THE CATSWHISKER - NOVEMBER 1999
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE SOUTH DORSET RADIO SOCIETY
Greetings to all members, friends and readers.
NOTES FROM THE EDITOR
Novelty radios seem to be all the rage. Some people have large collections, the weirder the better. Here are just a few gleaned from the current crop of Christmas catalogues: inflatable radios, clockwork ones, conical, thumbnail, loo roll; there are models of Cadillacs and jukeboxes; we can also buy retro models looking back forty years; there are those where a tuning button slides along a groove, a rodent you adjust with its tail, and so on.
That's good, because the usual domestic receivers are so plain and uninteresting, compared with years ago when there were attractive moulded shapes, radios with 'soul' ?.
So flick through any of those catalogues and you'll see a wide range of innovative, colourful products of all kinds.
How about in Amateur Radio? Where next? If the major manufacturers jump on the bandwagon we may get a frog-shaped Yaesu base set or a Kenwood mobile to replace the gear knob.
Inspired? Don't send your ideas here - tell Icom if you've just thought of a ten-band handie-cum-electric shaver with closed loop circuitry to discover buried treasure. Better still, keep it quiet and read the last item.
John, M0BQO
OCTOBER CLUB MEETING - Aerials
Following on from G0RYL's sessions on aerial feeders, the October meeting was devoted to a discussion of aerials focusing on homebrew arrays.
Neville, 2E1HFY showed an 11-element Yagi he and his friends had designed for the 934MHz CB band. It had proved very successful in both performance and sales. Particularly impressive was how they had devised to protect it against water penetration by moulding hardening wax onto the boom.
Neville also mentioned how he was going to mount his new array on top of scaffolding poles: George G3AVV warned of the colossal down forces exerted by the guys, especially in windy conditions.
Philip, 2E1FWP demonstrated a four-element quad he had designed and made for 70cm, with help from M0BQQ. It was made out of plastic water pipe and copper wire, costing virtually nothing. Tests proved that it performed better than an 8-element Yagi and had a very narrow angle of radiation. He had worked Holland, Wales, France and Guernsey (on 70cm!).
G3KKJ suggested that the narrow angle (beamwidth) could be widened by progressively increasing the length of the elements. G0EVW claimed that spacing between them was also important: longer spacing gave greater gain, but at the expense of bandwidth.
Mike, G0NEV explained that the folded quad he wanted to make was actually something like a rotary washing line with the wire cut to the right dimension for the required band. There was less chance of it being affected by nearby houses and trees than a Yagi yet performance could be as good.
ANOTHER SHOCKER!
Hi all de Phil, 2E1FWP. I thought I would send a quick bull out to tell others to take extra care when working with electric's, as if one doesn't you may do exactly what I did one Friday a few weeks ago.
Its a nice evening and I think to myself I know what I will do I will put my new PC into its new tower case and fit the CD ROM etc. So I do and everything is almost ready to go, just the inside connections to the on/off switch to go.
At this time in point I had previously unplugged the cable to the mains every time I fitted something, just for added safety you see. But this time round I just simply forgot to switch off at the wall!
So I go to put my hands in the computer case to wire the switch on the front of the PC up and I touched neg. and auntie positive straight to the mains and WHACK !
I've been knocked about by static shocks before but wow nothing like this! So after 20 seconds lying on the floor in pitch black after tripping all the fuses in the house I thought to myself 'well I feel like I'm about to collapse or something' so I very quickly rushed to the telephone to call 999 and stayed put until the Paramedics arrived to my blacked out house to find me sitting on the stairs in the dark with two very painful burns and in what they described as shock and concussion where I had hit my head on the floor!
When they had played inside the fuse box which is a new trip switch design and got the lights back on they began to shine torches into my eyes and carry out various tests on me.
On the way out to the ambulance I said to the ambulance driver that I should have known better and that I had been told not to ever play directly with the mains and that I was sorry if I had caused them any trouble. He said, "looking at your burns and where they are located YOU ARE LUCKY TO BE ALIVE".
I thanked him and was glad to be alive!
I have had a check up at the doctors and they say I'm fine and should make a good recovery.
Electric shocks affect people in different ways and sometimes it's fatal - so guys take care and don't do what I did !
73 de Philip, 2E1FWP
BOOKS AVAILABLE TO LOAN
In addition to the latest newsletter offerings from Yeovil, Portland and Poole, members might like to know of other material which can be borrowed.
RadCom: received monthly because SDRS is affiliated to RSGB.
ARRL Antenna Book: 1956 edition but still highly recommended by G3KKJ whose book it is.
ARRL Handbook 1961 edition
RSGB Radio Communication Handbook fourth edition 1969.
Please ask Secretary who will be pleased to loan them.
SILENT KEY
With deep regret we heard of the death of Bob Barrett, G7WLQ.
Bob died suddenly on October 9th.
He was a regular attender and a familiar face at SDRS meetings, having joined the Society in 1994 and taken part in several events including those at Nothe Fort and Bradford Peverell.
We have sent condolences to his widow Margaret on behalf of all SDRS members.
SDRS was represented at Bob's funeral in Puddletown by G3EAT, G0NEV, G0NRQ and G7JIM.
KEN O'BRIEN has had his by-pass operation in Southampton and (at the time of writing) is in Dorset County Hospital at Dorchester making progress.
DOUG BROWN, KA8APD is a good friend in Franklin, West Virginia (whom Mike, G0NEV visited last year). Mike reports that Doug's XYL Lillian has not been too well recently with heart trouble. SDRS sends Lillian "greetings" and "Keep ticking" !
AND FINALLY
Apparently the Sony Corporation was granted a US patent in 1981 for a toy car which runs around an LP record tracking the groove with a hidden stylus, and producing the sound through a built-in amplifier/speaker.
Presumably you simply laid the record flat on the table and let the device do the rest.
Shortly after that, production of LPs ceased, in favour of CDs.