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1 Issued March 2015 Issue No. 62 Club Website: S-Meter Club Repeater: Output MHz; Input MHz, No Tone Next Meeting Friday March 20 th 2015 Meeting QTH is: Hawthorne and Walnut - Colville CLUB NET: Sunday Evenings 8:00p.m. Local

2 The President s Corner Tom Howe KE7TEG Announcements Northwestern Division Scholarship Fund For more information on the Scholarship or to make a contribution, go to or contact your Section Manager. Silent Key: Gary Impett KE7ZHB Member of Spokane ARES RIP Yakima Hamfest April 11, 2015 at the Selah Civic Center 216 South 1 st Street, Selah WA This year they will be having an under 21 youth lounge. This is a room set aside for only those people under 21 years. It will have free refreshments and some activities to keep the youth busy and entertained while those over 21 are enjoying the Hamfest. Reminder that everyone under the age of 16 gets in free, so might as well bring them along! For more information or a map check out: 2

3 Highlights from our March meeting. Attendance : 23 Meeting was called to order by Tom KE7TEG, at 19:36 hours on March 20 th A quorum of Officers was present. Introductions were made and the minutes of the February meeting were read and accepted. Treasurer's Report $ Randy N7CKJ ARES - ARES Net is every Sunday at 7:45pm local. The Stevens County ARES net can be heard on the repeater located SW of Colville on Monumental Mountain and, when linked, the repeater located NW of Spokane on Lookout Point. The Washington State Emergency Net (WSEN) anyone with HF privileges is welcome (encouraged) to check in when Stevens County is called. Saturdays at 0900 on 3985 khz and on Mondays at 1800 also on 3985 khz. Tom KE7TEG asked with Dave was still thinking about having a quarterly meeting for the ARES group, Dave said not at this time. Dave WD7K PARC Net George everything going good. We currently have about people checking in. Board Report Nothing New to Report - Bruce KC7h Announcements: Old Business: Tom KE7TEG tabled the discussion on the J pole antennas. He also went over the dates and times for the upcoming tech class. New Business: Gimmie AL7LB sugguested that we change restaurants, for the eat-in before the meet-in! There was a small discussion which decided that it would be a good idea to change or rotate restaurants. Jim, WW7DD has been making the reservations and will report on the PARC net. Meeting was adjourned at 8:05 pm. Respectfully submitted by: Edward L. Zeiser, Secretary Spring Auction was held, lots of unusual items this time around. A couple of items sparked a bidding war, but other than that the night went pretty smooth. Thanks Jim WW7DD for being the auctioneer, David and John for keeping the sale items moving, and Randy for keeping track of the bidders and A Special THANK YOU to all who brought items and bought items! What a fun evening! 3

4 ARES Report by Dave - WD7K ARES Net is every Sunday at 7:45pm local. The Stevens County ARES net can be heard on the repeater located SW of Colville on Monumental Mountain and, when linked, the repeater (which has a PL tone of 77.0) located NW of Spokane on Lookout Point. The Washington State Emergency Net (WSEN) anyone with HF privileges is welcome (encouraged) to check in when Stevens County is called. Saturdays at 0900 on 3985 khz and on Mondays at 1800 also on 3985 khz. Dave Klimas - WD7K Stevens County ARES Emergency Coordinator H (509) C (509) wd7k@hughes.net PARC Sunday Night Net PARC Net Simplex Tests George, W7WBN If you want to give your hand a try at Sunday night Net Control which is at 8:00 pm on the send George an at audax@gotsky.com 4

5 PARC BIO March 2015 sorry nobody stepped forward this month. Where is he? Corporal Gomez is stationed at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside California. For February and March he will be on and off the ship as they ready for deployment. Mailing Address: CPL Gomez, Alberto CLB-15 TSLS Box Camp Pendleton, CA California Living! 5

6 The Radio Corner by Jim W7JWT A Brand New Radio The Royal 7000 Series The last article was on Zenith's first transistorized Trans- Oceanics. They were very innovative, but transistors from those days were not the most reliable in the world. They started with Germanium transistors. It took very little to blow them out and their performance varied widely. Eventually all manufacturers transitioned to Silicon transistors. They were rugged and powerful. With new transistors, came a new Zenith Trans-Oceanic that featured 11 bands and was powered to span the globe and receive even more information locally. One addition was a fixed crystal VHF weather band at MHz. The second band addition was shortwave: a division of the previous 2-9 MHz band, into one band spanning 1.6 to 3.5 MHz and a second spanning 3.5 to 9.0 MHz. This new dial division, made a total of 7 shortwave bands, in addition to long wave, FM, AM, and the fixed frequency weather band. Other improvements in the Royal 7000 included a Beat Frequency Oscillator (BFO), a manual RF gain control, and two selectivity filters; making copy of CW and SSB much easier. Now those interested in Ham radio had the ability to listen away from home. There were three models of the Royal 7000, the 7000Y that had one MHz crystal soldered in, the 7000Y-1 that had a replaceable MHz crystal, and the D7000Y that contained a tune-able weather band (since there were multiple weather frequencies later on). The Royal 7000Y(-1) were manufactured in and the D7000Y in 73. The price started at $270 and ended at $300 with the D7000Y. If you remember from my last article on the Zenith 1000s and 3000s, they were nice looking, but suffered from several cabinet design issues: 1. The almost disastrous metal plating problems causing long term pitting and massive blistering of both polished and brushed chrome parts. 2. The overly fragile main carrying handle caused by combining it with the wave rod antenna. 3. The inclusion of the battery box inside the primary cabinet that led to, at best, a corroded interior cabinet, and at worst, destruction of delicate electronic components inside. 4. Expeditions which evaluated the Royal 1000 / 3000s, along with people like you and I, complained of the difficulty of moving the radio while listening to it. To move a Royal 1000 / 3000, one had to close the front door, collapse the waverod antenna and re-lock the carrying handle. (What a pain in the a--!). The new cabinet design of the Royal 7000 was a magnificent example of user-friendly ergonomically correct industrial design. The physical design of the radio allowed it to be what it was designed and purchased to be: a superb portable radio which would be as at home in the drawing room as it was on expedition in the high Himalayas. The designers attacked the problems of the earlier transistorized Trans- Oceanics at their roots. The fragile carrying handle of the Royal 1000 / 3000 radio was replaced with a large collapsible and very sturdy carrying handle. The materials problems, particularly those with brushed and polished chrome, were also addressed. The earliest Royal 7000s are now over 45 years old; the materials seem to be 6

7 standing the test of time extraordinarily well, with almost no examples of the pitting and blistering which plagued the Royal 1000 / 3000 Series. The problem of battery leakage to the interior of the receiver was solved by providing a double walled removable rear cabinet wall. When the first smaller rear cabinet wall is removed, a battery compartment is revealed. This compartment is comparatively well-sealed from the interior of the receiver, all but eliminating the problems associated with battery leakage. The inner face of the removable battery compartment cover also provides a convenient storage compartment for a small accessory earphone and the detachable AC power cord. The final, larger, rear wall of the cabinet could be removed by unfastening three screws which allowed removal of the entire rear cabinet wall to expose the chassis and speaker. As mentioned earlier, there is an AC power cord. Zenith eliminated the 12v DC external AC adapter. The Royal 7000 is equipped with an internal 115 / 230v AC power supply which was built into the removable rear cabinet wall. Switching between batteries and house current is done automatically when the AC power cord is attached to the rear of the receiver. The fragile carrying handle and the in-use moving difficulty of the Royal 1000 / 3000 were equally welladdressed. The wave rod was removed from the carrying handle and placed at the very rear of the cabinet. The wave rod could be deployed from this location whether the cabinet doors are opened or closed. The two-part hinged cabinet door of the older Trans-Oceanic was replaced with two separate horizontally hinged front doors. The lower of these doors swung down to reveal the lower 2/3s of the receiver's front panel. The inner surface of this door contained a large azimuthal compass wheel to assist in direction finding. After the lower door is horizontal, it could be made to slide back into the radio cabinet and largely disappear from view. This door also held an operational manual. The upper door was equally ingenious. Much like the old tube-type Trans-Oceanic front doors, it was hinged halfway back on the top and rotated upward to reveal the dial of the Royal This door cleared the main carrying handle when the handle was in its collapsed position. When this upper door is open, its inner (now front) surface reveals a time zone-oriented world map and a time strip at the lower edge of the map. This time strip can be moved laterally to align the correct time under each time zone. Electronically - The 12 transistor Royal 3000 was replaced by the 18 transistor Royal 7000 chassis. Three of these additional transistors were allocated to the tuning section of the new weather band. One was added as a voltage regulator and one used for the new BFO for tuning SSB and CW. The final new transistor was allocated to a more powerful audio section. Zenith made one other major design and manufacturing decision of note in the Royal 7000: they decided to maintain a heavy metal chassis and traditional hand-soldered point-to-point wiring. That decision was a commitment to the traditional American views of quality, but it was the start of the end of Zenith against the new manufacturing standards being adopted in Japan. This article was based on info obtained from the book, The Zenith Trans-Oceanic, The Royalty of Radios, by John H. Bryant and Harold N. Cones. If you want a classic of the best built American transistorized portable SW radios, this is it. The last model, that will be discussed next month, changed the manufacturing processes to a solder dipped circuit board like the Japanese. It was just too little too late. I will sadly close the Trans-Oceanic story next month. So until next time, think about how portable SW radios have changed over the years and shed a tear for America's last great SW portable next month. CUL & 73s Jim W7JWT 7

8 This is the Royal 7000Y-1. It is the version with replaceable weather frequency crystals. 8

9 This is the Royal D7000Y. It is the version with the tune-able weather band. 9

10 This is the inside of the battery box. Batteries go inside the clear plastic cylinders for added protection. The AC power cord is stored inside the battery compartment cover. Here's a view of the panel separating the battery compartment from the radio chassis. The AC to DC power supply is mounted on the inside of this panel. 10

11 This is the chassis of the Royal D7000Y. The Royal 7000s came with a nice operational manual. It included operating instructions and channel listings for both FM and SW stations. It hid inside the drop down front panel. The accessory pictured at the right is a swivel platform for the radio. It was primarily meant for boats. It could be mounted to the boat and securely hold the radio from tipping over. It could then be swiveled to help in direction finding using local AM stations. 11

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15 Calendar of Events April st April Fools Day! Guess who s pregnant? 1 st Loggers Work Shop at Agri Trade Center Colville 7:30am 1 st ESAR Meeting at ambulance shack Colville 7:00 pm 2 nd SPDX Club Meeting (Argonne Library) 4322 N. Argonne Rd Spokane Valley 7:00pm 5 th Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm - Net Control Operator Jim WW7DD 5 th Easter Sunday 11 th Yakima HamFest 11 th Communication Academy in Seattle 11 th Junk Drunk the Vintage-Antique-Salvaged Goods Market Ag-Trade Center 9:00am 12 th Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm - Net Control Operator Larry KR7LRJ 13 th General Class starts at Community College (509) th Wild Turkey Daze 17 th PARC Monthly Club Meeting at 7:30 pm Colville Snacks by Cynthia WW7CA 18 th CQ Manchester Mineira DX Contest 18 th Baked Potato Bar/Silent Auction Eagles Colville 4 to 7 Fund Raiser Crohn & Colitis Found. 19 th Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm - Net Control Operator Tom KE7TEG 19 th ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB 26 th Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm - Net Control Operator George W7WBN 26 th SPDX RTTY Contest and Florida QSO Party May st 1 st 2 nd 2 nd 3 rd 8 th 9 th 9 th 9 th 10 th 15 th 15 th 15 th 15 th 17 th 18 th 20 th 21 st 22 nd 24 th 30 th 31 st 31 st Chamber open Golf Tournament NCCC RTTY Sprint Int. Spring Contest, CW ARI International DX Contest Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm Net Control Operator Courtney KE7DZL NCCC RTTY Sprint CQ-M International DX Contest SCARC 24 th Annual Electronic Flea Market and HamFest Stanwood, WA see flyer below Matanuska Amateur Radio Assoc. Hamfest Wasilla, AK Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm Net Control Operator George WA7MLS The Eating before the meeting will be held at South Main Sports Bar at 6:00 pm PARC Monthly Club Meeting at 7:30 pm in Colville Snacks by George NCCC RTTY Sprint Washington State Search & Rescue Conference in Carnation WA Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm Net Control Operator Cynthia WW7CA Run for the Bacon QRP Contest Testing for HAM Radio License at Community College 6:00pm VE s needed NAQCC CW Sprint NCCC RTTY Sprint Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm Net Control Operator Jim WW7DD CQ WW WPX Contest, CW Sunday Night Net 8:00 pm Net Control Operator Larry KR7LRJ Memorial Day o Calendar of events will be an ongoing part of the news letter, submit your dates to parcnews@hotmail 15

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