AUGUST 2013

NERG Inc. PO Box 270 Greensborough Victoria 3088

WHAT’S ON IN AUGUST

The next NERG meeting is on this Thursday night,

8th August 2013.

Peter Bellmont will present a talk at the August NERG meeting on how photography has changed over the years;

from the chemical darkroom to the digital era and how

digital cameras have changed in recent times.

Peter has a wealth of knowledge and experience in photography, and is the winner of many awards. He is also a respected judge and is enthusiastic about passing his knowledge on to others.

The August meeting is also the NERGs Annual General Meeting, where business is usually dispensed with quickly and efficiently so that we can get on with the interesting talk for the evening and to celebrate the NERG’s birthday over supper with the traditional chocolate cake.

NERG meetings are held at the Briar Hill Community Hall,

126 Mountain View Rd, Briar Hill, MELWAY 21 C3.

Following the meeting there will be time for a friendly chat

over a cuppa and some delicious Margherita pizza for

supper!

73, Mark Harrison, VK3BYY, NERG NEWS Editor

REMEMBRANCE DAY CONTEST & INTERNATIONAL LIGHTHOUSE WEEKEND

17-18 AUGUST 2013

The RD contest falls on the same weekend as the International Lighthouse weekend this year, on the 17th and 18th of August. The RD has a new starting time of 1PM (Eastern states or 03:00UTC). The rework time will again be 3 hours after a popular change introduced last year.

The annual International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend runs over the weekend and into Monday from 00:01UTC on 17th to 23:59 UTC 18th August. This is a great chance to work 450 portable amateur stations at lighthouses and lightships in 50 countries in a friendly non-competitive event.

Lighthouse stations are welcome and encouraged to submit logs for the RD while having enjoyed both activities.

http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/rdcontest/

For the lighthouse weekend, see: http://www.illw.net

THE 3RD WORLD ATV QSO PARTY

It looks like the ATV QSO party this year will be on Friday August 30 and Saturday 31 August (AUS dates).

Friday will be VK (and maybe G’s ??) and Saturday VK and the guys in the US. I will again take in remote stations via Skype.

Friday will start about 8 PM and Saturday about 10 AM. Any remote or local stations who wish to participate via Skype

should send a request to Skype name pcossins. I will use VK3RML for local liaison to ensure good coverage. Hopefully this year we will have our friends from VK4RKC (which is the Brisbane DATV repeater) participating.

Regards Peter VK3BFG

The Amateur Television QSO Party can be viewed on the Melbourne ATV repeater VK3RTV and on many other Australian & USA repeaters, and could be streamed via the British Amateur Television Club http://www.batc.tv

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NERG NEWS Incorporated 1985 in Victoria, Australia Reg No A0006776V - http://nerg.asn.au

Affiliated with the Wireless Institute of Australia

AUGUST 2013 Thursday 8

th August

NERG AGM &

Guest Speaker: Peter Bellmont

on Photography – from darkrooms to digital

Next Coffee Night: Thursday 22nd August

Lunch group: Tuesday 27th August

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SHEPPARTON COMMS DAY/ HAMFEST SUNDAY 8 SEPT 2013

The Shepparton and District Amateur Radio Club's annual Comms Day/Hamfest will be held on Sunday 8th September at St Augustine’s Hall, Orr Street Shepparton.

This is the usual venue and the doors will open at 8.00am for Traders and 10.00am for the public. Vic Roads map 273 Ref M8.

BARG HAMVENTION SUNDAY 20 OCT 2013

The Ballarat Amateur Radio Group Hamvention is an annual event where traders set up to sell new, used and preloved radio communications equipment, antenna's, test equipment and parts. Entry for all is $6 per person, under 15 free. Traders tables $10 each. Food available. Doors open 10am. For more info contact, Tom Wood 0408 396 992 Email: hamvention2013@barg.org.au

ACMA REMOVING MOBILE PHONE JAMMERS FROM THE STREETS

Australia’s radiocommunications network is much safer following the destruction of nearly 100 prohibited devices commonly referred to as mobile phone and GPS ‘jammers’. The devices were seized from international mail shipments over seven months.

Jammers can substantially disrupt radiocommunications and pose a high risk to the integrity of the Australian radiofrequency spectrum, as well as public safety and access to emergency services. In September 2012, the ACMA announced that prohibited devices would be a priority compliance area for 2012–13.

International retailers offering to supply jammers to Australians are the major source of prohibited devices. Working with the Australian Customs

and Border Protection Service, Australia Post and other mail carriers, the ACMA has restricted the number of prohibited devices being imported into Australia.

Targeting prohibited devices has demanded an agile approach to compliance. Our activities also include preventative (education/awareness) and enforcement measures. This has helped to restrict the supply of jammers to the local market, forcing consumers to turn to online sources for devices that are often seized before reaching their destination.

The ACMA will continue to target prohibited devices like jammers. You can read more about these devices on the ACMA at www.acma.gov.au

Source: ACMA web site

GPS BLOCKERS

In another story by ACMA, GPS blockers have allegedly been used by a few unscrupulous taxis drivers to confuse the Taxi’s GPS receivers. By jamming the GPS location, the driver may claim to be closer to a job than they really are, gaining jobs they wouldn’t otherwise win.

The ACMA reports that Melbourne taxi drivers are now better educated about banned GPS jammers, following a joint ACMA and Victorian Taxi Directorate (VTD) campaign called Operation Signal. The ACMA carried out stage two of Operation Signal at Melbourne Airport (not the best place to be operating a GPS jammer with all those planes flying about!!! – Ed.). Inspectors headed to the Melbourne Airport taxi holding yard armed with fact sheets and a spectrum analyser. The inspectors spoke to approximately 300 drivers about GPS jammers and the legal consequences of supply, possession or operation. The information was well received, with drivers engaging in conversation and asking questions.

GPS jammers are an ACMA priority compliance area. When operated, GPS jammers can substantially degrade or disrupt critical military and civilian applications by blocking radiocommunications signals used for the radionavigation-satellite service.

ACMA – excerpts from “Showing taxi drivers the way”

MELBOURNE DIGITAL SWITCHOVER: LESS THAN SIX MONTHS TO GO

Melbourne and surrounding areas are switching to digital-only TV on Tuesday 10 December 2013. This will be the last area, along with remote Central and Eastern Australia, to complete the Analog switch-off in Australia.

The Melbourne switchover region includes Kilmore, Sorrento, Wonthaggi and Warragul.

Digital Switchover Task Force claim that 95% of the 1,724,100 households in Melbourne have already moved to digital TV.

See more at:

media.digitalready.gov.au/media-centre/melbourne-media

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HOMEBREW SHOW’N’TELL MEETINGS

At the last meeting we run a "Kits and Homebrew" Show'n'Tell Session. This has become a popular event with several members turning up with interesting and novel items to show.

(Above) Paul VK3DIP had some cheap and easily obtained automatic component testers (more on this later in this issue).

(Above & below) Steve VK3JSE bought his simple but effective test gear and accessories that any amateur could build and put to good use. (Below) Steve’s transistor testers, the soap box power distribution jacks, and signal tracer.

(Above) David VK3KR had some more interesting bargain modules bought from the Internet including DC-DC converters and DDS signal generators.

(Above & below) Ewen VK3OW showed a re-purposed microwave oven timer that is now a general purpose timer for any mains appliance. Ideal for controlling water pumps, PCB UV exposure lamps, shack heaters, etc.

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AVR TRANSISTOR TESTER NOTES

by Paul McMahon VK3DIP

After showing off the Transistortester obtained from eBay at the last NERG Show’n’Tell meeting, I thought I should let all know how I got on making modifications and updating to the latest version of the firmware. Firstly, just a brief recap (with some links this time) of what the TransistorTester is and does. The tester was first published by Markus Frejek in the Embedded Projects Journal, as you can see this was in German:

AVR-Transistortester, Markus Frejek, Embedded Projects Journal, 2011-11. embeddedprojects.googlecode.com/files/EPJ_11_web.pdf Or just search on Google for “Embedded Projects Journal - Ausgabe No. 11”. Marcus also had a web page and a thread on a forum talking about it: Thread of Markus Frejek, Forum, 2009 www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/131804 Online documentation of the Transistortester, Online Article, 2009-2011 www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR-Transistortester This design was very popular. The basic idea as shown was to connect up pretty much any two or three legged component (not just transistors) and the tester would not only tell you what component type it was but, also in the case of resistors and capacitors, it’s value. In the case of semiconductors it shows which of the three legs is which. Obviously, lots of people made their own versions of this tester with them appearing on the web with various PCB layouts or Veroboard versions, and improved software versions that offered more features. Along the way, someone did some translating into English and the tester became even more widely known. My major desire for this device was to get something that would be easier and quicker, including easier on the eyes, to identify what pin was which on transistors. This gadget seemed ideal. I had seen commercial versions of similar things that one of the Australian Electronics magazines used to give one away as prizes for their circuit and design ideas section, but this tester looked considerably cheaper. Anyway, there are a couple of ways you can go about this. You can do a printed circuit board from one of the many web published versions, or you can do as I did and buy a Chinese clone off eBay. The problem with the eBay clones is that they are typically based on early versions of the tester. I was particularly interested in some of the really good extensions done by

Karl-Heinz Kübbeler but the clones I could find were not particularly recent (well not the cheap ones anyway). Karl-Heinz Kübbeler provides a short description and forum threads for the TransistorTester here: http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR_Transistortester http://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/248078 This last link is to the software/documentation repository which luckily includes English versions. http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/ After a bit of hunting on eBay I found the bulk of those offered were one of two types. One, the obviously older version was closer to the original design using a socketed DIP ATmega 8 microcontroller, and the other is somewhat later and thus more expensive version that used a surface mount ATmega 16. As I was going to have to modify it to the latest version of software anyway, I chose the older socketed version because:

• It was easy to remove & replace the CPU if it was

damaged, or as in this case I wanted to replace it with a

ATmega 16 or 32. The replacement if damaged is

important - ask Kevin Callaghan VK3AKC who gave a

talk on restoring a TV camera to us last month - he bought

one of these and promptly blew it up by connecting an

electrolytic capacitor without first ensuring it was

discharged.

• Even though there are fewer modifications needed on the

later surface mount board, the discrete version had much

more room to add the mods and bigger gaps between the

pins to solder bits onto.

• Finally, it was quite a bit cheaper, so I could stretch to buy

two of them in case I had an accident with the mods.

It is sometimes difficult to tell in the eBay ads which version

is being sold. The trick to telling is to note the bit I have

circled. In the socketed version (top photo), the red LED is to

the right and the pushbutton is to the left. In the surface

mount version, these positions are reversed.

Identifying different versions of the tester

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Anyway, on to the modifications. The picture below shows the PCB with the four mods made on the underside.

Basically, these consist of: 1. Adding an 8MHz crystal and two 22pF capacitors to earth from pins 9 and 10. (This allows greater accuracy for C measurement.)

2. Adding a 27K resistor from pin 13 to VCC (This allows for simplified code in the processor as all pins now have a pull up.)

3. Adding a 2.5 volt reference diode and 2.2K resistor to pin 27. In my case I used a LM336-2.5 (This allows for self-calibration)

4. Adding a bit of ribbon cable with a 10 pin IDC connector on it to pins 17, 18, 19, VCC and gnd. ( This provided for in circuit programing ,ICSP)

On the top of the board, there are two mods: 1. Replace the ATmega8 with a 328 with new software (burnt on board using ICSP) (This gives Inductance,

Improved Cap measurement including ESR, more semiconductors detected etc. etc. See web sites.

2. Replace 100nF cap on pin 21 with 1nF. (This makes measurements which change the reference voltage quicker).

The changes are highlighted in a schematic from one of Karl-Heinz Kübbeler’s documents with his suggested changes highlighted in red and green (shown below).

The very latest version is shown above, with a bigger, more readable LCD display, a separate board for the trimmed 2.5 Volt reference, and selected and matched 680 ohm and 470K ohm 1% resistors. I am very happy with the results.

73 Paul VK3DIP

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Margherita proudly sponsors the delicious pizzas enjoyed at the NERG meeting nights

Margherita Pizza ph 9434 4980 89 Main Road, Lower Plenty, Vic 3093

web www.margherita.com.au

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2013 CALENDAR (NERG ACTIVITIES IN BOLD TYPE)

NOTE: always confirm details closer to the posted dates!

UTC dates may be used for International events. Dates gathered from WIA, AR Vic, ARRL, various clubs, VK Contest Club www.vkcc.com, and Banyule City calendars. See also the NERG online calendar at www.nerg.asn.au

Tue-Fri 6-9 Aug Afternoons/Evenings VK3SN Snow expedition to Bogong High Plains ~7.1MHZ afternoons and 3.6MHz evenings

Thu 9 Aug 2013 8:00pm – 10:30pm NERG Meeting - Briar Hill Hall. AGM, Photography Talk, NERG Birthday party

Thu 15 Aug 2013 8:30pm – 9:30pm NERG NET 146.575 MHz FM

Fri 16 Aug 2013 8:00pm – 12:00am Night Transmitter Hunt - (Various starting and finishing locations around) Melbourne, Victoria.

Sat-Sun 17-18 Aug 0001UTC-2359UTC International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend. http://www.illw.net/

Thu 22 Aug 2013 8:00pm – 10:00pm NERG coffee shop - Briar Hill Hall

Tue 27 Aug 2013 10:00am – 2:00pm NERG Morning tea/lunch group - Various locations.

Thu 29 Aug 2013 8:30pm – 9:30pm NERG NET 146.575 MHz FM - On the radio around Briar Hill

Thu 5 Sep 2013 8:30pm – 9:30pm NERG NET 146.575 MHz FM - On the radio around Briar Hill

Thu 12 Sep 2013 8:00pm – 10:30pm NERG Meeting - Briar Hill Hall

Fri 20 Sep 2013 8:00pm – 12:00am Night Transmitter Hunt - (Various starting and finishing locations around) Melbourne.

Tue 24 Sep 2013 10:00am – 2:00pm NERG Morning tea/lunch group - Various locations.

Thu 26 Sep 2013 8:00pm – 10:00pm NERG coffee shop - Briar Hill Hall

Thu 3 Oct 2013 8:30pm – 9:30pm NERG NET 146.575 MHz FM

Thu 10 Oct 2013 8:00pm – 10:30pm NERG Meeting - Briar Hill Hall

The NERG Inc. RegNo A0006776V http://nerg.asn.au

The North Eastern Radio Group, Inc. is an amateur radio club devoted to encouraging members and others to enjoy the hobby of amateur radio. It tries not to hang on ceremony and endless reporting but rather participate in the fun aspects of this fascinating hobby.

Membership Fees (due in August):

Full: $30 Family: $40 Concession: $20

Send to: NERG Treasurer, PO box 270, Greensborough, Vic., 3088

Committee

President Ewen Templeton VK3OW Secretary John Weir VK3XD 9431 0667 Treasurer Marg Baxter VK3VOJ 9467 1253 T/Assistant Jim Baxter VK3KE Committee Betsy King VK3HBK David Aston VK3UQ 0411-877-051 Peter Cosway VK3DU 9379 3626 Don Haslam VK3KDT 0409 024 597 Greg Williams VK3VT 9432 0563 Kevin Callaghan VK3AKC News/Repeaters Mark Harrison VK3BYY 9435 3043

Meetings

Main Meeting: 2nd Thursday of each month at 7.45 PM (ex Dec & Jan) Coffee Shop nights: 4th Tuesday each month. Briar Hill Community Hall, 126 Mountain View Road, Briar Hill (Near Sherbourne Road intersection) Melway map ref 21-C3

Classes & Exams

NERG occasionally runs classes and exams for Amateur licences

Callsigns and Repeaters

Club call - VK3CNE http://www.nerg.asn.au/vk3cne NOTE: NERG Beacons, Repeaters & Packet Node are all currently

off-air, waiting relocation to a new site.

NETS NERG NETS run on 146.575 MHz FM Simplex (8.30 – 9.30 pm Thursdays). Please join the discussions. Also used as a general Net frequency.

WEB Sites: http://nerg.asn.au and http://www.qsl.net/vk3rmh

NERG NEWS submissions and comments invited: editor: Mark Harrison VK3BYY ph: 9435-3043 hm post: 266 Nell Street West, Watsonia, 3087

email: