FEED BACK
#11

GEORGIAN BAY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB NEWS
 

Editor Bill VE3EFX
NOVEMBER 1974
 

Executive:
President Jim Vamplew VE3CRV
Vice Pres. Dick Shave VE3BIS
Sec. Treas. Cy Weaver VE3DQA

The October rneeting was an informal affair consisting of a tour of the Bruce Nuclear Complex. Thirteen. club members and their guests made a total of twenty one people at the meeting and a big vote of thanks is due to Dick, VE3BIS whose efforts made the very interesting tour possible.
The tour started with a film showing the various parts of the ccmplex and the commentary described the structures, their function and statistics. Following the movie we boarded a bus and were taken on a tour of the site during which Narg Bowman, our guide, gave us a very interesting commentary on the history, and future plans for the Bruce Nuclear Power Development.

After the tour we split up into four groups for a look round the Douglas Point nuclear power station. This lasted one hour and then we went back to the information Centre for coffee and doughnuts and a general ragchew.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the meeting and I think it was a successful evening.

The financial position of the club is as follows. We have $92.45 in the bank and $8.50 in petty cash for a total of $100.95

The Splitrail Festival operation was a big success and coverage was given in the local paper complete with a good picture. We hope to get something into the Ontario Amateur too. I'd like to thank all those who took an active part in the operation on behalf' of the club.

The G.B.A.R.C. net is at 09.50 Sunday on 3.783 mhz. Why not check in ?
 

The next meeting of the club will be held on Thursday November 21st. in the CIAG Computer Bldg. Owen Sound. Meeting time is 8pm sharp. The program will include a movie and a technical talk by Dick VE3BIS. I plan to bring along one of the small portable radios that we use at the Heavy Water Plant as it is unlikely the members will have seen anything so small. At the meeting we plan to discuss the financing of modifications and the operation of the repeater,I.E. do we use club funds or start a repeater fund ? If you are unable to attend the meeting , make your wishes known by letter to the secy.

Enclosed with this issue of Feedback is a membership application form which you must fill in and return to the club if you wish to maintain your membership. All memberships are due for renewal by January 1st unless you joined the club in the last couple of months or so. If you do not renew by the above date , you will not receive the club newsletter and will not be considered a member after December 31st.

The Motor Club expects to have the route for their rally finalized by the end of October and I should be able to tell you what will be required of us in April by the time the meeting comes around. There is the possibility that some GRS stations will be used as well as us and if the rally is to be started from the Sutton Park Inn , Kincardine, we will likely put our base station there along with a GRS base station, if a suitable tower is available for the antennas.

The latest call to be heard on the air from around here is VE3HKV, Jim , who is on 2m mobile with rocks for VE3GOD, the Goderich repeater, and on the other bands he is running a FT200 to an allband inverted V. As far 25 I know there are only five of the class who are on the air , although two others have rigs. VE3HIG, the Inverhuron playboy has had a rig since July but hasn' t made a contact yet.

We have two more amateurs in the area now and I hope they will join the club. Working at the Heavy Water Plant in the same dept. as me is Jorgen, VE5WH. He is hoping to get on 2m soon with the help of Dick , VE3BIS, The other amateur is Alan, VE3GFZ, who is living at Inverhuron and will be at the Bruce G.S, for a couple of years. Alan is on the air and in fact had the rig fired up before they were properly moved into the house. lie is from Scotland so with VE3HKV and myself on the air the colonials are outnumbered locally.
The RS0 convention was an unqualified success and the biggest and best one so far, by all reports. VE3EFX and VE3HIR went down to Hamilton on the Friday night and VB3HIP arrived on Saturday morning with his XYL and junior op. We also saw VE3NX, VE3AIU, and VE3GVD during the afternoon. Ian Sutherland was down but I didn't see him as I was at the RS0 delegates meeting on the Saturday afternoon.
The club representation at the convention c uld have been better especially as this convention was so close to the Owen Sound area. As far as I know , there were only four GBARC members at the banquet.

The big news is that our club won the Rusty Brennan Trophy for our Field Day score, and I am particularly pleased as this was our first effort and we had a lot of new operators with no experience in this type of operation. I'd like to extend congratulations to all who took part in the Field Day and I hope this will create incentive to put as much effort in to the operation next year.

Ian, VE3HIP, won a centre insulator for his new antenna and a SWR bridge in the draws. Joan his XYL, won a ladies wallet and keycase. Tess, VE3HIR won a Heath electronic keyer and VE3EFX won a dummy load similar to the Heath one. This made the trip well worth while as these were things that we all needed and in fact Tess had been considering buying a keyer or a bug. Bill, VE3NX won a cigarette lighter in the draw so nobody came away empty handed.

After the banquet and dance, we all adjurned to the room occupied by VE3EEE, our friendly RI frum Kitchener, and had a good bull session till after 2am when we all QSYed to the respective budoirs.

One of the nicest activities at the convention was meeting so many of the people that we had talked to and renewing acquaintances of long standing with the Oshawa club members , some of whom I hadn't seen for 16 years.

I finally saw the film "Fine Business" and sat in on a well presented talk

on troubleshooting in the hamshack, given by Glen, VE3DSP.
Cliff, VE3HNR and his XYL were at the convention, you may remember that they were
at the Field Day site also. Cliff wants to sell the following gear;

1- Elmac PMR6 tx&mdashrx for mobile operation on AM/CW. Tx needs modulator fixed $75
2- DX4O and VF1 vfo $350
3- Homebrew Electronic Keyer $20

Thntact; Cliff Blakey, VE3HNR, 114 Main St, APT 6 Shelburne. ONT.

 

CORRECTION: I made an error in Jorgen' s call on the Previous page. It is VE5HW not VE5WH. Sorry about that.

Art , VE3AKC, has invited the club to his QTH for a picnic next June. TNX Art.
There is a very good chance of working DX on the 80m band now that the winter is approaching · If you new hams move down below the novice frequencies you may be able to catch some new countries. Since I came back from vacation. I have heard the Europeans , Africans and South Americans in the evenings and some New Zealand stations in the mornings on ssb so they should there on cw also.

Ian , VE3HIP, is now the proud possessor of a set of traps and enough wire to get up a W3DZZ antenna so I expect to hear that he is working out in fine style very shortly. While on the subject of antennas , I was talking to Jim VE3EMQ and he has a G5RV up now and it is putting a good signal out on 80m. He did say though that he was using an antenna tuning unit with it.

I will run a contest for all those who got their tickets this year, and are club members, in the month of December. I'll discuss the details of date times etc. at the meeting to find out what will be the most suitable for the majority. If the other members would like to try a small contest , either cw or ssb just let me know and I'll set one up .

I'm still not getting much in the way of copy for the newsletter from the members except for the info I dig up on my own. Isn't anybody out there doing anything? I am building up a tuning unit so that I can load up my W3DZZ on 16Cm now that I have the FT1O1B and after I get it going I'll. put the details in here so that the other members who have similar antennas and i 60m coverage on their rigs can get on this band. There is a fair amount of activity here and this is the season for best results .

FOR SALE
1. Heath Phone Patch $25
2. Pair head Phones $3 .00
3. Omega Antenna Noise Bridge, TE7&mdash oz i - 300 mhz. $30
4. MN4 Drake Matching Network, Wattmeter, to 300 watts $55.OO
5. AK221 Frequency Meter with Calibration Book $8O.OO
6 · Haeth Speaker t $7
7. WW2 Rx .15 - 15mhz with Power Supply, BF0, & Spare Tubes $70.00
8 · KW Balun 1:1 $5
9. Homebrew Frequency Checker with Coils $5

The above from; John Menzies, VE3GLR 74, McLeod Cres , LONDON.
 

You'll find interesting facts concerning the number of Ontario hams who are members of RS0 on the next page of this issue of Feedback. I put this in to supplement the remarks in last month ^ts newsletter. The only thing we have to be smug about is the fact that this district has the second highest percentage of RS0 members in the province, and that is only 28%. We'll see how much improvment we as a club can make in the next two months . We will have all the statistics on each member by the beginning of the year and it will be up to the individual to keep the secy / treas. informed on any changes of address or status.

VE3EFX worked a new one the other day when VP2EY showed up on the island of Anguilla in the Carribean.

The repeater is working out very well these days . A Vamplew task force went out and raised the TX antenna to 165 feet up the tower. By the time this goes. to press I expect the RX antenna will have been raised too with a corresponding increase in the effective coverage. It is hoped that the city of Owen Sound will benefit as it is presently a tough town to get a 2m signal into or out of.

It looks as if the Slack boys and Tess are doing pretty well working the States on cw. This is good practice and adds a bit of competition to the operation. Jim, VE3HKV isjust getting into his stride as he started later but if he keeps at it he'll soon catch up.

What's new in the Radio Astronomy dept. Harvey? I was wondering if you would be interested in sending in a short article for the newsletter each month. It would maybe stimulate some interest among the other members if you want to start a project to check on solar activity as the sunspot cycle begins.

I guess you all heard the contest activity on the fone bands during the weekend of Oct. 26th-27th. The CW portion of the contest comes up on Nov. 23rd & 24th. so here is a very good chance to get some CW DX the easy way. The exchanges consist of RST + zone. We are in zone 4, so you would send something like 559 04 as your report to the station contacted. Listen to a few contest contacts first and you willsee how it is done. Stations in the contest will call CQ TEST.

Is anyone sending slow code for the new class Jim is running these days ?
 

Some help for Amateurs from 6 to 60
 

by L. A. Malid a VE3.
 

Tuning that new 75 meter antenna.
Now most fellers are real bright and have all sorts of gadgets to help them to see what is happening to their antenna but us pore f'ellers got to think up other ways. Yuh see according to the books we must see that the currants and voltages are properly lined up on the lead in and the part at the top. I've never rightly f'igured out how to balance currants on the top of mine so have f'igured out a very much simpler way of' doing it. When you build or buy your rig you should know how much power it is supposed to put up there into that there flat part at the top. Well I find that if the power output is to be about 100 wats I take a light bulb of that power on the xyl and hook it to the antenna terminal and tune up the rig. This is the secret: Next I hook up the lead-in to the rig and tune it up. If I have it set at 3755 and it loads the same way as with the swiped bulb I know the currants are balancing just right, but if it don't and down around 3600 it tunes up then that durn antenna is too long. If it won't load at 3755 but does at 3850 than the dad burned thing be too short. Just taking a few inches off or adding a few usually makes those currants wiggle and juggle like a pair of circus fellers.

Tuning your C.W, station to that phone station on that there Ontars, net.
Most times it don't matter if yuh are tuned right or not for most net controllers seem to be worse c.w, operators than most novices. Yuh see your signal is like a steep hill that actually comes to a point at the top. When we old timers used to use A.M, it was easy, for you just turned your VF0 until yuh herd a nul. Now wid S.S.B. it's different and what you got to do is listen to the net feller til yuh hear his voice nice and smiley then yuh tune til yer note is nice and purty on the middle of his voice. You don't put on yer final fer that tho for that wouldn't be nice to listen to.

These are just a couple of ideas I thot up while by the barn, so gud luck til I hear yuh put yer rig on my voice some time. 73
 

Analysis of RSO Membership