#10 FEED BACK

GE0RGIAN BAY
AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
NEWS

OCTOBER 1974
Editor Bill VE3EFX

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

The September meeting opened at 8:10 pm (yes, they are still having trouble getting there on time) 4th fifteen members present. The minutes were read and approved and the financial statement showed that the club has a total of $1O1.79 in the coffers.

The club voted unanimously to provide communcations for the GBMC rally to be held next April. There is a possibility that a new foot tower will be installed at the Bruce Coach Lines depot and this could provide us with an excellent antenna location for the base station to co-ordinate the mobiles taking part.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Harvey, VE3FOT, asked the club to support the Flesherton Split Rail Festival, to be held on Sept.27, 28, & 29th. It was resolved to install an operational ham station on 2m and one to operate on the 80m and 20m bands also. There will be a five band trap dipole installed on a tower and Wes, VE3EPC, will be looking after the display of QSL cards etc.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Classes in amateur radio for beginners will start on Sept. 24th so hopefully we will have a new crop of amateurs in this area next year.
* * * * * * * * * * *



It was decided to give Jack, VE3DTS, the job of organizing net control stations for the Sunday morning net.

* * ** * * * * * * * * * ** *

VE3EFX will be on vacation in GM land this month so this issue may be thinner.

I am very pleased to print the following , submitted by Carl , VE6PR.

HOW I GOT INTO HAM RADIO.

I first heard radio in1922, and we got our first set in 1923, a 5 tube TRF using UV-201a tubes. It was fine to DX the BC band at first but the mysteries of the shortwaves hit the hardest, so I started building SW converters and then one or two tube receivers. Not knowing what my coils would tune and not really knowing what to expect kept me enthused for many years.
It was a full time job as all the parts had to be made except the tubes and the only power available till 1962 was batteries charged by a wind generator The days were spent whittling out propellors and blacktsmithing the head and the charger mechanism. While waiting for the wind to blow I was making storage batteries or vibrator supplies These were mainly 6 volt input using hand wound transformers , points off a Model T Ford and a 71a rectifier tube.

Then the 2 volt tubes came out, it was Happy Days for me as I used these in a regenerative circuit with a 6 volt battery providing 2 volts for the filaments and the remaining 4 volts was the plate voltage.......no vibrator. I still have these old sets.

These vibrators were always "sticky" and "noisy" even when using phones. The neighbours would give me their old 'B,, batteries, I'd take them apart and put each cell in a brine solution and connected them in series all around the room but the voltage was never above 50 volts and after spending all day doing this, I could only listen a short time at night, enough to encourage me to carry on though, and I would perhaps work on some exotic antenna or ground system.

Seeing an ad. for an antenna that was supposed to do anything, I got all the dope on it and made one up. It consisted of over 100 strands 100 ft long. As the ground was always dry and hard I dug lO ft down and buried an old car rad in salt and ran a pipe to the surface to keep it topped up with water.

One day I picked up a Ham transmission, (never did know the band ), and I've been at it ever since. One day a neighbour gave me a book with the morse code in it, so I soon memorized it and could send to myself but couldn't copy. I then made a punch and punched out the letters in paper , glued them to a round tin can and I had a code sender. Eventually I progressed till I could copy W1AW at 50 wpm.

How 52 years later I still enjoy CW more than any other mode. My great pleasures have been building, experimenting and making things work that didn't want to. I feel sorry for the beginner today who has classes, friends and code tapes handy then goes to town with a fistfull, of the filthy stuff, buys an appliance and plugs it in. Then if it doesn't work the dealer fixes it. My advice to beginners is to get an old TV set and build a rig from the parts. He'll learn a lot and get the thrill of making it work . 73 es luck Carl..VE6PR

Harvey Smith, VE3FOT, expressed an interest in radio astronomy and would like to hear from anyone who is able to provide information and / or assistance pertaining to this interesting facet of the hobby.

When I lived in Thurso, on the North coast of Scotland, our club was involved in a project to monitor Aurora. conditions on a continuous basis. The laat sunspot minimum was chosen to hold the INTERNATIONAL QUIET SUN YEAR, or IQSY as it was called Beacon stations were set up in various countries with omni directional antennas, and they sent out signals in the 10m band on cw. The Radio Society of Great Britain set up a station at Lerwick , Shetland Islands and hams set up a number of monitor stations to listen for signals reflected off the aurora, when it occurred. Ten metres was chosen as there was little or no activity on that band during the sunspot minimum.

At the high school in Thurso we installed a lOm beam pointing north, feeding into an AR88 receiver tuned to the beacon station frequency. A recording voltmeter was tied into the I.F. of the receiver and a tape recorder was available to tape the audio as it came through.

The call of the beacon station was GB3LER and of course this was sent as an identifier during transmissions. A nightly net was activated on 80m and all monitor stations would call in with latest details of when and where the band opening was being heard.

We were very surprised at the number of auroral openings that took place and we also found that the WWV Geoalerts were invaluable in trying to predict when there would be auroral activity.

This effort ran for over two years and got recognition and high praise from the various concerned societies as it provided valuabLe information on the amount of auroral activity and it's effect on conmunications at that frequency. This is one aspect of radio astronomy that can be tried with very simple and inexpensive equipment. We are now in a sunspot minimum again so if anyone wants to get their feet wet , it shouldn't be too hard. A beacon station would not be required if skeds were set up with another station able to transmit on 10m and far enough away to eliminate groundwave propagation.

GB3LER also transmitted simultaneously on 70mhz and 144mhz to test the auroral propagation at these frequencies. We were given permission to use the 70mhz band or 4m band at that time and I believe that G's still have it. They were working across to the States crossband 4m to 6m during the last sunspot maximum.
Harvey is presently looking for info on either building or aquiring a dish type antenna for use in the region of 600mhz. I think it will be as well to build it Harvey.
As your local Radio Society of Ontario delegate it is one of my duties to sell the RS0 and try to get as many amateurs to become members as possible. In this issue of Feedback I have enclosed a membership appication form and I'd like to take a little bit of the available space to explain in my own words what RSO is all about.

I hear many varied excuses from nonmembers for their decision to remain outside the Society, and lately the main one has been that the dues of $5 was too much. They feel that the magasine isn't worthit.

Okay, I don't buy that story unless the guy is on welfare, or is trying to exist on a pension. Usually the guy is using ham gear worth from $200 to $1000, so the cost of an RSO membership at $5 is less than 10c per week and as he sits there complaining he is usually blowing smoke through his nose from a pack of cancer sticks at the rate of roughly 75c per day. Furthermore the magazine is free with the membership so it has to be a bargain.

The RSO is a member of The Canadian Amateur Radio Federation and so is the voice that represents Joe Ham when it comes to dealing with DOC. There is a QSL bureau run by the organisation, they have a library of information on 2m gear that is available to members free on request, a TVI committee will help if a member has problems in this area, speakers are available for club meetings. Ontars is sponsored by RSO, the Canadian Division of ARRL uses the Canadian Amateur, which is the voice of CARF, as the means of communication within their organization, and CARF is supported by RSO. In addition to the above they send out weekly bulletins on 18 nets throughout the province, print QSL cards for members and generally do whatever is necessary to help amateurs where ever the need arises.

The membership count stood at 1413 paid up members as of March 31st / 74. This is less than half of the amateur population in Ontario, and the sad part is that most VE's I talk to complain bitterly about the fact that the ARRL is tell-. ing them what to do , but when a Canadian Organization is formed they won't join it. You colonials squawked for years for your own flag , then when you finally got one you want somebody else to wave it for you. If you join RSO, just fill in the attached form and give it to the club secy. who will send them all in and the club will get 5Cc of each subscription. This way you only pay $4.50 for all the above mentioned benefits and you have helped the club while at the same time saving the 8c for postage . That's the best deal I can offer and I expect all the freeloaders to sign up and become RSO members as soon as they can scrape together the measley $5.