april - mara north east
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1. Since the Advent of e mail e There is a need for delivering written procedures lists graphics images etc in the documents to multiple recipients e Multiple recipient e mail with attachments is the de facto standard to carry written information Hand written message forms are seldom used and are not transparent to normal operations my WinLink 2000 e mail address is N3TS Winlink org Our collective WinLink addresses will be good to know should we need to contact each other during an emer gency RMS Express FREE a software suite for Windows http www arrl org news rms ex press with winmor now available for iE winlink 2000 is the ze preferred WinLink 2000 radio e mail client The RMS Ex press user manual is found at http softwaretopic informer com rms express user manual WinLink 2000 is in active development by the WinLink Develop ment Team and is well supported WINMOR is the HF digital protocol designed for use with the WinLink 2000 network WINMOR provides an alternative to external PACTOR hardware RMS Express software with the WIN MOR protocol requires no special hardware as required for PACTOR beyond the ability to run digital communi cations Here is a look at RMS Express screens used to send and receive HF e mail Also see a sample transmission RMS Express 1 2360 N3TS Seis IUE 2 Winmor Winlink 2000 Session N3TS 7 Ext Setup Switch to Peer to Peer Chann2. Not so much that the lever falls out but enough to allow some side movement Loosen the Before we go any further a word about cleaning key contacts On keys of any quality these are usually silver or gold alloy or silver or gold plating Do not as in NEVER use any kind of file or sand paper no matter how fine to clean them I ve seen some mention of the use a dollar bill but prefer to use a piece of plain brown paper bag Lightly moisten the paper with rubbing alcohol or contact cleaner Place the paper between the key contacts and while holding the lever down with a finger s very light pressure pull the paper through Repeat several times more if the paper comes out with a dirty streak space adjusting screw to about an 1 8 inch gap Loosen the spring tension screw to the point where it just barely lifts the key lever to the top un keyed or open position Now adjust the trunnion screws to center the key contacts in line with each other Tighten the two screws only enough to just barely remove any side play in the lever Do not overtighten You want to introduce as little drag as possible There are two schools of thought about lubrication on the ends of the trunnion screws One says you should lightly lube and by lightly mean a tiny drop of a good quality light machine oil on the pointy end of a straight pin or needle The other says you shouldn t use any lubrication as that just attracts dust which will cause
3. future problems personally tend towards the no oil side of the argument Once you have the trunnion screws adjusted the way you want tighten the locknuts finger tight Depending on your finger tightening ability you may want to use a pair of small pliers to tighten them a smidgen more If you use a tool make sure you pad the jaws with several layers of cloth to avoid marring the surface of the nuts A smidgen more means just that Not a full turn or a half or even a quarter It means just a couple of degrees tighter hardly enough to see them turn Tightening the locknuts may cause the trunnion screws to further tighten You may have to loosen these screws a tiny bit more than your initial best setting and let the locknuts place them in the optimal position Next adjust the Contact Space Adjusting screw to your preferred contact gap If you don t have a lot of experi ence with hand sent Don t be afraid to re try these settings every now code set them to and then especially as about a 1 16 inch you are in the early stag to start As you gain g of using code on the more experience i you may want to set alr the gap to less or more depending on your preference Now set the Spring Tension screw to provide the desired and comfortable lever tension Lighter is better than cranked up harder but again that is very much a personal preference You may find that adjusting screws 1 and 2 interact with each other as far a
4. selected 6 For Put the computer to sleep select Never Since was doing this on a laptop left the On battery setting at 15 minutes and set the Plugged in setting to Never If you are running Windows 7 and possibly other ver sions of Windows and have a similar problem try this and see if it works for you This might keep your USB ports alive and awake THE REQUISITE APRIL FOOL S GAG This is the April issue of the Newsletter and most publications of a monthly nature sneak some type of joke in somewhere So here it is Everything else in these pages is April Fool s free Guaran teed The sign shown on the right advertises an evening of Bingo at the Ag Society building The special feature of the evening is Ham Bingo Obviously a Ham will be the special prize You get to take home your very own Ham What is not clear is whether the Ham comes with his or her sta tion equipment or if the winner has to provide it Ea ARRL FIELD DAY Field Day is always the fourth full weekend of June beginning at 1800 UTC Saturday and running through 2059 UTC Sunday Field Day 2015 is June 27 28 _ 1 n P 1 T D Raymond Ag Society Ham Bingo March 28 2015 Doors open 6 00 pm Bingo 7 00 pm 98 East Park Street Next to the Red Barn www raymondagsociety com No local club to join up with or they are way too se rious and you just want to operate for the fun of it Well then set up by y
5. the Internet is down or disrupted in the im pacted area areas Along with the collapse of the Internet we frequently experience the widespread slow down if not total loss of the use of our land lines as well as our cell phone operation Where then can we turn for the type of communication to which we have become so accustomed You guessed it high frequency HF Amateur Ra dio stations survive when the much needed national pm P gt ais l t t D U Li Jg infrastructure does not HF radio provides excellent point to point or medium long haul circuits History has already proven that HF is excellent for high priority low volume message traffic In an emergency the term low volume becomes a relative term To achieve the known advantages of HF radio communications experienced Amateur Radio operators are necessary E mail using the primary infrastructure mentioned above is the standard method for fast written commu nications today It is used by extensively by individuals government agencies and other organizations When the internet goes down normal e mail no longer flows and norma operations come to a halt without emergency com munications The subject of this article is HF emergency communi cations but that is provided best by skilled Amateur Radio operators who have trained and have existing plans in place to act don t know where the next emergency will require Amateur Radio c
6. But our traditional methods fail for message handling in todays agencies make emergency communications as easy and transpar ent as possible for those who most need it The WinLink 2000 system allows HF Amateur Radio operators to send and re ceive e mail with those still able to operate the standard e mail system The Win Link 2000 system will also oes hold and forward e mail from the standard e mail users for the HF Amateur Radio operators The e mail will be delivered when the HF operator re enters the WinLink 2000 system WinLink 2000 also provides point to point capability for HF operators to send and receive e mail See https www youtube com watch v wCCTLdSAPdk Once you send an e mail through the WinLink 2000 system you receive a system e mail address that is re tained by the system for 400 days Each time you send an e mail the 400 day clock is restarted For example For Complex Messages gt Voice Morse code Radiograms and traditional Packet radio won t do e Way too slow translation required inflexible prone to error no permanent record not self originating not point to multipoint doesnt go end to end from user to user on their own computers in their own offices amp no attachments and no automatic distribution Unfortunately in todays VVorld we cannot predict the frequency size nature or location of our disaster areas We be must prepared Globally Regional
7. NEWSLETTER APRIL 2015 VOLUME 15 No g Mercury Amateur Radio Association m North America North East of N y v N The month of April is typically rainy so make sure you keep your radios dry FEATURE ARTICLE WINLINK 2000 BOB N3TS GRANDMA MARA S RAMBLINGS RAMBLINGS OF AN OLDER PERSON THIS AND THAT TECH and other STUFF STRAIGHT KEY ADJUSTMENT ALINK TO THE FAMOUS 1937 VERTICAL ANTENNA REPORT e SLEEPING USB PORTS APRIL FOOL S GAG FIELD DAY DATES e JUNE 2015 27th AND 28th QUOTE OF THE MONTH RONALD REAGAN DI DA DI DA DIT IT S TAX TIME AGAIN OH JOY OH DELIGHT Material contained in this newsletter is copyrighted by the Mercury Amateur Radio Association North East or by the individual author where so noted Re production of material appearing in this publication is encouraged as long as the source credit is shown Permission to re produce articles copyrighted by the author must be obtained from that individual Links that will take you to web locations referenced in this newsletter are shown in BOLD blue text E mail your comments ideas or submis sions to marane mara net or to velvq u eastlink ca Past issues of The NEWSLETTER may be viewed at http ne mara net news letters htm FEATURE ARTICLE BOB N3TS Enhanced Digital Messaging WinLink 2000 n a disaster just when needed most we frequently learn
8. el Selection Forecast Bestchan Nextchan Hide TNC Start Stop Abort VA3LKI Center Freq kHz 3613000 Dial Freq kHz 3611500 Bearing 352 Quality 48 Favorites K8KHW 3589 000 Select Add to favorites Remove from favorites Channel Busy In 0 0 Out 0 0 BPM 0 0 Disconnected Found free channel Scanning completed Listen before transmitting Ready WEE Ls E HF Channel Selector E Via Re ternet Update Table t elect Update Table Via In STANDBY Updating RMS channels propagation indices for LA3F requency Grid kHz Mode Square Hours Group 5 14106 ENS2RS 18106 EL98JV 18105 EN21XO 71045 FN42JM 10134 ENS2RS 7104 0 EM68SR 70755 EM68SM 10 7061 0 EM68SR 3613 0 FNO4CR 5 71010 EN60DD 70940 FN35HI 14098 EL98JV 14074 EL98JV 7072 0 EN60DD EM83AL PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC PUBLIC 8883888838538 3 83 gt SS es Py xp Waterfall 2KHz The new WINMOR component of RMS EXPRESS allows users to ac cess the WinLink 2000 network on HF with virtually no external hard ware just a transceiver and a sound card equipped computer at https www youtube com watch v IxLPWcos7gA Just remember to keep the transmit power low because of the heavy duty cycle WinLink 2000 provides a dependable Amateur radio e mail messaging network The last fig
9. o have the faith that they are spending our tax dollars wisely I ll tell you it gets harder and harder to see my taxes used in this responsible manner If they let us use some of that money we pay them in taxes to use for the purchase of ham gear just think how much better off the economy would be Just think how much better our stations would be Perhaps we should start a grass roots movement to have our governments allow a one hundred per cent deduction for ham gear purchased Maybe even two hundred per cent l d vote for that Until next month VENQ
10. ommunica tions support see but do know that many of the users will during an emergency still want to send and receive e mail We know the issue so let s talk about an available solution What we will dis cuss here can also be used in VHF UHF communications but that is another article With HF we can keep agen cies and organizations connected for today s complex messages without a standard Internet connection We can do this by learning to use WinLink 2000 We must WAT 4 Ee PEE 5 E s pais Y TE eT n n Y FELT z z Fd Pae peras nu nl EP RETI M ee vede Jm Normal E mail ires an Connection a l J an Nf lar e wor E s Ne m EI E er M he CPE EYE P icant ET won t let mea T T9 a ga Ch ae pl eet SEE PE E ee eal tL rate See eat aT ee T TIL jm TF and a community s Last Mile T d ae z CUM Fo Ard AT re 7 OF Aaneey am sail carvar ie EINA d 1i I or SIT ency emat E 1 Ver Is re p iin A E a j a i Ein E inen normal emall cannot dla A t HOT Traditional Role of Amateur Radio support Report health and welfare of affected public Voice communications among served agenge EQOC s hospitals shelters and incident command Site factical support Incident Command search and rescue damage and storm reporting SKYWARN Hand the microphone to the served agencies whose radio isnt working gt Formal structured written emergency tra
11. ourself or find someone of like mind to operate with you QUOTE OF THE MONTH The government s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases If it moves tax it If it keeps moving regulate it And if it stops mov ing subsidize it Ronald Reagan DI DAH DI DAH t s that time of the year again the time of the annual mad scramble to try to find the receipts and other necessary paperwork in order to try to fend off the tax person Is it just me or do the taxes seem to be more and more each year and not just because might be bringing more home know it s our patriotic and civic duty to pay taxes and know it s all put to a good cause as decided by our politicians and government bureaucrats Still could buy a nice tower and multi band beam and a new top of the line rig for the shack That seems like a good cause to my way of thinking But then you hear of things like the one in 2007 where the National Science Foundation committed more than 500 000 to study the mobility of shrimp by conducting experiments that involved placing the crusta ceans on treadmills Or the news that some members of Congress are trying to restore billions in funding for a new factory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to make plutonium cores for nuclear bombs that the military doesn t need Meanwhile President Obama is plowing ahead with plans to make plutonium fuel rods for power reactors that no
12. paid off with him getting his General ticket She says he did so well she tried to get him to go for his Extra but seems that he felt he needed more time to study and prepare Wendy thinks he might just want to spend more time with her Seeing the two of them together think she is correct And I don t think she minds in the least AR TECH amp amp STUFF by VE1VQ very once in a while you have to re think how you are doing things things you may have been doing a certain way for a long time Recently that re think was about my NYE VIKING 310 straight key had removed it from the desk along side my transceiver and was using it on the bench to key the Twin T audio oscillator circuit shown in last month s column My excuse for all of the mis sent characters was that the placement of the key balanced on top of the power supply was wrong A second excuse was that had no desk top to rest my arm so instead it was hanging in the air a position was not used to Placing it back in it s normal operating position did improve my sending but the whole thing made me stop and think for a few seconds Perhaps some adjustment might make things even better The first thing to do is to loosen the locknuts on the CONTACTS The E F Johnson Speed X is an example of a typical straight CW key space adjusting screw 1 the spring tension screw 2 and the trunnion screws 3 Next loosen the trunnion screws themselves
13. power company wants to buy Together con struction costs for these two radioactive white elephants add up to over 10 billion and rising Lest you think our Canadian government up here is any better the Auditor General was unable to account for 3 1 billion of the 12 9 billion designated to the Public Security and Anti Terrorism Initiative Or where the government assured Canadians that it would cost but 9 billion to purchase the new stealth fighters and replace our aging fleet of CF 18 s After ig noring repeated demands for supporting documentation for this claim by the Parliamentary Budget Officer it was eventually revealed that the acquisition and mainte nance costs of the proposed F 35 purchase would reach a staggering 45 billion over the lifetime of the fighter a full five times more than the Conservatives claimed Add to this the F 35 prototypes ongoing engine prob lems its inability to operate in cold temperatures ie the Arctic and the inability to fly at night The Canadian Auditor General has the responsibility of auditing the government departments In the annual report to Parliament and the Canadian people the AG pulls no punches in detailing mismanagement of taxpay ers dollars Makes the government of the day squirm always promising to immediately address and rectify all of the damaging findings The opposition parties of course love the report And our governments still want us t
14. s your perception of the best feel Play around with them until you reach a point comfortable for you Tighten the locknuts to keep the adjustments from changing Don t be afraid to re try these settings every now and then especially as you are in the early stages of using code on the air Your personal preferences will change as your experience and sending speed increase In my case getting on the air using CW and getting some practice would be the best thing could do THE FAMOUS 1937 VERTICAL ANTENNA REPORT Many of you I m sure have heard about the famous and oft quoted report produced by Brown Lewis and Epstein of RCA in 1937 regarding vertical antennas Specifically vertical antennas for AM band broadcast stations If you want to read it and see for yourself what it really says check it out at http www docdroid net suzs ground systems as a factor in antenna efficiency pdf html SLEEPING USB PORTS l ve occasionally had a problem with my SignaLink USB failing to work after being on receive and left to its own devices for a while found that the laptop s USB port had gone to sleep The cure for this in my case run ning Windows 7 is as follows 1 Right click on empty spot on main screen desktop 2 Left click on Personalize 3 Left click on Screen Saver 4 Under Power Management click on Change power settings 5 Under Select a power plan click Change plan settings on which ever one you have already
15. unny how you don t think about it for the first one That s guess because you really don t know what to expect Having experienced it first hand or foot I m sure thinking about it for the second and really dreading it Walter says it will be a walk in the park He also says this is the last can talk about it Darn guess l Il have to go back to radio things Just a few more months to Field Day and Walter has been using his free time to prepare Not just the new vertical he s been working on but also some other ideas he and the ham friends he talks with Just a few more months on line have been discussing to Field Day and Walter The folks atthe re has been using his free tirement home have time to prepare been working on their communica tions room From what was a sort of junk storage room of a decent size they have created a really nice area for their club Radio has kind of caught on there Looks like we will be holding another course come September or October Several of the staff graduated in the one held over this past fall and early winter including the home s lady administrator having seen the change to those resi dents who have gotten their licenses Keeps up they ll make it a prerequisite to move in there hi It seems so strange to think of our little Wendy who persuaded her mother to bring her over to meet me just a few years ago now having a boy friend All the studying they did together
16. ures saw on this system show that it has been supporting emergency communications with a 99 availability for several years There are over 50 Amateur Radio emergency communication locations with 25 in the USA Many loca tions contain multiple stations There are approximately 9 500 radio users and approximately 98 000 Internet e mail recipients Monthly traffic averages over 150 000 messages or 280 000 minutes My message is if you as an Amateur Radio operator don t already use the WinLink 2000 system then please See HMS Bounty s Captain Sends Winlink Message Saves 14 Crew at http www winlink org content hms_boun tys_captain_sends_winlink_message_saves_14 crew learn It is the fastest most dependable transparent back up e mail system that bridges any distance It can automatically switch from normal wired Internet con nections to a radio connection via VHF for short haul or HF for world wide communications Waiting until the emergency is underway will be too late to learn how to operate the system So why not learn how to use WinLink 2000 ASAP Ea Grandma Mara s RAMBLINGS s much as hate to think about it several months have passed since my bunion surgery and I m pretty well recovered That part s good The part don t like is that l Il be checking into the OR again for the other foot later this summer A tentative date is the end of August but that will be firmed up in the next month Or SO F
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