Peter Day wrote:

Ian Lamb wrote:

who are these so called lurkers that people are discussing? :-))

LOL!
You must have seen them Ian.. in the list on the right hand side of
the KST screen there are always quite a few callsigns (UK and
Continental Eu) who never come back to a request in the message box. I
think a lot leave a computer permanently on KST , 24/7, but are not
always in the shack to see the plaintive CQs :-).

Hence I call them lurkers... (for our overseas readers: to lurk means
to hide behind a bush or curtains, etc, looking on but not taking part
until the right moment comes along for them )

C'st la vie..

Peter, G3PHO

Hello Peter and others ,thanks to Ukug my english is very quickly
getting better,two weeks ago I learnt what is an Elmer ,today what is a lurker ...
prepare next lesson ,Peter ,it is just for fun Peter ,I think you understand :-) ,73 from f1gqb
who is not a lurker , simply does not have any tx ,it is not useful to talk to the sun...
but who is really a microwaves fanatic (microwave -addict..)

Hence I call them lurkers... (for our overseas readers: to lurk means
to hide behind a bush or curtains, etc, looking on but not taking part
until the right moment comes along for them )


LOL!!

I think I am guilty of lurking from time to time! :-((

Hope to work you in the contest during the weekend.

73 .. Ian

Ian Lamb - G8KQW

Brian and the group,
I would assume you are refering to the Toshiba BA2160B 23.5 to 26.5GHz amp.
If that is the case they only require the -2v and +5v for operation. The +5v can be increased to +6v and the -2v to -1.7 to increase output from 500mw to 1watt.
The specs do mention the -15/+15v but what these are used for I am not sure.
If this is correct as above it may simplify your requirement fo a PSU.
Any comments if I am mistaken.
Regards
Steve ZL1TPH New Zealand.

---- g4nns <brian-coleman@...> wrote:

=============
Hello All

I find myself designing a PSU to supply the necessary +5, +/-15 and -
2V needed by the Toshiba 500mW Amplifiers of which there are quite a
few about. Not wishing to re-invent the wheel, has anyone out there
got a simple elegant, tried and tested circuit for 12V nominal input.

73 Brian G4NNS








Yahoo! Groups Links

Hello UK millimetre men...

Here's the final list for this weekend's UKuG millimetre band contest.
Over the past 24 hours, its contents have been up and down like a
fiddler's elbow!!

There have been some major changes since yesterday so please use this
as the definitive list and ignore the previous ones.

If anyone has any further changes please post them on the UKuG
Reflector ... and copy them to me for my own use :-)

I hope all those who are working with club stations in the 24 hour
IARU contest will stay on for the remainder of the UKuG contest on
Sunday and be prepared to work us more than once as some of us will be
changing locations under the rover rule. (Naturally only their first
contact will count in the IARU contest).

73

Peter, G3PHO

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Sunday 8th October 2006. UkuG 24/47GHz Contest: 0900-2100GMT
============================================================

G0EWN/P: I hope to be out and active on Sunday probably
operating from Bradwell (IO93CH) and Merryton (IO93AD) unless I
can think of other sites---

(SUGGEST ALPORT FOR THE MORNING GORDON AS I WON'T BE
THERE UNTIL AFTER 1400BST & YOU COULD QSY TO MERRYTON.
FOR THE AFTERNOON .... Peter )

I have been working hard on the 47g system---checked and
sorted the PLL yesterday. I hope to complete the wiring
by Friday but not sure if I should take it out Sunday
before confirming all is OK.

PLEASE TAKE OUT 47GHz GORDON! The path from both
Alport and Merryton should go to Brown Clee (both LOS)


G3PHO/P: Merryton Low Triangle (IO93AD51)in the morning
Alport Height(IO93FB44)in the afternoon (1400BST)

24GHz: 2 watts SSB/CW to 60cm offset dish/W1GHZ feed
47GHz: Separate TX/RX. TX = 22mW cw or nbFM
NO other bands carried for alignment.
Talkback 50 watts to 3 ele on roof of van (I'm a
rover!)
No KST
Mobile: 07811 808605

G3ZME/P: Change of plan for 24 GHz on Sunday. (bit daft 24GHz 5
stns. on one site!)

10:00 am ish Hope Mtn IO83LC
13:30 ish Nr Oswestry IO82KV area possibly in GW land
16:30 ish The Wrekin IO82RQ -esp.looking south.Walbury ?
Talkback 144.175 MHz SSB or 07932 927887
No KST

G8VZT/P: As for G3ZME/P


G7MRF/P: IO83VC47: Mow Cop, Staffs
24GHz only
144MHz talkback
No KST

G8KQW/P
& G3FYX/P: Apologies if we have totally confused you but Roy and I
will be operating with SBRS for the whole 24 hour IARU
contest.
This means there will only be one station active on each
band and the line-up will probably be:

G8OHM 432MHz
G3OHM 1296 and 2320MHz
G8IFT 3400 and 5760MHz
G4MAP 10368
G8KQW & G3FYX 24048 and 47088

(CAN ANDY G4MAP STAY ON AFTERWARDS TO USE HIS OWN 24GHz
AND GIVE THE REST OF US ANOTHER STATION TO HAVE AGO AT?
...Peter)

Talkback for all bands will be available on:
144.175 - 400W + 9el or
ON4KST - OHM or
+44 (0) 7830 168063

These two will be working with the G8IFT club station
(see below)

G8IFT/P: The South Birmingham Radio Society will be QRV on all
bands, 432 MHz to 47GHz, from IO82QL, Brown Clee Hill,
during the October multi-band contest.
Callsigns will be G8OHM/P, G3OHM/P, G8IFT/P and G4MAP/P
as usual, we will have 144 MHz T/B, ON4KST plus mobile
07969777510.

M1CRO/P: J01GN(?): Contest Group active all bands 432MHz up for
the weekend. Ask for G8APZ who will have 24GHz gear on
the site.
144MHz ssb talkback is available for the millimetre
bands.

G0JMI/P: IO91CL: Hackpen Hill,Wilts., WX permitting.
Active from 1000BST
24GHz: SSB/CW 1w pep to 18 inch dish.
47GHz: SSB/CW barefoot mixer, 18 inch dish.
144.175MHz talk back SSB. 10w to 5 element beam.
No KST

G8ACE/P: The way things are shaping up I shall now probably
operate from home on Sunday.
I can only spend 1/2 a day out and it would mean a trip

to north Oxfordshire at least to an unknown site to get
anywhere near Brown Clee for 47G.

(HACKPEN to BROWN CLEE WORKS OK JOHN...Peter)

G3PYB/P: Rumoured activity from Walbury or area north of Walbury
(EG Great Rollright or vicinity)
24 and 47GHz.
144MHz talkback
No KST

G4EAT: Home station JO01HR
24GHz only.
144MHz talkback.
KST


NOT QRV:
========

G0MJW

--------------

Ian Lamb wrote:

who are these so called lurkers that people are discussing? :-))

LOL!
You must have seen them Ian.. in the list on the right hand side of the KST screen there are always quite a few callsigns (UK and Continental Eu) who never come back to a request in the message box. I think a lot leave a computer permanently on KST , 24/7, but are not always in the shack to see the plaintive CQs :-).

Hence I call them lurkers... (for our overseas readers: to lurk means to hide behind a bush or curtains, etc, looking on but not taking part until the right moment comes along for them )

C'st la vie..

Peter, G3PHO

Mike Willis wrote:

Personally, I dislike any co-ordination with Europe. It just meant all the East Coast guys, who's excellent stations are of great benefit to us all, naturally point East for most of the time

So true ..

I propose we hold contests Orthogonal to Eu ones, or change the rules to make it worth working fellow Gs, GWs and GMs - or even Ms, MWs and MMs.

Hear hear!

"A thousand receivers make no noise"

Peter does not remember TRFs....

Eh?.. I was brought up on super regen RXs !!

73

Peter, G3PHO

who are these so called lurkers that people are discussing? :-))

73 .. Ian

Ian G8KQW


________________________________

From: ukmicrowaves@... on behalf of Peter Day
Sent: Fri 06/10/2006 19:46
To: ukmicrowaves@...
Subject: Re: [ukmicrowaves] Sorry, I'm not in the contest



Ray wrote:

The serial number serves no purpose in the scoring of the contest.

I'm sorry Ray but I have to disagree..

I see the serial number as part of the requirement to exchange some
previously unknown information. Removing it makes it even easier that
it is at present to claim a contact. I believe contests should have,
apart from an obvious competitive element, some element of self
training in operating skills. If people find sending and receiving
RST+Serial numbers is difficult on say CW, then they should brush up
their CW! Many of us have had to do it at sometime or other. The same
can be said of voice QSOs where careful listening and dictation is a must.

I'm rather afraid that we will end up "dumbing down" our contests into
a meaningless "game".

The callsign, report and locator are required for our events.
I would be the first to agree in the retention of a serial number
inclusion if the microwave reports followed the typical HF 59/599.

I guess it won' be long before people will be doing the HF report
version! Better scrap the report first and keep the serial number :^)

What shouts out like an RT at Brown Clee (!) is that the majority of
microwave operators DO NOT LIKE CONTESTS, yet those very contacts
are the bread and butter of those who are participating.

I'm not sure they don't like contest because when I've suggested over
the years that we scrap most of them and just have activity days, with
no contest element at all, these very same people you refer to scream
blue murder and say, "Please no... please keep the contests" !

To illustrate this I went to JO03 square a few years ago, in January I
think, to put it on the 10 and 5.7GHz map. I worked almost as many
stations as a contest, yet this was a non contest activity day. it
seemed like half of PA, F and ON came out to try for a contact. In
spite of that almost everyone gave me a serial number (which I didn't
need) !!

I continue to be baffled by this "We must have a contest" mentality,
even though I enjoy contesting very much indeed... on all bands from
160 metres to 47GHz.

I believe
in doing the best I can with what I've got and where I am without
getting upset or embarrassed by a wide margin in serial number with
stations I work.

Sometimes by lunchtime I may only have made 5 or so contacts as
against the 15 a well known op in the SE has reached but it doesn't
make me feel inferior.I also sometimes operate well north of the
centre of microwave activity (often in IO94 and IO84) and, although I
don't have as low QSO rate as I would from your location, I usually
work only two thirds of what the southern stations work. However when
I look at my total kilometre points score, I usually have the highest
in the country in the 10 and 5.7GHz cumulatives since most of my
contacts are well in excess of 250km up to 600km or so. Conversely,
when I operated from Butser (IO90MX) in the South, some years ago, I
got the highest number of contacts I ever had but a much lower total
points score since many of the contacts were over short 50-100km paths..

So what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.

However, because I don't work the same number of LOC squares as the
guys down South, I usually end up down the list from the top because
the LOC squares are used as the multiplier for the final score. (It
was me that brought stupidly that mutliplier into the contest rules
many years ago :-) )

Removing the serial number takes away the contest appearance so many
dislike.

Than why not call them activity days and scrap most of the contests?
Just have a couple per band per year. I'd be very happy with that and
then could concentrate on testing new paths and equipment in the
activity days when there's no demand to stay out long hours in poor
weather and work as many stations as possible.

We have to appreciate that some people haven't got a competitive
bone in their body but enjoy a good contact.

Then why don't they come on the air more often outside contest
periods? If they did so we might have some really active microwave
bands. I often see a long list of "lurkers" on the KST chat room but
few of them seem to be there when you want to try for a QSO. Others
have said the same thing to me also.

As I reminded our contest manager a day or so ago.... Back in the 70s.
during the 10GHz contests. we also had to exchange a code or password
which we individually chose on the day. A typical exchange would be
something like this:

G3PFR, this is G3PHO. Roger on your details. You are 59004 at grid
reference SK041610, Merryton Low, 10K south of Buxton. My password is
"dogs dinner" - Break

try that for size folks :-)

73 and happy contesting in 2007

Peter, G3PHO

Ray wrote:

The serial number serves no purpose in the scoring of the contest.

I'm sorry Ray but I have to disagree..

I see the serial number as part of the requirement to exchange some previously unknown information. Removing it makes it even easier that it is at present to claim a contact. I believe contests should have, apart from an obvious competitive element, some element of self training in operating skills. If people find sending and receiving RST+Serial numbers is difficult on say CW, then they should brush up their CW! Many of us have had to do it at sometime or other. The same can be said of voice QSOs where careful listening and dictation is a must.

I'm rather afraid that we will end up "dumbing down" our contests into a meaningless "game".

The callsign, report and locator are required for our events.
I would be the first to agree in the retention of a serial number inclusion if the microwave reports followed the typical HF 59/599.

I guess it won' be long before people will be doing the HF report version! Better scrap the report first and keep the serial number :^)

What shouts out like an RT at Brown Clee (!) is that the majority of microwave operators DO NOT LIKE CONTESTS, yet those very contacts are the bread and butter of those who are participating.

I'm not sure they don't like contest because when I've suggested over the years that we scrap most of them and just have activity days, with no contest element at all, these very same people you refer to scream blue murder and say, "Please no... please keep the contests" !

To illustrate this I went to JO03 square a few years ago, in January I think, to put it on the 10 and 5.7GHz map. I worked almost as many stations as a contest, yet this was a non contest activity day. it seemed like half of PA, F and ON came out to try for a contact. In spite of that almost everyone gave me a serial number (which I didn't need) !!

I continue to be baffled by this "We must have a contest" mentality, even though I enjoy contesting very much indeed... on all bands from 160 metres to 47GHz.

I believe in doing the best I can with what I've got and where I am without getting upset or embarrassed by a wide margin in serial number with stations I work.

Sometimes by lunchtime I may only have made 5 or so contacts as against the 15 a well known op in the SE has reached but it doesn't make me feel inferior.I also sometimes operate well north of the centre of microwave activity (often in IO94 and IO84) and, although I don't have as low QSO rate as I would from your location, I usually work only two thirds of what the southern stations work. However when I look at my total kilometre points score, I usually have the highest in the country in the 10 and 5.7GHz cumulatives since most of my contacts are well in excess of 250km up to 600km or so. Conversely, when I operated from Butser (IO90MX) in the South, some years ago, I got the highest number of contacts I ever had but a much lower total points score since many of the contacts were over short 50-100km paths..

So what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.

However, because I don't work the same number of LOC squares as the guys down South, I usually end up down the list from the top because the LOC squares are used as the multiplier for the final score. (It was me that brought stupidly that mutliplier into the contest rules many years ago :-) )

Removing the serial number takes away the contest appearance so many dislike.

Than why not call them activity days and scrap most of the contests? Just have a couple per band per year. I'd be very happy with that and then could concentrate on testing new paths and equipment in the activity days when there's no demand to stay out long hours in poor weather and work as many stations as possible.

We have to appreciate that some people haven't got a competitive bone in their body but enjoy a good contact.

Then why don't they come on the air more often outside contest periods? If they did so we might have some really active microwave bands. I often see a long list of "lurkers" on the KST chat room but few of them seem to be there when you want to try for a QSO. Others have said the same thing to me also.

As I reminded our contest manager a day or so ago.... Back in the 70s. during the 10GHz contests. we also had to exchange a code or password which we individually chose on the day. A typical exchange would be something like this:

G3PFR, this is G3PHO. Roger on your details. You are 59004 at grid reference SK041610, Merryton Low, 10K south of Buxton. My password is "dogs dinner" - Break

try that for size folks :-)

73 and happy contesting in 2007

Peter, G3PHO

Ray wrote:

I appear to be in the minority by being in favour of the UKuG dropping the requirement for a serial number within a UKuG contest exchange!

Only because I was away in London yesterday from 6:30 am, when I left the house, until 10:30 pm (local times) when I returned. I'm sorry to say that I did not rush straight to the PC to download my emails. ;-)

Dave (G0DJA)

Murray Niman wrote:

Amateur Licences
----------------
An updated licence sample has been 'leaked' as a much better indication than the July-4th version though there may be a few edits to go before December when its due to come into force (like 75.5-76 expiring). Ofcoms own amateur webpages wont link to it so its not got legal power at present as a precaution. Likewise IR2028 the Amateur Radio Interface doc it refers to on the Ofcom website need to be amended to match it as it has fallen behind the recent changes. The updated example is well worth reading very carefully....

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/ifi/licensing/classes/amateur/Licen
ces/samplelicence.pdf

I found it, before reading this message, quite easily from the Amateur Radio link in the Radiocommunications section of the Ofcom website...

Dave (G0DJA)

hi there to all,
will be qrv for contest from io86rq
23cm/50w,13cm/60w, 9cm/45w ,6cm/10w ,3cm/10w.
but will need to change dish feeds between 9cm /6cm.
good luck to everyone.
de gm4lbv

He has not come across the phenomenon of the corporate web cache that

so many of us are behind for "our protection".

Corporate caches are pretty simple to circumvent. If say you are
visiting www.bbc.co.uk, you'll probably get a version of the page from
a local web caching proxy. Just use www.bbc.co.uk?3984752937592347 or
other random number. This wont have been requested before, so it will
force a clean 'get' from the www.bbc.co.uk site.

regards,

Paul M0EYT.

Heath, GW3HWR wrote:

Hi,
It would be a pity if there is no requirement for original information to be exchanged during a QSO, if it is possible to fill in the log before the QSO is even started, we have a nonsense.

Personally, I'd welcome the removal of serial number in all contests...

The problem, for me, is that I rarely submit an entry, unless it is as a check log, as I'm not a member of RSGB and in many contests that bars me from entry. However, if I explain that I'm not giving serial numbers one of two things happens, either the contest station insists that I must give a number, or they assume 001. Both situations are not correct as, in most contests, there is no requirement to get a serial number from a station who is not entering a log anyway. Plus the fact that, if every contact assumes 001, then all but one entry is invalid or it just proves that the people scoring the contest don't take any notice of the serial numbers that are being given out anyway.

The worst culprits in the failure to know the rules of the contest that they are entering seem to be the people using contesting software. They seem to get very agitated if you do not have a serial number to give to them. This is a case of a software system forcing actions that are quite well covered in the rules, but not taken into account in the software.

If you insist on some unknown, then assuming 001 seems even worse than nothing and it shouldn't be beyond our collective wits to come up with something less predictable and more valid than a sequential numbering system, in my opinion anyway.

Dave (G0DJA)

Sorry Peter - this came out a little negative towards you - not my intention. Sorry. What I meant was that not all caches are on your own computer and that your advice was not necessarily accurate.

I also appears that some ISPs implement caches to reduce the external traffic they have to pay for. These also need to be flushed.

Mike

At 18:12 06/10/2006, you wrote:

Mike Willis wrote:

Hello John,

That is why I asked if you had flushed your web cache. CNTRL F5. I find
that my web cache at work will sometimes give strange results on web pages
I have visited that have changed since.

Just set your browser options to empty the cache every time you shut
it down. In these days of broadband, keeping webpages in a cache for
days is unnecessary :-)

Everyone accessing the web from work (tut tut) please ignore Peters advice. He has not come across the phenomenon of the corporate web cache that so many of us are behind for "our protection".

Peter, G3PHO

I suggest you await for the formal Eagle announcement which may
surprise some. Its frequency planning has been influential in
thinking over here

Murray

--- In ukmicrowaves@..., "Jonathan Naylor" <naylorjs@...>
wrote:

But the Amsat-DL satellite P3E will have a 2.4GHz downlink.

Amsat-NA

are currently working out the up/downlink plans for their Eagle
satellite - and there is a possibility that this one will have a
downlink at 2.4GHz too - that's certainly what a lot of the

satellite

users want. And there is a suggestion that the Advanced
Communications Package (digital comms only) will have a downlink

at

5.8GHz.

At the DCC conference in Tucson a few weeks ago, Bob McGwier N4HY

was

pretty certain that the frequencies to be used by Eagle would be 2.4
GHz uplink and 5.8 GHz downlink, since as he said, 2.4 GHz has

become

an RF cess pit. It's also a shame that 9 cms is not a satellite band
outside of region 1.

Jonathan

A  lurker = un rodeur ou une rodeuse (very rare this one !!!)

Geoff M0RMG

At 18:12 06/10/2006, you wrote:

Mike Willis wrote:

Hello John,

That is why I asked if you had flushed your web cache. CNTRL F5. I find
that my web cache at work will sometimes give strange results on web pages
I have visited that have changed since.

Just set your browser options to empty the cache every time you shut
it down. In these days of broadband, keeping webpages in a cache for
days is unnecessary :-)

Everyone accessing the web from work (tut tut) please ignore Peters advice. He has not come across the phenomenon of the corporate web cache that so many of us are behind for "our protection".

Peter, G3PHO

There are already loads of microwave contests on the calendar. There's
nothing to stop any UK station being active for the Continental Eu
ones and nothing to stop Eu stations entering our UKuG ones.

The local horography generally ensures that one can't enter any fixed contest from my part of England.

Personally, I dislike any co-ordination with Europe. It just meant all the East Coast guys, who's excellent stations are of great benefit to us all, naturally point East for most of the time and we never get to work them because we are worth so few points by comparison to the DLs/SMs and OZs most of the UK could never work outside a lift. This happened to me earlier this year, only when the EU contest finished did I work any East coast stations.

I propose we hold contests Orthogonal to Eu ones, or change the rules to make it worth working fellow Gs, GWs and GMs - or even Ms, MWs and MMs.

Why we
need to co-ordinate both onto the same date/time has never registered
with me.

I've also never figured out why we seem to need contests to generate
activity... why not just come in the evenings and try calling CQ on
144.175Mhz, 23cm or on KST or what have you. What's happened the UK
microwave activity nights on a Monday.

"A thousand receivers make no noise"

Peter does not remember TRFs....

Peter, G3PHO

Mike MJW

CW IDs in the middle of a data stream will be no longer be mandatory

Read the ID section of the new licence sample doc :)

Murray


--- In ukmicrowaves@..., Mike Willis <m.j.willis@...>
wrote:

Yes - not that there are all that many satellites active at 2.4 GHz

to be

interfered with - but it does also give us an opportunity to set up

some

interesting point to point links, which might allow us to have KST

on

hilltops. It could also allow us to recruit more interested

microwave

enthusiasts through the medium of becoming interested in long range
wireless lans. A page on our website indicating how to build and

set up a

link might be good advertising.

Although we can theoretically run 400W RF links, including data

links like

802.11a, I don't know of any that conform to our requirements to

send CW IDs.

Mike





At 15:18 06/10/2006, you wrote:

Talking of challenges the following submissions have just been

released

onto the web in response to Ofcom consulting on high power (upto

10W)

licence exemption for 2.4 and 5GHz wifi

<http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/powerlimits/responses/>http:

//www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/powerlimits/responses/

I am pretty sure we will see 4W in 5GHz and perhaps more qrm in 2.4
where Amsat and some ATV sit

Murray

Chris Bartram wrote:

Eddie

Sorry to say but that is to be dropped in 2007 on 4 metres.

Copied from the VHFCC web site.
"Due to the increasingly widespread availability of the 70MHz band outside
of the UK the requirement to send the QTH information as part of the
contest exchange on this band has been dropped."

A retrograde step indeed. Will the RST be next? ;-)

Peter, G3PHO