Radio Havana Cuba Dxers Unlimited for 4-5 September 2007 By Arnie Coro CO2KK
Hi amigos !, welcome to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited reaching you from Havana at a time solar activity is very , very low, and geomagnetic activity is also at extremely quiet levels, certainly what scientists have expected for this downward phase of the solar cycle. The very low solar activity now lasting for several weeks has led to what could best be described as about the worst HF propagation conditions seen during the present solar cycle, but things may take a turn for the better as we approach the autumn equinox. I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, your friend here in Havana, join me for the next eighteen minutes of on the air and on the world wide web time provided by RHC for this radio hobby show. Item one: This is going to be a Dxers Unlimited special edition devoted to on the air reading of some of the latest mail received here at Radio Havana Cuba’s correspondence department... I want to thank you all for the nice and encouraging letters that constantly reach us here at the station . Item two: : FM broadcast band Dxing special edition coming up soon, at the request of many listeners that have found this aspect of the hobby a really Interesting and challenging one indeed.... Item three: Selecting the right microphone for your amateur radio transceiver can improve your station’s perfomance dramatically... but here is my question... why try to find a special kind of microphone , when you can design and build a taylor made audio pre amplifier for your rig, including a set of tone controls to play with and optimize the frequency response for your voice!!! Stay tuned right on this same short wave frequency, .I’ll be back in a few seconds with this special QSL on the air edition of Dxers Unlimited, your favorite radio hobby program on short wave. .......... This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited , this is our mid week edition ... Here is now QSL on the air, again here today at the request of many listeners who wrote after listening to our weekend edition OK, listen to this flattering e-mail from Don Kupfersmith, it is titled Very Educational and I read... quote Hi, I have been employed in electronics and industrial radio most of my 62 years. I also enjoy listening to your broadcasts , I only wish I had found your program on the short wave sooner. I tell my associates who are interested, and wish to enhance their knowledge in this field, Thank you for the great information, signed Don K.... Thanks Don, and do keep listening and promoting the radio hobby among your friends amigo, letters and e-mails like this one are certainly encouraging ! QSL on the air to Michael Bolton N5RLR, a nice ham radio call indeed, easy to remember , here is what N5RLR says in his e-mail ..by the way this one was apparently lost in cyberspace and took a looong time to arrive here in Havana, Hola Senor Coro , CO2KK, How are you ? I thought I take time and write you complimenting you on the fine programming at Radio Havana Cuba. Being a radio amateur myself, I especially enjoy your Dxers Unlimited feature. I liked the recent installment about open-wire transmission line, and how a resourceful radio operator can construct if from recycled materials. However Arnie, you didnt mention anything about the gauge and spacing of the wire used. I’m sure that broadcast-production constraints, such as the 16 minute program length ,may prevent you from getting too detailed, and I am sure that you know we “hams” like to hear about detail... Now here is my answer to Michael N5RLR regarding the open wire transmission line feature that I ran not too long ago here at Dxers Unlimited... YES amigo Michael, I should had given at least some kind of ballpark figures... So , thanks to you , I am going to talk again about the open wire transmission line made from recycled telephone company downlead, and plastic insulatoring spreaders made with PVC pipe cut to length... For HF bands operation, from 160 meters all the way up to ten meters, my favorite open wire transmission line uses 4 inch separation between the wires, that is 100 millimeters for those of you that are already metric...I have found that the 4 inch or 100 millimeter separation makes for an easy to build and later install and work with pararell transmission line... Of course you can use separations as wide as say, 10 inches or 25 centimeters, or as small as 50 millimeters or two inches with almost exaclty the same results, but, the 4 inch or 100 millimeter separation is , in my humble opinion the best compromise... Cut your spreaders from PVC plumbers type pipe, the one that is white in color, and avoid the gray or black PVC, as it may have some kind of conducting material added during manufacturing, something that is certainly not good for use as an HF bands insulator... So amigo N5RLR, if you want to install a nice open wire transmission line feeding an antenna for the HF bands, use wire gauges from no 20 to no 12 , and line seperation of 4 inches or 100 millimeters, the line’s impedance will change with different wire diameters, but you really not need to be concerned about this at all.... This is Dxers Unlimited’s mid week edition... today devoted to listeners correspondence ... N5RLR has more questions in his letter, which I will answer soon here too... now let’s take a look at another e-mail that came from Columbus in Indiana, USA, this one is from a newcomer to the radio listening hobby, Clyde Parrot, who happens to be the prowd owner of a Sangean ATS909 receiver. While scanning the 31 meter band, he tells me the following... and I quote from Clyde’s e-mail... “Just after midnight this morning, I was listening to my new Sangean ATS909, just scanning the 31 meter band, when I happened upon a strong signal at 6180 kiloHertz. The time was 0540 UTC , . The program was your Dxers Unlimited, Clyde continues to write, you were talking about solar flares and possible damage to satellite communications. Then from about 0543 to 0546 the topic was about constructing a 2 transistor ½ watt QRP transmitter that is capable of working half way around the world. I continue reading Clyde’s report “The strength of the signal was good , about half way up the scale on my ATS-909, which I am using with only the built in whip ( I think that that’s called barefoot... BUT no Clyde, you are wrong, barefoot is one you run an amateur radio transmitter or transceiver without an amplifier... that is barefoot !!!As you may see ham radio jargon is one of a kind .... Clyde then tells me in another paragraph of his e-mail that , and I quote “I am very new at this, and am wondering if the above information is typical on what one would expect to include in a reception report for requesting a QSL ?. And Clyde then says, thank you for your help...I very much enjoyed the program and will be listening in the future... You perform a great service... end of quote... Amigo Clyde... you did great with your signal report, see, you gave the name of the station, the frequency it was operating , an evaluation of the quality of the received signal, and a well written short description of the program content... And of course you gave an exact time check...If you follow this same pattern, you can be sure that every short wave station that stills takes care of its listeners and sends out QSL letters or cards, will be most thankful for your report and will send a nice QSL card for your collection !!! QSL on the air, yes amigos , QSL on the air here at Dxers Unlimited... QSL on the air once again to amigo JT Spence in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan , Canada... I must, and I mean this, I must share with you all the enthusiasm of JT , when he came across what was obviously a tropospheric duct enhancing long distance, DX reception of FM broadcast band stations... Here is how JT described his first FM band opening... Dear Arnie, I just wanted to tell you about the MOST phenomenal thing I have EVER had happen to me with my short wave receiver in ALL the time that I have been listening and receiving broadcasts from near and afar ... Anyway the phenomenal event which ocurred was that far away the FM stations reached the S meter maximum signal strength indication... Well amigo JT in Saskatoon, get ready for more tropo ducting... a weather related phenomena that makes the FM broadcast band signals propagate much farther than normally, as the lower atmosphere’s radio refraction index increases, making the VHF radio waves bend enough to propagate beyond the normal radio horizon.... By the way, weather related propagation phenomena have absolutely nothing to do with sunspots and solar activity !!! ................ Yes amigos, we do QSl here , since the very first day that we went on the air with a Gates 1 kiloWatt and a half wave dipole antenna on the 49 meter band, during the month of february of 1961... QSL requests should be sent via AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Dxers Unlimited, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana , Cuba, or simply to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba, and via Internet e-mail, you can send your signal reports and comments about the show, together with the QSL request to [EMAIL PROTECTED], again [EMAIL PROTECTED], hope you have enjoyed today’s special edition of Dxers Unlimited, which was totally devoted to your letters and e-mail messages to me... And now amigos, as always, at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro’s exclusive HF propagation update and forecast... Solar activity is now at extremely low levels, with the solar flux reaching almost the 65 minimum units ever recorded during a solar cycle minimum... So amigos, propagation conditions are going to be really poor or simply non existent at frequencies above 20 megaHertz for many more days..Best DX band for radio amateurs is going to be 20 meters up... but don’t expect fantastic openings of any kind…, 6 meter to the South may happen during your local afternoon and early evening hours as we enter into the Trans Equatorial Propagation season... For short wave listeners, best daytime bands for near FM quality listening will be 19 and 16 meters, with later in the day 25 meters running a close third place... And a reminder amigos, don’forget to send in your signal report and comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Keep those receivers tuning from the highest possible frequency they tune to DOWN, and when you detect the first DX signals, mark that frequency, as there are good chances that this would be very near the F2 layer maximum useable frequency for a given path... See you all at the weekend edition of the program next Saturday and Sunday UTC days amigos !!! ---[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
