AmateurRadio.com

Welcome to Handiham World!

Have you ever participated in a poll or survey about a product or policy?

There are plenty of surveys out there, covering everything from political candidates to laundry soap. They are used to help make decisions about how to best improve and market candidates and products. It would be unthinkable for a company to refuse to poll its customer base about product preferences. By querying the consumers, the company finds out what is working and what is not, so that they can fine tune a product or service and ultimately sell more of it.

Recently my local radio club sent out a survey designed to find out what the club members think is most important in terms of club activities. In all my years of belonging to all sorts of clubs, especially radio clubs, this is the first club I have encountered that conducts such periodic surveys. What a great idea!

Some clubs are focused on a very specific mission and stray very little from a path toward their goal, but most radio clubs at least have some flexibility in their mission and can happily sponsor a variety of activities that might include on the air nets, ARES training and deployment, SKYWARN, classes in amateur radio, hidden transmitter hunts, Field Day, a club repeater, and… Well, you get the idea. Where the survey comes in is when the club has so many ideas for projects that they cannot all reasonably be given enough time and support to be successful. While the club leadership may decide for the entire group, it is always better to gain the confidence and support of the membership in deciding which projects to put at the top of the list and which might be better off tabled until some later date.

A properly designed survey can be a valuable tool to help a club chart its future. It is not going to be enough to simply ask for ideas in an open meeting. Not every member is present at every meeting, and some members may speak more persuasively than others, even though a survey done in private, when each member has a chance to think about what he or she really would prefer the club to do, might be entirely different. Another thing a survey can do is to lay out a variety of choices as well as to solicit original ideas from members. When I looked at the well-designed survey our club sent out, I was reminded of many good and worthy projects that our club has supported over the years. If pressed to remember all of that stuff on my own, I know I would have forgotten many projects, which would have made it more difficult for me to help the club make decisions on what to do. When I wanted to comment on a couple of items, I found comment space available so that I could put my thoughts down in my own words. Our survey asked for members to “rate” each project idea from one to five, based on whether the item was of no importance all the way up to great importance to the member. A couple of entries were blank, allowing each member to add a couple new items in the rate by number list. Although I can see the survey to complete it on paper if I wish, it was nice to see that the survey was available via email in an accessible format. That method also saves printing costs.

I realize that my preferences on the club survey may not be what others want, but I know I had my say and that it is likely at least some of what I like will become club policy. If your radio club seems to be stuck in a rut and lacking in direction, why not suggest that the club conduct a survey to find out what club members would like to do for projects and activities? It is a great way to stimulate thinking and bring out new ideas. Everyone will have more fun and the club and the greater amateur radio community will be the better for it.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Pat Tice[email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

Have you ever participated in a poll or survey about a product or policy?

There are plenty of surveys out there, covering everything from political candidates to laundry soap. They are used to help make decisions about how to best improve and market candidates and products. It would be unthinkable for a company to refuse to poll its customer base about product preferences. By querying the consumers, the company finds out what is working and what is not, so that they can fine tune a product or service and ultimately sell more of it.

Recently my local radio club sent out a survey designed to find out what the club members think is most important in terms of club activities. In all my years of belonging to all sorts of clubs, especially radio clubs, this is the first club I have encountered that conducts such periodic surveys. What a great idea!

Some clubs are focused on a very specific mission and stray very little from a path toward their goal, but most radio clubs at least have some flexibility in their mission and can happily sponsor a variety of activities that might include on the air nets, ARES training and deployment, SKYWARN, classes in amateur radio, hidden transmitter hunts, Field Day, a club repeater, and… Well, you get the idea. Where the survey comes in is when the club has so many ideas for projects that they cannot all reasonably be given enough time and support to be successful. While the club leadership may decide for the entire group, it is always better to gain the confidence and support of the membership in deciding which projects to put at the top of the list and which might be better off tabled until some later date.

A properly designed survey can be a valuable tool to help a club chart its future. It is not going to be enough to simply ask for ideas in an open meeting. Not every member is present at every meeting, and some members may speak more persuasively than others, even though a survey done in private, when each member has a chance to think about what he or she really would prefer the club to do, might be entirely different. Another thing a survey can do is to lay out a variety of choices as well as to solicit original ideas from members. When I looked at the well-designed survey our club sent out, I was reminded of many good and worthy projects that our club has supported over the years. If pressed to remember all of that stuff on my own, I know I would have forgotten many projects, which would have made it more difficult for me to help the club make decisions on what to do. When I wanted to comment on a couple of items, I found comment space available so that I could put my thoughts down in my own words. Our survey asked for members to “rate” each project idea from one to five, based on whether the item was of no importance all the way up to great importance to the member. A couple of entries were blank, allowing each member to add a couple new items in the rate by number list. Although I can see the survey to complete it on paper if I wish, it was nice to see that the survey was available via email in an accessible format. That method also saves printing costs.

I realize that my preferences on the club survey may not be what others want, but I know I had my say and that it is likely at least some of what I like will become club policy. If your radio club seems to be stuck in a rut and lacking in direction, why not suggest that the club conduct a survey to find out what club members would like to do for projects and activities? It is a great way to stimulate thinking and bring out new ideas. Everyone will have more fun and the club and the greater amateur radio community will be the better for it.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Pat Tice
[email protected]

Welcome to Handiham World!

It’s been a busy week at Handiham headquarters with Nancy out of the office and the phone ringing all day long, and on into the weekends and evenings. When you run a program across time zones, that’s the sort of thing that happens. There has been quite a lot of interest in amateur radio already this Spring – I can’t help thinking that the growing solar activity and improved sunspot numbers have somehow toggled the “upgrade to General or Extra” switch for many of our Technician operators who might have been satisfied with repeater operations during the long dry spell of a seemingly endless sunspot minimum.

For those hoping to upgrade to General, time is ticking on the old question pool. The pool is in effect until the stroke of midnight (presumably Eastern Daylight Time) on July 1, 2011 – and that leaves (realistically) only a couple of months to pass the exam. While many VE teams will undoubtedly schedule exam sessions in late June ahead of the big changeover, can you really count on being able to attend one of these late sessions?

Let’s consider what could happen if you wait until the last minute to get to a VE session:

1. The session could be cancelled or the venue could be changed. Sometimes this happens when a VE team member gets sick or has an emergency, or if the exam meeting space becomes unavailable.

2. You could get sick or have something important come up.

3. Your transportation to the VE session might fall through, causing you to miss the session.

4. You might miss passing by only a question or two and wish you had another opportunity to test again before the question pool changes.

So do you see what I’m getting at here?

Any of a number of things can come up to change our plans. It has certainly happened to me before; it’s something I learned early on in life when my parents insisted that I study for tests and complete homework projects well ahead of time in case something might come up later on. That has proven to be a good life lesson and I hope I have passed it on to my son. When something is really important, you have to plan and pace yourself so that you reach your goal.

If you have been studying for General you really need to think about testing soon, and that means getting ready to pass. When you have completed your studying through the ARRL license manual, Gordon West audio CDs, or Handiham audio lectures, you should be taking practice exams. We recommend the AA9PW.com website for its ease of use by people who access it with screenreaders and for its great selection of up-to-date content. Taking practice exams on a regular basis adds two important things to your studies: First, it familiarizes you with the questions and reminds you of what you have already studied. Educators call this “reinforcing” your learning. Second, it teaches you how the test will be structured and allows you to become comfortable with answering questions. If you plan to take the exam with the help of a volunteer reader, you might even want to have someone read the practice exam to you and mark the answers down as you direct, just as you will be doing at the actual exam. One useful feature of the AA9PW.com website is the “practice exams by email” option that allows you to email an exam with answers to yourself or your volunteer reader to print out and read so as to simulate the actual test session. If you are taking an exam that will be read to you, be sure to practice using the “no figures” option. The practice exam that is generated will have no figures but will still have the proper mix of questions from all topic areas in the question pool. When you are consistently passing practice exams, you know that it is time to take the real exam at a VE session. If you take practice exams and consistently miss by many points, you should take stock of your study plans and hit the books again, even if it means possibly having to take the exam under the new question pool. If you are missing only by a question or two on the practice exams, you still have time to work on those problem areas in the question pool that are giving you trouble. You can always email me if you are a Handiham member taking our course and I will do my best to help you.

If you are studying for your Extra, you have plenty of time… Or do you? The Extra pool changes next summer, on July 1, 2012. If you have been half-heartedly studying and thinking about how far away the test is, you might want to look again at your study plan. Unlike the Technician and the General with their 35 question exams dealing largely with operating procedures, rules, and basic electronics with simple math, the Extra exam is a 50 question test with some no-nonsense engineering concepts and college level math concepts. You can learn this material and pass the exam, but it will not be easy unless you apply yourself in regular study sessions and learn where you are weakest so that you can concentrate on improvement where it counts. Again, start taking practice exams. It does not make sense to go to a VE session unless you are really ready, because all you will do is waste time and money if you are still at the point of only getting half of the answers correct. Study, study, study! For challenging material like the Extra, you may want to check out your radio club to see if there are others interested in upgrading at the same time so that you can form a small study group. If you meet regularly and help each other learn, it will not only be more fun but you will be more motivated to be at each study session.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Pat Tice
[email protected]

All About Ham Radio: Does having the top license really make you a good operator?

Some people feel that earning their Extra makes them not only the big dog but a good operator as well.

It just doesn’t work that way. You get to be a good operator by listening, learning, and gaining experience on the air. A good operator learns by his or her mistakes and does not repeat them. A good operator is aware of his or her operating weaknesses and takes steps to gain more knowledge and experience in those areas. Good habits help, too. You can start forming good habits by starting at the beginning, when you earn your Technician license. Those good operating habits will carry on through your entire ham radio career. Bad habits work the same way, and they can become so much a part of our operating that we don’t even realize it! Lately there is a movement to eradicate the term “73’s”, which is an incorrect variant of the proper term “73”, used when signing off. It’s easy to get into the bad habit of saying “73’s” when you hear others doing so, but if you know that the right expression is “73” and make it a habit to say it that way every time, you will be cool and correct on the band!

Of course the way we say 73 isn’t really that big a deal as far as good habits are concerned. The really important good habits have to do with following the rules and operating safely. Some examples of good habits:

	Always use your full callsign to identify.
	Always use standard phonetics, because in an emergency this good habit will help you be understood.
	When driving a car and operating mobile, make driving your first job before doing anything with the radio. There are times when driving is so intense that you might need to simply tell the other station that you will talk to them another time because you have to concentrate on driving.
	The good habit of always putting the main task first before radio will help to keep you and others safe. If you are cooking something on the stove or taking care of small children, stay on task and leave the radio until later. Don’t risk burning dinner or having a toddler wander off because you got involved in an interesting conversation on the radio.
	When working in potentially dangerous situations such as on a tower, always use safety equipment and have a spotter in case anything goes wrong.
	Always follow safety procedures when working around electricity.

I’m sure you can think of other good habits to make part of your radio life!

Troubleshooting 101: I can’t connect to the HANDIHAM conference on Echolink!

Okay, here’s one for you to figure out: You’ve been using Echolink for quite a while now, and you feel comfortable with operating through your computer. You have forwarded the ports and opened the firewall for the Echolink application when you configured your wireless router. It is usually pretty easy to connect to the HANDIHAM conference server, node 494492, because you have saved it to your favorites in Echolink, and it virtually always connects without a problem in one or two tries. You like the HANDIHAM conference because the station list appears and you know that most of the net participants are likely to be using the same conference, so you can get a better idea of who is around listening or planning to check in to the net.

Because you enjoy being on the go and taking ham radio along, you also take your iPod, iPhone, or Android phone with you and have the free Echolink app installed. Whether you are at home using your own wireless router connection to the internet or traveling and using the phone’s data plan or a Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere, it is easy to use Echolink when the net time rolls around. At first, you found that it was simple to connect to the HANDIHAM conference server, but lately it seems as if it is becoming much more difficult to make the connection. Oddly enough, you can make a connection to the Echolink test server and to one of your friends who agreed to help you run a test, and when you use your computer to connect, there is no problem at all.

Can you suggest what might be wrong and what you could do about it?

Send your replies to [email protected] for possible inclusion in next week’s edition of your weekly e-letter.

Welcome to Handiham World!

It’s been a busy week at Handiham headquarters with Nancy out of the office and the phone ringing all day long, and on into the weekends and evenings. When you run a program across time zones, that’s the sort of thing that happens. There has been quite a lot of interest in amateur radio already this Spring – I can’t help thinking that the growing solar activity and improved sunspot numbers have somehow toggled the “upgrade to General or Extra” switch for many of our Technician operators who might have been satisfied with repeater operations during the long dry spell of a seemingly endless sunspot minimum.

For those hoping to upgrade to General, time is ticking on the old question pool. The pool is in effect until the stroke of midnight (presumably Eastern Daylight Time) on July 1, 2011 – and that leaves (realistically) only a couple of months to pass the exam. While many VE teams will undoubtedly schedule exam sessions in late June ahead of the big changeover, can you really count on being able to attend one of these late sessions?

Let’s consider what could happen if you wait until the last minute to get to a VE session:

1. The session could be cancelled or the venue could be changed. Sometimes this happens when a VE team member gets sick or has an emergency, or if the exam meeting space becomes unavailable.

2. You could get sick or have something important come up.

3. Your transportation to the VE session might fall through, causing you to miss the session.

4. You might miss passing by only a question or two and wish you had another opportunity to test again before the question pool changes.

So do you see what I’m getting at here?

Any of a number of things can come up to change our plans. It has certainly happened to me before; it’s something I learned early on in life when my parents insisted that I study for tests and complete homework projects well ahead of time in case something might come up later on. That has proven to be a good life lesson and I hope I have passed it on to my son. When something is really important, you have to plan and pace yourself so that you reach your goal.

If you have been studying for General you really need to think about testing soon, and that means getting ready to pass. When you have completed your studying through the ARRL license manual, Gordon West audio CDs, or Handiham audio lectures, you should be taking practice exams. We recommend the AA9PW.com website for its ease of use by people who access it with screenreaders and for its great selection of up-to-date content. Taking practice exams on a regular basis adds two important things to your studies: First, it familiarizes you with the questions and reminds you of what you have already studied. Educators call this “reinforcing” your learning. Second, it teaches you how the test will be structured and allows you to become comfortable with answering questions. If you plan to take the exam with the help of a volunteer reader, you might even want to have someone read the practice exam to you and mark the answers down as you direct, just as you will be doing at the actual exam. One useful feature of the AA9PW.com website is the “practice exams by email” option that allows you to email an exam with answers to yourself or your volunteer reader to print out and read so as to simulate the actual test session. If you are taking an exam that will be read to you, be sure to practice using the “no figures” option. The practice exam that is generated will have no figures but will still have the proper mix of questions from all topic areas in the question pool. When you are consistently passing practice exams, you know that it is time to take the real exam at a VE session. If you take practice exams and consistently miss by many points, you should take stock of your study plans and hit the books again, even if it means possibly having to take the exam under the new question pool. If you are missing only by a question or two on the practice exams, you still have time to work on those problem areas in the question pool that are giving you trouble. You can always email me if you are a Handiham member taking our course and I will do my best to help you.

If you are studying for your Extra, you have plenty of time… Or do you? The Extra pool changes next summer, on July 1, 2012. If you have been half-heartedly studying and thinking about how far away the test is, you might want to look again at your study plan. Unlike the Technician and the General with their 35 question exams dealing largely with operating procedures, rules, and basic electronics with simple math, the Extra exam is a 50 question test with some no-nonsense engineering concepts and college level math concepts. You can learn this material and pass the exam, but it will not be easy unless you apply yourself in regular study sessions and learn where you are weakest so that you can concentrate on improvement where it counts. Again, start taking practice exams. It does not make sense to go to a VE session unless you are really ready, because all you will do is waste time and money if you are still at the point of only getting half of the answers correct. Study, study, study! For challenging material like the Extra, you may want to check out your radio club to see if there are others interested in upgrading at the same time so that you can form a small study group. If you meet regularly and help each other learn, it will not only be more fun but you will be more motivated to be at each study session.

For Handiham World, I’m…

Pat Tice[email protected]

All About Ham Radio: Does having the top license really make you a good operator?

Some people feel that earning their Extra makes them not only the big dog but a good operator as well.

It just doesn’t work that way. You get to be a good operator by listening, learning, and gaining experience on the air. A good operator learns by his or her mistakes and does not repeat them. A good operator is aware of his or her operating weaknesses and takes steps to gain more knowledge and experience in those areas. Good habits help, too. You can start forming good habits by starting at the beginning, when you earn your Technician license. Those good operating habits will carry on through your entire ham radio career. Bad habits work the same way, and they can become so much a part of our operating that we don’t even realize it! Lately there is a movement to eradicate the term “73’s”, which is an incorrect variant of the proper term “73”, used when signing off. It’s easy to get into the bad habit of saying “73’s” when you hear others doing so, but if you know that the right expression is “73” and make it a habit to say it that way every time, you will be cool and correct on the band!

Of course the way we say 73 isn’t really that big a deal as far as good habits are concerned. The really important good habits have to do with following the rules and operating safely. Some examples of good habits:

	Always use your full callsign to identify.
	Always use standard phonetics, because in an emergency this good habit will help you be understood.
	When driving a car and operating mobile, make driving your first job before doing anything with the radio. There are times when driving is so intense that you might need to simply tell the other station that you will talk to them another time because you have to concentrate on driving.
	The good habit of always putting the main task first before radio will help to keep you and others safe. If you are cooking something on the stove or taking care of small children, stay on task and leave the radio until later. Don’t risk burning dinner or having a toddler wander off because you got involved in an interesting conversation on the radio.
	When working in potentially dangerous situations such as on a tower, always use safety equipment and have a spotter in case anything goes wrong.
	Always follow safety procedures when working around electricity.

I’m sure you can think of other good habits to make part of your radio life!

Troubleshooting 101: I can’t connect to the HANDIHAM conference on Echolink!

Okay, here’s one for you to figure out: You’ve been using Echolink for quite a while now, and you feel comfortable with operating through your computer. You have forwarded the ports and opened the firewall for the Echolink application when you configured your wireless router. It is usually pretty easy to connect to the HANDIHAM conference server, node 494492, because you have saved it to your favorites in Echolink, and it virtually always connects without a problem in one or two tries. You like the HANDIHAM conference because the station list appears and you know that most of the net participants are likely to be using the same conference, so you can get a better idea of who is around listening or planning to check in to the net.

Because you enjoy being on the go and taking ham radio along, you also take your iPod, iPhone, or Android phone with you and have the free Echolink app installed. Whether you are at home using your own wireless router connection to the internet or traveling and using the phone’s data plan or a Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere, it is easy to use Echolink when the net time rolls around. At first, you found that it was simple to connect to the HANDIHAM conference server, but lately it seems as if it is becoming much more difficult to make the connection. Oddly enough, you can make a connection to the Echolink test server and to one of your friends who agreed to help you run a test, and when you use your computer to connect, there is no problem at all.

Can you suggest what might be wrong and what you could do about it?

Send your replies to [email protected] for possible inclusion in next week’s edition of your weekly e-letter.

Welcome to Handiham World!

Troubleshooting 101 continued: “My antenna is generating electricity and giving me shocks!”

Recap: Last week we presented the following scenario and invited comments:

We are going back in time to when I worked at an antenna company, a job that often involved talking directly to customers on the phone. I would answer questions and make suggestions about installation and troubleshooting. One fine day we got a call from a fellow who had installed one of our vertical antennas. He had ground mounted it, carefully following the instructions in the manual. This antenna came with an aluminum mounting post that was dug into the ground and usually secured with a bag of do-it-yourself concrete mix. A fiberglass dowel in the exposed end of the mounting post served as an insulator and supported the vertical element of the antenna. The center conductor of an included length of a matching section of 75 Ohm coaxial cable was connected with a stainless steel bolt to the main radiating element and the braid was connected to another stainless bolt on the grounded mounting post as well as to a ground rod within inches of the antenna base. The customer had to supply the remaining run of 50 Ohm coax from the ham shack out to the antenna and connect it to the already installed matching section with a barrel connector. When the customer called us, he complained that his antenna was generating electricity and giving him shocks. He noticed this as he was trying to connect the two pieces of coax together.

Can you guess what was wrong and suggest what questions I might have asked the customer to verify my theory? For bonus points, what did I have to tell him to resolve the problem?

I got some good comments back from you, so it’s time to share your brilliance in troubleshooting with our readers and listeners:

	From Tom, WA6IVG: Unless he’d driven the antenna’s mounting rod into a buried power cable, (unlikely) the problem just about has to be bad station ground. Ask exactly what the coax run is connected to, and how said equipment is grounded. If the station isn’t closely connected, with heavy wire or braid, to the electrical service ground, or better yet to a separate ground rod and said service ground, then that’s what to do. Also check that power main connections are two standard 3 prong grounded outlet boxes. In a totally desperate situation, of 2 prong power, maybe reversing 2 prong cords could provide a temporary, unorthodox solution but bad idea. If all is claimed to be as it should be, then his station and antenna must be on 2 different continents.
	From Mike, KJ6CBW: The customer was getting shocked when connecting the long run of coax to the 75-ohm run from the ground-mounted vertical that has its coax braid connected to ground rods. The two coax cables are at different ground potentials. I think the most likely cause is that the station is not grounded because the power line isn’t grounded or a 2-wire plug is being used where a 3-wire plug is appropriate. Another possibility it that the ground rods at the antenna intercepted a buried telephone line or cable-company cable, which make the antenna ground different from that of the long coax. Please don’t shoot me, I’m new at this. ..!
	And fasten your seatbelt for this one from Kevin, [formerly: N1PKE ]: I have been pondering your *Troubleshooting 101, query, supra, and have attempted to extrapolate a scenario that would lead to such a conclusion as that of getting poked with an electrical current while I was hooking-up my antenna feed-line connections; wherein initially, I would cast basic common-sense to the literal wind, and just to make sure that things were to be a little more interesting, I would wait until the middle of the frigid winter season, for a night when there was very little light and there was then, e.g., currently, a frozen sleet / snow storm with full-gale winds occurring; just to make sure that Mr. Murphy would have all of the available advantages to be had, at his disposal; oh, and I would purposely plug-in and turn-on, e.g., charge my electrical circuitry with an electrical current, just to make sure that if anything went horribly wrong, that it would be the last time that I would ever have to address such a problematic situation. After all, why would I want to abrasively clean-up & ‘tin’ any of my integral and important electrical connections? I simply would refuse to apply any dielectric dope-grease and/or silicon caulk to any of my in-line electrical components and/or fixtures; and, as a matter of establishing a ground, I would first, have several-hundred yards of my fertile, composted soil removed, and then replaced with several hundred yards of coarse beach sand, just to make sure that I had an earthen environment that promoted instability of antenna constructive support and near zero ohms of conductivity. In this way, I would have assured myself, of having an almost completely isolated radiating antenna element, that I could then have used to have my soaked, limpid corpse hung-up on, as an object lesson for folks whom mistakenly believed that incessant adherence to safety considerations were foolhardy ruminations to be utilized by keenly sensitive brainiacs, wherein, I would think that I would in the future, be included in a list of: “DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME or ANYWHERE ELSE Listings”, those listed, right next and/or near to, my newspaper obituary listing! I think I got it right?

Wow, those are all great comments. Of course the antenna didn’t “generate” electricity. Our wise readers and listeners know that the difference in potential exists when all pieces of equipment in the station and out at the antenna are not at the same ground potential. One of the first questions I asked the customer (knowing about the possibility of that ground potential problem) was whether he had unplugged the station equipment in the ham shack from the AC power mains. He had not, and because the station was not properly grounded, there was a potentially dangerous voltage difference between the plugged-in radio and the grounded antenna. I felt that he was lucky not to have been electrocuted! Kevin’s “Do not try this at home” applies here for sure. Always disconnect equipment from the AC mains before doing any service on your antennas and feedlines. This is especially important to remember as we get warmer weather and our thoughts turn toward doing some of that antenna work we have been putting off during the cold winter months. And I mustn’t forget: Although I do ground my station equipment, I never trust the ground to protect me. I always disconnect the power before working on the antenna system, because I know that a grounding system might fail. There is no sense taking unnecessary risks when you are working around any kind of electrical equipment.

Another thought that was brought up is the possibility of a ground rod hitting a buried power cable. The way to avoid that problem is to be sure that your antenna site is clear of underground utilities. Find out from your utility company what number to call to set up a free inspection and marking of your property so that you will know where underground lines are buried. Here in my area we have a single number to call and they send out a worker to mark underground lines like gas and electric with spray paint right on the ground over the lines. “Gopher State One Call” is our system, but you will have a similar service in your area. Be aware, though, that such services will not let you know about things like the location of underground lawn sprinkling systems that are not part of the utility system.

Since the antenna in question was a vertical, one has to be especially careful assembling it on the ground and then swinging it up into place on the mounting post. You have yourself a 26 foot long aluminum stick and you are holding it with both hands, so you most definitely do not want to swing it up into a power line! Since my caller was in fact alive to call and tell me that his antenna was “generating electricity”, I pretty much assumed that he didn’t make that particular mistake. Direct contact with even a household power line in such a situation is often deadly because the current will flow from power line to antenna through the victim’s arms and through the chest cavity, where it will likely cause the heart to stop or go into arrhythmia.

Anyway, when you are answering customer complaints like this one, the most likely cause usually turns out to be the right one. He had indeed left the rig plugged into the AC mains and was getting a shock because of some fault in his equipment or station ground.

Stay safe and out of the obituaries!

Welcome to Handiham World!

Troubleshooting 101 continued: “My antenna is generating electricity and giving me shocks!”

Recap: Last week we presented the following scenario and invited comments:

We are going back in time to when I worked at an antenna company, a job that often involved talking directly to customers on the phone. I would answer questions and make suggestions about installation and troubleshooting. One fine day we got a call from a fellow who had installed one of our vertical antennas. He had ground mounted it, carefully following the instructions in the manual. This antenna came with an aluminum mounting post that was dug into the ground and usually secured with a bag of do-it-yourself concrete mix. A fiberglass dowel in the exposed end of the mounting post served as an insulator and supported the vertical element of the antenna. The center conductor of an included length of a matching section of 75 Ohm coaxial cable was connected with a stainless steel bolt to the main radiating element and the braid was connected to another stainless bolt on the grounded mounting post as well as to a ground rod within inches of the antenna base. The customer had to supply the remaining run of 50 Ohm coax from the ham shack out to the antenna and connect it to the already installed matching section with a barrel connector. When the customer called us, he complained that his antenna was generating electricity and giving him shocks. He noticed this as he was trying to connect the two pieces of coax together.

Can you guess what was wrong and suggest what questions I might have asked the customer to verify my theory? For bonus points, what did I have to tell him to resolve the problem?

I got some good comments back from you, so it’s time to share your brilliance in troubleshooting with our readers and listeners:

	From Tom, WA6IVG: Unless he’d driven the antenna’s mounting rod into a buried power cable, (unlikely) the problem just about has to be bad station ground. Ask exactly what the coax run is connected to, and how said equipment is grounded. If the station isn’t closely connected, with heavy wire or braid, to the electrical service ground, or better yet to a separate ground rod and said service ground, then that’s what to do. Also check that power main connections are two standard 3 prong grounded outlet boxes. In a totally desperate situation, of 2 prong power, maybe reversing 2 prong cords could provide a temporary, unorthodox solution but bad idea. If all is claimed to be as it should be, then his station and antenna must be on 2 different continents.
	From Mike, KJ6CBW: The customer was getting shocked when connecting the long run of coax to the 75-ohm run from the ground-mounted vertical that has its coax braid connected to ground rods. The two coax cables are at different ground potentials. I think the most likely cause is that the station is not grounded because the power line isn’t grounded or a 2-wire plug is being used where a 3-wire plug is appropriate. Another possibility it that the ground rods at the antenna intercepted a buried telephone line or cable-company cable, which make the antenna ground different from that of the long coax. Please don’t shoot me, I’m new at this. ..!
	And fasten your seatbelt for this one from Kevin, [formerly: N1PKE ]: I have been pondering your *Troubleshooting 101, query, supra, and have attempted to extrapolate a scenario that would lead to such a conclusion as that of getting poked with an electrical current while I was hooking-up my antenna feed-line connections; wherein initially, I would cast basic common-sense to the literal wind, and just to make sure that things were to be a little more interesting, I would wait until the middle of the frigid winter season, for a night when there was very little light and there was then, e.g., currently, a frozen sleet / snow storm with full-gale winds occurring; just to make sure that Mr. Murphy would have all of the available advantages to be had, at his disposal; oh, and I would purposely plug-in and turn-on, e.g., charge my electrical circuitry with an electrical current, just to make sure that if anything went horribly wrong, that it would be the last time that I would ever have to address such a problematic situation. After all, why would I want to abrasively clean-up & ‘tin’ any of my integral and important electrical connections? I simply would refuse to apply any dielectric dope-grease and/or silicon caulk to any of my in-line electrical components and/or fixtures; and, as a matter of establishing a ground, I would first, have several-hundred yards of my fertile, composted soil removed, and then replaced with several hundred yards of coarse beach sand, just to make sure that I had an earthen environment that promoted instability of antenna constructive support and near zero ohms of conductivity. In this way, I would have assured myself, of having an almost completely isolated radiating antenna element, that I could then have used to have my soaked, limpid corpse hung-up on, as an object lesson for folks whom mistakenly believed that incessant adherence to safety considerations were foolhardy ruminations to be utilized by keenly sensitive brainiacs, wherein, I would think that I would in the future, be included in a list of: “DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME or ANYWHERE ELSE Listings”, those listed, right next and/or near to, my newspaper obituary listing! I think I got it right?

Wow, those are all great comments. Of course the antenna didn’t “generate” electricity. Our wise readers and listeners know that the difference in potential exists when all pieces of equipment in the station and out at the antenna are not at the same ground potential. One of the first questions I asked the customer (knowing about the possibility of that ground potential problem) was whether he had unplugged the station equipment in the ham shack from the AC power mains. He had not, and because the station was not properly grounded, there was a potentially dangerous voltage difference between the plugged-in radio and the grounded antenna. I felt that he was lucky not to have been electrocuted! Kevin’s “Do not try this at home” applies here for sure. Always disconnect equipment from the AC mains before doing any service on your antennas and feedlines. This is especially important to remember as we get warmer weather and our thoughts turn toward doing some of that antenna work we have been putting off during the cold winter months. And I mustn’t forget: Although I do ground my station equipment, I never trust the ground to protect me. I always disconnect the power before working on the antenna system, because I know that a grounding system might fail. There is no sense taking unnecessary risks when you are working around any kind of electrical equipment.

Another thought that was brought up is the possibility of a ground rod hitting a buried power cable. The way to avoid that problem is to be sure that your antenna site is clear of underground utilities. Find out from your utility company what number to call to set up a free inspection and marking of your property so that you will know where underground lines are buried. Here in my area we have a single number to call and they send out a worker to mark underground lines like gas and electric with spray paint right on the ground over the lines. “Gopher State One Call” is our system, but you will have a similar service in your area. Be aware, though, that such services will not let you know about things like the location of underground lawn sprinkling systems that are not part of the utility system.

Since the antenna in question was a vertical, one has to be especially careful assembling it on the ground and then swinging it up into place on the mounting post. You have yourself a 26 foot long aluminum stick and you are holding it with both hands, so you most definitely do not want to swing it up into a power line! Since my caller was in fact alive to call and tell me that his antenna was “generating electricity”, I pretty much assumed that he didn’t make that particular mistake. Direct contact with even a household power line in such a situation is often deadly because the current will flow from power line to antenna through the victim’s arms and through the chest cavity, where it will likely cause the heart to stop or go into arrhythmia.

Anyway, when you are answering customer complaints like this one, the most likely cause usually turns out to be the right one. He had indeed left the rig plugged into the AC mains and was getting a shock because of some fault in his equipment or station ground.

Stay safe and out of the obituaries!

Welcome to Handiham World!

The power of ice combined with wind is evident once again! As those of us whose antennas have had to weather many winters can tell you, there is little worse for an antenna system than ice combined with wind. I was reminded of this earlier today when I opened my email and found a message from AA9BB in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. It had a link to a story about the 2,000 foot WEAU TV transmitting tower that collapsed near Fairchild, WI during the ice and wind storm that moved through last night. We are still having a pretty terrible Spring blizzard from the same weather system here in the Twin Cities. Fortunately no one was hurt in the tower collapse, which was only discovered when the station engineer paid a call to the transmitter site to determine why the station had gone off the air. While there will obviously need to be an investigation into exactly why this tall tower fell, my money would be on the wind and ice combination causing the design limits to be exceeded.

When the wind blows, most amateur radio antennas will not be damaged. Wire antennas have little wind loading area, and beam antennas are made to flex in the wind. The problem comes when weather conditions are just exactly right to allow freezing rain to fall and turn to ice upon hitting the ground or your ham radio antenna. The extra weight of the ice can be several times the weight of the antenna itself, putting considerable strain on the supporting system components like insulators, guy wires, masts, and towers. This is bad enough, but then suppose that the wind picks up. As storm fronts move through, the weather conditions will change. There can be periods of regular rain followed by freezing rain as the temperature plummets, and then the wind can shift and pick up as the freezing rain picks up or turns to snow. Imagine the terrible wind load and strain on the supports as the antenna whips in the wind, pushed all the more by the greater wind loading due to the coating of ice. When the design limits are reached, the antenna or its supporting structure will fail.

What can you do about ice and wind? My feeling is that moving to someplace with a better climate might be the only sure-fire answer. Some places are more prone to ice storms than others, though, and about all you can do is build your wire antennas to withstand greater loads by using compression-style insulators instead of the “dog bone” style. Compression insulators are much less likely to break because more pull on the wires actually compresses the insulators instead of pulling them apart. Better quality wire can help, too, as can good, heavy-duty hardware at all supporting points. Antenna towers that telescope down during high wind conditions can help protect your antenna investment. At least the antenna will be closer to the ground where the wind may be less, and the entire structure presents less of a wind load when telescoped in the down position.

My wire antennas are not that great. One is a commercial Windom about 125 feet long and the other is an end-fed wire, also about 125 feet. Neither one was mounted with heavy-duty hardware, so if they come down in an ice storm with lots of wind, I wouldn’t be surprised. What I am doing is sort of playing the odds, since we don’t get those conditions together too often here. My Butternut vertical can pretty much take care of itself because it has almost no horizontal surfaces to collect heavy ice. Flexing in the wind just breaks the ice off and it falls harmlessly to the ground around the base. It is really the horizontal surfaces that you have to protect the most from icing. How much is an airline ticket to Florida? Can’t afford that? Try getting some compression insulators – they’re a lot cheaper.

Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Handiham System Manager
[email protected]