Newsletter for December 2001
PO Box 2283, Weaverville, CA 96093 - WEBSITE- http://www.tcoek12.org/~tcarc/
Well that's it for now hope this fills you all in on what's coming up. Am including a copy of the latest roster with this. Let me know if there are any needed changes.
Tnx and 73's and 88's, George-WD6FHX
First of all a few insights that may not suprise some of you that have known me through the years and the rest of you will now have some idea what it means to enter Ham Radio with tubes at 15 in the 60's... reluctantly embrace transistors as they became availiable for Amateur Radio use.(CK722, 2N107) then be forced to try and build things with IC's (Integrated Circuits) with all these legs and sockets...then just as you are getting use to them, somebody thinks it is a great idea to make it possible to build Amateur projects with thes "Chip" capacitors, diodes, resistors, transistors and the like that you can not even see without glasses...and solder without special equipment and training.
Emergency Power to me was first batteries for my flashlight so I could read radio and Hardy Boy books under the covers at night.. Then it was the spare "D" cells for my REMCO toy Crystal Set, Morse Code Buzzer and Wireless Oscilator-Broadcaster. Then some batteries for my Sears Silvertone Transistor portable radio with the leather case (now like the REMCO is a collector's item on Ebay...).
In the 60's WN6FZH had a 12 volt WW2 receiver dynamotor (electric motor with DC generator on same shaft) from WW2 that could power a homebrew single tube crystal controlled CW transmitter and a WW2 Aircraft Command Set Reciever that tuned 6 to 9 megacycles (not to be confused with megahurts!). My emergency power was the battery in my folks 1958 Ford Station Wagon..they just did not know it...I had this 15' cable with a cigarette lighter plug on it..and a box that held the radio gear on the back seat.
Later there were vibrator packs and even transistor switching power supplies that managed to get that 12volts from the car battery up to 225 volts and beyond...at less current from the battery than that whirling dynamotor. They ran my Heathkit Twoer ( 2Mtr 2W AM TX/Regen RX) for portable mountain-top QSOs in the SF Bay Area on 145.8 in 1965. One Friday night while my older friends were parked at the drive-in or elsewhere, I was on a hilltop talking to a weekend warrior on a Strato-Fortress above Utah, from San Rafael, CA...I will always remember 145.8! A moment's musing about 145.8... I can remember grinding surplus FT-243 WW2 crystals with BABO cleanser on a piece of plate glass moistend by water, making figure-eights trying not to crack the fragile crystal...to get it on frequency. Well, only a few weeks ago I spoke to the International Space Station on 145.8... it is one of my all-time favorite frequencies needless to say.
O.K...you say what has this to do with Emergency Power? Well, those adventures and others got me hooked on having portable emergency power and radios that I could power with it to do special things. Besides, it was always special contacting stations operating on "independent power"...it was sometimes DX in the middle of nowhere...or a ship at sea....or a station sending me Red Cross Earthquake Emergency traffic from an Anchorage, Alaska location (I was able to stay home from High School to do that!). I confess, "portable power" and especially "emergency power" has been part of my Amateur Radio Experience one way or another for almost 40 years.
I used to put up TV antennas and work at a real Radio-TV Store on Saturdays while I went to Jr College. One of the first things I bought was Honda 300W AC Generator to power my radio gear, power tools to drill holes at new construction where I ran wires for stereos and cable TV.
OK... there was that Christmas in the late 60's when there was a power failure in San Rafael.. the whole town is dark.. Highway 101 commute traffic from San Francisco, it was line of sight from our family home...a stream of tailights in the dark.....yes.... I got the Honda out... hooked every extension cord I could find together and managed to light the Christmas Tree lights I suspended from my Quad's antenna rotor in the shape of a Christmas Tree...and a single drop light from a nearby tree.(A Star?)....Yes, I made Herb Caen's colum in the SF Chronicle..and TV news... Marin's Christmas Card from the Darkness... Ah..yes. the uses of EMERGENCY POWER..!..
Seriously, there are always a few folks that have and maintain "emergency power", in my experience it was usually someone with a shop rag in his back pocket, that had rounded up some huge Olive Drab (need truck to tow it) generator from WW2 to power the FIELD DAY radios....We all enjoyed the use of the power, but what on earth do you do with that monstrosity the other 51 weeks of the year.. Well, as it turns out, he kept it in readiness until you or someone else needed it!..
Today..An affordable AC generator is availiable at COSTCO or your corner hardware store at reasonable prices. Yes, you can power that Microwave to pop your popcorn when the power is out! But often the AC generator's greatest value is to charge batteries...With so much Ham Radio and Electronic Equipment running on 12 Volt DC Storage Batteries are very appealing for those of us in Ham Radio living in a rural area, we live a fallen tree across a power line from darkness, or a winter storm's fury from no power.
I can not imagine life without a fully charged 12 volt battery or two, a box of ALKALINE BATTERIES and a fully charged battery pack for my HT (with ALKALINE BACK-UPS). They bring LIGHT into the DARK, RADIO NEWS or MUSIC into the concerned or worried mind, power for a 12VDC to 110AC inverter to allow you to check your e-mail, update a website or write that novel. You can even power that satellite TV converter and DC Television to watch that Football Game, Jump-Start your car, and power a number of 12volt appliances.
Did I mention that you can save lives, preserve property, help your community during fire, flood, severe weather emergency, listen for your Ham friends that might need your assistance or a personal favorite of mine.. have communications that equal or exceed public safety agencies. Your emergency power can make a difference!
OK, now the hopefully helpful part... Life with a 12 volt Marine/RV Deep Cycle Battery. First get a large (group 27) plastic Battery Box with lid (less than $15) to put your battery in. This is to keep some of that nasty stuff that ruins clothing away from your clothes, and a way to transport it.. Consider having a folding luggage cart or utility dolly to roll the battery along if you can not find someone strong enough to carry it...they are heavy. Did I mention that the box makes it very hard to short the terminals..by dropping something on it, or to casually lean over and hook a wire up backwards and blow up your friends radio?... coming out of the box is your polarized FEMALE power plug(s). They might even feed a power distribution block of your design.
They might be the TCARC two conductor CINCH JONES plug or one of the MOLEX plugs, some other clearly marked and correctly polarized power plug or some of each in paralell to cover all bases. The polarity of plugs, adaptors, cables, extensions, jumpers and the like will be specifically dealt with in another issue, and found on the TCARC Website in 2002.
. The care and feeding of DEEP CYCLE RV/MARINE BATTERIES... There are many fine articles written about charging deep cycle batteries...and auto batteries in general. I have used the $50 charger/maintainer from Sears, with reasonable luck, except none has lasted more than 3 years without the circuitry that monitors the charging level failing. An auto supply store special from a 1 or 2 amp trickle charger(they last forever) to a commercial automatic charger.. all are useable for our purposes.. You can also take the battery box to a vehilce and put jumper cables to the terminals and charge the battery in an emergency, or have a special cable that goes into the cigarette lighter of a vehicle and it will get some charge while someone is driving around. I have an extra battery box between the seats of my Dodge Van, hooked to the ignition via a diode to charge the battery while the vehicle engine is running. (I took it into the house and exchanged it for the tired standby battery that is due for replacement shortly during the recent Severe Weather Emergency). This same battery in the box saw service at the Douglas City School Simulated Emergency Test recently... With several hams having similar power sources, they can be rotated in and out at emergency locations as needed. (put your callsign on the battery box).
In a future issue, a sample small home or RV Solar Charging system will be discussed. At WB6FZH.. there are one or two standard 50-60 watt DC Solar Panels availiable to charge the battery and run equipment if circumstance required it.m They would simply be set-up at ground level. These panels run about $275 each ...but a 18" square 6-8 watt panel is less than $75... and will keep the 4-7 AHR GELL CELL BATTERIES discussed in next paragraph maintained while you are waiting for your weekly test of the battery at the TCARC 2 Meter Net on Thursday Evenings on 146.73 at 7:30pm.
There are SEALED LEAD GELL BATTERIES with their special chargers in various AMP-HOUR sizes.. Many of these are in self-contained portable cases and are found in Ham Radio Magazine advertising, some small ones in pouches to run your HT, larger ones with handles or straps have AC and DC chargers, lights, regulators, etc. to make them very versitile for lower power levels. There are also high amp-hour gel type batteries too for higher current requirements.
The commercial 6.5 AHr units with Auto or Home AC chargers built in, some with meters or LED's to tell you the condition of your battery BEFORE IT FAILS.. are very useful for LOW POWER HAM RADIO use. They often have a cigarette lighter jack and other voltage outputs at 12 and lower voltages to power your radio and other accessories. The built-in chargers are helpful if it goes dead, during the emergency too. With a high Monitoring to Transmitting ratio your 6.5 AHR battery will serve you well with your 5 watt HT or even your mobile rig, on LOW POWER (consider lowering the low-power adjustment to 5 or 10 watts to use with this type portable power unit.). This is why you have that small portable beam antenna in addition to your J-Pole or other antenna that works equally poorly in all directions. A good antenna and 5-10 watts can do alot.
These Gell Batteries can be found at RADIO SHACK Stores, North Valley Electronics (Redding), Trinity Alarm, and other sources. They are heavy, for size, try not to pay extra shipping if you can help it (except for the specialty portable power units). I have seen these portable 12 volt Gel Battery Systems even at K-Mart, Costco, Target,etc.so keep your eyes open, and check those advertisements in QST.
There are pros and cons about all batteries, chargers and the like. There will be further discussions in future issues of TCARC Web Extras of this and other topics. These are just some things to think about as you assess what you would have liked to have a few days ago while you were sitting in the dark.... I just plugged in the fresh battery box, turned on a couple of the radios in my 12volt DC equipment rack...and listened for you incase you called....powered by my RV/MARINE DEEP CYCLE BATTERY.... 72/73- Greg Greenwood- WB6FZH