SCAT Electronic News 16 February 1998

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SCAT Electronic News 16 February 1998

Man Men Report

After a number of years of near perfect weather El Nino hit us on one
day of this year’s contest. The Mini events went off very well on
Friday. The weather was great and people were flying the contest and
testing until the sun went down. Unfortunately the next day the rain
started at 3 am and at dawn was raining steadily. CD, George Batiuk
postponed the contest until noon to give him time to review the
alternate site and different entrances. He decided that while the
condition were satisfactory for flying it was going to be a big mess
getting the cars on and off the field. By the late afternoon it was
starting to clear up and the wind was rising steadily. This wind blew
most of the night so when dawn came on Sunday the roads had dried out
some what. The start of the contest was delayed 30 minutes to give
people a little more time to get on the field. The sun shone all day and
the breeze increased gradually throughout the day, dropping right off in
time for the fly off. As a Lost Hills regular, the weather was
different than I had experienced before. One theory was that the
additional moisture in the air caused by the sun and breeze over the
damp ground as making thermal detection different.

See results under Results section

F1A

This was Victor Stamov’s weekend. He won the F1H contest on Friday and
finished up 99 seconds of Javier Abad in the 7minute fly off round.
Third pace winner Anca Somers bettered her husbands F1B placing by one.
Top North American was Matt Gewain in 4th place. Great to see the family
teams with the Barrons, Parkers, Coussenses and Davises. Jon, I don’t
like to say this but you would have done better with your Groovy Tuna.
55 of the 58 entrants recorded times.

F1B

It was Andriukov again, but this time Vladi took the top spot. With
usual modesty George Batiuk claims responsibility for Vladi’s
performance saying that it was the year that Vladi spent in San Luis
Obispo under his tutelage that made all the difference. Joking aside,
Vladi might not have yet come up the technical innovations like Alex has,
but he does know how to pick air and handle the pressure of a fly off by
him self. Second place getter was Al Brush, clearly showing the good
effect from all those Elsinore practice sessions. See, Al you do better
when you the benefit of Tina’s cooking and don’t have to eat those
Turkey Burgers like you did at the Isaacson. In third place was
Meusberger from Austria who handled the tricky conditions very well. In
the 7 minute round 4th placeman, Jan Somers has a mechanical mishap that
produced a crash worthy of an F1C. With 21 of the 56, who recorded
times in the flyoff, the line was very long and there was a certain
amount of good fortune to be at the right place in the line during the
flyoff window. Another one for the old guys, as both Gene Jensen and
Herb Sessums beat their sons and in Herb’s case a grandson too. What’s
that saying about age and treachery beat youth and vigor?

F1C

Ed Keck was the clear winner recording almost two minutes more than
second placeman Roger Simpson in the nine minute round. The sun was
disappearing over the hill when these guys launched but the only model
to go out of sight in the gloom was Ed’s. The breezy conditions later
in the day made thermal picking tough as only 13 of the field of 31 made
the flyoff.

Other Stuff

Top junior award [high time over all events] went to Ivan Kolic [F1B]
from Yugoslavia who made the fly off, followed by Steven Coussens and
Dallas Parker, both F1A. Thanks to Bob and Jean White who did all the
preparatory organization; to George Batiuk, the CD; Janna Van Nest - the
food; Lindy Murrell – computer scoring; Connie Piserchio, Al and Judy
Hotard, Sue Tymchek who collected scores and last but not least the
front end loader driver from Holloway Gypsum who pulled some people out
of deep mud.

Cutest Story

Andrew Barron attended the contest with his two oldest boys. He
recounted how his number 3 son, aged 4 was very disappointed not to
come. Andrew discover that those big expanded foam gliders you find in
toy stores can be fitted with a tow hook and a 4 year old can tow them
up with 20 feet of line. So this young man did not see why he could not
take his “Nordic” to California with his older brothers.

Electronic Timer Seminar.

The seminar went off very well. Matt Gewain and I thank those who spoke
and attended and George Batiuk for setting it with the Lost Hill School.
It was a very profitable exchange of information. We will look at the
best way to share the information. The CST web site www.cstsales.com
already has photos of some of the F1A electronic setups.

America’s Cup Banquet

We had record attendance with 170 people and had to turn people away.
The country club can seat a total of almost 500 spread over 3 rooms. So
next year we will need to expand into another room, and get some more
serving tables and a longer bar. Great music again by Dave Roundsaville.
Everyone liked the Ukrainian Blues as originally sung by Andy Crisp and
Dave at the Sazena banquet. Great job in organizing the evening by
America’s Cup administrators, Tom Coussens and Jim Parker.

Best thing of the weekend

The large number of young people [i.e. under 18] there and taking part.

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Correspondence

from Ken Bauer

Hi Roger,

Hope you guys made it back safely after the Maxmen. Thanks again for
organizing the timer seminar.

I have 2 notes which you might want to post in your electronic news:

1. I have discovered a great lightweight easy to use paint for coloring
polyspan and mylar. Many people were asking me about it over the weekend so
here it is - "Design Master" floral spray, available at Michael's arts &
crafts stores. This is an acetone based spray can made for tinting flowers.
Comes in all colors. I've used "Carnation Red" and it is very bright. Best
of all it gives an even translucent color that is very light. Spraying half
of the bottom of an F1A wing adds about .5 grams. I also sprayed a large
stripe on my mylar stab and couldn't measure even a .1 gram change. So far
it sticks to the mylar great too. I can't even scratch it off a test strip.

2. I found a way to increase the power output of my radio transmitters by
changing the antenna length. This tip might be useful for other radio
systems as well. My original transmitters used two 13" wires with one for
the ground. However, most people did away with the ground wire and used a
single 13" wire, which was .25 wavelengths at 224 MHz. Many other radio
systems use a quarter wavelength for the antenna as well as this is standard
radio practice. I made some measurements with an antenna range and some
test equipment and found that when using a single wire with no significant
ground as is the case with most of our models, that making it slightly
longer at .30 wavelengths gives a big boost in transmitted power. This
length works out to 16" at 224 MHz. At 150 MHz this is 23.6" and I measured
the same effect here as well as at 100 MHz. So I'm now recommending a
single vertical 16" antenna made of fine music wire. A good source for this
wire is a music store which sells guitar strings. A .010 steel string will
usually cost less than a dollar.

The power boost was about 6dB, which should about double ground range.

Here's the formula for wavelength of your system:

wavelength=300/frequency, where wavelength is meters and
frequency is MHz. You can convert to inches if you want.

Hope this stuff helps a few people, Ken

Ken Bauer
Airtek Engineering
RF Circuit & System Design
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

______________________________________________________
Roger Morrell