ZL1 Data News

ZL1 Data News 11/13/94

eZine lover (@eZine)

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zl data news

· 1 year ago

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                            13 Nov 1994

This is a weekly unofficial bulletin of news and views from ZL amateurs. It does not represent any official viewpoint, and all opinions are those of the contributor.

Change to 40 metres

From ZL1AMW

The overwhelming opinion from my request last week was for a change to 40 metres, so I now give notice of a change. From the evening of Wednesday 16th November the ZL1AMW selcal will shift to 7045KHz (mark note, tune to 7047.125 LSB for most types of modems).

The newsletter next week will transmitted on 7045KHz also.

PacketPet for Windows

From RadCom Magazine.

The September issue of RadCom (RSGB magazine) has a review of a new piece of software released by PacComm called PacketPet for Windows.

The review is very complementary, the programme includes all the features expected of windows, with the ability to run multiple sessions, (each warning of a connect while minimised). You have the usual colour and layout controls, split screens under mouse control, lots of screen buttons, an integrated text editor and an internal macro language.

The programme can be linked with standard .WAV files to announce connections to you out your sound card... what more can you wish for?

I have not seen this product advertised here in ZL, but a letter to your usual PacComm supplier may be worthwhile. The RadComm review copy came from Siskin Electronics in the UK.

- inserted by ZL1AMW

More Windows Packet

From ZL1AMW

A bulletin by Bill, ZL4TCO details another programme called PKTWIN by G4YFE, which seems to offer many of the same features. Bill os offering copies of this shareware programme, drop him a note at ZL4AA BBS, or by post to his callbook address.

Selcal off-air!

From ZL1AMW

I came out to my shack on Friday evening after a hard week, to experience the shock of seeing my Selcal transceiver sitting there dead and cold....

The trusty TS440 gets a bit of a hammering with the RTTY usage, so I am often dread this happening.... and I started checking things out.

First - the radio was cold, with no dial lights at all, so - check the power supply. The supply looked OK, so I got out the trusty multimeter, and pulled the plug on the TS440 to check supply there. It was all OK, so horrors, the problem must be inside the radio!

I moved the radio to the bench and took off the bottom cover - looking for any damage or something similar, and found nothing, so I checked the power on the back of the connector, and - no volts! Pull the plug out and there is volts on the pins, but when in the rig (whether the radio is on or off) and there is no voltage.

To cut a long tale a bit shorter, I tracked it to a high resistance fuse, the in-line glass cartridge holder supplied by Kenwood in their power lead. It looks as if this fuse has been running a bit hot, and the internal wire (well, a bit of metal strip in this case) had curved and loosened itself from the solder. A touch with a soldering iron at both ends, and all is well again.

While I am frustrated that the station can be put off-air that easily, it was certainly the lowest cost-repair that could have been imagined.

That concludes the Data News for this week, this sheet is prepared at the shack of ZL1AMW from contributions sent by post, RTTY and packet. Text is also obtained from packet BBS stations, and Selcals on 7045/3545khz.

This news is transmitted weekly on Sunday mornings at 0930hrs (local) and repeated at 1900hrs. Both transmissions are on 3545khz. It is first sent in Baudot at 75 baud, then repeated in AMTOR mode B (FEC) on both occasions.

73 to all from Alan, ZL1AMW, 20 Lorne St., Hamilton.