Bible
Verse
Isaiah 40:28-29 - Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. (NIV)
Next Business Meeting
The next business meeting will be held at the Checker Board Restaurant on Saturday, February 12th, 2010. Come join us for breakfast, coffee and fellowship.
Treasurer Report
Membership dues have already starting flowing in for the New Year. Thank you for your support. Please bring your dues to the Checker Board Restaurant on Saturday mornings or mail them to the address below. Dues are:
- $23.00 per Year per Member
- $25.00 per Year for Family
- $15.00 per year if 65 or older
MARC c/o Debbie Hover
11785 Nancy Drive
Collinsville, MS 39325
73, KD5JYJ
NBEMS Webinar
This should be a huge webinar. We're hearing from our Atlantic Division Director that over 400 hams have already registered, and the event is not until Saturday. And yes, we will be operating live on the air during the webinar for all to see.
For those of you who have never participated in a webinar, you will be able to give questions and comments to the moderator who will then pass them along to Dave and me, so this will be interactive.
73, Harry Bloomberg W3YJ hbloomb@gmail.com
The following is a cut & paste and re-post from the ARRL newsletter:
On Saturday, February 26 at 10 AM (EST), NBEMS developers Dave Kleber, KB3FXI, and Western Pennsylvania Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator Harry Bloomberg, W3YJ, will present a two hour webinar that covers NBEMS's advanced features. Learn about the use of NBEMS FLWRAP and FLMSG to send and receive spread sheet/database data and form-based messages such as the ICS-213 and NTS/Radiogram forms. Bloomberg and Kleber will also be covering HF digital net procedures and protocols and hope to incorporate a live HF demonstration that will be viewable by all those attending the webinar. Register for this webinar at https://www1. gotomeeting.com/register/497568192
The Lost Art of Cable Lacing
By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU
The Make: magazine blog is a wealth of information for amateur radio operators. Recently, they ran a post on what they consider to be on the "lost technology" of cable lacing http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/07/lost-knowledge-cable-lacing.html
The blog post does a great job of explaining the technique and includes several illustrations. One of them: http://cdn.makezine.com/make/blogs/blog.makezine.com/upload/2009/10/lost_knowledge_cable_lacing/cableLacing6b.gif is a drawing from an old ARRL handbook. There are also a link to the Wikipedia page on cable lacing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_lacing.
Nowadays, we mostly use zip ties to bundle cables, but there are disadvantages to using them. For one thing, to apply them properly, you should have a tool that controls how tightly the zip tie holds the wires. This is to prevent crushing the insulation.
Also, I've found that zip ties don't do so well when the cable has only two or three wires. They're just not designed to hold so few wires. I think that cable lacing would do a much better job of keeping a small bundle of wires together, say wires that connect front panel components to a PC board.
Cable lacing certainly looks much cooler than zip ties. This is the perfect technique for those homebrewers that want to make their projects look great as well as work great.
I asked on my blog, "Now, where can I find the 'wax-impregnated cotton or twine'?" and my readers came through. Hamilton said, "Apparently you find wax string here: http://www.kitkraft.biz/product.php? productid=1496. I remember using it for something as a kid, but I can't place it." Ron McKenz wrote, "I notice that a number of telco vendor sell waxed lacing cord. Here are a few URLs:
http://www.sourcetelsupply.com/catalog/index.php? cPath=27
http://www.tessco.com/yts/resourcecenter/pdfs/clablelacing-FAQ.pdf
http://www.oelsales.com/product.cfm/267
Ned, WB4KBO, said, "I would suggest a large roll of dental tape and a large-diameter curves sewing needle for fabricating harnesses. I was told that this was the material of choice for lacing harnesses when i worked at Heath Company many years ago. Makes sense to me. Buy it at Meijer for an occasional harness, or a dental wholesale supply house if you are going into production. Also great stuff for kite rigging, vine lacing and many other things."
Mike, WA6ARA wrote, "What you want is Mil-T-43435. It is better than a cord, it is a flat weave tape, nylon, and waxed. It is made for cable lacing but is use now in the parachute industry as "super tack". Item T1050 at http://www.paragear.com
So, there you have it. Links to show you how to do it, and a couple more links for where to find the lacing material. I now expect all of our homebrew to look a lot neater.
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When not worrying about how to lace cable instead of using zip ties, Dan, KB6NU, blogs about ham radio at www. kb6nu. com, teaches ham radio classes, and operates CW on the HF bands. Look for him around 7.030 MHz or e-mail him pictures of your beautifully-laced cables at cwgeek@kb6nu.com.
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