Standard Power Connectors
(Oct 2003)

In last months magazine the picture of how the power pole connectors are assembled - as in their polarity, was a but hard to understand, being almost pure black!

Anyway a few club members have shown interest, so hopefully this picture will come out a bit clearer. - No attempts to colour/shade the image this time.

Currently the only suppliers are Farnell & R.S. components.

Part Farnell components RS components
Red housing 397-3840 534-985
Black housing 397-3864 534-979
15A contact 397-3890 not stocked
30A contact 397-3906 534-963

Part Farnell components RS components
Housings 5+ $0.75 10+ $1.10
Contacts 5+ $0.45 10+ $0.61
(ie, min purchase 5) (ie, min purchase 10)

Ian and I are planning to keep a fair quantity on hand, and will on-sell them to club members for cost, let us know what you want.

After JOTA has finished, the club’s radio cabinet/shack will be converted over to power pole connectors.

If you want to use more amps, of just heavier cable for lower loss over longer runs, 75A (and 120A) connectors are also available. (ie for the serious RF-burn expert)

Paul. VK3TGX

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GGREC IRLP/70cm Repeater Project
John VK3XJW
On the weekend just gone the cabinet was installed at the water tank. The cabinet legs have been concreted into the ground and a power feed has been run between the cabinet and the water tank power board. The weekend after our Hamfest we will run the coax up the tank for the antennas and by the end of the month the repeater will be installed. Many thanks to John VK3YTV, Paul VK3TGX, Peter VK3KCG and Jim VK3UFO for the help installing the cabinet.

Well that’s it for now. 73s John

GGREC IRLP/70cm Repeater Project
The GGREC IRLP is on the air! We are only running simplex 439.475MHz at this stage as the repeater is still under construction. Our node number is 6794 and will be on the node list very soon.

Many thanks go to Peter VK2XY for setting up the IRLP software for us. Having set up some 200 IRLP nodes I think he knows what he is doing. Also we have received our call sign VK3RLP for the repeater.

Ian VK3BUF and myself will start on the repeater cabinet later this month and hope to have it completed by early february. Installation of the cabinet at the water tower should be completed by mid february, with the power connection and repeater installed by the end of that month.

I require some Philips FM828 U band parts for the repeater to convert it to 435MHz. The PA driver module MHW710-2 and the RX front end filter. Anyone who knows where I can get the bits please give me a call on 439.475MHz or 144.600MHz.

The IRLP computer has been installed into a 19" rack mount case (see below). With a bit of a push and shove, I was able to get all of the computer to fit inside a Jaycar 3U rack mount case.

I used the back plane off the old computer case to make the mounting of the PC cards easier. After taking about an hour to cut out one of the large holes in the back panel and 6 more to go, I thought there has to be a easier way to do this. Off to the hardware store.

In the power tool section, I finaly got one of the shop assistants to understand what I was wanting to do, he said "Scroll saw". He walked me over to the most expensive one on display (as they do), with a $1000+ price tag.

After 5 minutes of why I should buy this unit, I pointed to the Scroll saw up the far end of the display and asked will that one do the job. After another 5 minutes as to why I should buy the $1000+ and not the $99 one, I bought the $99 scroll saw.

I could justify spending $99 on a power tool that I will only use maybe 5 times a year, but not one over $1000. After getting it home, 45 minutes later I had all 6 remaining holes cut out. I should have got one these years ago!

I made up a front label, put it all together and it looks great! (Top- Completed with top cover removed. Bottom left- top view with no drives. Mid right- rear panel of computer. Bottom right- front panel with label attached before installation.)

73s John VK3XJW
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The hot new technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (USA) this year is--FM radio?
Yup, the humble broadcasting technology, which ceased being a novelty around the time of Woodstock, has re-emerged in several new and potentially significant permutations.

Unused portions of the FM radio spectrum are Microsoft's transmission medium of choice for Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT), the pervasive-data concept the software giant is showing off in the form of gee-whiz wristwatches.

SPOT watches, to begin appearing on store shelves late this year from manufacturers such as Fossil and Citizen, will download sports scores, weather reports and other simple data types selected by the consumer.

Data will be beamed by service providers, who will lease carrier capacity from existing FM broadcasters, and watches will automatically retrieve the signals using FM chips built into the watches.

Microsoft is calling the technology DirectBand. Roger Gulrajani, Microsoft's director of marketing for SPOT, said the software giant looked at a number of wireless technologies before settling on FM. "It was really a matter of size and battery life," he said. "When we looked at Wi-Fi, there was just no way we could fit that into a watch...The FM spectrum turned out to be this great, underutilized asset."

FM has the advantage of using infrastructure that's already built and can easily handle the type of tiny, continuous data downloads DirectBand will require.

Instead of retrieving information on demand, SPOT devices will automatically download updated data so that fresh weather reports or news updates are displayed with one click.

"The bandwidth is pretty transparent," Gulrajni said. "To the user, it's blazingly fast, because the weather report is right there when they want to look at it." A few issues remain to be worked out, such as exactly who will pay for and provide services using the DirectBand network that Microsoft is building.

Makers of SPOT devices may provide their own proprietary services, and Microsoft might offer DirectBand services through its MSN Internet. Costs to the consumer are expected to be minimal.

Brian Halla, CEO of National Semiconductor, the chipmaker working with Microsoft to create the components for SPOT devices, says the costs for components and services are low enough that watches and other SPOT items will become impulse buys in a few years. "The watches will be shrink-wrapped in 7-Eleven next to the Altoids, and people will get them for $20 with service," he said.

National is working on designs for several other SPOT devices, including a DirectBand receiver that would fit into the SecureDigital memory slot on handheld computers.

"FM is a great way to go for this kind of connectivity," Halla said. "You get much better access, and most of the network is already there." FM radio was also big news in the automotive pavilion at CES, where Ibiquity Digital was showing off the first car and home receivers to tap into the digital FM spectrum the company is powering.

Radio stations will be able to broadcast digital signals starting this year, using Ibiquity-developed technology that recently received FCC approval, much as television broadcasters have slowly begun offering digital HDTV broadcasts.

The difference is that radio broadcasters will need to spend only about $80,000 for the equipment needed to go digital, compared with the millions a TV station must spend to switch. As a result, Ibiquity CEO Robert Struble expects much faster pickup for digital radio, which offers CD-quality sound and room for a host of ancillary services, such as readouts that offer detailed info on what you are listening to and options for buying CDs by the artist.

"Broadcasters are really picking up on this, because it's a small investment, and there's a real payoff," Struble said. "The biggest challenge for radio is the growing number of distractions people have--CDs, cell phones, all sorts of digital devices for the car--and this gives people more reasons to pay attention to radio."

Ibiquity, which licenses technology to makers of broadcast and receiver equipment, expects that the 300 stations covering two-thirds of the United States will be broadcasting in digital by the end of this year.

The first digital radio car receivers will go on sale in the second quarter of this year, with home units to follow.
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I assembled it carefully and anxiously awaited the weekend when I could place it atop my 30 foot push up pole. In the meantime, I purchased a rotor from Radio Shack so that I could finally become a true DXer.

Short of having an amplifier, I moved up two notches (in my mind) in the world of ham radio. Well, I put the antenna up and immediately I noticed the difference in my ability to hear and contact stations.

Alas, after a couple of months, I decided to be sure that the connections were all still tight and so I lowered it to check. Oddly enough, I noticed that a couple of the traps were not facing the same direction.

Well, (easy enough) I turned them around and raised the MA5B back to its glorious height of 30 feet. I did not have opportunity to get on the radio for almost two weeks after that and when I did, my Kenwood TS-570dg began to have a noticeably more difficult time of tuning the antenna.

I borrowed an antenna analyzer from a fellow ham and found that the swr was above 10 to 1 on all bands except a part of 17 meters. I then contacted Cushcraft and after several conversations with Ed Hammond , he sent me a new matching network. I wearily installed it and lo and behold, no change.

After climbing down from the roof for the 50th time, I retired to consult the MA5B assembly booklet ONE MORE time. What?! The traps are supposed to have the arrows pointing OUT???!!! Shazam! I didn't know what difference that would make, but at this point, I would have tried anything.

I reversed all the traps and the swr is now below 2:1 on all five bands. The TS-570 tunes all bands easily and am I pleased.

All of this could have been averted if I had just read the instructions more carefully. But, I did get a needed lesson.

Thanks to several of my fellow hams, K5GQ, N1LN, WA5MLT who daily gave me encouragement and especially Ed Hammond with Cushcraft who took the time to help me.

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2.4GHz STEREO AUDIO VIDEO TRANSMITTER / RECEIVER KIT

This kit contains K171C & K171D modules and includes PCBs and all on-board components (10mW Maximum legal power).

These PCB's house voltage regulators and RCA connectors on the receiver only. We are looking at doing a bulk buy on 2.4 Ghz transmitter and receiver kits.

Currently the kits are priced at $99.00 but we hope to get a bulk discount if enough people are interested. So far we have 8 people interested in the buy up.

We will be making up antennas and power amplifiers down the track, (most likely as a club project) Peter VK3KCG -Email VK3KCG@AMSAT.ORG if you are interested..

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