Radio Habana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition for 9-10 April 2005
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world and orbiting the Earth too ! It
s nice to have you listening to the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited. I am
Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK your host here at this twice weekly radio
hobby program...First a solar activity update:Solar activity is oscillating
from low to very low... sunspot number by optical observations is around 55,
and the solar flux hovering in the 80's, and the geomagnetic disturbance
indicator is at a very low figure, around 4 units... and here now is item
one: SPORADIC E layer propagation expected to peak during solar minimum
years according to scientists... and they seem to be right on target, as the
early start of the spring-summer E skip season is showing us... More about
the still very much unknown about mysterious sporadic E layer formation
later in today's show... Item two: a lot of fun, cranking my own power for
the 200 milliWatt output transmitter, and direct conversion receiver...
After a few minutes of hand cranking, the set of nickel metal hydride
batteries showed a healthy 10 volts, and provided enough power for
monitoring the 40 meters band during about half an hour, and then for a nice
first hand crank power two way contact with another Cuban radio amateur... I
received a signal report of 559, that made me very happy, as this was a
first at CO2KK... human powered station !!! Modern high efficiency hand
crank generators benefit from very efficient permanent magnets, a technology
that is still evolving after many years. My first contact with hand crank
generators was about half a century ago, when an airline pilot friend of my
parents, gave me a retired from service emergency radio station used in the
inflatable rafts that Douglas DC-4 airliners carried during their
transatlantic flights between Havana and Madrid !!! Item three: The Plaza
Radio Club is one of Cuba's largest , with a membership of more than 300
between radio amateurs and short wave listeners... I am now a very happy
club member after the recent radio amateur exams, that has given twenty six
of our members the third class license, a new beginners option that provides
for the first time in Cuba's more than 75 years of amateur radio activities,
a no CW Morse Code Test entry level license category... After a two year
period , third class licensees may take the second class test, and here
again the new rules and regulations have changed, because the CW Morse Code
test is only a five words per minute, and forms part of the whole exam
package, and is not excluding... Previous to the rule changes, if someone
did not pass the CW Morse Code test, the person will not be able to obtain a
license to operate a station... Now, if you accumulate enough points in the
other aspects of the test and reach the passing mark, you will be granted
the operator's permit, that's the first step towards applying for an amateur
radio station license... Item four:YES, we tested 11760 kiloHertz with one
of the new antennas at the Bauta site, and it seems to be working very well
indeed... now the tower crews are giving the finishing touches of the first
of the new antennas, an omnidirectional 9 to 12 megaHertz quadrant, that so
far has shown excellent characteristics during the tests... Be on the
lookout for our upcoming antenna tests, between 15 and 20 hours UTC, and
remember that reports of our tests broadcasts on 11760, 11800, 12000, 9550,
9505 , 6000, 6060 6140 and 6180 kiloHertz will be most appreciated and a
special QSL card will be sent to those reporting the tests...
Now standby for more radio hobby related information, coming to you from
Havana,
I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, back with you in a few seconds amigos
!!!
.....
This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited and here
is item one in detail... absolutely fascinating, a challenge, a thrill,
unpredictable, goes from zero to 60 dB over S9 in seconds... all these
descriptions fully apply to Sporadic E layer propagation, and I may add a
few more, like there is not yet a single, solid, scientifically based
explanation for it... In other words, no one seems to know what causes
Sporadic E layer highly ionized clouds, that have sent back to Earth radio
signals on frequencies as high as TV channel 13 in the Americas, stations
that operate between 210 and 216 megaHertz, and also ham radio signals on
the 220 megaHertz band...Many TV viewers , with their TV sets connected to
antennas and not to cable systems, have seen Sporadic E signals at one time
or the other... Even with the rabbit ears dipole antenna connected indoors,
sometimes E skip signals on TV channels 2, 3 and 4 are so strong, that you
may see and hear a program that is broadcast from fifteen hundred miles away
for a couple of minutes or even for several hours... The mysterious E skip
signals appear and disappear suddenly, you see signals from stations in a
city, and ten minutes later you are watching a station from a city located
300 miles away from the first one... Radio amateurs have used Sporadic E
layer skip for many years, mainly on the 10 meters and the 6 meters band,
but signals from frequencies as low as 14 megaHertz, the 20 meters band, and
as high as 220 megaHertz , the one and a quarter meters band will also
propagate from the heavily ionized E layer located at altitudes between
about 90 and 150 kilometers above the Earth, but more often found in a
narrow slot between 100 and 120 kilometers above the surface of our planet.
Why am I talking here today about Sporadic E ? Well to answer your question,
the fact is that during solar minimum years sporadic E events seem to be
more frequent and last longer... and documented studies show that the first
signs of this increase in E skip probabilities show up as an early start of
the spring-summer season... Typically the sporadic E season of the Northern
Hemisphere starts sometime in very late April or early May, but when we see
openings happening in late March and early April, as we had during 1963,
1964 and 1965 solar minimum years, its time to have those TV Dxing antennas
up and ready, and for radio amateurs, especially for 6 meters band operators
 it's time to start monitoring the calling frequencies, 50.110 for very long
range, and 50.125 for shorter range contacts...With even a simple half wave
dipole wire antenna, and about 10 Watts or SSB or CW, you can work lots of
stations when the magic band, 50 megaHertz open up via sporadic E !!! So
amigos, if you enjoy TV Dxing, FM broadcast band Dxing, 10 meters and 6
meters band amateur radio activities... Get ready for what well may be a
record breaking Sporadic E season, with great chances of unique double and
triple hop openings that may bring Dx stations from very far away distances
!!!
.....
Si amigos, the radio hobby is wonderful, and one of its most interesting
aspects is that there are many ways to enjoy it... For example, you may be
traveling by car, and at the same time talking to your friends by means of a
local or semi-local 2 meters or 70 centimeters band FM repeaters, you may go
to the beach and take along your portable radio, to experiment the effect of
the sea enhancing AM medium wave broadcast band signals during the local
daylight yours... or you may get home after a busy workday, and start
soldering electronic components into a circuit board that after a few hours
time will allow you to listen to shortwave signals... !!! Now,as part of
today's item three here is more news about recent ham radio developments
here in Cuba... The Cuban Federation of Radio Amateurs, the umbrella
organization of all radio clubs in Cuba, has recently passed the four
thousand members mark... at a meeting Saturday April ninth at the Federation
headquarters , I learned that there are no 4429 members and that 949 of them
live in Havana, the capital city of Cuba, a city with an estimated two
million two hundred thousand population. Amateur radio is becoming more and
more popular in Cuba, and during the recent exams to try to obtain the
amateur radio operators certificate, eight hundred and five applicants
passed the very comprehensive tests succesfully... So in the not too distant
future we will be seeing an upsurge in 160 meters band activities, as third
class licenses, authorized to newcomers to the hobby provide them with
permission to operate on a segment of 160 meters well above the DX window,
and also on 2 meters FM with limited power and in a segment of the band that
goes from 144.5 to 145.6 megaHertz...
Now, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast... Solar flux hovering around 80 units, with the A index, the planetary geomagnetic disturbance indicator at a nice and low 4 units , the effective sunspot number, that is the number that you must use for running your propagation forecasting software , is around 30 , well in agreement with the forecasts made by solar scientists for this stage of the solar cycle... Expect possible 6 meters band and low band TV Dx during the rest of the weekend and next week... but, don't expect higher than 25 megaHertz maximum useable frequencies even on the most favorable paths... Hope to see you all at the mid week edition of the program and please, take a little time and drop me an e-mail with your comments about today's Dxers Unlimited, your opinions are most appreciated and they do help me make a better program for you and other listeners around the world, send mail to arnie@rhc.cu, of VIA AIR MAIL, drop me a postcard to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
  ----------

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.9.5 - Release Date: 4/7/2005


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/odxa/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    odxa-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/