Great aerial video from the site of SV8S D-Star repeater in Zakynthos

Well, that's what they call a "bird's eye view", I guess! If you want to enjoy a great aerial view from the top of Skopos mountain in Zakynthos, a place that a lot of nice antennas call "home", use the link http://youtu.be/0Z1mXfpahfg (use "full screen"!). Mike, SV8KOM used his professional, high-tech, hex-rotor remotely controlled helicopter to record this video (and many others!). This is from where Stigma Radio 97.6 and Island FM 88.6  (in English) transmit their programs to the island and beyond! This is also the site of SV8S D-Star repeater (its antenna is located on the shorter mast, on the right of the one yours truly can be seen perched up on with his tools and stuff). It was a superb day to work on antennas! Oh, and I reeeeeally envy those birds!!

Smoking is a no-no for your rig, too!

The photo (click to enlarge) shows the rather obvious effects of cigarette smoke on the keyboard membranes of a Kenwood TS-2000. The owner complained that the backlighting had gone very weak, so he suspected a circuit malfunction. Alas, his heavy smoking was the sole culprit.

The membrane soft plastic is normally semi-translucent whitish - not so after having been exposed to cigarette smoke for a while. It turned brown - and the worst part is, that this brown colouring is permanent! Obviously the stain gets into the plastic! This brown colouring acts as a filter for the green backlight, attenuating it greatly, to the point that it can be barely seen in complete darkness only. I have seen (and smelled!!) many rigs owned by smokers, it's definitely causing them serious cosmetic - and functional -  harm.

So, if you are a smoker, just imagine what kind of stuff the smoke is leaving behind in your poor lungs - perhaps quitting is the best option, both for you and your beloved rigs!

Ants and aphids

You may have spotted a clue or two in this blog that I get most of my kicks from electronics and telecommunications. Nevertheless, having studied Biology at the University (fascinating science too), I frequently stop to admire the great work of Nature in all its diversity.

The other day I observed  what you can see in the photo (click on it to enlarge). The ants are seen "milking" the small dark-green aphids to get their honeydew (which they seem to greatly appreciate). The ants use their antennae to stimulate the aphids for this. They protect them from other insects that prey on them. This is called a "mutualistic relationship".

Now, you may wonder why I, being a radio amateur, like ants and other bugs. Easy: They use antennae, too!

A proposed root cause for the "Withering Filters" phenomenon

Fig. 1 Photo by Jerzy,
SP6FPY.  (Click to enlarge)

After having examined the failure mechanism of more than 100 ceramic filters that have succumbed to electromigration, I think I have collected enough data to propose a root cause for the phenomenon that has caused failure of a very large numbers of filters. I should gratefully thank the many fellow radio amateurs that have sent photos of their filters to me, adding to my database on the subject. Manufacturers might want to consider changing their production methods to avoid the chain of events that I propose that leads to this phenomenon.

So, let's look at the data I have collected and a proposed theory that explains the facts:

Fig. 2. Note the water droplets.

1) In all of the ceramic filters I have examined, there was a surprising quantity of water inside the plastic case (take a look at Figs 1, 2 and observe the signs of water presence on the elements and inside the black case, also the whitish flux residue on the case of the adjacent filter in Fig. 1, which shows that a quantity of water evaporated from that surface, leaving it behind). The water inside the case causes the filter to fail soon after the transceiver circuit applies DC voltage to the input, and mainly the output pins of the filter. The quantity of water is such, that can't be attributed to a filter manufacturing flaw: it's just too much. I can't imagine that the filter manufacturers would have ignored it. Also, I haven't found water inside some new filters I have "dissected". So, there must be another reason for this quantity of water inside the filter.

2) Where does the water come from, if not from a filter manufacturing flaw? I think the answer lies with the newer technologies and materials used for the fabrication of populated printed circuit boards (PCBs). Briefly, the new methods of wave soldering with non-Pb solders extensively use organic acid (OA) fluxes. Those fluxes are removed from the PCBs after wave soldering by pressure rinsing with hot water. The rinsing process takes some time to complete.

3) I think that the water ingress can be explained thus. The rinsing process uses hot water (about 70 degrees Celsius), sometimes with ionic additives. This (as well as the previous soldering process) causes the (so far dry) air inside the plastic filter case to expand, creating positive pressure inside the filter case. This results in air escaping from inside the filter case, as the temperature softens the plastic case and compromises the (not so great to begin with) sealing at the bottom of the filter case.

When the PCB exits the rinsing process, water is held by affinity under the filter case, between the filter and the PCB surface. The filter starts cooling down, and this causes the pressure inside the filter to drop under the atmospheric pressure. This negative relative pressure tends to draw a small quantity of the water under the filter inside the filter case, through the very fine cracks at the filter case seals that the positive air pressure (when the filter was hot) created. The quantity of the water is some micrograms, but it's more than enough to cause trouble. The board is then dried, but the accident has already happened. The water is already inside the filter.

4) Once inside the filter, the water can't escape and remains trapped inside the case. Some of it condenses or moves on the filter plates, starting the electromigration process where the electric field (due to the externally applied voltage) reaches sufficient value. This most often occurs at the corners of the thin output ceramic plate (element) at the output of the filter, which is only about 0.35 mm thick. This leads to the failure of the filter after some time.

5) What might be a solution? A slight modification of the rinsing - drying process might help in avoiding this phenomenon.

If the PCB is dried IMMEDIATELY after exiting the rinsing chamber with pressurised HOT air, then the water might not get inside the filter case, as the pressure difference doesn't occur this way before the water has been removed from under the filter.

I have no further knowledge of the exact conditions used in any particular case, so the above proposal may not always apply. But each manufacturer could certainly review the method used and modify it accordingly, so as to avoid the conditions that drive water inside the filter case (and possibly inside other "sealed" components, such as miniature relays).

If someone with more knowledge of the PCB processing methods wishes to add (or correct!) something in the above, please send an e-mail to sv8ym@raag.org.

73 DE SV8YM

Addendum: The above suggest that if you repair (clean and dry thoroughly with hot air) or replace a filter that has gone bad through water ingress during the rinsing procedure with a brand new one that hasn't come in contact with water, you may not have problems in the long run, even if you don't also install DC-blocking capacitors. That is so because you need BOTH water AND a voltage gradient to start electromigration. A completely dry filter probably can withstand 7-8 V indefinitely (as experience with older rigs shows - the PCBs were washed with organic solvents a long time ago, in the paleolithic Pb era!).

 

A scorching hot summer in Zante

No, the airplane in the first photo didn't get entangled in my antennas!   It flew over the house and literally rescued our property from going up in smoke, like the pine trees in the second photo, where the plane drops 6.5 tons of water on the rapidly approaching fire front, less than 100 meters from the house (click on the photos to enlarge them). It was the 28th of August, and had the firefighter planes not arrived for another 10 - 15 minutes, all bets would have been off. It was the second close call this year for us. Such scenes have been extremely commonplace in my island during the last 25 years.

It's a sad reality that a vast pine forest area has been burnt to the ground during the last years, depriving Zakynthos of one of its greatest assets. Unfortunately, the great damage to the flora and fauna of the island will take many years to mend (if ever!). The planes and the firefighters on the ground (among them several volunteer radio amateurs) have saved many homes and possibly lives. We owe them all a big "thanks", perhaps more so to the pilots, who perform extremely dangerous aerobatics to deliver their payload with pinpoint accuracy.

The GaAsFETgate scandal in Zakynthos

Click on photo to enlarge.

GaAsFETs have really become ubiquitus in every situation one wants high gain and low noise figure in frequencies ranging from the low VHF to microwaves. The picture on the left is of a very popular transistor (although a bit dated now), the ATF 10136 from Agilent Technologies. The ceramic cap has been removed to take this photo (about 200X magnification). 

The chip is in the center, attached to the source strip. The diameter of the white ceramic material is about 1.5 mm. The drain is on the right and the gate on the left. Observe the thin gold wires that connect the chip to its carrier contacts (and to your circuits!). This particular transistor (from a low-noise 2-m preamp) had a cruel death: it was accidentally (and quite scandalously!) bombarded with high power on 144 MHz from the amplifier of an EME setup in a friend's station. The gate short-circuited to the source, and you may see that even the gold wires almost melted by the heavy current that destroyed the transistor (see the red arrow). Fortunately, nowadays those great transistors are fairly cheap to replace, and can be easily procured.  Thumbs up to Agilent (now Avago, and the other semiconductor manufacturers) that make our beloved toys!

Does your IC-E92D have any loose screws?

"It's the loose screws in my head!"

The IC-E92D is a very well constructed handheld transceiver, with a really solid feel of quality. I bought mine in 2008, in order to wet my feet in the new D-Star ocean. I also have the external speaker - microphone adaptor, which I think makes the rig a lot more pleasant to use.

The transceiver performed flawlessly, no problems at all, up to a few days ago, when I noticed that when I keyed the transceiver in medium and high power output on UHF using the provided rubber antenna, the display backlight would consistently and magically turn itself on and strange beeps and noises would emanate from the external speaker. The phenomenon was absent in the low and super-low power settings, so I reasoned that some kind of RF intrusion into the logic circuits was to be blamed. Removing the external speaker/mic cables changed things a bit (only full power produced the strange effects), but the goblin was surely still there. A quick search on the Internet revealed that other users have also reported similar problems with the display going blank or even getting inverted (!), so I was not alone out there. 

But what had changed to produce those effects? I hadn't changed anyhthing, the rig functioned with exactly the same accessories from day one. So, it was logical to think that the reason was internal.

Before opening the case, I studied the service manual a bit. I observed that the screws holding the transceiver together also had another very important mission: (especially the top two) pressed the main printed circuit board grounding spring contacts on the chassis. So these (and of course the other internal screws) are cleverly forming RF-tight enclosures within the transceiver. Could it be that some of those screws had gone loose, compromising this important function?

So, to take a first shot at it, I proceeded to carefully tighten the six screws that hold the transceiver together (they are at the back side, two of them near the top and four of them under the battery - you have to remove the battery to see them). Indeed, they took about 1/4 turn to feel nicely tight again (BUT DON'T OVERDO IT WITH THAT SCREWDRIVER, PLEASE!).

I am happy to report that the problem vanished immediately. I loosened the screws a bit again to see if it would come back, but it didn't, obviously because the contacts were not disturbed enough this way. My theory is that the screws gradually become a bit loose with normal use and thermal cycling, making the shielding / grounding contacts unreliable and "leaky". A bit of tightening and everything is back to normal again. Perhaps some day I will also have to open the case and tighten the internal screws, too. If the problem doesn't go away by tightening the externally accessible screws (especially the two ones at the top), that's the next logical step. This reasoning may also hold for other transceivers with the same shielding method. I must say I have certainly seen a lot of strange problems in other modern VHF/UHF transceivers go away when I tighten the screws that hold the printed circuit boards on the cast aluminum chassis!! They have a tendency of coming loose, mainly due to thermal cycling action.

Enjoy your IC-E92D and see you on D-Star!