August 2003
Articles from the
August 2003 issue of CQ posted on our
website include:
The new 60-meter band, such as it is, opened for use by hams on July 3, and our August issue starts out with some important information about the new band. It's the first ham band that's channelized, restricted to one mode (USB) and limited to 50 watts ERP, or effective radiated power. Contributing Editor Gordon West, WB6NOA, presents a 60-meter operating guide, with information on where to tune your transceiver - it's not what you might think - how to make sure you meet bandwidth restrictions and how to measure ERP if you're using an antenna other than a dipole. We've also got a guide to which radios currently on the market can be easily modified to operate on 5 MHz. In addition to Gordon's operating guide, Fred Maia, W5YI, goes over in detail the FCC's ruling that resulted in these new operating privileges on 60 meters, along with background and additional detail on other parts of the FCC decision, including 137 kHz and 2.4 GHz.
If you're a DXer or contester, there's a pretty good chance you've worked Martti Laine, OH2BH, in Finland. In the August CQ, we get a tour of Martti's multiple shacks by another DX notable, John DeVoldere, ON4UN.
On the topic of contesting, if it's August, it must be time for the results of last year’s single-sideband weekend of the CQ World Wide DX Contest – the world’s biggest ham radio contest. And CQ still prints the scores of everyone who submitted logs.
If you didn't get a chance to make it to the Dayton Hamvention™ this year, we've got information and photos for you of all sorts of new stuff, in an article called "Hot Stuff at Hamvention."
Moving on to our columns for August, we start with Public Service, in which Bob Josuweit, WA3PZO, tells us about emergency drills in Saipan, in the western Pacific, and about ham radio participation in a nationwide bioterrorism drill centered in Seattle and Chicago. "Washington Readout," as we mentioned above, details the FCC's decision on band requests on low-frequency, at 5 MHz, and at 2.4 GH. In "Math's Notes," WA2NDM reports on a very versatile oscillator chip called the LTC-1799. Contributing Editor Dave Ingram, K4TWJ, takes us "HF Packing" in "World of Ideas," and Mobiling Editor Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR, brings us some mobile antennas and "true confessions" from readers who have made some pretty impressive mistakes in their mobile installations. Antennas are also the topic for this month's "QRP" column, and Digital Editor Don Rotolo, N2IRZ, looks at the basics of PSK-31.
In the "Beginners' Corner," Editor Wayne Yoshida, KH6WZ, describes some basic tools that every ham should have. DX Editor Carl Smith, N4AA, talks about the DXers who came to Dayton in May, plus the schedule for summertime DXpeditions. Contesting Editor John Dorr, K1AR, compares the very simple rules for the first CQ World Wide DX Contest, back in 1948, with the current, very complex, set of rules; Awards Editor Ted Melinosky, K1BV, has a Q&A on county-hunting and the USA-CA award, and notes that he has finally - after four decades - finished up his own USA-CA All Counties Award, for confirmed contacts with every one of the 3,077 counties in the United States. Congratulations, Ted!
"VHF-Plus" Editor Joe Lynch, N6CL, reports on record-setting sporadic-E contacts on 222 MHz, a band on which, not too long ago, people questioned whether it was even possible to work E-skip at all. Finally, Propagation Editor Tomas Hood, NW7US, looks at poor HF conditions caused by increased geomagnetic activity, as well as the annual summertime phenomenon of long-range sporadic-E propagation on VHF.
