UTARC News
The Official Journal of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club
March 1997
The Official Journal of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club
March 1997
The March meeting of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club will be held on Thursday, March 20 at 7:30 PM in RLM 5.120 on the UT campus. Talk in on the 147.18 MHz repeater.
The topic for March will be Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Amateur Radio. Tim Baggett (AA5DF) from Motorola will be speaking.
The club's Clean Sweep mugs for the operators of last November's Phone Sweepstakes contest will be distributed.
UTARC members normally meet for dinner after the meeting.
Last Meeting
The February meeting featured videos about the World Radiosport Team Championship and the upcoming AMSAT Phase IIID satellite.
de KM5FA
This month, we have another exciting guest speaker. Tim Baggett (AA5DF) will be speaking to the club about Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Amateur Radio. Tim is an employee of the Motorola DSP Group here in the Austin area, and a recent Ph.D. graduate of the Electrical Engineering program at New Mexico State University (W5GB). Tim will be bringing to the meeting a Kenwood TS-870 all-mode HF transceiver, with a built-in Motorola DSP chipset. Tim will speak on the theory and practice of DSP, and focus particularly upon its application in Amateur Radio. A live demo with the radio will accompany the talk.
A reminder that an Amateur Radio license class will begin on Saturday, March 22. If you know someone who is interested in joining the ranks of Amateur Radio have them contact Jeff Schmidt (N5MNW) at 255-6753.
The text used for the course will be "Now You're Talking", available from Austin Amateur Radio Supply and Radio Shack stores.
de KM5FA
Kevin Mandaville (KG5KI) has recently donated to the club a used IBM VGA monitor for our station computer, replacing a color EGA monitor that had served the club for many years. This monitor is capable of 640x480 resolution in 256 colors, and is driven by a VGA card the club received as part of a previous donation by Peter Nance (N5TR). The new monitor will enable the club computer to run programs requiring VGA graphics, such as many satellite orbit prediction programs, moon orbit prediction programs, meteor scatter prediction programs, greyline DX tools, and more including those that run under Windows.
Thanks a bunch Kevin!
Robert Barron (KA5WSS) and Ken Harker (KM5FA) are in the process of building a second computer for the club station. This second machine will be based on an 80386DX CPU, and will run a minimal configuration of the Linux operating system with Amateur Radio AX.25 and TCP/IP networking code built into the OS kernel. This machine will be a conglomeration of miscellaneous "leftover" computer parts the club already has, including an old 8088 XT-style case, and the EGA monitor, and parts donated by Robert, including the 80386 motherboard and hard disk. This machine will likely remain in the back room of the shack and will eventually serve as the host for the club's future networking projects, possibly including a Spread Spectrum radio modem used under the TAPR Special Temporary Authority, or other more traditional packet hardware.
The computer still requires a floppy drive, CD-ROM and some more memory. If you have any surplus equipment to add to this machine please contact one of the club officers.
What will this machine provide for UTARC? UNIX login accounts with mail accounts that can be checked using simple AX.25 packet gear or using TCP/IP. For TCP/IP users the machine may eventually offer servers for mail, net news, PacketCluster and HTML (though only text at 1200 baud!).
de KM5FA
With the addition of a new VGA monitor, many new computer programs have been loaded onto the shack computer. Not all are completely configured yet, and the entire Windows 3.1 setup is still pending a working mouse. By the time you read this, however, most of the software should be fully operational and ready to go...
For DOS:
For Windows:
There may be others coming soon. Many of these programs are shareware, so if you find yourself using a particular program frequently and think the club should register the software, please talk to one of the officers about this. Also, if you have a particular Amateur Radio software program you are interested in using on the club computer, please contact one of the officers about installing it.
Figure 1: George (K5TR) works on the new club tower prior to
installing the HF beam. Derek (AA5BT) provides ground support.
April 1996.
DX'ing
Derek reports that the club has received a card from JX7DFA (Jan Mayen Island) a new DXCC country for W5EHM.
Ken reports that the club station's RTTY setup is now getting a lot of use working DX. RTTY QSOs have recently been made with stations in locations such as Madagascar, Sakhalin Island (Russia), and French Polynesia. QSL cards for RTTY contacts on 15, 20 and 40M with TY1RY (Benin) were also received.
Awards
The club received its IARU HF Championship participation award. The certificate does not state how the club did in South Texas so we're not sure yet whether we won anything or not!
Contests
The club received the Sweepstakes Clean Sweep mugs for the club station and the operators of the Phone Sweepstakes effort. The mug is earned by working all 78 ARRL sections in the US and Canada.
This year's ARRL DX Contests were both very enjoyable. Derek Wills (AA5BT) and Ken Harker (KM5FA) both participated, in an informal way, in the CW contest. Ken also participated in the SSB contest two weekends later, making over 100 QSOs with DX stations. George Fremin (K5TR) was a member of the 6D2X team operating in Mexico for the phone contest.
Work Done
Kenneth (KM5FA) fixed the on/off switch on the rotator control box. So operators no longer need to unplug the box before they leave the shack.
Work To Be Done
If you would like to help with some of these items, contact one of the club officers.
Do you have any of this type of equipment that you would like to donate to the club? Actually the club is willing to accept most any type of donation. We'll put it to good use and the donation can be tax deductible!
Figure 2: George (K5TR) installs the new HF beam, April 1996.
The club's collection of QSL cards continues to grow and keeping them organized becomes more important as cards are collected for operating awards. The ordering of the cards in the QSL boxes is deliberate and it is important for all members to ensure that they place the cards in the proper order.
The ordering of the HF cards are based on the following sequence:
Some club members may not be aware of what's available on the club's web page, having looked at it once and thinking that it never changes. The web page is constantly being updated and expanded to include new information.
A UTARC link of the week takes you to a new web page that deals with Amateur Radio. Now you can go to one source for a different Amateur Radio experience every week.
The club's collection of images has expanded dramatically in the last couple of weeks. Check out the scrapbook page to see what's been added.
Interested in fox hunting (radio direction finding)? A new Doppler system is now being offered for sale. For more information:
http://home.navisoft.com/agrelo/page11.htm
N1BWT has a web page devoted to 10 GHz Amateur Radio operation.
http://www.tiac.net/users/wade
Top Ten Devices makes antenna switching products. Their web page is at:
...You are in your car, and see somebody you know walking down the street. Instead of going beep-beep and waving, you pound out CQ on your car horn and wave. -- Ed Bathgate, Awaiting license - Expects to be N3S** soon
...You're sitting outside somewhere, and you notice you've been hearing "O O O O O O," just a constant string of the letter "O," and for quite some time. Not consciously - it just popped into your head - and you start to listen to the surroundings...and there's a bird singing "OOOH OOOH OOOH," over and over and over... --Scott Rosenfeld, NF3I
... You've named your brand new German Shepherd puppy 'Radio Flyer' to combine two of your hobbies... (this is true, this is my dog's name...) -- John KD4DTS
Oh, no.... I forgot about our cat, named "CQ", who would think it was dinnertime whenever I operated 20m SSB. -- Dave, KZ1O
By now you may have read the news regarding the "Little Leo" companies which have been trying to get one or more Amateur allocations between 144 and 450 MHz for their own use. The ARRL and other Amateur groups have been putting resources into the fight to keep those bands. But what can you do? Much more than you think.
The current attack on the Amateur bands is not the first, nor will it be the last. The current attack must be dealt with quickly. Future attacks need to be countered now with long term actions.
To assist in beating back the current attack send an email message to wrc97@fcc.gov with the subject heading, "Reference No. ISP-96-005 IWG-2A". In the message body you should paraphrase, "I support the ARRL/AMSAT opposition to the NVNG MSS flexible allocation proposal". More information about this proposal, which added the 222 MHz Amateur band to the list of candidates for reallocation, please visit the ARRL web page.
What can you do about future threats to the Amateur bands? Use all of the Amateur frequencies that you can. Holding an Amateur license is not enough by itself. You have to use the frequencies and use them often. UTARC is building up its equipment selection with more VHF bands. UHF in the form of 430 MHz will soon follow. This equipment is useless unless someone actually makes contacts with them.
How many QSO's have you made from the club station in the last month? Is there a particular reason why you have not used the club equipment in the last month? If so please let your club officers know so that something may be done to rectify any problems.
UTARC V.P. Kenneth Harker (KM5FA) wrote an RF safety calculator with a WWW front end to allow Amateurs to estimate whether their stations would comply with expected FCC rules regarding RF exposure. The calculator is reachable from the UTARC web page and now is available through the Hy-Gain Antennas web page as well!
According to the March 3 edition of InfoWorld AT&T is planning on offering local phone service through wireless systems operating in the 10 MHz band. Can you spot the error in this story? So much for handheld telephones!
William Beach of Fort Collins, Colorado was a UT student in 1970 and was licensed at one time as AL7MM. With the vanity callsign program now in full swing William decided it was time for a change and is now know on the air as K0UT!
President: Tom Orzechowski SQ9DDZVice President: Kenneth Harker KM5FA 467-8724 kharker@cs.utexas.edu
Secretary/Treasurer: Kourt de Haas KB5PRZ 445-4759 kourt@mail.utexas.edu
Newsletter Editor: Robert Barron KA5WSS 837-4051 barron@liant.com
UTARC Web Page URL: http://www.utexas.edu/students/utarc/
Mail Reflector: utarc-l@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
UTARC News is published by the UT Amateur Radio Club, a registered student organization. UTARC News is not an official publication of The University of Texas at Austin and does not represent the views of The University or its officers. This newsletter was not printed with state-appropriated funds.
Newsletter Contributors: AA5BT, KM5FA, W5NFC
Join or renew your membership to the ARRL through the club. It costs you nothing more but UTARC gets a portion of the membership fee!
Got a project idea for the club? Let the officers know!
The University of Texas ARC
Box 170, Texas Union
Austin, TX 78713