CAKE – Jan. 16, 2016

CAKE Conversations Jan. 16, 2016

Hello one and all.
We held our first meeting in the room at the main branch of the SCRZ`library – and what an excellent room it is !
In future we may well take advantage of the fine A/V facilities there.

We were pleased that Art Lee AF6P  could join us along with the hard baked members  Glen KG0T, Kerry K3RRY  Jim K9YC,  Peter  Jennings AB6WM and Peter Middleton K6UNO   One topic that was discussed stemmed from the exhibit of a 1916 crystal set at the Club meeting the night before by Jim Tripp WA6DIJ. The fact that a crystal set needed no DC supply voltage is very topical to the extent that the prospect of Wireless Power transmission is described as ominous  by ARRL CEO  David Sumner K1ZZ in the February QST.  I think it was Peter J. who related the tale of a guy who powered his home from nearby high power broadcast station.  Jim Tripp has invited us to take a field trip to his museum so we can look forward to that and I hope we can incorporate some of his items in an exhibit during our centennial celebrations.

We had an interesting discussion on how signals propagate via the long path to Europe. The northerly route via the N Pole is predominantly over land and tough while the Southerly route is predominantly over water and easier. It is reasonable that ground reflections would incur the most loss . The question remains ( in my mind at least) whether this is the whole story. Jim K9YC related maintaining regular SSB QSOs on 40m to a sailboat in the Indian Ocean. The boat used its back-stay as an antenna with a very effective salt water ground

Using an Icom 706 for digital modes with a Signal link USB interface was described as working well but frequency stability and precise UTC is essential  Nothing unique abut that but probably more difficult with analog radios. Using WSPR for antenna evaluations was briefly discussed and Ron floated the idea of inviting Carol KP4MD to  visit an share the results of her experiments. Ron mentioned having made some tests between here and stations on the Grey Line in Australia and Japan.

Glen and Kerry were deep into their micro processor project but do I detect a sense that it may soon be completed. Ron is aware of a project for real-time monitoring of water consumption so wondered if something like this might be an application

Ron described how the LDG tuner (that he recently purchased) operated.  It is a fine compact product but unfortunately was DOA and has to be returned. Peter FYI  the input diode is for protection against reversed polarity of DC supply and is not a a problem

For our next session on Feb 6th we are very privileged to have Warren NR0V tell us about his most recent work on noise reduction in receivers. Make sure you don’t miss this exceptional opportunity to gain insight into the state of the art

73 Ron W6WO