THE LIVE WIRE

A Publication of the Blue Ridge Amateur Radio Society, Inc.
/
AUGUST 1999  

Silent Key

It is with deep regret that I record the loss of Club Member Jonathan L. Lara KE4EQF.

Lightning Part 1

This is a series on understanding lightning and how to protect your station. Over the next few Live Wires we will learn about proper grounding, surge suppression, tower inductance, dissimilar metals, chassis grounds, bulkheads, ground halos, gas tubes, MOV's, zener diode surge suppressors, inductive coupling, and more!!!

Lightning is a phenomenon not well understood by scientist. Most thunderstorms have a negative electrical charge. As these storm clouds move they induce a positive charge in the earth below. This creates a voltage between the ground and air and positive currents begin flowing up buildings, trees, antenna towers and other elevated objects in an attempt to eliminate the growing potential difference. But air is a good insulator, so these currents cannot flow into the cloud and the cloud/ground voltage continues to build. Eventually, this voltage becomes so great that the air molecules are ripped apart and form a conductive path between the ground and the cloud. This path allows a sudden and violent discharge to take place and this discharge is called "LIGHTNING". Movement of water and ice particles inside a cloud or between two clouds can cause potential differences to build between areas of a cloud. When these potential become great enough, the air inside the cloud will become ionized and a cloud to cloud lightning strike will occur. A single lightning discharge may have a current over 120,000 Amps! Fifty percent of all strikes reach at least 18,000 Amps. Of course these currents occur over a very short time. A pulse of lightning current typically has a rise time of 2µs (micro-seconds) and takes 10 to 40µs to decay to the 50% level. Our goal is to send these pulses of current directly to ground before they get to our sensitive electronic equipment.

A good ground system has not only low resistance, but low INDUCTANCE! DC is only by the resistance of a system, but lightning surges have a very fast rise time and drop quickly to zero. This makes a lightning transient a high frequency signal. High frequencies are affected not only by resistance in a circuit, but also by inductive and capacitive reactance. The most significant reactance present in a grounding system is inductance. The higher the frequency of the surge and the more inductance in a ground system, the more impedance the ground system presents to a lightning surge. The ground system may present so much impedance to a surge that the transient currents look for another path to ground - ( through our equipment "OUCH!" ) . Therefore, the key to establishing an effective ground system is to install one which has low resistance and low inductance. This will allow the surge to travel to ground via the ground system and not your equipment.

In the next few issues of the Live Wire we will continue this series and pass on the information which will allow you to insure your ground system has the least amount of inductance possible and provide your feedline with the highest amount possible.

SPECTRUM PROTECTION BILL ADDS COSPONSORS

There are now 76 cosponsors for The Amateur Radio Spectrum Protection Act, HR 783. The measure would require the FCC to provide "equivalent replacement spectrum" should the agency reallocate any Amateur Radio or Amateur Satellite service allocations to another service.

"Our regular visits to Congressional offices on Capitol Hill indicate that, while most members of Congress understand and appreciate the benefits of Amateur Radio, some are reluctant to sign onto such a technical piece of legislation without some indication of support from their own constituents," says ARRL Legislative and Public Affairs Manager Steve Mansfield, N1MZA.

HR 783 still must make it out of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee and its parent House Commerce Committee before it goes to the House floor. There's a lot of pending legislation already in the pipeline, however, so that could take some time.

Hams wishing to help the effort to move HR 783 can do so by writing to their member of Congress. Visit ARRLWeb, http://www.arrl.org/govrelations/hr783.html for a sample letter and addresses.--Steve Mansfield, N1MZA

NO QUESTION POOL CHANGES--YET

The Amateur Radio examination question pools remain in a holding pattern pending an announcement from the FCC on license restructuring. No question pools or questions will change anytime soon for any license class.

Last September, the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators' Question Pool Committee announced that all question pool updates were being put on hold until after the FCC had acted on Amateur Radio restructuring (officially known as the Part 97 Biennial Review). Until the September NCVEC QPC announcement, the Advanced class question pool had been scheduled to expire at midnight on June 30, 1999.

Current examination questions and study materials remain valid until further notice. The NCVEC recently announced that it was postponing its annual meeting and won't set a new meeting date until the FCC drops the other shoe on Amateur Radio restructuring. NCVEC members were to meet July 9 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The FCC's action is expected to have a substantial impact on the content of amateur examinations. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Notice

I would like to remind all BRARS members of my Amateur Radio Land Line BBS. It can be reached at 235-8708. A lot of ham files and the only ham BBS in the state.

73 LeRoy

Check out W4VIW's BBS @ 235-8708

Programs for 1999 Club Meetings

If you have an idea for a program, or know someone who would be willing to come speak to the BRARS club please contact Al Holden - KM4TN.

Special BRARS meeting on August 2nd.

The BRARS August 2nd meeting will NOT be held at the Red Cross on Grove Rd. The club has been invited to attend a demonstration at Stewart Electronincs Technology. (S.E.T.) Stewart Electronincs Technology will be demonstrating and discussing with us SMART HOUSE technology. The meeting will be held on Monday the 2nd of August at S.E.T. near the corner of Memorial Dr. and Poinsett St in Greer.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 PM and the program will follow. There is an empty lot behind S.E.T. we can use for parking in case the one in front fills up.

From Greenville: Proceed North on Hwy 29 (Wade Hampton) toward Greer. Continue on Hwy 29 until you reach Allen Bennett Hospital. At Red light next to Hospital turn right onto Memorial Dr. Follow Memorial Dr and look for Stewart Electronic Technologies the left near the end of Memorial dr before it joins Poinsett St.

From I-85: Exit highway 14 to Greer turn left at Poinsett ST. goto memorial Dr S.E.T. on your right at light.

Minutes of the 07/05/99 BRARS Club Meeting

• Meeting was called to order by President Buddy, KA4END, with introductions of members and guests.
• Applications that were approved for membership at the July 5, 1999 meeting:

  KF4NXS

  M.W.

  (Matt)

  ANDREWS

  15 7th St

  Greer

  SC

  29651

• Treasurer, Carlisle Rogers, WA4ULE, presented the treasurers report.
• Discussed hamfest issues to be considered for next year. In particular, discussed need for an alternate location for the hamfest. The cost of leasing the Anderson County Fairground is increasing to the point of being impractical to have a hamfest there and stay in the black. If anyone has any ideas as to an alternate site, please contact one of the board members.
• Field Day (June 26 and 27) for '99 was discussed. FD was held this year at Charlie Thomson's farm located above Landrum. In spite of the wet conditions at times, a lot of contacts were made and a good time was had by all. Approximately 40 folks attended
• NOTE: On 7/5/1999, WA4GIL, W.E. (Billy) HALL Jr. withdrew his application for membership.
• The proposed amendment to the bylaws was discussed and rejected by the membership at the meeting because of the wording of the last sentence. With the assistance of some of the members present, the wording was revised and is now proposed as written below.

  The Board of Directors is proposing the following Amendment to the By-Laws: ( To be voted on at the August 2nd Meeting )
  Add a new item as follows: By-Laws, Section 1, MEMBERSHIP, item (l.):

  "Any person who has been removed from membership in the Society per BY-LAWS SECTION 1.(i.), and who reapplies for membership in the society, may be reinstated as a member of the Society only by a majority vote of the full membership of the BLUE RIDGE AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY, INC.. If that vote of the full membership of the BLUE RIDGE AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY, INC. is not a majority vote, subsequent reapplication by the removed member for membership in the Society will be automatically rejected."

• Door Prize won by Tommy McFarlin, KG4ARJ.
• Meeting adjourned.

Board Meeting Highlights, 7-13-1999: (All present except K4KK and KE4WI)

Applications that will be submitted for Membership Approval at the August 2, 1999 meeting:

Please Submit any comments on above applications in writing to:
Attention: Board of Directors, BRARS, Inc, P.O. Box 6751, Greenville, SC 29606-6751
or bring your comments to the meeting.

• Discussed alternates for Club money investments. No conclusions.
• Repeater committee continues to work on cleaning up interference on the repeaters. Considering adding another section of filter on '82 input to try to eliminate some of the intermod interference.
• Discussed alternate sites for Hamfest. This needs serious looking and consideration. Being looked at.
• Al, WA4LUQ will coordinate getting out directions out for location of August Meeting.

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