THE CATSWHISKER - DECEMBER 2000
Newsletter of the South Dorset Radio Society
Editor - John Rose, M0BQO - 45, Ringstead Crescent, Weymouth, DT3 6PT, UK
You can e-mail John at: m0bqo@g3sds.org.uk
Now here's a turnup - the CB fraternity are going to be allowed to use Packet. (see below)
Some dyed-in-the-wool Amateurs will strongly condemn the move by the Radiocommunications Agency; others will warmly approve.
It would be worth while bearing in mind RadioActive's comment on the matter, quoting the British Citizen's Band Confederation: "It is a step in the right direction.... We want packet to attract the computer literate to our hobby, thereby enriching their leisure life and ours."
Now the article by Geert PE3GRT in this Cats supports the notion that computers haven't killed radio - info of all kinds is available over the Internet and indeed contains much that is specific to Amateur radio (and presumably CB too).
Added to which, a contact I was talking to the other day believed that the number of Hams who don't have a computer is probably now in the minority, with almost all serious contesters logging through that medium.
Happy Christmas everybody, make sure your present comes with a 17" monitor!!
John, M0BQO
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
December 5th - A member of the Radiocommunications Agency has been booked, and the subject is 'The History of the Radio Investigation Service' though undoubtedly topics will spread extensively around that theme.
Please, all members and readers, try to publicise this meeting far and wide as we have gone to considerable trouble to arrange it.
January 2nd - Annual Quiz. This time, Robert G0RYL and Carol have one for us to enjoy.
January 14th (Sunday) - SDRS Club Lunch. Please do your utmost to book this date, in the year of SDRS's 40th anniversary. Select from the menu below.
February 6th - Demonstrations of Digital techniques including packet, UI-view and WX satellites.
March 6th - Bring-and-buy sale. Please note change.
April 3rd - SDRS Annual General Meeting.
The Amateur Packet network is about to be joined by Packet for the CB fraternity. It will be much less extensive, simplex (i.e. one-to-one) only and with a maximum power output of 4 Watts
In most other respects their Packet is similar to ours - recognised equipment (TNCs) using accepted protocol (AX25), normal EMC requirments and frequent identification.
RADIOCOMMUNICATIONS AGENCY - OPEN FORUM
Focus - simple entry to amateur radio (a Foundation Licence). Read this and respond!
Date - 7th December 2000
Place - Edinburgh !
More details from M0BQO
Lost Penknife ! Search your memory if you were at International Marconi Day last year. Frank, G3CFV lent his penknife to somebody but it was not returned. Have you seen it, got it, or do you know about it? He would be very grateful to have it returned.
The flag on the radiator of the staff Humber meant 'Very Important Person'. As the WREN brought the car to a halt outside the Ministry of Something Very Secret at St. Anne's Gate, London, out stepped Cpl Alan Rogers, not yet out of his teens, an attache case handcuffed to his wrist. He was shown to an impressive room where he waited and helped while some Even More Important People tried to make sense of a secret document.
Good start to a novel? No! But certainly it was a normal event in the extraordinary tale Alan told us of his time as a Cryptanalyst (=codebreaker) at Bletchley Park during the War.
The SDRS has (probably) never paid such rapt attention to a guest speaker. They were held enthralled as he explained how the German code FISH was eventually solved - while admitting that some aspects were never cracked.
He recalled being seconded to BP from Cambridge University where Prof. Adcock had recognised his mathematical talent. There were about 1,000 codebreakers, supported by 11,000 others, mainly women.
Alan showed how the FISH code worked: it was very, very complex and in various forms was used for many top secret German messages. A letter was never represented by the same code regularly. Its new assignation was determined by a series of wheels which clicked on, or didn't. Encoding and decoding could only be done with a 'key' or sequence of words. Deciphering was made easier by the mighty Colossus, the world's first programmable computer, a beast with 1,500 thermionic valves generating such heat as to melt solder connections. It filtered out rubbish from its attempts to make sense of codes and left the cryptanalysts something that might - just might - mean something. It looked for common associations of letters often occurring in the German language. The Germans themselves applied typical teutonic order to what should have been random events, their messages often ending with 'Heil Hitler' and never containing letters that represented themselves - so there were two clues that helped the codebreakers.
In the end, the 10 Colossuses (-i?) could help to decipher a message in 12 hours.
Like all the others, Alan only knew what he had to: they were forbidden from talking about their work. Regrettably, Alan's father and mother never lived to learn what he had done in the War.
What an extraordinary, engrossing talk! Thank you Alan.
From Kerry Morris G1WIK: Hi John, just a quick note to say how much Owen (2E1OZY) and I enjoyed Alan rogers' talk last Tuesday evening (although he did say that some of the concepts went a little over his head!). I am sure he will be attending future meetings and, as you know, is keen to become a junior member of SDRS.
Now for the bookworms amongst us: The thriller 'ENIGMA' by Robert Harris is a fictional story based on factual events. It will be of great interest to anyone who wants to know more about the work done at Bletchley Park and the science of codebreaking.
Absolutely, superbly un-put-down-able. Thoroughly recommended.
MENU FOR THE CLUB LUNCHEON - 2000
14th January 2001
Starters
1 Tomato and red pepper soup
2 Chicken liver salad with a balsamic dressing
or
3 Chilled fan of melon
Main course
4 Roast turkey with the traditional trimmings.
or
5 Grilled salmon with a herb and white wine sauce
or
6 Rib eye steak garni (£2.00 supplement)
All served with chef's selection of vegetables
Afters
7 Bread and butter pudding with a chocolate sauce *see below
or
8 Home made ice cream
or
9 Fresh fruit compot with creme Anglaise.
Vegetarian fare can be available if required.
We need to finalise meal choices and numbers with the restaurant at the beginning of January.
* Would ordinary custard be more appropriate than chocolate sauce? Any other comments, suggestions please?
John, M0BQO
Is the computer a Threat or an Opportunity for our hobby? - is often a subject for discussion in local radio clubs in The Netherlands. Being myself of the 'Valves-age' - yes we had diodes in those days - I have an opinion based on my own limited experience with PC's and the Internet.
Still interested in Radio Basics after more than 50 years, and therefore I like the name of your club magazine. I was searching for sources on crystal radio sets. In the library there was very limited information and then a friend said: 'I will look for you on the Internet.' He gave me an URL and from there I found on other websites more and more. I will put my list at the bottom of this article.
By the way, I saw articles in Radcom 'Technical Topics' about 2 Crystal Sets - recruiting or experimental aid?
Together with my grandson of 3.5 years old, we built an experimental 0V0 receiver for him whereby the information from the Internet was used. The result was, depending on whether we chose for selectivity or for maximum output, that we counted over 10 AM broadcast stations or 2 radio stations with an output of over 200 micro amps measured to the 7000:4 old output transformer that we connected on the phones socket. On the transformer a small loudspeaker was connected and in the silent living room we were excited that we could hear the sound on the other side of the room.
'Must be a hell of an antenna!' Not at all: only 15m of wire at a height of 3m above ground from our house to the garage; earth on the copper drinking water tube. And no we do not live in an area where we have radio stations as a neighbour.
The other grandpa when he heard the story told by my grandson, could not believe that there was no battery or connection to the 'normal' electricity.
Another item for me is the use of surplus equipment that is available at the moment in Holland and I am sure also in other countries. Not only ex-army transceivers or radios from embassies are on the market, but also the fast development of communication equipment give opportunities for Hams with a QRP budget. Another advantage of this equipment is that it is often understandable technique, so changes or improvements are easy to make; try that on your transceiver with only SMD components!
We built a Radio Amateur Museum in Budel in the Netherlands with money from the sale to radio amateurs of over 6000 surplus mobile car radiotelephones that were given to our Museum by a telephone company instead of shredding them. Teletron-T 813, Bosch-KF 61 and Nokia equipment is converted into well working 2m and 70cm sets by Hams. Schemes and software were available on ?.. The Internet!
Since I am writing this article on board of 'Sarai' in Weymouth, my sources are limited - I do not have Internet access on board (perhaps not yet). If you want the URL's for some information about surplus equipment, please send an e-mail to: pe3grt@amsat.org and I will answer you.
About Crystal Sets - a collection of web sites:-
With Geerts help I have now checked these out and they all should work! - Geoff, G0EVW
http://www.halcyon.com/johnj/radios/CRYSTAL4.HTM
http://149.96.1.33/crystal.html
http://www.antique-radio.org/class/class.html
http://www.midnightscience.com
http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/
http://members.aol.com/djadamson7/articles/foxhole.html
http://www.netroglycerine.com/scitoys/scitoys/radio/homemade_radio.html
http://www.geocities.com/swlpost/
Have fun with the Hobby! de Geert, PE3GRT
Silent Key - RAY SHADDICK, G1YRS
We have been saddened by the news that Ray passed away on the 9th November.
Neville Bridle, 2E1HFY has sent this obituary.
As a boy in the 'twenties Ray experimented with the family radio set and upon leaving school took a job with a local (Bristol) radio shop which further advanced his interest and expertise, as the manager was already a Radio Ham.
During his working life Ray had a succession of jobs all involving radio, television and his other main hobby, music. But his wife Irene was a Portland lass and it was to Portland they retired, where Ray took up CB radio with the handle Beachcomber. I got to know him on the 934 MHz band.
Soon, Ray and Irene obtained their Amateur calls - G1YRS and G7EIS respectively.
Ray used his CB handle as the author of several witty yet serious articles that appeared in Catswhisker over the past few years.
There is lots and lots that could be said about Ray, and I would like to sum it all up by saying that, if anyone was a Gentleman, a Scholar, a Friend and an Ambassador to radio communications, then that was what Ray was to me.
Neville Bridle, 2E1HFY
Silent Key - DENIS TULK, G1NLU
Sadly, Denis passed away on 13th November.
Denis was a friend to all of us, his reflective voice frequently being heard on the Monday net and the local repeater.
There was always a welcome for any Portland or South Dorset members at his house - he, too, will be sadly missed.
INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS
As Geoff, G0EVW mentioned previously, the SDRS Website - www.g3sds.org.uk can also accommodate club members who are on the Internet.
You can mail Geoff direct by putting his callsign and '@' in front i.e. g0evw@g3sds.org.uk.
He invites you to have your callsign set up there, so in my case it is m0bqo@g3sds.org.uk
Mail for me would then be automatically forwarded to my personal e-mail address. ( ujdrose@ic24.net is still OK but preferably for private mail ).
I would envisage receiving such items as articles for Catswhiskers, including pictures; also matters relating to the SDRS.
I hope the mag reads alright; I'm too jetlagged and have only had a couple of hours to put it together but all the same, 73 de John, M0BQO
Merry Christmas to all our readers!