Clean out time - KB2CQE Holiday Dinner PCARA Officers Contents
Contents
1. Three Canadian news shows are worthy of your review CTV presents Canada AM a three hour news magazine seen on line at http www ctv ca canadaAMPlayer index html in beautiful 16x9 HDTV quality Be sure to also check Jeff s Videos for some amazing footage found on the Internet Be aware that the weather reports include temperature readings in Being Erica s Erin Karpluk Jeff Hutcheson with Canada AM weather in degrees C centigrade It s not that cold up there The hard news CTV National News with Lisa LaFlamme is also worthy of your attention at http www ctv ca ctvnews CBC s The National is a daily hour long gem with thoughtful analysis and discussion anchored by Peter Mansbridge A truncated 10 minute version is available on iTunes CBC Radio offers a nearly endless supply of programming for every taste Use Internet Explorer and PCARA Update January 2012 page 2 go to http www cbc ca radio Click See what is playing on all live streams and it will reveal dozens of different program choices being broadcast to distinct regional areas all over Canada CBC Radio podcasts are easily available via iTunes or at http www cbc ca podcasting You could spend years sampling the hundreds of different programs they offer It s quite a course in all things Canadian One Canadian radio show has also captured my fancy CBC Radio s Q with Jian Ghomeshi is a nation wide phenomeno2. in line with most of Europe apart from France and Russia I can remember seeing the first pro gramming in a Southport store the green grass of Wimbledon tennis on BBC2 Later on I remember seeing Laugh In in color at a Cambridge college Color television in the 1960s was an expensive proposi tion with only the most well off families able to afford the large expensive sets which still needed to be dual standard in order to pick up 405 line monochrome BBC 1 and ITV In November 1969 the two 405 line services of BBC1 and ITV television were duplicated on UHE in COLOUR 625 lines color In Northwest England BBC1 was on channel 55 743 25 MHz and ITV was on channel 59 from Winter Hill The broadcasters moved their 625 to 405 line standards converters from the studios to the transmitter sites overnight and the distribution system changed over to 625 lines The availability of all three national TV services on UHF 625 line color started the UK s great color TV boom of the early 1970s Since there was no need for VHF 405 line reception the UK TV sets only needed a UHF tuner and a single standard IF strip reducing costs Color reception still required a large heavy shadow mask cathode ray tube but improvements in design meant that sets were not as deep and heavy as in the early days My family s first color TV was memorable because by then I was earning a living and contributed to its 212 00 purchase pric
3. Joe Calabrese WA2MCR wa2mcr at arrl net Contents Clean out time KB2CQE 1 Adventures in DXing N2KZ 2 TV memories NM9J 5 Holiday dinner 11 Bring and Buy auction 11 Postal rate rise 11 PCARA Update January 2012 page 1 Adventures in DXing N2KZ O Canada The second largest country in the world home to 35 million people is just north of the United States Most of us know so very little about it As omnipresent as it may be Canada is a mystery to most of us Outside of stereotypes of Mounties riding horseback in red uniforms hockey players and vast lands of snow and igloos Americans are often blind when looking north I have discovered Canada I have become fasci nated with our neighbor and its cultures Although dominated by British and French influences aboriginal people have lived here for thousands and thousands of years Their heritage is rich and quite varied composed of many different tribes each holding a legacy all their own Include everything Canada s worldwide immigrant population has added and you ll find a cornucopia just as diverse as America s but with a personality all its own Canadian broadcast media offers so many interest ing alternatives to what we regularly watch and listen to in the fifty states Three English speaking networks dominate television offer ings for Anglos the pub licly funded CBC Bell Globemedia s CTV and Global All three present a combination of Canadian and Ame
4. TV history closed For around fifteen years all the new TV sets had been UHF 625 lines only so the old 405 line mono chrome services on VHF were being watched by fewer and fewer people I remember at the time that Bury Radio Society paid a visit to the ITA transmitter site at Emley Moor in Yorkshire Emley Moor was an unusual site because the tubular steel mast erected in 1964 for UHF television had collapsed in 1969 due to heavy icing It had to be replaced by a more rugged concrete tower The engineers in the control room told us they were no longer monitoring the output from Emley Moor s VHF Channel 10 transmitter and relied on a lady viewer in the depths of a Yorkshire valley who phoned them whenever there was a problem The smaller 405 line relay stations were switched off during 1984 Then on January 1 2 1985 the remaining 405 line transmitters were all switched off for the last time A few people in isolated spots had difficulty with reception but the BBC and ITV continued building UHF relay stations to fill in the low lying valleys and shadow areas Meanwhile UK radio amateurs were getting ready for a new era in VHE The six meter band had been a no go area for decades in Europe because of Channel 2 televi sion But during the run down Emley Moor TV transmitter site in Yorkshire has a 1084 foot concrete tower of 405 line TV services a small number of UK amateurs 40 to begin with then 100 had b
5. great fun and an interesting time will be had by all If you are shy about CW just tune in The unusual sound of the old transmitters just might inspire you to try the most ancient of modes Start the New Year right and listen for me CQ SKN DE N2KzZ Start the New Year right Our Facebook page is continually updated with interesting news and tips Just type PCARA Facebook into a browser and you ll be there in no time Entertaining and fun our weekly Old Goats Net is always looking for new participants and listeners Tune in to the PCARA 2 meter repeater 146 67 MHz at 8pm Thursday nights Keep in touch by reading PCARA Update and tell your friends about it An amazing archive of all our newslet ters from the past ten years is available at pcara org Encourage your friends to get on the air Even better encourage friends to become hams too Enjoy every minute Happy New Year 73 es dit dit de N2KZ TV memories I was looking for an old style computer monitor Those old 4 3 ratio monitors were much better for reading documents but they have almost disap peared Over a period of a few short years we have moved away from cathode ray tube monitors with the old 4 3 ratio to flat panel LCD displays with the widescreen format for both computer screens and television And so another piece of useful technology that served us well for over 60 years has been cast into the trash pile of history This started me thinking bac
6. offer There is so much to see and hear and it s all free and on demand Take a look You may find some wonderful and entertaining shows that you never knew existed It s all waiting for you and just a mouse click away Pass the Molson eh Jian Gomeshi Get the Message The messages are being sent all day every day You just have to decode them If you are looking to experiment with something new try NAVTEX Naviga tional Teletext is broadcast by the U S Coast Guard and similar entities around the world You ll find them primarily on 518 kHz just below the AM broadcast band With a good antenna and ground system these broadcasts are claimed to be useful out to about 400 miles away even during the daytime Typical transmit ter power is up to 1000 watts daytime and about 300 watts or so at night With a good antenna and ground system your nighttime reception can be worldwide aa 0 Bae s i E E h x f ke 7 i l Pi H E aij o car i F con a Br w i dee Leni SETES FOR WAVTEXT TEOSTON MA NATE p EESE AOE in F p pA of T i I i f j aaf yf I 05 05 ERE i i i i US Coast Guard Navtex transmitters for Atlantic seaboard Here s some great news You can set up your receiver connect it to your computer and just walk away Using free software such as YaND Yet another NAVTEX Decoder you can log station after station and then review your results hours or even days later You ll have an instant reco
7. 1 PCARA Update Volume 13 Issue 1 Peekskill Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association Inc January 2012 Clean out time xs2cor The Fifth Annual PCARA Bring and Buy Auction will be held on January 8 2012 monthly meeting at Hudson Valley Hospital Center If you re like many Hams you just might have a few extra pieces of equip ment lying around the shack Take a few minutes and place some of those trea sures into a box and bring them with you to the January meet ing You just may end up with a few more dollars in your pocket and give someone else an opportunity to enjoy those items just think of it as a way of recycling Y o Kevin N2KZE right looks on as auctioneer NM9J offers a desirable item at a previous PCARA bring and buy auction The beginning of a new year is a great time to plan on what we would like to accomplish as an organi zation in the upcoming months of 2012 Bring your thoughts ideas and suggestions with you to the Janu ary 8 2012 meeting 3 00 pm at Hudson Valley Hospital Center in Cortlandt Manor NY I look forward to seeing each of you there 73 de Greg KB2CQE Holiday Dinner The photo below shows PCARA members with their families enjoying the annual Holiday Dinner held At the Reef restaurant on Sunday December 4 More photos can be found on page 11 PCARA Officers President Greg Appleyard KB2CQE kb2cqe at arrl net Vice President
8. I in quite some time so I fired it up one recent Saturday morning looking for adventure on 7040 kHz The batteries did not dip in voltage when I began to transmit with its blazing 250 milliwatts of power derived from two 2N2222 s into my 40 meter dipole hanging over my garage roof I heard an immediate response from Bob K2OGT down in Centereach on Long Island s north shore To him I was just another signal My signal report was a PCARA Update January 2012 page 4 steady RST 559 and we had a good long chat K2OGT has been around since 1957 and I had a lot of questions about the good old days Bob rewarded me with a vintage QSL card he had used as a novice opera tor 54 years ago It s amazing how far you can go with just a cat food can Karl s Tuna Tin II QRP transmitter Holy Day A quick reminder The CW annual holy day of obligation ARRL Straight Key Night will be on the air from 7pm Saturday night December 31 through Sunday January 1 at 7pm SKN is a informal contest event where hams dust off their vintage gear and operate with straight keys no electronic keyers for a day to remember how it was long ago Many many operators who are not usually on CW will be participat ing along with all the regular CW ops sending nice slow code with their seasoned fists This is a great Opportunity to try Morse code on the air Everyone will be sending slow code and this is what everyone expects to hear It s
9. NY 6 30 p m Contact Alan Croswell 212 854 3754 Peekskill Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association Inc PCARA Update January 2012 page 12
10. and V UHF propagation was less reliable than high VHE so the signal could be affected by nearby buildings as well as leaves on trees While I was living in Southport there was an area in the shadow of the m a local gasworks which was adversely affected by the Southport gasholders gasometers This was not helped when a new 300 foot high gasholder was erected in 1969 and only recently demolished The family s early dual standard set also affected my short wave listening The 6 MHz intercarrier FM sound circuitry was not well shielded and radiated a powerful harmonic on 12 MHz that covered up a chunk of the 25 meter short wave broadcast band I com plained about this but the visiting TV engineer said I would just have to live with it With all these technical problems and somewhat high brow program content BBC2 Television was slow to become popular In the late 1960 s TV set design improved with transistorized P tuners and station selection using push buttons controlling varicap diodes through rotary potentiometers One of my favorite transistors from those days was the Mullard BF180 a silicon NPN type used as the low noise RF stage in thousands of VHF UHF TV tuners and in several of my own converters for VHF and UHF amateur radio recep tion BF180 The coming of color Color television arrived on BBC2 UHF 625 lines initially in 1967 The BBC adopted the PAL phase alternate line color standard
11. are Look for the two distinct peaks You ll likely have to adjust the level of the audio and the frequency a bit to lock in the text broadcasts with best efficiency YaND also features a tab allowing you to walk in your phase relationship to enhance reception further Although there are lots of different NAVTEX decoding programs for your trials the best one I have found is YaND available at http www yand wavetalk org Look for up to the minute information about the discoveries of other NAVTEX DXers at http groups yahoo com group navtexdx Make sure you also have a good guide to station identi fiers and broadcast schedules so you ll know when to listen and how to decode the messages http www ndblist info navtex navguide pdf written by Alan Gale G4TMV For a comprehensive list of every NAVTEX station and their schedules take a look at Bill Hepburn s amazing list at http www dxinfocentre com navtex htm You ll find that we are in Navarea IV which includes the United States Canada Bermuda and Greenland Wouldn t it be neat to log an unmanned station from the Kook Islands off Greenland Look at Bill s list to see when to tune in If you operate PSK31 you ll be right at home logging NAVTEX with YaND soft ware It features a similar waterfall display and many useful tools to fine tune your reception of this data Watching the text come in can be very exciting while you wait for a station ID verifying your
12. body else benefit from them Do you need the space Collect them all to gether then bring your boat anchors and treasures along to the Bring and Buy Auction on Sunday January 8 Members who success fully sell something usually make a contribution to PCARA funds Postal rate rise In October 2011 the U S Postal Service an nounced a rate rise that will increase the cost of a first class stamp from 44 cents to 45 cents The increase takes effect on January 22 Maybe it is time to send some more postage to your QSL Bureau Manager Speaking of QSL cards the postcard rate increases to 32 cents on January 22 Forever stamps initially selling at the 41 cent first class rate remain a good way to purchase stamps that hold their value across the rate changes The value on these stamps will always be the one ounce letter rate and they can be used for any eT ee future one ounce letter l mailing without extra post age In place of last year s Deliberate mistake contest there was a draw ing for a small door prize This was won by Ray W2CH and Marylyn KC2NKU If you send items overseas you may want to note that letters to Canada and Mexico will cost 85 cents while air mail to other countries increases from 0 98 to 1 05 on January 22 2012 PCARA Update January 2012 page 11 Peekskill Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association Mail PCARA PO Box 146 Crompond NY 10517 E Mail w2nyw arrl net W
13. ct from Ally Pally Its worth remembering the technology of the time the 405 line TV standard used in Britain dated from November 1936 when EMP technical team commenced VHF broadcasts for the BBC from Alexandra Palace in north London alongside the competing 240 line Baird wg system y John Logie Baird s system was based on static cameras with mechani cal scanning and an intermediate film process while EMI s system was all electronic based on vacuum tubes with small Emitron cameras that could move around the studio floor It only took a few months for the authorities to decide that EMI s 405 line system was technically superior and the way to go The new service continued for three years until trans missions from Ally Pally were closed down in 1939 for World War II They were resumed with the same technical standards and the same program in 1946 The seventy fifth anniversary of BBC TV transmissions was just a few months ago in November 2011 At Holme Moss transmissions were from an antenna 750 feet above the wild Yorkshire moors Early TV transmissions used the low VHF band and Holme Moss employed UK channel 2 with the vision carrier on 51 75 MHz and AM sound on 48 25 MHz vertically e Sa a EMI s television system was all electronic with mobile cameras yi Holme Moss TV mast stood 750 feet above the Yorkshire Moors 1720 feet agl p
14. dcast on Channel 2 from Holme Moss High VHF coverage from Winter Hill This was for BBC1 on Ch 12 Three TV networks By the mid 1960s low VHF channels 1 5 and high VHF channels 6 13 were being fully used to provide two 405 line TV services BBC and ITV across the United Kingdom The next development required a shift to higher frequencies and some new techniques The BBC opened its second television network BBC2 in April 1964 using UHF transmission on the European standard of 625 lines Sound modulation was changed from AM for the old 405 line system to FM using 6 MHz intercarrier sound in the receiver The vision modulation sense was changed from positive going for the old 405 line system where noise appeared as bright sparkles to negative going so that noise appeared as darker spots In northwest England the Independent Television site at Winter Hill was used for BBC2 UHF transmis sions During 1964 65 a brand new tubular steel mast New 1015 ft tubular steel mast at Winter Hill is at right The white sections on top are fiberglass shrouds for the UHF and VHF TV antennas Shorter masts at left were used for Post Office microwave links and police fire radio was erected with a height of 1015 feet The hilly terrain on the west side of the Pennine Hills required a greater mast height and many more relay stations for UHF coverage than had ever been needed for VHE BBC2 television came on air from Win
15. e The signal from Holme Moss on low VHF traveled a long way and could be received throughout northern England North Wales and across the Irish Sea as far as the Isle of Man and parts of Ireland Those large antennas on the roof for low VHF were quite vulnerable I can remember watching TV as a youngster one wild night in Southport when the screen went blank A few minutes later there was a X and H antennas above the roofline Baird 17 console PCARA Update January 2012 page 6 U Ger kar oe ipo SN Appleby I 3 Whitehaven OP Daringo Te i Midailesborowph oc hoarennd Ch Windirmare Mortiatterten ugh yh a Harrogate Bridlington 3 5 Buralay Mackburn O Olak Ossler DP reon Bradford Southport OHudderstietd Bolton QHOLMEB MOSS 6 Danemter PLiverpost O Mapchester Gaimborough a Macclesfield ShadTield Chester a a Matlack a ham CMS OStoke Derby Honinghar o O Burton SiaMord Wionwerharnpion op ese e ip i taii zg a gon Mistr o int ek io Grolrwich Q od re As A ad i RA Coverage area of BBC Televison from Holme Moss Et Craven Area knocking at the door and our next door neighbor was standing there asking is this yours He was holding our giant size VHF X antenna that had just fallen from the roof into his yard Declaration of independence BBC Television was paid for by an annual license fee and carried no advertising That monopoly situatio
16. e in 1974 That figure was around ten week s income The set was a 22 Pye CT205 using the 697 single standard hybrid chassis with solid state tuner IF strip sound and color decoder Only the line output sweep tube HV recti fier luminance and chrominance outputs used vacuum tubes I kept a complete set of tubes in stock at home so I could service the set myself and I still have the Service Manual Twenty two years later that set was still running well during one of my visits to Southport With the low signal levels UHF television needed a higher grade of coaxial cable than on VHE and UK manufac turers provided a suitable product at reasonable cost The standard 75 ohm UHF coaxial cable had a 5 16 outer diameter with a foam polyethylene dielectric Belling Lee coaxial connectors with an aluminum body and soldered center pin became standard for TV and FM radio Radio amateurs used the same high quality cable and connec tor for HE VHF and UHF transmitters until SO 239 and PL 259 connectors became standard in the 1970s Since all three UK TV channels could now be received on a single UHF antenna pointed at Winter Hill there was no longer any need for the old VHF X H and Yagi antennas Many of these had weathered badly Pye CT20x series single standard color TV UK 75 ohm low loss coaxial cable fitted with a Belling Lee connector PCARA Update January 2012 page 9 and were taken down or fell dow
17. eb site http www pcara org PCARA Update Editor Malcolm Pritchard NM9J E mail NM9J arrl net Newsletter contributions are always very welcome Archive http home computer net pcara newslett htm PCARA Information PCARA is a Non Profit Community Service Orga nization PCARA meetings take place the first Sunday of each month at 3 00 p m in Dining Room B of the Hudson Valley Hospital Center Route 202 Cortlandt Manor NY 10567 Drive round behind the main hospital building and enter from the rear look for the oxygen tanks Talk in is available on the 146 67 repeater Apart from holidays PCARA Repeaters W2NYW 146 67 MHz 0 6 PL 156 7Hz KB2CQE 449 925MHz 5 0 PL 179 9Hz N2CBH 448 725MHz 5 0 PL 107 2Hz Y A PO Box 146 Crompond NY 10517 PCARA Calendar Sun Jan 8 2012 PCARA Annual Bring and Buy Auction Hudson Valley Hospital Center 3 00 p m Hamfests Sun Jan 8 2012 NLI Section Convention Ham Radio University Briarcliffe College 1055 Stewart Ave Bethpage NY 7 30 a m Sun Mar 4 2012 LIMARC Long Island Hamfair Levittown Hall 201 Levittown Parkway Hicksville NY VE Test Sessions Jan 1 Yonkers ARC Yonkers PD Grassy Sprain Rd Yonkers NY 8 30 a m Contact Daniel Calabrese 914 667 0587 Jan 12 WECA Westchester Co Fire Trg Center 4 Dana Rd Valhalla NY 7 00 p m Contact Stanley Rothman 914 831 3258 Jan 23 Columbia Univ VE Team 2960 Broadway 115 Havemeyer Hall New York
18. een given special permits to operate on 6 meters outside normal televi sion hours Then on February 1 1986 a permanent allocation at 50 50 5 MHz was made available by the Department of Trade and Industry for use by all UK Class A licensees with a few restric tions Despite purchasing a 6 meter transverter module for use with my While in the UK I acquired a 6 meter module for the Yaesu FIV 901R FT 902 this development came just two weeks too late for me because by mid January 1986 I had been transferred from the Manchester area to the Chicago suburbs along with 6 colleagues and their families There I found that three color television channels was small potatoes compared with a major US market having multiple commercial networks PBS religious broadcasters cable outlets etc But I was still missing the good old BBC and ITV PCARA Update January 2012 page 10 NM9J Holiday dinner Bring amp Buy Auction PCARA ss Holiday Dinner took place on Sunday PCARA will hold its annual Bring and Buy Auc December 4 at our usual location At the Reef restau tion at the January meeting scheduled for 3 00 p m rant located on Annsville Circle in Cortlandt Manor on Sunday January 8 at Hudson Valley Hospital Center Here are some more photographs of the event taken So take a look around your basement or your by Ray W2CH attic for items that have not been used in a while Could some
19. k to my own encounters with analog TV technology going back all the way to the 1950s First encounters My first exposure to television would have been in the early 1950s in the suburbs of Manchester UK This particular memory is a bit hazy owing to my tender years but it would have been around 1953 The British Broadcasting Corporation s pioneering TV efforts began at Alexandra Palace London in the 1930s After World War II the BBC expanded television transmitter coverage across the UK The Sutton Coldfield transmitter came on air in 1949 covering Birmingham and the Midlands In my part of the world northern England we had to wait until October 1951 for the BBC s TV transmitter to come on air from Holme Moss high in the Pennine hills between Lancashire and Yorkshire The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953 gave a great boost to Televi sion It was the transi tion from a service for the rich and techni cally savvy to a domes tic appliance suitable for everyone s home My uncle was one of the first in the street to own a TV set so that s Alexandra Palace in north London began regular television transmissions in November 1936 The antenna consisted of vertical wires stretched between the horizontal arms visible in the picture PCARA Update January 2012 page 5 how I came to be in his house along with my younger cousin for the televised Coronation ceremony on June 2 1953 Dire
20. n I made good use of some of these old antennas which had been made with heavy duty aluminum cutting them down to size for 2 meter and 4 meter antennas Changing times The color TV boom of 1973 saw the beginning of the end for UK produced televi sion sets UK manufacturers such as Bush Pye Baird Thorn EMI and Marconi could not produce G3VNQ full wave vertical for 2 meters ChOUgh sets to was made from cut down VHF TV satisfy demand antennas That s Southport Football and models with Club in the background unfamiliar names had to be im ported from Europe In the late 1970s and early 1980s sets from Japan and the Far East began to appear at unbeatable prices with high reliability Not only did this spell the end of domestic TV manufacturing in Britain it also saw a decline in the need for trained TV engi neers those mobile marvels who would visit people in their homes to fix faults and align the shadow mask picture tubes From my earliest days in amateur radio I remem ber that many radio club members were professional TV engineers who kept the nation s TV sets running from a little service van with a selection of popular vacuum tubes stowed in the back I learned a great deal from those skilled technicians about converging color tubes and fault finding on a live chassis with UK 240 volt AC mains and 300 volts DC never far away Farewell 405 hello six In the mid 1980s a chapter in UK
21. n changed in 1955 56 when Independent Television ITV came on air The BBC was using all five of the low band VHF TV channels 1 5 for national coverage so ITV was broadcast on the high band VHF channels known as Band III The service for northwest En gland came from a 450 foot tower atop a 1400 foot moor near Bolton Lancashire known as Winter Hill The ITV transmitter was on Channel 9 vision carrier 194 75 MHz and sound on 191 25 MHz AM During weekdays ITV programs came from Granada Television s studio in Manchester Unfortunately there were still huge numbers of recently purchased single channel low VHF sets like my family s that were incapable of receiving the new service The solution was to fit a converter within the wooden cabinet The converter took the antenna input into a vacuum tube RF stage and mixer that converted the high VHF signal down to the low VHF input of the TV set Home visits from TV engineers to fit converters were widespread I remember a cartoon showing a housekeeper opening the rectory door to a TV engineer and saying to the member of the clergy within the from the North G R A N A D A PRESENTS man s come to convert you vicar New TV sets soon appeared with built in turret tuners that could receive low VHF channels 1 5 for BBC TV and the high VHF channels 6 13 for ITV The turret tuner was a click stop device that rotated a separate set of tuned coils and capaci
22. n covering the world of entertainment arts and culture Jian s well produced and fast paced show attracts the biggest names in show biz You ll delight following his ability to create in sightful interviews and commen tary that surpass most everything I have ever heard Many memorable live perfor mances season his already delightful show Q is now being distributed in the United States via Public Radio International and can be heard on WNLK AM 1350 Norwalk CT at noon and 7pm weekdays Free audio and video podcasts of his material can be found on iTunes and on the show s web site http www cbc ca q CBC s Radio One is available 24 7 on Sirius satellite radio channel 159 My favorite of all media from up north is the independent channel known as NTV from St John s Newfoundland Here you will see what life is like in Newfoundland and Labrador in a homemade style all their own A low powered TV station outside of Tampa Florida rebroadcasts NTV for all the snowbirds who vacation down there In turn the Tampa station can be seen via the Internet at wpso com Three times a day you can see NTV newscasts 7 to 8 30 am 10 30 to 11 am and 4 30 to 5 pm There is also much more to be seen on demand at www ntv ca If you are a certified TV DXer you can see NTV directly via e skip on analog channel 4 If you are looking for something fresh and new or just seeking a new perspective take a gander at all Canada has to
23. olarized Early plans had called for a 900 MHz microwave link to feed the video signal from London to Birmingham and points north but the microwave system could not meet specifications for two way communication so the Post Office employed under ground coaxial cables of 1 diameter to feed from London to Birmingham and 3 8 diameter cable to feed onward to Holme Moss AS domestic TV sets began to be installed in northern England a mixture of H and X antennas began sprout ing from rooftops in order to receive the VHF signal from Holme Moss The H an tenna was a vertically polarized two element Yagi but the X antenna was a different design by Antiference called the Antex In this arrangement three of the four elements were connected to the outer braid of the coaxial cable while one element was connected to the inner conductor This antenna is not widely known outside the UK but it was analyzed by the late L Cebik W4RNL http www cebik com He showed that the X array antenna has a forward gain of around 6dBi and a front to back ratio of 10dB or better on 50 MHz This was helpful for reduc tion of video ghosts caused by reflections from hills and other buildings My family s first TV set arrived around 1955 and was a console model housed in a beautiful wooden cabinet It received Channel 2 from Holme Moss and that was it One channel BBC Televi sion and no other choices availabl
24. provided better reception than low VHE Interference from nearby spark plugs electric motors and hospital diathermy equipment was far less disruptive on high VHF than on the lower VHF frequencies As other European countries introduced their own TV service during the 1950s and 1960s another problem came to light with Band I low VHE During periods of extended Sporadic E propagation strong signals on 41 66 MHz could be received for hours on end from stations that were hundreds of miles away In my part of northern England where channel 2 X antenna for low VHF with 5 element Yagi for high VHE PCARA Update January 2012 page 7 was in wide use there was strong interference during the summer months from a 250kW transmitter 900 miles away in Madrid Spain The European frequency plan was slightly different from the UK s but Madrid s E2 vision carrier was co channel with the sound carrier from Holme Moss result ing in an annoying heterodyne on top of the sound The BBC came up with a solution in 1964 they introduced a high VHF transmission of BBC1 Television for northwest England from Winter Hill on Channel 12 209 75 MHz video carrier vertically polarized 125 kW erp This second outlet provided an opportunity for regional programming for northwest England from the Manchester TV studio which I ve visited while regional programs for the Yorkshire side of the Pennines were produced in Leeds for continuing broa
25. rd of your reception on screen and there will be little doubt what you have received The NAVTEX protocol is very similar to amateur radio s AMTOR The format is properly known as SITOR Mode B and is broadcast at a rate of 100 baud It s also commonly referred to as Narrow Band Direct Printing Telegraphy especially considering that professional NAVTEX receivers churn out long pieces of paper with the sent messages inscribed Commoners like us lowly DXers use computers instead Using my modest worldband portable radio a Sony ICF SW7600GR hooked up to a trusty laptop I have achieved some great results All you need is one simple audio patch cord Connect your radio directly to your computer s sound card and you should be all set My very first reception showed all the details of mari PCARA Update January 2012 page 3 time advisories for the Caribbean A multitude of stations each take turns periodi cally during the day on 518 kHz until the cycle is repeated again One big challenge is to receive stations based in far off places like Greenland and Newfound land For best results you need a long antenna along with an efficient ground system I had fine results just using the built in ferrite bar antenna in my Sony Tuning in is easy Although the broadcasts are on 518 kHz tune to 516 kHz using upper sideband and tune up about 1710 Hz for a good lock You ll see your current offset on screen with your NAVTEX decoder softw
26. reception Last night I logged a long YAND software for decoding Navtex transmissions string of text detailing how marine vessels should stay clear of helicopters on maneuvers during a scheduled training exercise New and unusual You bet Give it a try 30 Meter Beacon Beckons It is highly unusual to hear a beacon on a WARC band but a new one is attracting a lot of attention From the southwestern corner of the Show Me state in Highlandville Al WOERE is on the air with a QRP CW beacon for all to hear The heart of Al s beacon is a MFJ 9030 rig at three watts hooked up to a G5RV antenna Look for it on 10 12925 MHz with an endless loop message in Morse WOERE B beacon transmitter uses an MFJ 9030 30 meter CW transceiver WOERE B easily made it to my Sony ICF SW7900GR portable worldband radio one morning I e mailed Al and cheered him on Now that I know it s there I notice it with great regularity at my QTH I was very surprised to hear CW that high up since most regular 30 meter CW activity takes place way below 10 125 MHz The upper half of the 30 meter band is usually occupied by more complex digital modes like RTTY and PSK 31 Take a listen for Al s beacon It makes a great QRP CW catch Tuna Tin II It never ceases to amaze me just how low you can go with power and still be heard with just a straight key a handful of AA batteries and two transistors mounted into a tuna can I had not used my Tuna Tin I
27. rican shows CBC peppers its schedule with British material as well such as Coronation Street The advent of the Internet and streaming video has made access to Canadian TV and radio easier than ever before Americans would enjoy a refreshing sample of the Canadian point of view Canadian news broad casts seriously consider not only events in Canada and America but the entire world Entertainment program ming is just as fresh Would you ever expect to see a show called Little Mosque on the Prairie on American TV You wouldn t believe how entertaining and eye opening this one show has become up north CBC deh Radio Canada Little Mosque on the Prairie Another Canadian gem is the dramedy Being Erica that recently completed its fourth and final season on the CBC Set in Toronto the show received critical acclaim earned huge audiences and became the most popular show on Canadian TV It s all about a woman in her thirties played by Alberta native Erin Karpluk who finds herself a therapist with the ability to send her back into her past allowing her to change everything she regrets The writing is fresh and intellectual and does not depend on violence and intrigue to be enter taining Distributed worldwide by the BBC a second incarnation of Being Erica is now in development as a new show for ABC TV stateside If you can t wait the first three CBC seasons are available free on demand at hulu com
28. ter Hill in 1965 with an ERP of 500 kW on channel 62 horizontally polarized The vision carrier was on 799 25 MHz and FM sound was 6 MHz higher on 805 25 MHz I remember seeing BBC2 television for the first time that year at an ama teur radio convention in Belle Vue Manchester Those new standards for BBC2 television needed a fresh generation of TV sets I remember that the new TV in my family s home was a so called dual stan dard vacuum tube set This had separate tuners for VHF and UHE plus an IF strip that had a long wafer switch running its entire length The system switch used for changing from 405 lines to 625 lines selected the UHF tuner changed the 38 MHz IF from positive to negative video and changed the sound demodulator from AM to 6MHz intercarrier FM It also had to change the line output stage s frequency from 10 125 kHz to to 15 625 kHz As you can imagine the front panel 405 625 button required a mighty push to accomplish all this Dual standard sets were never very reliable The use of vacuum tubes for UHF TV reception had its problems too Receiver sensitivity at 800 MHz Baird 661 dual standard 405 625 line monochrome TV PCARA Update January 2012 page 8 was not very good and the small Yagi antenna bolted to the VHF antenna mast and aimed at Winter Hill did not pick up much signal The receiver s local oscillator was free running so BBC2 s channel 62 had to be tuned manually B
29. tors for each channel into the vacuum tube RF amplifier and mixer oscillator stages The RF stage was likely to be a Mullard PCC84 dual triode in a cascode circuit fol lowed by a Mullard PCF80 triode pentode with triode oscillator and pentode mixer The local oscillator was free running and had a rotary fine tuning control for precise adjustment TV sets of the time needed a certain amount of expertise with multiple controls brought out to the front and rear panel including vertical and horizontal hold contrast bright ness channel control and fine tuning as well as the volume on off knob Although the 100 kW ERP Winter Hill transmitter was putting out a strong vertically polarized signal the vacuum tube tuners of the time were not particularly sensitive The shorter wavelength around 1 5 meters allowed gain antennas to be added to the roof tops and the indication of a multi channel TV in the house hold was the presence of a multi element Yagi on the rooftop for ITV joining the much larger low VHF antenna for BBC Mullard PCC84 double triode was designed for VHF cascode operation VHF coverage It s interesting to note that while the BBC could provide a TV service for both sides of the Pennine Hills from a single low VHF transmitter at Holme Moss on channel 2 ITV needed two transmitters at Winter Hill in Lancashire and at Emley Moor in Yorkshire to cover a similar area at high VHE High VHF television
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