MOUSER ELECTRONICS

Mouser Electronics, a name well known in the ham radio do it
yourself movement, has  announced the signing of a new
international distribution agreement with Coilcraft, a
leading magnetic component manufacturer, across the regions
of Europe, Asia, Mexico and South America.  Through this
partnership, announced at Embedded World in Germany, Mouser
is now stocking a wide range of Coilcraft's magnetic and
inductive products for immediate shipment.

Coilcraft provides magnetic components including high-
performance RF chip inductors, power magnetics and filters
in a variety of packages and a wide range of values.
Designer's kits are offered to help engineers learn the
capabilities of these high-performance inductors.

According to Mouser President and CEO Glenn Smith, this
agreement with Coilcraft helps further his company's
commitment to providing the newest products and technologies
for design engineers from industry-leading suppliers.  Smith
adds that Mouser and Coilcraft are looking forward to a long-
standing and successful partnership together.

World Amateur Radio Day

World Amateur Radio Day is April 18th and according to the
International Amateur Radio Union that sponsors the event
the theme this year is Amateur Radio:  Entering Its Second
Century of Disaster Communications.

According to the IARU announcement, the theme for 2013 of
Amateur Radio:  Entering Its Second Century of Disaster
Communications is an excellent opportunity for amateur radio
emergency communications groups to take advantage of the
event to highlight the role amateur radio plays in disaster
response.

Among the suggestions are for IARU member societies to
arrange ham radio demonstrations in public places such as
parks or shopping areas.  The IARU says that such
demonstrations in public areas usually generate inquiries
and questions from the public about amateur radio.  It adds
that this makes it a great opportunity to attract new people
to become members of the ham radio community.

The IARU notes that in 2013, April 18th is a weekday but
that should not keep public activity from taking place
either on the weekend before or after that date.  Also, if
you plan on holding a public demonstration, the IARU says
not to forget to include some young people to show all ages
are a part of this growing world wide public service
oriented hobby.

More information on World Amateur Radio Day is on the web at
www.iaru.org. 

SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION APRIL 26 - 28

The 2013 South African Radio League's National Convention
and Annual General meeting will be held April 26th to the
28th at the Sulla Via Venue not far from Johannesburg.  This
years gathering will be hosted by the West Rand Amateur
Radio Club with Kenny Neville from West Rand Astronomy Club
as the featured guest speaker.  If conditions are clear
Neville's talk may be followed by a sky gazing party.  More
information, further program details and reservation forms
should be on-line right now at will be available on
www.sarl.org.za.  The planners hope to see many ham radio
operators there.

APRS EXPERIMENT

APRS works to extend communications range underground.
So says the modes developer Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, who
reports on an experiment that took place on March 2nd .  One
where he and several other hams tested the use of APRS as a
means to extend radio communications underground in Mammoth
Cave, Kentucky.

According to Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, typically, VHF and UHF
radio in underground caves are limited to only a few hundred
feet and strictly line-of-sight making their routine use of
little value.  But with APRS radios acting as packet
digipeaters, these few hundreds of feet can be extended by
an order of magnitude.

Bruninga says that in the test a total of 14 APRS equipped
radios were used in the cave to establish a network almost a
mile long providing real-time position and text message
communications along the route.  Cavers carried a map of the
cave marked with a Latitude and Longitude grid so they could
manually enter their position into their handheld APRS-
equipped transceivers.   Texting via APRS provided
communications end to end.

Among the interesting findings were that UHF worked about
13% better than VHF withan average link distance of about
450 feet even in the large subway sized passages of Mammoth
Cave.  Also power did not seem to matter much. The Kenwood
TH-D72 walkie-talkie performed as well as several portable
10 watt mobile radios housed in boxes.

Another advantage of using UHF for this APRS network was
that individual links in other caves can just as easily be
pre-tested by unlicensed cave explorers using inexpensive
FRS radios.  This way, all cavers can plan and individually
test the topology of an APRS network before actually
gathering the required APRS equipment and setting up the
actual expedition.