PACKET USERS NOTEBOOK
CQ MAGAZINE March 2K
by
Buck Rogers K4ABT
GOOD COMMUNICATIONS EQUAL EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, but there's a lot more to making sure one is
prepared for the inevitable.
Having plenty of food, water, and the essentials of life available are but the beginning of being prepared for disaster
related emergencies. There is another key element to the equation that now comes into play.
You will soon notice that I'm building this months Packet Users Notebook around a topic that varies from the subject of
Packet Radio or Digital communications. In a sense, this is true, however, after reading this months installation in your
Packet Users Notebook, you find this column is also worthy of being placed into your notebook.
AS SPRING APPROACHES, SO DOES………:
Spring will soon be here with a lot of new vegetation in bloom, but along with the good things come the unpredictable
springtime weather. Our topic for this spring is to be prepared with our emergency communications equipment, be it
digital data or voice. Having said that, let's talk about the project we are about undertake.
Operating 6 meter voice FM is one means to establish good communications. In addition, there are many 6 meter voice
repeaters now in operation.
What…? Huh? You mean there's repeaters on 6 meters….? Yes toto, there is a band that some of us enjoy, but don't
shout about. Six meters is one of the best bands for good, long, ground wave communications, and it is also one of the
best bands where we can experience frequent band openings.
SIX METER PROPAGATION:
I've been using six meters for more than 50 years. When 50.4 MHz was the only crystal that many of use owned
(remember the FT-243 encased rock), there I was. The old two element, bamboo, cubical quad, was my gateway into a
fraternity that still exists. At first it was the 2E26, then came a more compact version of low-end VHF tube, called the
5763. Don't ask me how it got its number… just trust me. I think the HEATH company at Benton Harbor, Michigan gave it
a good workout in their "sixer," commonly referred to in those days as the "Benton Harbor, Lunchbox."
Later I obtained a GE tube labeled as "6146." This is when my 2E26 at 15 to 20 watts was replaced with the 6146 to
give me twice that power. Well OK, there was a couple of minor changes that I had to make to the 2E26 cathode circuit,
to enable the 6146 to draw more current. The first mod was to change the three, parallel 330 ohm resistors to a single
47 ohm, 2 watt resistor.
It didn't take me long to realize that I also needed more current to support the added power output. Matter of fact, as a
young ham I learned a lot of real-time theory from that old 6 meter rig.
Before we move into to the crux of this months topic, I should make mention of the 6 meter converter that we had ahead
of our 3 to 30 MHz receivers.
Many a Hammarlund HQ-129, Hallicrafter S38, S40, and National receivers had a converter attached to them to make
them receive the first of the VHF ham bands.
I remember my first Hallicrafter S53 receiver. Now this was the next step in my learning curve that taught me; "All that
glitters, is not gold." I had somehow convinced myself that if purchased a communications receiver already had the six
meter band built in, that I'd be in "fat city." NOT SO; This turkey was as deaf as a doorknob. At best it was good for
local communications on 6 meters, but that was it! The receive RF amplifier in this beast (if there was one) for the 6
meter band, was, at best, poor to fair.
It took about three days for me to stop bragging about having a real 6 meter receiver, and drag out my old (6AK5 -
6SN7.. later to become a 6D5 NuVistor and a 12AT7), 6 meter converter (that output its six meter signal at 7 MHz), and
attach it between the Hallicrafter S53 antenna terminals and the six meter antenna.
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