Radio Habana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's mid week for 26-27 July 2005
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK
 

Hi amigos radioaficionados ! Welcome to the mid week edition of Dxers
Unlimited, your favorite fully integrated radio hobby program, covering each
and every aspect of the wonderful world of radio... from hunting for DX
using the most sophisticated crystal sets that are able to provide reception
without using any power at all, to sending amateur radio signals on the 3
centimeters or ten gigaHertz band to the Moon and establish a two way
contact with another operator located half way around the world... In
between these two extremes there is short wave listening to international
radio broadcasts, the way many of us learned for the first time about this
nice hobby, and of course TV DX, FM broadcast band DX, homebrewing radio
receivers and transmitters or building and testing antennas... All in all, I
have a list of 78 different ways you and I enjoy radio... Now here is yet
another one... satellite TV Dxing, using very sensitive receivers and
relatively large size parabolic antennas to pick broadcast satellites that
are located very near the horizon so they are not normally received at that
particular location... By using a combination of the sensitive receivers,
the big oversize antennas and tropospheric ducting propagation, TV satellite
Dxers have picked up signals that have amazed even those who designed the
satellite's footprints.. As you may realize amigos, there are still many
challenges to deal with, and everytime a radio hobbyst faces one of them,
many interesting things happen... Take for example, when many years ago,
radio amateurs found out that so called short radio waves could be used for
long distance communications, when professional radio engineers and
scientists had proclaimed that the short radio waves should be given to
amateurs as they were useful only for short distance communications... Now
here is item one of today's Dxers Unlimited's edition... A question, sent in
by several listeners... they all want yours truly to tell them how to deal
with the solar minimum years....The typical question was : Arnie, you are
insisting about the end of the solar cycle, mentioning during the weekend
program that we had seen again several days with a spotless Sun... ZERO
SUNSPOT COUNT !!! What can be done to face that situation of extremely low
solar activity...???
Well amigos, I'll be more than happy to provide you all with some ideas
about how to deal with the now already with us solar minimum....
Stay tuned, as Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition continues... I am Arnie
Coro, radio amateur CO2KK now also getting ready to deal with the SOLAR
CYCLE MINIMUM... back with you in a few seconds...
........
Si amigos, Dxers Unlimited is a very practical radio hobby show... and all
along its existence I have always tried to provide my listeners with the
facts that will help them to enjoy the hobby... Dealing with the many months
of very low solar activity is today's program main topic... and I do hope
that you can take notes, tape the program or read the script posted to the
ODXA e-mail list, the Ontario DX Association YAHOO mail list that so
succesfully has provided its members with up to date radio hobby information
.. SOLAR MINIMUM.... yes, you have heard that dreadful phrase more and more
often as we approach the years 2006 and 2007, when scientists are
forecasting a period of extremely low solar activity as solar cycle 23 comes
to an end... But, first things first... don't think that one cycle comes
abruptly to an end, and the next one starts at the flip of a switch... Solar
cycle 23 is already winding down, and soon we will be seeing the first
sunspot group of cycle 24... as the two cycles overlap for a period lasting
many months... Cycle 23, the present one, was a higher than average one, but
now scientists are forecasting that cycle 24 will be no match to the
preceeding two cycles, but that's something yet to be seen...
Now here is the answer to today's question sent to our ASK ARNIE section of
Dxers Unlimited by sixty eight listeners from all around the world... Here
is a STRATEGY TO DEAL WITH SOLAR MINIMUM !!!!
First things first.... monitor the Sun's activity more precisely than ever,
as during the solar minimum there are certain periods of higher activity
that will provide you with nice Dx opportunities on the higher frequency
bands..As a matter of fact, we have just gone trough of those "active
periods" during solar minimum, and even an X1 solar flare erupted from a
sunspot region that reached a complex magnetic configuration.
So, rule number one of the game: MONITOR THE SUN on a daily basis and keep a
record of the daily number of sunspots, the solar flux and information about
coronal holes...
Your solar records will help you plan in advance for any upcoming contest,
as the Carrington solar rotation, the 27 days and forty one minutes that the
Sun takes to rotate at its Equator will help you to forecast periods of
lower or higher solar activity...
NOW, second rule of the game: MONITOR the HF bands using the higher
frequencies first approach, also known among experts as the downward sweep..

A receiver with a slow motion dial drive is ideal for this purpose, and it
is second only to a HF spectrum analyzer connected to a wideband antenna
system, equipment that is totally out of the question for normal people like
you and I... Doing the downward spectrum sweep with a receiver connected to
my 14 meters long Tilted Terminated Folded Dipole wideband omnidirectional
antenna, will give you information about the highest frequency that is
propagating at anytime... For example, Monday late evening local time here
in Havana, it was actually about two o'clock in the morning, I ran a
downward sweep starting at 21.5 megaHertz, and met with the first signals on
the 16 meters international broadcast band, around 17.8 megaHertz...It was
obvious that the maximum useable frequency curve was way up , something that
led me to keep tuning down in frequency until I reached the 20 meters
amateur band, where many signals from Europe, Asia and the Pacific where
present...
So, if you have not yet built your wideband TTFD short antenna for the
frequency range between 7 and 35 megaHertz, it's about time to start
collecting the materials and homebrewing one, as this antenna will be your
number one aid during solar minimum years...
More about how to deal with SOLAR MINIMUM as Dxers Unlimited's mid week
edition continues ...
.......
Si amigos, solar minimum is here, but that doesn't mean that you have to
shut down your radios and wait until the sunspots are back... Here is now
Arnie Coro's number three tip for dealing with the solar minimum years...
Build yourself a large sized magnetic loop antenna, capable of operating
from 1.5 to 5 megaHertz.... If used for receive only applications, the
magnetic loop may be tuned using a conventional receiving type variable
capacitor... Why do I recommend the magnetic loop for the 1.5 to 5 megaHertz
frequency range... well, because a lot of DX activity will be happening
there during the long months when the sunspot count will be extremely low...
A good friend of mine, with whom I discussed the strategy for the solar
minimum years recently, said that he was getting ready to homebrew a five
meters by five meters magnetic loop, using the fiberglass spreaders that are
made for building cubical quad antennas for the amateur bands... He has
already made a two by two meters magnetic loop, using RG-213 coaxial cable
for the antenna element with very good results...And he is looking forward
on how to deal with the much heavier five by five meters version of the
magnetic loop that he affirms will be able to tune down to the low end of
the AM broadcast band, where Dx stations from Europe may be picked up in the
Americas during the solar minimum
Now rule number three: And this one applies only to amateur radio operators.
.rule number three calls for calling CQ DX as much as possible , yes,
calling CQ DX everytime you have an opportunity... You will be pleasently
surprised to see that calling CQ DX at three o'clock in the morning local
time on an otherwise apparently dead band, may bring in DX from halfway
around the world, exactly as it happened to me on the 30 meters band at
exactly that time from Monday to Tuesday my local time, that was at 0700 UTC
..
Last but not least, if you are the happy owner of a lot of real state where
to install long wire antennas, by all means try them ! A Beverage long wire
terminated antenna three,four or five city blocks long, mounted on typical
fence posts at about 2 meters above ground will bring incredible DX from the
direction to where the termination of the antenna is looking at... Some low
frequency Dxers, the guys that enjoy most the solar minimum years have
installed not one, but several long wire terminated Beverage antennas in
preparation for the very low solar activity expected during the next two
years...
Well amigos, I hope that this information on how to deal with the solar
minimum years will be useful to you all, both newcomers and experts... the
newcomers to the hobby will be seeing their first quiet Sun, and the
oldtimers will remember really lengthy periods of the quiet Sun as the one
that happened during 1965...
AH... and before I forget... running a little higher power on your amateur
radio transmitting equipment will also help to deal with the solar minimum..
 Boosting the power from 10 Watts to 100 Watts, that is by 10 decibels will
improve your chances of having nice two way contacts under a very weak
ionosphere ...
If you have any further questions or doubts about how to deal with the low
sunspot counts coming ahead, send me an e-mail to arnie@rhc.cu, again,
arnie@rhc.cu, or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba

As always, I will be more than happy to answer your questions and make good
use of your comments and ideas on how to improve Dxers Unlimited...
.....
Well amigos, I hope that the information provided during today's Dxers Unlimited will be useful for you all... now , here is our exclusive and not copyrighted HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast... Nice sporadic E openings seen here in Havana on Sunday and Monday mornings... I picked up several TV channel 4 stations using my 2 meters long VHF TTFD omnidirectional antenna... But unfortunately could not work any of the 6 meter band operators calling CQ DX, because at the time that the 50 megaHertz band opened up, I had to leave for the station !!! Solar flux moving up, as well as the number of sunspots, latest solar flux figure was around 85 units, and the optical sunspot count was 23... See you all at the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited next Saturday and Sunday UTC days amigos, and don't forget to set aside a little time to send me feedback about today's program to arnie@rhc.cu , again arnie@rhc.cu, so that the next edition of the program may be , thanks to your help, a bit better than this one !!!