SSB FILTERS

ehayes at VNET.IBM.COM ehayes at VNET.IBM.COM
Mon Jun 26 11:35:47 EDT 1995


Over the past few months, I have seen several posts concerning
SSB filters.  The FD contest of this last weekend caused me
to think of the usefullness of enhanced SSB filtering and wondered
if I could modify my Icom 737.  I do not believe Icom sells
other SSB filters as an option.  Can this be done to my rig or
should I consider another radio?  If it can be done, who handles
filters and what range would you recommend?  Any advice would be
quite welcome.

Thanks in advance,

73  KC5DVT   Wayne     email...ehayes at vnet.ibm.com
Austin, Texas

>From Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW" <gswanson at arrl.org  Mon Jun 26 16:39:00 1995
From: Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW" <gswanson at arrl.org (Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 95 11:39:00 EDT
Subject: The Space Shuttle and lightning...
Message-ID: <2FEED514 at arrl.org>


Thought this would be of interest to the lightning discussion:

>From NASA, re: Scrub of STS-71 launch attempt on Saturday.
(This mission will fly with the secondary payload known as SAREX.)

"Poor weather at Kennedy Space Center forced mission managers to
scrub today s launch attempt of Atlantis. Clouds, rain, thunderstorms and
the threat of lightning postponed today s scheduled launch of Atlantis on
the first mission to dock with Russia s Mir Space Station. No serious
technical problems were encountered throughout the launch attempt today.
However, as the astronauts and cosmonauts were about to leave for the pad,
lightning struck the pads lightning mast. No damage was incurred to the
pad or vehicle and the count proceeded as planned. The decision to scrub
was made at about 4 p.m.

     Launch of Atlantis has been re-scheduled for no earlier than Tuesday,
June 27. The 10 minute window opens at about 3:32 p.m. EDT."

73, --Glenn, KB1GW

>From Keith Morehouse-WB9TIY <blckhole at ripco.com>  Mon Jun 26 16:53:21 1995
From: Keith Morehouse-WB9TIY <blckhole at ripco.com> (Keith Morehouse-WB9TIY)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 10:53:21 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Lightning...
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.91.950626104220.3696B-100000 at golden.ripco.com>

It pretty amusing how all these lightning posts show up every year when 
summertime AND big-time lightning bolt season starts !!

I guess those first boomers of the year at many peoples house gets them 
thinking about how the were going to spend all spring protecting 
themselves but ended up doing nothing.

Don't Get Me Wrong !!  This stuff is R E A L important and I'm happy to 
see it on here (sure is better then talking about SSTV...).  Its just 
funny how everybody gets real religious about lightning protection after 
they see a few summertime Q towers shooting toward the 50,000 ft level, 
spewing bolts out the bottom.  This is serious s**t ALL YEAR LONG.  Now 
is not the time to start thinking about it.

Living on top of a hill in Illinois and having had the pleasure (!!??) of 
feeling the physical effects of being R E A L close to ground strikes in 
the past, probably do/did a lot to make me think about grounding all year 
long !

In the words of one immortal, "...if it don't move - ground it...a lot !!"

---------------------------###-----------------------------
Keith J. Morehouse / WB9TIY / Society of Midwest Contesters
PROBE ELECTRONICS 100 Higgins Road, Park Ridge IL 60068 USA
708-696-2828  FAX: 708-698-2045  e-mail: blckhole at ripco.com
---------------------------###-----------------------------


>From sellington" <sellington at mail.ssec.wisc.edu  Mon Jun 26 16:54:11 1995
From: sellington" <sellington at mail.ssec.wisc.edu (sellington)
Date: 26 Jun 1995 10:54:11 -0500
Subject: LIGHTNING
Message-ID: <n1407958412.45415 at mail.ssec.wisc.edu>

Many excellent comments on lightning protection.

In addition to providing a low-impedance path for current due to lightning
striking the tower, there is one more thing that can be done to protect
equipment and the building:  Disconnect everything from the tower and its
grounding system.  Not only does this prevent the current from damaging
equipment, it minimizes the chances of starting a fire in the building.
(Obviously, the damage due to fire can be far greater than that done to
equipment.)

Here's what I'm doing at my own station:  The tower base is grounded with
3 ground rods, plus some radials.  All the cables, including rotator cables,
go to a connector panel just inside the radio room.  The connector panel
is grounded to a separate ground rod just outside.  There's a remote coax
switch and ICE coax protector on the panel, one coax connector, and a big
61-pin MS connector.  The two connectors go to the station, and when they
are disconnected the station is competely isolated from the antenna system.
The station itself is grounded to another ground rod some distance from
the connector panel ground rod.  The idea is  that if lightning strikes the
tower while the station is disconnected, whatever current gets past the 
tower-base ground rods will flow through the connector panel right back out
to the dedicated ground rod.  Everything in that path consists of heavy
conductors, is kept a foot or so away from other conductors, and is 
surrounded by fire-proof material.  As a further precaution, the power plugs
to the station are always disconnected when there's lightning danger.  The
power connectors are mounted in a convenient location.  When I'm done 
operating, all I have to do is unplug the two power plugs and disconnect
two connectors.

Needless to say, the usual precautions must still be taken in case lightning
strikes when the station is in operation.  I try to avoid that, though, 
because no matter how well everything is grounded, I'd rather my body not be 
connected to the station when 270,000 Amps may be flowing down the tower!

As far as I know, my 75 foot tower hasn't taken a strike yet, but it's 
bound to happen.  

73,
Scott  K9MA
sellington at ssec.wisc.edu

>From Jeffrey Clarke <jdclarke at freenet.columbus.oh.us>  Mon Jun 26 16:56:18 1995
From: Jeffrey Clarke <jdclarke at freenet.columbus.oh.us> (Jeffrey Clarke)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 11:56:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SSTV vs FD Congradulations!
Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9506261108.A9683-a100000 at acme>

On Sun, 25 Jun 1995, Patrick Collins wrote:

> Anyone up for a all SSTV contest?  We could exchange pictures of serial
> numbers and signal reports.
> 
> 73 pat nz4k
> 
> 
> 
> 

    

     u   u     rrrrr      555555        99999        oooooo   h   h
     u   u     r   r      5             9   9        o    o   h   h
     u   u     r   r      5             99999        o    o   h   h
     u   u     r rr       555555            9        o    o   hhhhh 
     u   u     r   r           5            9        o    o   h   h 
     uuuuu     r    r     555555            9        oooooo   h   h




     How about that.... SSTV has invaded the contest reflector !!!!
     Sorry about the waste of bandwith on the reflector..... but I
     couldn't resist........................
     the same abot SSTV   CUL


                                       Jeff KU8E



>From Skelton, Tom" <TSkelton at engineer.ClemsonSC.ATTGIS.COM  Mon Jun 26 21:37:00 1995
From: Skelton, Tom" <TSkelton at engineer.ClemsonSC.ATTGIS.COM (Skelton, Tom)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 95 13:37:00 PDT
Subject: FW: The Space Shuttle and lightning...
Message-ID: <2FEF1AC6 at engineer.ClemsonSC.ATTGIS.COM>



 ----------
From: Swanson, Glenn,  KB1GW
To: 'CQ-CONTEST REFLECTOR'
Subject: The Space Shuttle and lightning...
Date: Monday, June 26, 1995 11:39AM


Thought this would be of interest to the lightning discussion:

>From NASA, re: Scrub of STS-71 launch attempt on Saturday.
(This mission will fly with the secondary payload known as SAREX.)

"Poor weather at Kennedy Space Center forced mission managers to
scrub today s launch attempt of Atlantis. Clouds, rain, thunderstorms and
the threat of lightning postponed today s scheduled launch of Atlantis on
the first mission to dock with Russia s Mir Space Station.
<del>



OK, Trey should fuss at me about this but it's too damned interesting
to pass up.  Before leaving for vacation a week ago, my Dad and I
bumped into a cousin of his that he hasn't seen in 25 years.  The cousin,
an engineer at NASA in Huntsville, began to tell us of some new 'lightning'
he was investigating:  Upward Lightning.  I had seen an article about this
in the local fish wrapper, and someone on our packetcluster (can't remember
the call -- works at Oak Ridge -- maybe AG4M??) referred me to the Jan 95
article of Sky and Telescope.  In a nutshell,  they now have documented 
proof
(the Vietnam pilots who reported this were told they had stress induced
hallucinations or something similar) of this upward lightning that is many 
times
more powerful and travels much further vertically than the standard 
cloud_to_
cloud or cloud_to_ground discharge travels.

One on a recent flight, as I understand it, the shuttle got tagged by an 
upward
discharge and so on a later orbit they turned the cameras to the horizon 
over
Africa and caught several frames of this.

I'm not even going to try to pretend to relate this to contesting, but being
the techno-goobers that we are I hope ya'll find it as interesting as I did.
Even those of you in the QCAO (TM) club...   ;-}

73, Tom WB4iUX
flames to:  Tom.Skelton at ClemsonSC.ATTGIS.COM


>From al019 at freenet.hsc.colorado.edu> (D. R. Evans  Mon Jun 26 19:23:03 1995
From: al019 at freenet.hsc.colorado.edu> (D. R. Evans (D. R. Evans)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 12:23:03 -0600
Subject: SSTV ... II
Message-ID: <199506261855.MAA13417 at spot.Colorado.EDU>

On 26 Jun 95 at 9:35, paul at paccomm.com <paul at paccomm.com> wrote:


> While they're at it, move all the PACTOR, AMTOR, RTTY, CLOVER, G-TOR,
> Packet and all the junk gradually straying down into the CW
> section up there too! Then they'll know what QRM is!

At least when you are arging with an SSTV person, you have the pleasure (?)
of engaging in conversation (?) with a real (?) person (?). Those automatic
AMTOR boxes down in the CW band are the things that really bug me. I'd almost
rather go head to head against one of the East Coast Multi (ECM (TM))
CQ-boxes than one of those automatic AMTOR boxes.




--------------------------------------------------------
D.R. Evans NQ0I / G4AMJ : devans at orion.colorado.edu
                          al019 at freenet.hsc.colorado.edu

"Palindor Chronicles" information and extracts:
   http://spot.colorado.edu/~romigj/drevans.html
--------------------------------------------------------


>From John Dorr K1AR" <p00259 at psilink.com  Mon Jun 26 20:34:09 1995
From: John Dorr K1AR" <p00259 at psilink.com (John Dorr K1AR)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 95 14:34:09 -0500
Subject: 1995 CQ Contest Survey
Message-ID: <3013277527.1.p00259 at psilink.com>

As has become CQ's tradition, we are running the 1995 version of our 
contest survey in the September issue. If you're interested in contributing,
please forward any topics and/or questions that you would like included in 
this year's version. Also, if you have any suggestions for a more specific 
type of survey (one year we ran a questionnaire limited to the subject of 
contester's ethics), that would be welcome, too.

My deadline for the above is in about 2 1/2 weeks. Thanks in advance for 
your input!

73 John, K1AR

>From Jeffrey Yeager <jnyeager at southern.edu>  Mon Jun 26 23:07:59 1995
From: Jeffrey Yeager <jnyeager at southern.edu> (Jeffrey Yeager)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 18:07:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: FD Results
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9506261744.B13359-0100000 at southern.edu>



			ARRL FIELD DAY  1995

Call: KO4EW
Catagory: 2B 2op
Section: North Carolina

BAND        CW QSO         SSB QSO

80			       30
40            300             56
20            232            232
15              3            304
10                            78
2 FM                          21
PKT                            1
-----------------------------------------
	     535             722  =  1257 QSO

2140 CW PTS + 1444 SSB PTS ) X 2 POWER MULT + 920 BONUS PTS = 4,504
                           
         Worked 74 sections for internet challenge- 215,852 pts

  
After 3 years of FD with shack on the belts, from Repeaterville, KO4EW and I 
decide to enterthe anti-social :) 2B-2op catagory.

  We had a blast exept for a P.O.S generator that varied voltage from 
80-135V,  we where fortunate enoughnot to blow any equipment.
  CT said we oped 21.6 hrs. the off time was adjusting generator govenor,
adding oil, cursing generator, rebooting computers, taking volt readings, 
cursing.........Any good ideas on what to purchase for a CONTEST 
generator???? (reply direct) Our borrowed generator
saved us $$$ but cost us alot of Qs and could have cost us alot in equip 
repair,  but we still had alot of fun!

Had some of the best FD rate ever on Sat nite on 20ssb, the internet 
challenge must have gotten some good ops out,  didn't seem
to be as many lids this year :)  

 
Rigs: Icom 735cw and 737ssb (they dont care what volt you throw at them)
      Yaesu 2400 2M
Logged with CT 9.23 network(yes had 10M logging prob)
Voice keyer LTA VOICE BLASTER  (wrked FB)
Antennas: SSB station- Vee-beam, 80M dipole fed w/ladder line
           CW station- 2 40/20m dipoles
            
73 Jeff KQ4HC   
jnyeager at southern.edu

>From Floydjr <floydjr at nando.net>  Mon Jun 26 23:25:15 1995
From: Floydjr <floydjr at nando.net> (Floydjr)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 18:25:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: FD Results
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950626182357.28585C-100000 at merlin.nando.net>

Is someone going to keep a running total of FD results?   Jim // WA4ZXA

On Mon, 26 Jun 1995, Jeffrey Yeager wrote:

> 
> 
> 			ARRL FIELD DAY  1995
> 
> Call: KO4EW
> Catagory: 2B 2op
> Section: North Carolina
> 
> BAND        CW QSO         SSB QSO
> 
> 80			       30
> 40            300             56
> 20            232            232
> 15              3            304
> 10                            78
> 2 FM                          21
> PKT                            1
> -----------------------------------------
> 	     535             722  =  1257 QSO
> 
> 2140 CW PTS + 1444 SSB PTS ) X 2 POWER MULT + 920 BONUS PTS = 4,504
>                            
>          Worked 74 sections for internet challenge- 215,852 pts
> 
>   
> After 3 years of FD with shack on the belts, from Repeaterville, KO4EW and I 
> decide to enterthe anti-social :) 2B-2op catagory.
> 
>   We had a blast exept for a P.O.S generator that varied voltage from 
> 80-135V,  we where fortunate enoughnot to blow any equipment.
>   CT said we oped 21.6 hrs. the off time was adjusting generator govenor,
> adding oil, cursing generator, rebooting computers, taking volt readings, 
> cursing.........Any good ideas on what to purchase for a CONTEST 
> generator???? (reply direct) Our borrowed generator
> saved us $$$ but cost us alot of Qs and could have cost us alot in equip 
> repair,  but we still had alot of fun!
> 
> Had some of the best FD rate ever on Sat nite on 20ssb, the internet 
> challenge must have gotten some good ops out,  didn't seem
> to be as many lids this year :)  
> 
>  
> Rigs: Icom 735cw and 737ssb (they dont care what volt you throw at them)
>       Yaesu 2400 2M
> Logged with CT 9.23 network(yes had 10M logging prob)
> Voice keyer LTA VOICE BLASTER  (wrked FB)
> Antennas: SSB station- Vee-beam, 80M dipole fed w/ladder line
>            CW station- 2 40/20m dipoles
>             
> 73 Jeff KQ4HC   
> jnyeager at southern.edu
> 



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