March F.C.A.R.C. Inc. P.O. Box 773 Greenfield, MA FIRST CLASS MAIL

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1 F.C.A.R.C. Inc. P.O. Box 773 Greenfield, MA FIRST CLASS MAIL March 2012 Upcoming Events MTARA Hamfest and Flea Market: Saturday March 10 8:30 a.m.; Feeding Hills, MA E-board meeting: Tuesday March 13 7 p.m.; Club breakfast: Saturday March 17 8 a.m.; Denny's, Greenfield Meeting & Program: Monday March 19 7:15 p.m.; Greenfield High School - Program To Be Announced E-board meeting: Tuesday April 10 7:00 p.m.; Club breakfast: Saturday April 14 8 a.m.; Denny's, Greenfield Meeting & Program: Monday April 23 7:15 p.m.; Greenfield High School - Program To Be Announced

2 Calendar March 2012 MTARA HAMFEST AND FLEA MARKET: MARCH 10TH, FEEDING HILLS, MA The Mount Tom Amateur Repeater Association (MTARA) is having an Amateur Radio & Electronics Hamfest on Saturday March 10, 2012 starting at 8:30 AM at the Springfield Turnverein Club, 176 Garden Street, Feeding Hills, MA. The MTARA is graciously providing the FCARC with a free table at their flea market. Club members are encouraged to attend and are welcome to sell a few of their items at our club table, as space allows. See CLUB BREAKFAST- MARCH 17, 8:00 AM, DENNY S RESTURANT The March monthly club breakfast will again be at Denny s restaurant on Federal Street in Greenfield. PROGRAM MEETING: March 19, 7:15 PM, GREENFIELD HIGH SCHOOL Program To Be Announced. Secretary s Report E-BOARD MEETING, FEBRUARY 13, BOB DICKERMAN WA1QKT 1. Regarding club equipment, it was decided to: Lend the TS-850 HF transceiver with a 12V power supply to Belle KB1NOG, who just upgraded to General Class. Sell the old Swan tube rig at the upcoming MTARA hamfest (see below) Give the Chinese Baofeng HT donated by Bob WA1QKT to a student in our Technician Class in a free drawing Give the 2m radio station donated by Mildred KB1DCH to the highest-scoring female Technician Class test candidate Note that a working VX-150 2m HT is available 2. Speakers for upcoming meetings: February: Ellis Rudd N1MWJ, President of NoBARC Greylock club March: Tentatively a Field Day discussion April: Tentatively a get-on-the air HF session 3. Technician License Class at Greenfield High School Discussed options for review session for students Discussed preparations for 7:45 PM VE session at last class 4. Al N1AW announced that the MTARA was graciously providing the FCARC with a free table at their March 10 flea market in Feeding Hills (see and that he planned to attend and sell some old club equipment. Club members are encouraged to attend and are welcome to sell a few of their items at our club table, as space allows. PROGRAM MEETING, FEBRUARY 13, BOB DICKERMAN WA1QKT The meeting was called to order at 7:15 PM by Chris KB1NEK. Last Technician Class licensing course session will be Thursday. The next VE license test session will be on Monday, February 27, at the Northfield Unitarian Church. 2

3 Al N1AW announced that the Mount Tom Club, MTARA, will be holding a Hamfest and flea market at the Springfield Turnverein Club in Feeding Hills, MA, on March 10, 2012 (Saturday morning, see The MTARA graciously offered the FCARC a free vendor table. Al plans to attend and sell some old club equipment. Club members are encouraged to attend and are welcome to sell a few of their items at our club table, as space allows. Bill N1EWK said that he will have his own vendor table there, and will be selling several nice pieces of equipment. The next Club Breakfast will be held at Denny's in Greenfield. Our speaker was Ellis Rudd N1MWJ, who is President of the NoBARC Greylock ham radio club. Ellis has had a long and varied career as an outdoorsman and teacher, including stints on a ski patrol and as a commercial diver. He is presently the Park Service Ranger on the summit at Mount Greylock. Ellis started by showing us the amazing portable backpack setup that he uses when on walking trips ranging from an hour to a week. He has shoehorned a complete station into the pack, complete with batteries, radios, antennas, a small 120VAC inverter, computer laptop and laptop charger, and solar panels and charge controllers. He uses a Yaesu FT897D all-band, all-mode transceiver. The antenna he uses is an Outbacker Joey, a 50" whip that covers 80 m to 2 m and that will handle 20 W. One of the most unusual components in the setup is a Global Solar P Watt solar panel that is foldable and completely flexible, and is based on Copper Indium Gallium diselenide, as compared to the more common silicon photovoltaic semiconductors. The P3-62 weighs only 3.2 lbs and folds up into a package that is only 8.5" x 14.5"! He indicated that it was not inexpensive to purchase. Ellis was inspired by Walt W1ZPB to get his house "off the grid", and he started, some 15 years ago, by powering his home station with batteries and small solar panels. As time went on, he installed more renewable energy systems to his home, so that now, he is about 75% "off grid". He still uses commercial power as backup for his renewable sources, and to run a few larger appliances, such as his clothes washer and dryer. Some of the renewable energy sources he now uses at his home include: Twenty-four 190 Watt Evergreen Solar photovoltaic panels, totaling 4.5KW, with a grid-tied inverter, as well as a large 48V battery pack for off-grid operation. He adjusts the elevation angle of the panels twice a year to aim the panels at summer and winter angles. A Harris Pelton wheel micro-hydro generator. His water source has 300.0' of head, and draws about 12.0 gallons per minute of flow. The generator output is about Watts, and yields about 6.6 KWh of energy each and every day! An array of evacuated-tube solar hot water collectors, together with a 950 gallon storage tank, for domestic hot water. 3

4 A Tarm wood boiler for space heating and domestic hot water, also connected to the 950 gallon tank. He also has a Liquid Propane (LP) boiler as backup for space heating and domestic hot water heating. In conclusion, Ellis said that working with a good designer and installer is important. He said that he had much of his renewable energy installation designed and installed by (PV)2, the local workerowned renewable energy cooperative, and had nothing but high praise for their work. He also said that it helps to keep an open mind about what energy sources and tactics can be used, and to try to use the "least-refined" energy source possible in each application, e.g., avoid using electricity for heating; rather, use electricity to run radios and computers. As an example, he mentioned the idea a Killington ski area dishwasher had to duct in cold outside air to base lodge walk-in refrigerators that, when implemented, saved the company 30% on their electric power usage! 14 people attended the meeting. News, Activities & Articles NEW HAMS AND UPDATED LICENSES The special VE session at the end of our Technician License class resulted in four local people passing the Technician test on Thursday, February 16th: Caroline Shores Ness KB1WTQ, Gary Bunker KB1WTR, Julie Page KB1WTP, and Tom Fydenkevez KB1WTS. Bruce Fuller, KB1TLX, upgraded to a General license in the same session. At our regular quarterly VE session in Northfield on Monday February 27th, Nina Martin-Anzuoni, who also took the Technician License class, passed the Technician test. Also at this VE session, Bill Horst passed both the Technician and General license class tests. Belle Dyer, KB1NOG, and Miner Thompson, KB1NQK, both took and passed the exams for the General Class license recently at the session sponsored by the MTARA and HCRA groups in Chicopee. We also recently learned that Dan Miller, KB1WEK, who upgraded to General in our November VE session, took the final step and upgraded to Extra at a VE session in Amherst last month. WORKING WITH SURFACE MOUNT COMPONENTS BOB SOLOSKO W1SRB At the club meeting in January, I gave a talk on software defined radio (SDR). At the time, I showed several small Softrock SDRs that I built from kits that included surface mount components (SMT). Recently, several other club members have bought these SDR kits, so now is a good time to share some of my knowledge and experience working with these components. 4

5 SMT components are very small and are a challenge to solder, but not too difficult to do with the right tools and the proper technique. Figure 1 shows some typical SMT capacitors and resistors. The larger unmarked brown components are the SMT capacitors that are used in Softrock kits. The black marked components are SMT resistors and the small brown unmarked components are capacitors neither of these is used in the Softrock kits but is used in an SRD2GO kit that I recently built, which is a small board and display that replaces a computer when Figure 1 used with a Softrock SDR as the front end. Figure 2 Figure 2 is a photo of part of the bottom of a Softrock RXTX transceiver. Most of the components are capacitors and integrated circuits. Note the very small component in the upper left corner surrounded by capacitors. This component, which is smaller than the SMT capacitors, is a 3.3VDC voltage regulator that has 5 leads to solder. Figure 3 is an enlargement of this part. This is the most challenging SMT component in the Softrock SDR kits to solder. But even this component is not the smallest SMT component that can be soldered by hand. Figure 4 shows the SDR2GO board that I recently built, which includes both a 32 pin and 44 pin processors. Note that the ruler in the photo is the same Centimeter scale ruler that is shown in Figure 1. These very small components require a slightly different soldering technique. Figure 3 Figure 4 There are a number of very good SMT soldering tutorials and videos available on the web including: es/ 5

6 I won t repeat much of what s in these tutorials, but here are some important things to know, some of which I learned from my own experience. Tools Figure 5 shows the tools that I use: Temperature regulated small tip soldering iron including a tip cleaning sponge (keep it wet). Very thin solder, available from Radio Shack. Solder wick braid, used to remove excess solder the wider braid is available from radio shack, but often the very small braid works better. Anti-static wrist strap and pad- most small ICs are very static sensitive so a grounded wrist strap and/or pad are very useful (but not essential). Straps are available from Radio Shack for about $6. Liquid solder flux flux is needed to get a good solder joint. Often SMT parts are soldered by putting a small amount of solder on the tip of your iron, but then the flux has burned off by the time the tip touches the pad or component. Brushing liquid flux on the pad/part first helps to get a good solder joint. The flux is also slightly sticky, which helps when trying to hold an SMT component in place when soldering. Figure 5 A bottle of solder flux, which appears to be a lifetime supply, costs about $12, but it s also available in a pen form for about $5 Small artist s brush the brush that comes in the liquid solder flux bottle is large, capable of coating an entire board in a single swipe (almost). Thus, I use a very small tip artists brush to put just a small amount of solder flux on a pad or component. Alcohol and Q-tips, used to remove the solder flux after soldering. It s not really necessary to remove the flux, but sometimes, when soldering parts with closely spaced leads, the flux might mask a tiny solder bridge between leads. Thus, removing the flux makes it easier to check the quality of the soldering. Tweezers small pointed tip tweezers are absolutely necessary to hold SMT parts in place when soldering. A good pair of tweezers cost about $4. Fan when soldering SMT parts, chances are that you ll be very close to your work, thereby inhaling soldering fumes. A small fan low CFM can help in blowing away the fumes and smoke. However, I learned the hard way that a high CFM fan will blow away not only the fumes but the SMT part as well. Magnifiers- A 10X jeweler s loupe is a tremendous help in examining the quality of a solder joint and detecting small solder bridges. A good magnifier light makes seeing the work when soldering easier. However, many inexpensive ones focus only several inches from the work which doesn t give you enough working room under the magnifier light. Also available are head mounted magnifiers; many people use these for SMT work but I don t have any experience with them. Other advice: It s very easy to lose parts. When a small SMT part drops on the floor, or goes flying across the room, it is lost forever. You need to be particularly careful when removing a part from its packaging as this step seems prone to parts dropping or flying across the room. Also, some very small parts may be almost invisible in their packaging, so don t throw away any packaging until the project is finished. In the Softrock kits, the smallest ICs are rolled up in the end of the small pink poly bag 6

7 that holds the larger SMT ICs, and folks have been known to discard the bag, and then wonder why the small ICs are missing. o Also note that the pink poly bags are anti-static bags (they have a conductive coating) so any parts that come in a pink poly bag should be kept in that bag until soldered on the board. On the same topic, through-hole mount ICs often come stuck into a black foam, which is also an anti-static foam and the IC should be kept in the foam until mounted on the board. Get the orientation correct when mounting the ICs, make sure that you have the orientation correct since removing an SMT IC, once soldered to the board, is almost impossible to do without destroying the IC. Check and double check the quality of the soldering. For surface mount ICs, it is very easy to have a solder bridge between adjacent leads, and sometimes the bridge may be difficult to see. When building the Softrock kits, one section at a time is added, then power is applied and the section is tested. On the last Softrock kit I built, I soldered the IC to the board, and it looked pretty good so I turned on the power, and the results were not what they were supposed to be. I then turned off the power and looked closer at the IC and it appeared that there may have been a hair thin bridge between two of the leads. I cleaned up the leads but it still didn t work right, so I removed the IC (further destroying it), replaced it with a new one and then everything worked fine. So, it s easy to become complacent and not inspect the soldering closely enough. A good magnifying glass, a jeweler s loupe, or a head mounted magnifier all aid in inspecting the quality of the soldering. Other techniques are also possible one way is to take photos with a digital camera with a macro lens and then blow the photos up on a computer screen, which is the way the photos above were taken. Another intriguing approach is to use a web cam with your computer, as is described in an article in the latest issue of QST. I haven t tried this technique but I did hold up a board to the camera built in to my laptop and it was able to focus closely on the board and image it. When soldering SMT capacitors, first sure you know which the right pads are. In areas where there are many SMT caps, it s easy to solder a cap to the wrong pads (I ve done that!). Put a little solder on one pad, hold the cap with tweezers, reheat the pad and move the cap until it s correctly aligned. Then push the cap down with the tip of the iron and let the solder cool. Then solder the other end and reheat the first end to make sure there isn t a cold solder joint. When soldering SMT ICs, first put a little solder flux on all of the pads. Then, as with SMT caps, first put a little solder on one corner pad, position the IC with tweezers and reheat the pad. After making sure that all of the leads are aligned, brush a little more flux across all of the leads, and solder each lead with just a little solder on the tip of your iron. Then check for solder bridges, and if necessary remove a solder bridge by running a clean iron tip in the space between the leads. If that doesn t work, use solder wick to remove some of the excess solder. The technique for very small ICs is similar after tacking one corner, and brushing solder flux across the leads, put a little solder on the tip of your iron and run it across all of the leads, adding more solder as necessary. This will solder all leads, and will also guarentee that there will be solder bridges between the leads. Then brush on some more flux and use solder wick to remove the excess solder. Repeat this until you re sure that all solder bridges have been removed. THE SLEIGH BELL RACE, FEBRUARY 4, 2012 CHRIS MEYERS KB1NEK Saturday, February 4, members of the FCARC, with help from other amateur radio operators, provided communications for the security of runners in the Greenfield Sleigh Bell Race. Our net control position was set up in the downstairs of the public library, in the same room used for checking in the runners. 10 operators around the course watched for runner safety and reported conditions back to the control operator. 7

8 Fortunately, because of the dry weather this winter, the roads were clear, making for excellent running conditions and no reported problems for any participant. After the race ended, Christy Moore, the Recreation official in charge, said more runners participated than in any previous year. THE COMMUNICATOR is an informational publication for members of the Franklin County Amateur Radio Club. Officers: President: Chris Myers, KB1NEK ), Vice President: Al Woodhull, N1AW ), Treasurer: Howard Field, N1LUP ), Secretary: Bob Dickerman, WA1QKT Director: Belle Dyer, KB1NOG Director: Bob Solosko, W1SRB This is your newsletter! Amateur radio information of general interest, club member project descriptions and doings, radio applications to other activities, corrections, or suggestions are all welcome. Individual submissions make for variety! We need more writers! Send submissions to Bob Solosko at 8