Welcome to the June 2006 edition of Beechlog.
Well, here's another issue of BeechLog, a little late as usual, and probably
not much radio inside. As you may have heard, suddenly it all happened and
contracts were exchanged on my house. So with less than 14 days left, I had
to find somewhere else to live. I took the next day off work, and spent many
happy hours looking at as many properties that I could manage.
I started with three bedroom houses, but soon found that the ones I could
afford were pretty shabby. That would have been OK if I knew I'd be staying
a long time, but all I knew was that there was a good possibility of me having
to move again the same time in 2007. Anyway, the same (or less) money brought
accomodation in an almost new two bedroom flat, so that where I have ended up
for the next year.
As I predicted in the last issue, I have no garden, so the prospect for radio
is pretty slim. One side of my flat opens out on the road, not much help,
but the other side faces my small car park, with a wooded area behind. So
it might be possible to extend a wire out from my window, or perhaps a
concealed low dipole could be hidden in the woods? This might mean operating
as /M or /P, depending how you interpret the regulations.
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A rather poor panorama of the view from my kitchen window
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So far I've spent my time trying to get tidy. I still have years of collected
junk to dispose of, I'll need a table at the rally. I've been buying vaccuum
cleaners, ironing boards, pots and pans, bed linen, etc., and the radio
stuff is hidden in a cupboard somewhere. But perhaps one day I'll be
modulating the waves again, who knows?
Roger GØHZK, Editor
Contents
Don't move if you can avoid it
Radio without aerials
Portable Operations
Windows Vista
Don't move if you can avoid it
I thought I might continue with the theme above, after all I haven't a clue
about what's happened in the amateur radio world these last few months (apart
from the disappearance of Airy Bean). Before I moved, I bored everyone at work
by compiling lists of things that needed to be done. I discovered about forty
people/organisations who needed to know my new address. I tried to contact
as many as possible in the last few days before I moved out, but it was a
hopeless task. Call centres, voice activated services, support staff thousands
of miles away, I've had my fill.
The quickest to catch on were those nice folk at the Department of Work and
Pensions. They wrote to me the day after I moved, to my new address. I hadn't
yet told anyone about my new address, so goodness knows how they knew!
Others were slow to respond. Some have ignored what I told them, and still
use my old address. I have no confidence in those who used voice recognition
machines, as they got most of what I said wrong. One resorted to recording
my voice! The Radio Licencing Centre phone number goes to some other department,
but they responded pretty quickly, as did the RSGB. My new passport arrived
at the correct address, and I think I've paid all the final bills. But there
are still some people to inform, and now at last I have a phone perhaps I
can do that during the next week.
Despite their ads suggesting that I could be connected in 5 days, it took BT
five weeks. My order was mysteriously cancelled which meant I took a day off
work waiting for their engineer, who of course didn't come! So I had to wait
another 2+ weeks. He came this time, and took about 10 minutes to make the
right connection in the roadside box. Now I am waiting for some internet,
which is predicted to be activated on 3rd May. Let's see if I have to edit that
line of text!
Well of course nothing happened on the 3rd! A phone call revealed that BT had to
upgrade something in the main Slough exchange, and I was connected four days later.
Writing this a few days later, a few 'final' bills are coming in. After paying Telewest
they have sent me a second final bill, this one is for 7 pence. Of course the second-class
postage was more than double this, but machines are not programmed to understand this.
There are still some things going to my old address, which the Post Office are managing to
divert to the correct one. At least I assume so, as I am getting diverted mail. But it is
a pain, something which I may have to go through every year, unless I can find a way of
getting somewhere to live on a more long-term basis.
In the meantime I still have to thin down my belongings. Some people carry very little
baggage and can fit everything in the back of their car, and in a way I envy them. I
suppose if you have friends and relatives with spare rooms and garages, your stuff gets
scattered about in various fixed locations. If I was younger, and my life consisted
of going to work by day, and clubbing (whatever that is) in the evenings, all I'd need
is a few changes of clothes. I know some people like this. But I have baggage going back
decades, like boxes of dead beetles and moths, tools, books, magazines and papers that
just seem to be part of my life. But I must dispose of such things. Come the McMichael
Rally there will be a few bargains of all sorts (thought - I've chucked out my tables
and things, so I'm not sure what I'll put it all on). Hopefully it will be a dry day
and I can lay it out on the grass.
Radio without aerials
I've been licenced now for 25 years. Originally G6AMN, I sat the exam at Slough College
in the days when the first CB influx was starting to happen. My reason was that I had
an interest in electronics, and built things out of valves and transistors. I used to
spend hours listening to the short waves on my Dad's valve radio and later on a McMichael
transistor radio. During the sixties there were also many pop pirate radio stations
around the coast of Britain and at the time I built a receiver made with Denco coils
specifically for these stations.
These days there are still loads of short wave stations around, although times have changed
and it's not like it used to be! It was always fun to listen the the News from Moscow or
Prague during major 'incidents', and get a completely different version of what was going
on in the world. No so these days. The short waves are also somewhat out of favour, as
satellite transmissions of varying kinds provide a much more reliable signal. In the UK
there are also numerous radio stations to be found via DAB and Freeview receivers, although
these are rather parochial. However a new source of 'radio' is the internet, where thousands
of stations 'broadcast' to the world without the expense of transmitters and big electricity
and equipment bills.
These have never been that accessible to me, but now having a greater bandwidth available,
quite reliable 'reception' is possible. So as I write this, I am listening to XLNC from
Tijuana, Mexico, currently playing Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. Their schedule for today
can be found
here. The bitrate is 32kbps, which I suppose seems to be a bit slow compared with the
128kbps commonly used for pop mp3 tracks. On my laptop speakers it sounds fine, probably
comparable to that received by a small transistor radio. But compared to the short waves,
it's quite free of phase disortion, fading, etc (If you like that sort of thing, some stations
use a much lower bitrate, which gives them an almost real 'shortwave sound').
There are three main types of 'transmission' used, i.e. you need to have three different
players installed to receive the greatest range of 'broadcasts'. XLNC uses the Real Audio
system, which requires the dreaded Realplayer. This item I have mentioned before, infamous due
to the data it 'sends home' and often branded as spyware. You can avoid most of these side
effects by using the version provided on the BBC web site,
download here.
Actually it's quite a good player, and makes the most
of the 32k stream I'm receiving. The next player you might already have is the Windows Media
Player, also available from the BBC hyperlink above. This seems not so good as Real at low
bitrates, but is used by thousands of 'stations'. Both these players tend to open up
windows all over the place as you find stuff to play, but you can close them once your
stream is playing. Finally there is Shoutcast which uses the Winamp player.
This is quite nicely integrated, as you can browse for 'stations' within its interface
without extra windows opening or demands for you to buy something, which is often the case
with the other two players.
So where do you find these stations? With Winamp Shoutcast stations, you can search
within the Winamp Media Library window, shown above. Clicking on a letter in the
alphabet at the top of the window, you get a list of perhaps 20 genres, and clicking
on one of these will give a list of the stations, often with 'now playing' details.
For the other players, there are web pages that list stations, such as
Radio-Directory
which lists stations for all three formats. The BBC website has links to the BBC
stations, and if you are looking for a particular station, maybe that stations
website has a link. There was a time I would listen to Radio Australia just above
the 15m amateur band, but it's easier now on the web
Portable Operations
As I've already written, it doesn't seem possible that I will be able to play
with my radio when indoors, due to the aerial difficulty. So the alternative
is some sort of portable operation, either from the car park, or elsewhere.
In the past I've managed to connect my radio to the battery in my car, which
was fine for mobile use and an hour of so while parked up. My present car
doesn't really lend itself to this sort of thing, unless I use an extra
battery, which could be kept secured somewhere in the back of the car.
This poses a number of questions. Firstly, what sort of battery? A normal
car battery is able to supply plenty of current, after all, starters are
hungry beasts. But while the capacity might seem large enough, they are
designed for a regular discharge of about a quarter of their capacity. So
a 40Ah battery can supply 10Ah before it really needs charging again. That's
not really enough for the operation of a 100W HF transceiver, providing
perhaps an hour of use on a 40% transmit, 60% receive cycle. There are
other types that are more suitable for the job, usually known a deep-cycle
or leisure batteries. These can supply three quarters of their capacity
before a recharge is necessary, so a 40Ah battery should be good for three
hours use at the same rate.
Alas of course it's not that simple. While the exact details are rarely
published, the capacity depents on the discharge rate. So that 40Ah
rating probably only applies when under a 2A load. As the load gets greater,
the capacity drops, possibly to just half of the rating published. So what
rating do I need? If I assume that I will be running my radio for 2 hours
at most, that's about 20Ah required. A car battery of 80Ah to 100Ah might do
the job, or a deep-cycle type of perhaps 40Ah to 50Ah might be OK.
In practice, I can probably get away with choosing a rating a bit less than
the calculations suggest. While this may stress the battery and reduce its
life, I probably won't be operating that often, so it's not as though I'd
need to buy a new battery very often.
The next problem will be charging the thing. This process will generate
some hydrogen, so lead-acid batteries are best charged outside, which is
exactly what I cannot do, living in a top floor flat! There is the option
of keeping it charged in the car, although I don't really want my car
filling with this inflammable gas either. My only real option is to charge
it somewhere with good ventilation. Some leisure types are sealed and have
a vent pipe, which could be dangled out of a window. Alternatively the
cooker hood might draw the gas away (as long as the hood doesn't have a motor
that produces sparks). There is always the question of charge rate. These
things like a constant voltage, with some sort of current limit when the
battery is in a discharged condition. This might give me an opportunity
of building something electronic!
One way of reducing the load on the battery is to reduce the transmitter
output power. I don't think I'd get the full 100W anyway, even my VHF radio
in my old car gave noticeably less power when I turned the engine off. So
should I go the whole way and get a 10W radio? An IC703 draws about 2A
when transmitting its full 10W, so I would divide the battery Ah needed, and
the hydrogen produced, by a factor of ten (possible a similar reduction in
the number of contacts!). A small 12Ah battery would keep me going for much
longer than two hours, and would be smaller and lighter, so I could operate
further from the car. When I started this radio game, 10W was the norn for
VHF and I made loads of contacts, even good DX, and my Howes transverters
got me contacts on 80 and 20. But these days I have enough trouble with
100W, so would 10W really give me any contacts?
Actually, since I have so few contacts, 10W would probably be fine, and you
can't get less than the zero QSO rate so far this year. I could think about
buying a new radio I can't afford. Good fun. No they've fixed the duff PA
problem in the IC703, it seems a good choice. This radio has a display that
my aged eyes can see. The Yaesu FT817 also does VHF and UHF and is smaller,
but doesn't have a built in ATU like the Icom. There's not much else, apart
from rather expensive DIY radios, and as I've said, a battery charger is
about the limit in home construction for me in my twilight years.
So I must spruce up my current radio collection for disposal at the Rally.
Incidentally my Kenwood TR-751 has been playing up again. About four years ago,
the volume control packed up, due to the wiper assembly have never been
secured to the rotating bit. I glued it together with Tak-Pak, but the sound
packed up again just before I moved here. This time it was the squelch pot,
which has gone open circuit. This pot is concentric with the volume control,
so I was reticent to take it apart again, so I just shorted it out. No
squelch is better that permanent squelch, and you don't need squelch on
SSB.
Windows Vista
I had a bad computer day last weekend, with no less than five computers having problems.
Only one was mine, I might add, although have slimmed down the number I own to just six
PCs. Four are sitting in my room, getting in the way, and it's a moot point whether I will
ever find a use for them. I really ought to chuck them out! Anyway, I had decided that
now my PC only had to support one user, it was time to wipe the hard disk and start again.
And maybe in the process it would be able to 'rip' CDs again, as something went wrong
with this process late last year.
I bought a nice new 250 Gig hard disk, since the old one was full of video files that
I must do something with. However in the process of installing Windows, the b***** machine
couldn't make up it mind whether I had a hard disk at all. To cut a long story short,
it was the power supply that was acting up, as the buzzing transformers and bulging
capacitors revealed. Anyway, a new power supply was procured from Maplins new store
opposite the Three Tuns, and all was well again.
I put the old drive in a cheap
USB case, also from Maplin. After moving the video files elsewhere, I decided to try
out the Windows Vista Beta 2 on the drive, first in my PC, then my sons. All went well
in mine, despite the lowly spec (1.5GHz P4, 1GB ram). I got the flash new glassy
windows etc., and it found the right driver for my graphics card too. An audio driver
from the web sorted that side out too. It was a bit slow on my machine, although that
was expected. MS claim a minimum of an 800MHz CPU, but then they claim XP will run
on a 320MHz CPU and 64MB ram! So after playing around for a day or so, a wiped the drive
and gave it to my son.
Curiously he had problems too, although he has some super-fast 64bit CPU and 2GB ram.
On the re-boot, Vista couldn't boot the hard drive. Eventually he did a good bit of
fault-finding, and handed me back my hard drive with a pushed out pin on the IDA plug.
I managed to repair the drive, so now it's back in the USB case.
Next I had calls from my ex-wife and also my sister. The latters' internet problem sorted
itself out by the time I arrived there, and the other fault was due to a dodgy
floppy disk (people still use these!). On my way out I was called in to her neighbour
whose PC had lost all the sound. I cured this by removing the speaker plug from
the modem card and plugged it back into it's correct hole on the sound card.
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Anyway, Windows Vista. For the uninitiated, Microsoft have released this beta as a
downloadable image file, which when burned to a DVD, forms an install disk. The
download is 3.3GB. I didn't download it, as someone at work had done the work for me! But once
the DVD was booted, Vista installed in about 35 minutes on my lowly PC. Nearly 10 GBytes
of files. The free licence obtained from the MS web site allows you to install it on up
to 10 PCs, and will run for just over a year when you will have to buy the real thing
if you want to continue using Vista.
MS have been quite smart. They have supplied the Ultimate version, which no doubt will
be the most expensive to buy. There are going to be numerous lesser versions, presumably
a little more affordable. Anyway, It runs fine on my sons PC. I say fine, because it's
a beta, and some things don't work. Windows XP drivers don't always work, and it's the
same with some applications. Even the new MSN Messenger replacement has problems, it
crashes some systems, and doesn't work at all on ours. This also applies to all other
IM programs that will run on Vista (not many), apparently there is a problem with many
of the popular routers with SPI firewalls. So maybe there will be a fix soon. Windows
Update is already feeding patches into Vista.
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Actually the whole thing seems
to look a fair bit better that earlier Windows versions, although we will have to
learn to find our way about, as things have moved! With any luck there are a few
screen shots here in Beechlog, but as the mags late already, I won't promise.
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