Radio Havana Cuba Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's midweek edition for 19-20 June 2007 by Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK LATE BREAKING PROPAGATION NEWS Solar flux at very low levels = 67 units There seems to be an inverse correlation between very low solar flux and Sporadic E layer events... Sporadic E openings reported by 6 meters radio amateur operators from the Caribbean to the Canary Islands and Western Africa Also many reports of Sporadic E events from North America to Europe and to Hawaii !!! Now here is the script of the the mid week edition of the show Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world and in space... your radio receiver is tuned to one of Radio Havana Cuba's short wave frequencies, or maybe you are connected to our Internet streaming audio...that is available from 05 to07 UTC from our URL at rhc.cu... look for the loudspeaker icon sign at the top of the home page !!! Whichever way you are listening is certainly nice to have you here with me, ready to share about seventeen minutes of all radio hobby related information. I am Arnie Coro broadcasting from beautiful Havana, where the weather when I was writing the script of the show around 10. AM local time , that is 14. UTC, was very enjoyable with a wonderfully blue sky , a typical summer day here in, but the weather service forecast says that we may be having afternoon thunderstorms... And, amigos our T storms are pretty special, with tremendous lightning strikes that do a lot of damage to radio equipment that is not properly protected , and talking about T-storms today I am bringing again at the request of many listeners a special feature from New Zealand radio amateur ZL3NE, Zulu Lima Three November Echo, in which he sustains something that I found out and published exactly 41 years ago in 1966 . In other words, the New Zealand radio propagation expert is convinced, as I am too, that T-Storms have are somehow linked to a certain type of Sporadic E layer propagation openings !!! More about propagation briefly: solar activity at extremely low levels... with the 10.7 centimeters microwave radiation from the Sun around 67 units, a figure considered by scientists to be the baseline activity of the Sun, and of course, quite normal during the solar minimum years. Standby now briefly for a short break and station ID... Dxers Unlimited's midweek edition will continue in a few seconds. ...... Amigos you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and here is our special report for today... New Zealand Propagation expert's information, coming from a link on the DF5AI VHF propagation research website. Have paper and a pen ready or your tape recorder at hand, so that you may be able to copy the URL of DF5AI 's excellent website. Now here is ZL3NE's report: He starts his comprehensive analysis by explaining one particular VHF propagation event that happened on the 22nd of May of 1999. Looking at the North American weather map which showed where thunder / lightning storms of high intensity were located, and above the location of the Millstone Digisonde station there was a sign of good activity. This looked interesting, so I looked at the dxworld.com 6 meter page and here we had contacts taking place from Canada to the United States directly over the Lightning storm as shown in the map. Armed with this information he connected to the Millstone web page and looked up the time list, down loaded their charts and there it was showing up very nicely. Their chart showed that the E layer had reached 12.5MHz. Taking the usual multiplication factor of 5 we now had propagation recorded for 6 meters. A confirmed mode of propagation induced by lightning, (otherwise known as sporadic E), as we had the weather map showing the lightning storm, the contacts and the ionsonde charts showing ionization to 12.5 MHz all at the same time. When the storm died out, the ionsonde data returned to normal and propagation ceased. Here is now another very interesting report, that has a tremendous scientific value, because the phenomenon repeats itself with amazing identical effects on the Southern Hemisphere, the event happened on December the 21st 1995 at 6pm. ZL3 NE describes that on that day from 5pm to 6pm he had a poor opening on 6 meters to Sydney. At two minutes past 6 pm the band suddenly opened with Sydney stations S9+, then I found I had VK6 stations S7. (Western Australia 5000 km ). After exchanging reports with these I switched to two meters and yes the Sydney stations were S9 on two meters. Just before 7pm I listened to the TV weather for my lightning update, and what did they say? A very aggressive thunder storm started at two minutes past six, and that it was located in the center of the path between Auckland and Sydney. That was exactly the same time as both bands opened here! Local stations further north or south of Auckland did not get the propagation like we had, as their path was out of the area ionized by the thunder storm. The next day the news papers commented that the storm died out around 8pm and that was the time when two meters closed to Sydney. For this type of information it is a do it yourself job and these are things you have to organize yourself as they are not available of the shelf. The New Zealand propagation expert then describes yet another very interesting VHF propagation event when that he heard VK9NS in Norfolk Island some 1200 km north of his location calling ZL4BTN. He had perfect copy of VK9NS by back scatter with a lightning storm centered between him and the ZL4.He called Vk9NS and exchanged reports,but at that moment he could not hear him on the direct path. This is a perfect example of back scatter with signals being reflected off the ionization brought about by the lightning flashes. And ZL3NE underscores that we get a lot of propagation like this as cold fronts sweep up the South Island from the South and these usually have lightning storms in the leading edge of the cold front. Half way between Christchurch and Auckland is an area which grow a lot of apples so when they get hail from thunder storms the media reports as to how many thousands of cases of apples etc were destroyed, and yes every time he gets these reports he finds his log full of 6 meter band contacts with Amateurs in Christchurch, New Zealand, once again, confirming that lightning generated during the thunderstorm produced the abnormal Sporadic E skip propagation. Now, be ready to copy as ZL3NE is producing a daily VHF propagation forecast for North America on a daily basis, and this is what he published at his website on Saturday June 24th. 2005.. VHF Propagation Forecast for North America, based on the Weather conditions prevailing on Saturday the 24th of June at midday in W0. Situation. A long warm front extends from W1 to W5. Lightning from T storms present in the following US call areas 4,5,7 and 9. Typical paths. W4 to 5. W4, 5 to 7 and 9. W6 and 7 to W890. Prop from VE567 south . Again a quiet day for tropo but watch for Es from over the lightning storms in W4579.as this is the best time of year for this. Well amigos, I am now sure that many of you will start looking with great attention to the most comprehensive weather maps available !!! That's what I have done here since 1963, when I started to notice a very clear link between the San Jose ionospheric vertical incidence sounder recordings and amateur radio reports of 6 meters band propagation , and also of reports sent to several club magazines by TV and FM band Dxers... ..... Si amigos we do QSL, we continue to QSL now with our beautiful 45th Anniversary of Radio Havana Cuba QSL card, on Monday I autographed a big stack of them so that Irma can send them to RHC listeners around the world that send us signal reports and comments about our programs. Send your reports via e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] again ,[EMAIL PROTECTED], or VIA AIR MAIL, send a postcard that is of course less expensive, to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba... Now here is our next item , our popular technical topics section, that will feature today information on how to prepare a special extension cord for your radios that will protect them and also help to reduce the noise coming from the power line. Here is HOW TO do it.. Obtain a length of around 3 meters but no more than 5 meters of good quality number 14 three conductors flexible power wire, a 100 by 100 millimeters or 4 by 4 inches plastic junction box and a three prong male power line plug . Fit the three wires to the male power plug carefully, watching that you follow the color code for the ground wire approved by your electricity board, and proceed then to put on the box two dual power line female receptacles, that will give you 4 connecting options. Connect the other end of the power cord to the two dual female receptacles , and then place in parallel with each of them a SURGE SUPPRESSOR rated for 130 volts AC. The SURGE SUPPRESORS are sold under different names.. like TRANSZORB , SURGEKILLER etc...and they are rated for specific applications. That will complete phase one of your equipment surge protected homebrew extension cord, so now we can proceed to add the four 1 kilo volt .01 micro farads disk ceramic capacitors that are connect from each side of the power line to ground. After the ceramic disc low inductance capacitors are added , your extension cord plus junction box will also help to bypass radio frequency noise to ground before it reaches your radio's power supply. You may want to add a toroidal core of large enough diameter and wind the two live wires trough it for at least 10 turns, but if you can't find the toroidal core, I have achieved good results using a ferrite rod and winding ten to fifteen turns of the two plastic insulated wires that are live. The other option available, that will cost you practically nothing and could be a last step in assembling your homebrew extension cord, is to search for a discarded TV or computer CRT monitor, disassemble the horizontal output transformer square ferrite core, and use it to wind about 10 turns of the three wire cable as near as possible to the junction box. Of course that you can use a bigger box and instead of 4 female sockets, you can have 6, 8, 10 or even 12 sockets to connect your equipment . Tests done at my home QTH and at several more locations show that using this homebrew extension cord fitted with transient suppressors, and radio frequency blocking devices helps to reduce the noise picked up by the typical low or medium prized radio receivers. As you may had realized , homebrewing this power cord doesn't require the use of special tools... as a matter of fact a screwdriver set and diagonal cutting pliers are all the tools needed to assemble this very useful addition to your listening post of ham shack... ..... And now amigos, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF propagation update and forecast... Solar activity is at extremely low levels, sunspot count during the past several days was ZERO, repeat ZERO, and the equivalent daily solar flux is at rock bottom levels, not even reaching 70 units and not expected to move up soon, but because solar scientists are detecting signs of increased activity at the Sun's limb, an indication of an active sunspot group about to rotate into view this quiet Sun condition may change later during the week..... Don't forget to send your signal reports, radio hobby related questions and the all important for me comments about this program amigos. Your comments do help a lot to select the topics to be dealt with here, and also which radio hobby questions are most important for the audience of Dxers Unlimited...send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba. See you all at the weekend edition of the show, on the air Saturdays and Sundays UTC... ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Preorder your WRTH 2007: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2007 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
