GUYWIRE
FEBRUARY 2005
Editor VE5SC sewert@sasktel.net
The online publication of the REGINA AMATEUR RADIO
ASSOCIATION is published monthly except July and August
and is distributed free of charge as a service of RARA
to all licensed hams in the Regina Area who have e-mail
addresses. Anyone NOT wishing to receive future copies
should send an e-mail to the editor and your name will
be removed from the mailing list.
The RARA WEBSITE can be found at
http://www.gpfn.sk.ca/hobbies/rara/index.html
It contains RARA news, repeater lists as well as links to other
amateur resources.
Club meetings are held the 2nd Wednesday of each month, with
the exception of July and August, at the Science Center.
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NEXT MEETING WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 9TH 7:30
PM
IMAX BOARDROOM SCIENCE CENTER
The ARES group will be meeting separately this month.
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FROM THE PRESIDENTS DESK
We'll see you at the meeting February 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the IMAX
Boardroom. Bruce Rattray of the double callsign, VE5RC and VE5QRP,
will give a presentation on the 40 m QRP fox hunt. Come and
explore
another way to enjoy amateur radio.
The meeting agenda will include appointing a "Member Auditor" to review
the
RARA financial transactions of the 2004-2005 financial year. This is to
ensure that your executive has managed your club in your best interest.
The
2004-2005 financial statement will be approved by the Executive Board of
Directors at the March Executive meeting, sent to the Saskatchewan
Corporations Branch, and published in the March Guywire.
The following items were discussed in last month's Guywire and will
also be
on the agenda:
* how to appropriately celebrate the Centennial of Saskatchewan as a
Province
* how the club can engage in fundraising. If we host a hamfest it will
require lots of volunteers.
* two volunteers to design a poster/brochure to attract peoples'
attention
to amateur radio.
RARA is still selling 450 MHz antennas
We are still selling 7 element 440 MHz Yagi antennas, cut for 450-470
MHz,
to interested amateurs. These are Sinclair SLR307 antennas, specs are
at web
site http://www.sinctech.com/catalog/series.aspx?id=56
, look at the SY307.
We are now selling them for $40.00.
We are also selling 450 MHz 3 element yagis for $30.
Contact Terry White, VE5TLW, at 586-1810.
The Princess Auto Crawl
Bruce Rattray, VE5RC, Doug Pfaff, VE5DCP, and Bill King, VE5IBK, came
through the blowing snow to Princess Auto. Stan Ewert, VE5SC, braved the
blizzard, but went home early. Allan Tidball, VE5LAT, and I stood in
for the
official judges. We awarded 2 second prizes. Bruce found a couple
of bridge
rectifiers and Doug found a surge limiter for an automotive electrical
system and a 1/4 inch drive socket wrench set. They both also
took home
RARA crests. The January general meeting could not be convened
because
there was no quorum. We who came to the IMAX boardroom had an informal
discussion of some of the club's issues.
Constitutional Amendments
We must still advise Saskatchewan Justice - Corporations Branch of the
change in the constitution about the number of Directors required. Our
annual report of Directors must now be submitted to the Corporations
Branch by the end of March.
The RARA Memorial Plaque - eligibility criteria
Since there were no comments about the criteria as they were described
last
month, we will continue to use them for adding names to the plaque.
Bruce Rattray, VE5RC/VE5QRP, has also set up a silent key page on the
RARA web site which may include more deceased Regina amateurs.
Club VHF Radio
Stan Ewert, VE5SC, has reviewed the operation of the club 2 m radio. In
telephone company terms, "No Trouble Found".
Club Station Move
I have not got back into the swing of things since Christmas. I will be
investigating the state of the promised cable entrance to the new club
location in the coming week. As soon as feasible we will organize
a small
work party to re-connect the antenna cables to the radios.
Fund Sharing with the ARES Group
As I understand it, our club has a long tradition of sharing funding
with
the ARES Group. There is an understanding that any honorarium that
comes from events like walks or runs that are monitored by a group of
radio amateurs will be shared equally between ARES and the RARA. We
have also provided a "banking" service to ARES when they collected
money for shared cost Jackets. We can anticipate similar occurrences
in the future.
That's all for this month. Send me an e-mail at:
borjallen@accesscomm.ca
to tell me what you think about any aspect of the club.
73
John Allen, VE5SJA, RARA President
NOW THAT'S DX
Bill Tippett, W4ZV, of New London, NC correctly copied code word
OMAHA from the N2XE beacon transmitting with a peak carrier power
of .0000406 watts at 3.5455 MHz on the 80 meter Amateur Radio band.
Bill confirmed reception of the beacon at 2328Z, January 2, 2005. The
precise distance between the two stations is 546.8 miles, establishing
Bill's record reception distance at 13,467,980 miles per watt. Tippett
used
a Ten Tec Orion Transceiver with a 1000 foot Beverage antenna (named
after Dr. Harold Beverage who invented it in the 1920s).
-RAC
ARE TELEPHONES OBSOLETE?
By year's end, the 8,000 engineers and other employees who
work for Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan will have some
extra room on their desks. The company has signed a contract with
Sprint to remove all desktop phones and outfit these workers with
wireless phones equipped with the walkie-talkie functions in order
to provide them with greater mobility without sacrificing
availability.
-CEG Newsletter
PUBLIC SERVICE REPORT
he first ARES meeting of 2005 will be held at the Neil Balkwell Centre
at
19:30 on February 15. I have arranged for Captain Rob Taylor of the
Regina Fire Department make a presentation on Clandestine Labs
(Meth Labs).
I have seen the presentation at an Emergency Management seminar
in December. It is a very worthwhile to learn of the dangers, not only
of
the drug itself, but the dangers of even being in the vicinity of the
"Clan
Lab". I will be inviting Search and Rescue Regina volunteers to attend
this presentation as well.
Hope to see you there.
73,
-Terry White (VE5TLW)
MARITIME NET ON STREAMING AUDIO
The Mairtime Net which meets daily at 1600Z and 0300Z on 14300 kHz
can now also be heard on streaming audio on the Internet.
Originating
at the Marine Radio Station WLO in Mobile Ala.the audio can be heard
at www.mmsn.org.
Click on the yellow icon that says "Listen Live".
- RAC/TCA
WEB SITES OF INTEREST
To find out the latest on the fate of the 40 meter band go to:
http://www.rac.ca/40metre.htm
To read of ham participation in the Tsunami relief operation go to:
www.tsunamirelief.com
MOOSE JAW FLEA MARKET
A reminder that the annual Moose Jaw Flea Market is upcoming on
April 2nd at 9:00 AM at the Church of Our Lady, 566 Vaughn St. W.
This is the same location as in previous years. A map showing how
to get there is on the SARL website.
OLDEST WOMAN AMATEUR
NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 2, 2005--At age 100, ARRL member Emma
Berg, W0JUV/AAR7AX, of Lawrence, Kansas, remains active daily
in the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS). Berg achieved
centenarian status on Sunday, January 16. The occasion elicited
greetings this week from ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, who
extended best wishes to Emma Berg and congratulated her
on more than four decades as a member of both Army MARS
and the ARRL.
-ARRL
CLUB OFFER
To: Canadian Amateur Radio Clubs <ve2shw@yahoo.com>
Since 1995 Radio HF, located close to Montreal, has
been serving hams, shortwave listeners, scanner
enthusiasts and CBers throughout Canada with a wide
variety of radio equipment, antennas, accessories and
Canada's largest selection of radio and communications
publications, including the complete catalogues of
ARRL, RSGB, Radio Amateurs of Canada, and more.
Radio HF has recently set up a brand new webpage,
http://www.radiohf.ca
It features all our lines of equipment, accessories
and publications available by mail order, local
pick-up or at the various hamfests that we attend
throughout the province of Quebec and eastern Ontario
every year. I invite all members of your club to
visit the website and review the products which Radio
HF has to offer.
Radio HF can be reached by e-mail, at info@radiohf.ca
or by toll-free telephone, from anywhere in Canada, at
1-800-463-3773. Complete contact information is
available on the Radio HF web site.
As a special introductory offer, to your club and its
members, I am offering, through to the end of February
2005, free shipping on any group club order of
equipment, accessories and/or publications ordered by
your club on behalf of your members. You need simply
put an order together of items required by your
members. I would then ship the complete order to a
designated address, for distribution to your members.
In addition to the extensive line of products,
accessories and publications, Radio HF offers a truly
unique service. Since 1999, I have edited and
distributed, by e-mail, the Radio HF Internet
Newsletter, a free monthly newsletter. The Radio H.F.
Internet Newsletter is a collection of interesting
websites about radio, communications, technology and
other related material. The Newsletter also includes
monthly specials, feature products and news and
developments at Radio H.F. The Newsletter is now
distributed to over 1500 subscribers in literally
dozens of countries around the world.
Some amateur clubs already receive the monthly
Newsletter and re-distribute it to their individual
members. Other clubs have informed their members of
the Newsletter. They then, in turn, subscribe on an
individual basis. To see what this Newsletter is all
about, there are two ways to obtain copies of previous
editions.
All 2004 and 2005 editions are available from the
Radio HF Internet Newsletter Yahoo Group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hfnewsletter/,
in the
"Files" section.
All prior e-mail and web editions, right back to 1999,
are available at
http://www.anarc.org/cidx/radiohf/index.html
If your club, or individuals in your club, would like
to subscribe to the Radio HF Internet Newsletter,
simply send your full name and e-mail address to
hfnewsletter@yahoo.com. Subscribers are encouraged to
submit their own interesting links to the Newsletter
for possible publication. Those having their links
published also receive a discount of 2% on their next
order from Radio HF.
Finally, I would ask that you pass this information
about Radio HF, its products and services to all of
your club members. I would be more than pleased to
serve them and supply them with their amateur radio
requirements. If your club has a website with
listings of amateur radio retailers, I would
respectfully ask, if possible, that Radio HF be added
to your list.
If your club, or any of its members, have any
questions, please feel free to contact me by e-mail or
by telephone. I thank you for giving me the
opportunity to introduce Radio HF to your club and its
members.
Best wishes for 2005
73
Sheldon Harvey, VE2SHW
=====
Sheldon Harvey
Radio H.F. - Canada's specialist in radio communications
See the new Nature Books Division as well!
http://www.radiohf.ca
President-Canadian International DX Club
Canada's national radio monitoring club since 1962
http://www.anarc.org/cidx/
Enjoy birds and birdwatching?
http://www.pqspb.org
SOLAR BREAKTHROUGH
Coating recharges batteries - by Sarah Staples, CanWest News service.
Canadian scientists have made a discovery that could become a catalyst
for new generations of "battery-less" consumer electronic devices and
the long awaited solar-hydrogen economy.
They have created paintable plastic solar cells that are the first to
harness the sun's invisible, infrared rays, and could deliver up to five
times the power of the most advanced photovoltaic cells today.
The plastic solar cells would be exponentially cheaper and easier to
manufacture than similar material made of traditional semi-conductors
like silicon, and more efficient than previous plastic solar cells that
until now had managed to capture only the visible portion of the
spectrum.
The material dissolves into a liquid without losing any of its
performance, and may be painted onto walls or windows, sprayed on
clothing, or printed onto rolls of paper.
Hydrogen-powered automobiles coated with solar cells, for example, could
convert enough energy into electricity to continually recharge a car
battery so it could run longer, said Ted Sargent, a University of
Toronto physicist and holder of a Canada Research Chair in Emerging
Technologies, who was on of the inventors.
Devices from PDAs and iPods to cell-phones coated with the solar cell
plastic would automatically recharge themselves, eliminating electrical
cords and battery packs.
"The one thing that's not wireless about all the wireless devices we
have is the way we power them; solar energy is literally wireless
power," said Josh Wolfe, a managing partner at the venture capital firm
Lux Capital, in New York.
"Everything you can think of will be different; from batteries to
electricity bills, to the way devices themselves are manufactured."
The invention solves a basic problem of energy efficiency that is the
last important barrier to mass commercialization of solar energy.
Photovoltaic cells have traditionally been made from silicon crystal
wafers that need to be individually cut and smoothed into shape - an
expensive, time-consuming process relegating them to niche purposes such
as powering space vehicles.
Plastic cells were first designed in the 1990s and companies since have
been refining methods of manufacturing them cheaply by printing them
onto large rolls, like newsprint.
But normal plastic absorbs only visible rays within the blue-red range
400 to 700 nanometres - billionths of a metre - in wavelength, a region
that accounts for only half of the energy in sunlight.
The Canadian version is the first to cull power from the visible
spectrum plus the invisible infrared, a deep garnet region some 700
nanometres to 10 microns in wavelength.
With minor fine-tuning, the new plastic is expected to convert 30 per
cent of solar energy into electricity - a five fold improvement over
current nano-engineered solar cells.
The material is an electricity-conducting polymer mixed with nano-sized
crystal particles called "quantum dots." The mix was painted onto
glass
plied with electrodes and blasted with infrared light - methods that
allowed electrons to escape from the quantum dots and then be harvested
almost instantaneously.
"We've tapped the other half of the sun," Sargent told CanWest News
Service.
Peter Peumans, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford
University, called it, "a very important demonstration" that will yield
solar cells on order of magnitude cheaper than silicon, with the same or
better performance as (current) plastic," within a decade.
The plastic is also adaptable for medical use.
A characteristic of infrared light is that it penetrates up to 10
centimetres inside human flesh, so one option would be to coat
digital-camera chips with plastic in order to create a low-cost,
portable diagnostic scanner for detecting cancer, said Peumans.
By mid-century, "solar farms" consisting of photoconductive plastic
rolled across unpopulated expanses of desert could conceivably generate
enough low-cost, "clean" energy to supply the entire planet's power
needs, said Sargent.
But to affordably replace coal-fired or nuclear-generating stations, the
average cost of converting sunlight into power must drop to six cents US
per kilowatt-hour, from 25 to 50 cents US per kilowatt-hour, according
to Michael Rogol, an expert in solar power economics from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Products nearest to market will be the most consumer-oriented items,
such as energy-saving plastic sheeting that could be unfurled onto a
rooftop to supply heating needs, or solar cell window coatings that
could let in enough infrared light to power home appliances, Rogal said.
The discovery was reported Sunday in the prestigious nanotechnology
journal NATURE MATERIALS.
-Thanks to VE5RC
LAST MONTHS PUZZLER
You hear two signals coming in to your receiver. One registers S8
on the meter, the other 10 db over S9. What is the difference in
signal levels between the two stations in dB?
Answer: There would be a difference of 16 dB between
the signals.
THIS MONTHS PUZZLER
What is the maximum allowable bandwidth a signal may occupy in the
6 Meter band?
Answer next month.
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
To join or renew, fill out the form below and follow the instructions
at the bottom. Support Ham Radio in Regina.
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R.A.R.A. MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
Name __________________________________ Callsign___________
Mailing Address ___________________________________________
E-Mail Address _____________________________________________
I enclose _____ Single membership ($25.00) New _________
_____ Family membership ($30.00) Renewal______
Give this application with your membership fee to
the club treasurer VE5LAT or send it to: Regina Amateur Radio
Association
Box 153
Regina, Sask. S4P 2Z6
The membership year runs April 1st to March 31st.
SUPPORT AMATEUR RADIO AND YOUR LOCAL CLUB
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