Dean and I both completely
agree that stacking is advantageous even for small
tribanders.  It is even advantageous for stacking dipole
above a dipole!  Stacking distances are determined by the
frequencies in use, not boom size, EXCEPT that if stacking
too close, coupling between the antennas goes up and
patterns go all to hell.
-- 
                      Fred Hopengarten K1VR

-- 
 Gary Sutcliffe  - W9XT             Unified Microsystems (414) 644-9036
 ppvvpp at MIXCOM.COM                  PO Box 133, Slinger WI 53086

>From stevem at w8hd.org (Steve Maki)  Wed Aug 31 04:29:15 1994
From: stevem at w8hd.org (Steve Maki) (Steve Maki)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 22:29:15 -0500
Subject: K4VX guy wire article
Message-ID: <199408310224.WAA03169 at w8hd.w8hd.org>

>have a question.  I would like to hear from ANYONE that has put up any kind
>of antenna on a tower with NON-INSULATED guys and experienced problems, that
>were eventually fixed by breaking up the guys.
>
>Bill Fisher, KM9P
>Concentric Systems, Inc.  (CSI)
>404-442-5821  Fax 404-667-1975
>
>

The K8LX 20 mtr antenna in the late 70's was 4/4 at 135'/70'. To our great
surprise, the bottom antenna showed resonance about 300 khz higher than the
top, with equal element lengths. At that time none of the guys were broken
up; the bottom antenna was sitting only a couple feet above the second guy
bay. After dropping that bay temporarily (letting the guys hang vertically),
the bottom antenna was resonant right where the top one was. 

Needless to say, we immediately broke up all the guys and never had funny
things happen after that. I'm sure we broke up guys that didn't need it, but
life is to short to test each guy wire for evil.

73
--
Steve Maki K8LX
stevem at w8hd.org

>From Robert A. Wilson" <n6tv at VNET.IBM.COM  Wed Aug 31 04:31:39 1994
From: Robert A. Wilson" <n6tv at VNET.IBM.COM (Robert A. Wilson)
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 94 20:31:39 PDT
Subject: NA Sprint Rules, clarification please

> All contacts must be sent and received using means requiring
> real-time human intervention, detection, and initiation.

This question is for K7GM and N6TR only:

Is it the INTENT of this rule to prohibit the following (somewhat
common?) Sprint practice:

1. Operate the sprint in real time, keeping a complete paper log
2. After the contest, listen to a tape recording, correct any mistakes
   you notice, and
3. Send in your corrected log

I believe that the wording of rule makes it difficult to interpret.
If you can answer the following questions, it will help:

Is it OK to use a keyer or PC with a CQ loop that requires no human
intervention to call CQ again?

Is it OK to use a computer program that automatically fills in the
"most likely" received name and state, before you press Enter to log
it?

Is it OK to use a code reader to keep a log as long as you initiate its
operation, and do all the tuning manually?

Is it OK to use a machine that tunes and copies callsigns on
another band, as long as it doesn't make any contacts by itself?

Is it OK to change a log after the contest to fix obvious errors that
you notice, such as logging N6TU Bob CA instead of N6TV Bob CA, or
logging K6XO in MT on one band and UT on the other two bands?

Is it OK to use a computer program that automatically CQs for you
on 40, without any intervention, while you are tuning for stations
on 20, as long as you do all the copying?

73,
Bob, N6TV