Radio Havana Cuba Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition for January 6-7 -2006 By Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK Hi amigos radioaficionados... 2007 well underway and solar activity remains at low levels, but nevertheless the 10.7 centimeters solar flux, the internationally accepted yardstick to measure day to day solar activity has gone up to a bit past the 90 units mark... And yes, you will notice the difference between what happens on the short wave bands after many days of solar flux levels between 70 and 80 units, and what happens when activity increases and the microwave radiometers measure figures above 90 units. In other words we will enjoy slightly better HF propagation during the weekend... Item two: YES, Radio Havana Cuba provides listeners that ask for them with nice QSL cards, verifying reception reports, and for those of you that send your requests to my own [EMAIL PROTECTED] e-mail account, I autograph the QSL cards that will form part of your collection of station verifications. But sorrily many short wave broadcast stations have stopped from sending QSL cards, usually saying that cost reduction measures require that their staff dedicated to opening up the mail, reading it and then answering the listeners requests be cut off from the payroll... AND WHAT A BIG MISTAKE ... Yes amigos, what a big mistake it is for an international broadcaster to cut the vital feedback from listeners... Of course that stopping the QSL service means more than saving part of the station's budget in the form of salaries paid and the cost of printing QSL cards and letters with a nice letterhead... In actual practice it means that the station looses its one and only link with its listeners, so operating the station's program department without this vital broadcaster to listener relation operational is the equivalent of driving a car looking backwards, or flying an airplane without windows or navigational instruments... As any mass communications researcher knows, the mass media can not operate in an "open loop" environment, because the content that you are offering to your public must be the one that the people accept and like... and with today's enormous number of mass media options available, the need for a personalized attention to listeners is , in my opinion, an essential part of running an international broadcast station... More about QSL's and QSLing latter in this weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited , the second one of the year 2007, that according to solar scientists its going to be " The Year of the Quiet Sun" when the present solar cycle will go trough its minimum... Stay tuned for more radio hobby related information coming to you from Havana... I am Arnie Coro, back in a few seconds. ...... Si amigos, this is Radio Havana Cuba's English language program for North America and the Caribbean,but that may also be heard around the world by connecting to our website www.radiohc.cu, from 05 to 07 hours UTC,and of course , also when HF propagation conditions make it possible , our programs can be heard well outside our main target areas... For example, I receive many reception reports from listeners in Europe that stay awake until very late in the evening for some reasons and are able to pick out 6060 kiloHertz frequency from 05 to 07 hours UTC. This is the Eastern North America beam antenna, but it does produce some radiation towards azimuth angles between 35 and 50 degrees North of Havana, making it possible, when propagation is good, and the local European short wave stations are not on the air, that listeners may pick up Radio Havana Cuba in Europe too... And in a similar way, listeners in as far away places as Australia and New Zealand are able to pick up our programs too, again, when HF propagation is good. Now here is item three of today's program: It's the popular antenna topics section of Dxers Unlimited, combined today with LA NUMERO UNO, the number one most popular section of the show... ASK ARNIE... The question sent by Canadian listener Albert, or Al as he likes to be called, is related to the installation of indoor antennas... Al wants to know what type of short wave antenna will be the best one to install at his 11th floor apartment that has a nice balcony with a beautiful look towards a lake... Well amigo Albert, my two choices are , number one a short loaded vertical that you can put up when operating your station, and bring it down when you finish... The counterpoise or wire radials can be left in place, by carefully installing them along the lower part of the walls... In an installation I saw once when visiting Canada many years ago, the ground system for the antenna was placed inside plastic square conduit, of the type used for installing computer networks in older buildings, and it both looked fine and worked very well. The vertical antenna can protrude from the balcony at an angle of between 20 and 45 degrees and work perfectly well. Of course that it will be more efficient on the higher short wave amateur bands, especially on 10, 12 and 15 meters, but with a well built loading coil and if possible adding some top capacitance loading, this antenna will provide nice contacts on 20 meters also, especially if you use the PSK31 computer keyboard to keyboard communications mode that is extremely efficient due to very small bandwidth that it requires. The inclined vertical can be installed in a couple of minutes and taken down fast too, so it is an ideal "stealth antenna" for the HF bands and if it protrudes from the building walls not too much... It main remain unnoticed if you put it up only during the evening hours, but then, this short antenna will not work very well on the lower frequency bands likely to be open at night ... Anyway, many radio amateurs around the world, and short wave listeners too, have benefitted from this type of antenna, that in the most flexible designs use a loading coil that can be changed easily, or in some cases a sophisticated mechanically complex coil system that can be tuned by remote control is used, in a very similar way as the systems used for mobile operation. As a matter of fact amigo Al, so called "screwdriver " antennas that have a tap in the coil that is moved by means of an electric motor are ideal for this application, because you can tune them from the operating position, and use them not only for amateur radio but also for peaking on the international short wave broadcast bands within the antenna's tuning range, typically from 7 to 30 megaHertz... But don't forget that those vertical or quasi vertical, inclined antennas installed at balcony or terrace locations do need a counterpoise ground system to work properly. Not using a counterpoise is simply out of the question, as the antenna will never match to your coaxial cable if you don't install the best possible ground... The efficiency of such an antenna system is tied to the efficiency of the counterpoise ... in other words, without a well installed ground the antenna's performance will be from poor to very poor... In one location where I helped the radio amateur to build and install his balcony antenna system, we were able to achieve reasonable performance on even the 40 meters band, although the actual length of radiator element was only 3 meters or about 10 feet... On the 30 and 20 meters band results were very good, with 20 meters performance comparable to a full size quarter wave vertical antenna... And, as expected on the higher bands from eighteen megazHertz up, the balcony antenna worked very well on both DX and groundwave signals as the vertical take off angle was very low indeed. Never be discouraged when your opportunities to install an external short wave antennas seem to be very low... There is always a solution to put you on the air and at the same time provide a much better listening of short wave broadcasts... Are you in a similar situation as my Canadian listener and my Cuban friend ? If so, send me an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] again [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you can even send photos of your location, so that I can provide from here the advise and we can work together in order for you to have a nice HF antenna system at your home !!! .... QSL, QSL, QSL... those three letters are part of the Q code used by old timers that communicated only using Morse Code radiotelegraphy... originally it simply meant, do you acknowledge reception of my signals, a traffic that was sent with the three letters QSL followed by a question mark sign. If the other station was copying OK, it came came back with the same three letters, QSL, but without the question mark and that completed an exchange between the two stations... But QSL also became, by extension, the name of the postcards sent by radio amateurs to others with whom they communicated confirming the two way contacts, and also it became the abbreviation used by international broadcast stations to tell listeners that the signal reports sent agreed with their program content, frequency of operation and time... An international short wave station must not send a QSL card, or letter, veryfying reception without been sure that the report received from the listener is correct... But let me say now, that regretfully many world international broadcast stations are no longer veryfying reception reports, that is they are not QSLing; something that I personally consider as a very serious mistake, and also an indication that those managing the stations are not very capable persons as mass media managers... because listeners feedback is essential to the proper operation of an international broadcaster... Local AM and FM stations are another completely different story as related to QSLs and QSLing, because station managers do have a constant flow of listeners feedback that even includes independent sophisticated audience research procedures... So for local stations, receiving a request from a distant , casual, listener asking for a QSL is of little meaning ... and that's why many local AM and FM stations, as well as Tropical Band stations that aim at a regional audience have a very little incentive to QSL, especially if one takes into consideration the cost of AIR MAIL postage in many nations around the world !!! And now amigos, as always at the end of the show here is your friend Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited HF and low band VHF propagation update and forecast... Solar flux near 90 units , and is expected to remain around that level for the next two days. The effective sunspot number is around 35, and Saturday morning local time in Havana the A index was at a nice and low zero seven units. So, expect a little better HF propagation today , tomorrow and day after tomorrow, that will include short openings of the 15 meters amateur band for really nice long distance DX. No VHF openings via sporadic E are expected in the northern hemisphere. AND, don't forget to take a little time to send your signal reports and comments about the program to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Preorder your WRTH 2007: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2007 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com 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