Radio Havana Cuba

Dxers Unlimited

Dxers Unlimited´s midweek edition 25-26 March 2008

By Arnie Coro

Radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados, around the world and those of you that are now orbiting planet Earth… HF propagation is going to hopefully improve during the next several days… that´s good news , due to new sunspot active regions, that have already sent the solar flux up to near 80 units. And after the good news,as always I am pleased toI give you my welcome to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited .I am Arnaldo, Arnie, Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, your host here at this Radio Havana Cuba twice weekly program, devoted entirely to the promotion and development of our wonderful hobby , yours and mine: RADIO… a hobby that we are able to enjoy in no less than 83 different ways of which some of them really defy imagination… from talking on the HF short wave amateur bands with an underground antenna installed no less than three feet or one meter below your garden´s green turf, to having the unique opportunity of helping disabled persons learn about amateur radio, so that can enjoy a better quality of life, you can also take part , become an active participant of a ham radio DX expedition, and see some of the world´s most beautiful tropical islands, the ones that look like and still are a sort of paradise away from pollution of all types.

For those of you that love music, let me provide some advice, on the 60 meters Tropical band some of the world´s most beautiful music is heard from sunset to sunrise, if you install a good antenna that will cover from 4.5 to 5.1 megaHertzr Tropical Broadcast Band signals coming from several South American stations, especially from Brazil, Peru and Bolivia, will allow you to hear some very nice music, the type of music that your local FM boom box station will never play !!!

Si amigos, yes my friends, oui mes amis, radio is a really challenging hobby, that you can enjoy by assembling small electronic kits, with easy to fill up circuit boards, and that due to their excellent quality will produce excellent results while on the air, and will also have a very nice look too…My ever growing list of the many ways we can enjoy our radio hobby has now reached up to 84 and I am hopeful that there are many more to be explored.

Item two: A Canadian radio amateur caught up on the idea of removing a broken down, or obsolete cellphone´s two most two valuable devices… the excellent, optimized for voice, high quality electret microphone element, and an earphone … He is now collecting cellphones that are no longer operational, to take them to a radio club´s meeting where they will be taken apart and the microphone and earphone removed so that they can be re-used to upgrade ham radio equipment. By the way, cellphone batteries are also a very interesting option for those of you that have developed a recycling mentality.

Very often a cellphone battery stops working because just one of the cells that forms the battery breaks down, while the rest of the cells are in good working order. The nickel metal hydride battery packs are an excellent source of individual cells that you can then test and assembly back into a new battery. For example, I have found out that cellphone nickel metal hydride cells fit nicely into the FNB-12 Yaesu battery pack that is used by the most rugged FM 2 meters band handie talkie ever built, the FT-23-R… as you may realize I have no commercial ties of any kind with any radio of antenna manufacturer, but what I have just stated is absolutely true. The FT 23-R is extremely reliable and rugged, and with an FNB-12 battery pack it will operate for a very long time, making this handie talkie an excellent choice for handling emergencies. The
FNB-12 battery packs are very expensive, so opening them up and installing nickel metal hydride cells saved from cellphone´s is a very nice money saving option that will also make you enjoy a nice time at the home workshop…

So, as I said here last week amigos, please don´t throw away the old analog cellphones or their dead batteries, before removing the microphone element and the earphone capsule…and opening up the battery packs to remove and test the individual cells.

No, I don´t have an FT-23R, my recycled FM handie talkie is an FT-2008 a software programmed 16 channels radio that also uses the FNB-12 battery packs, but that doesn´t have a VFO to change frequencies at will, as the FT-23-R has… But, like my dad used to say… use whatever you have at hand to the best of your abilities, and that´s how I spent many hours thinking about what frequencies to program into the limited capacity of
16 channels of the FT-2008 ---By the way my FT2008o two meters band handie talkie now has a much better microphone quality NOKIA element than the original one, thanks to that simple surgical electronic transplant operation mentioned earlier in the program… It took me about an hour to extract the analog Nokia cellphone microphone element and then proceed to install it on the FT2008 two meters band handie talkie… And of course that I am looking around to get a hold of more broken down cellphones amigos !!!…

You are listening to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, coming to you from Havana, I am Arnie Coro, and here is our next item…

The FAN DIPOLE went up here at CO2KK during the weekend, but propagation conditions were so poor that the only thing I can tell about the new antenna is that it works quite well picking up international short wave broadcasts heard from 5.8 megaHertz all the way up to 18 megaHertz during Sunday.

I also tested the antenna on the 20 meters amateur band, and it worked quite well , with the standing wave ratio easily brought down to a one to one ratio by adjusting the homebrew PI network antenna tuner. .

The overall length of this shorter version of the FAN DIPOLE is
14 meters, and tests will continue during this week, with results made known here as I am able to collect them.
It´s certainly a nice looking antenna, and several neighbors have already asked if it provides special performance to my amateur radio station !!!

Item four: More and more radio hobby related questions keep coming in to arnie at rhc dot cu on a daily basis, but I was able to reduce the big backlog during the weekend with high hopes of catching up during the rest of this week… Now here is the answer to a question sent in by listener Frank from Vancouver , Canada, where he listens regularly to the 6000 kiloHertz frequency during the 05 to 07 hours UTC transmission.
Amgo Edgar, you are right, earlier , from 00 to 05 UTC the 6000 kiloHertz frequency is not beamed to your part of North America, and this is why your report that the signal increases significantly at 05 UTC is absolutely correct. We do use a separate antenna to beam the 6000 kiloHertz to the Pacific Coast of North America. It provides about almost 20 dB gain over a half wave dipole, and the beamwidth of the pattern to the minus 3dB is plus and minus about 20 degrees…6000 kiloHertz can be sometimes hear at really way off the main beam locations, like Central America and Europe and even from places like South Africa and Australia, or some as near to Cuba as Jamaica and Haiti, but this is due to the high transmitter power used on that frequency, 250,000 Watts amigos !!!

………..

You are listening to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, and here is now our next item…it´s about amateur radio´s upcoming big contest this weekend. The worldwide CQ Radio Amateur Magazine WPX, or ham radio prefixes contest wil surely generate a lot of activity among ham operators around the world and here in Cuba too, were several contest enthusiasts are now getting ready for the weekend event, where individual operators are allowed to be on the air for up to 36 hours of the 48 hours long contest. When sending the logs, one most specify clearly the operating times, and if you are operating an individual station, the contest rules specifically set the number of operating hours to no more than 36. Several DX expeditions , large and small are already setting up shop at rare locations to be ready for the weekend contest. Now let me tell you that I am not an avid DX hunter on the ham radio bands. I have always thought of leaving Dxing on the HF bands for having something to do when I retire… But, the temptation to work a rare DX station is always inside me, and many , really many times, my nice DX QSL cards collection has increased by working the DX expeditions previous to a contest, when they are installing their antennas and testing the generators and radios. I remember many years ago one of the Clipperton Island Dx expeditions that I was able to work on 6 meters, just before the contest began !!! So, here is Arnie Coro´sa advice to amateur radio operators during the time frame between Tuesday and Friday UTC days, be looking around for rare callsigns… those unsual prefixes that WPX contest stations use… as this may be a unique opportunity to work some of the DX expeditions while they are getting ready for the CQ RADIO AMATEUR magazine WPX single sideband voice contest, one of the highlights of the spring equinox contest season!!! Here are some of the nice Dx expeditions that you may hear testing until Friday UTC and operating during the contest all over the weekend…

6Y, JAMAICA. Operators David/KY1V, John/K6AM and Scott/W4PA will be active as 6Y1V during the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest (March 29-30th) as a Multi operator with a single transmitter entry.

>From rare DX entity 7P, LESOTHO. The next big operation will take
>place this week by Belgium
operators and members of the Radio Club Secunda from South Africa. They will be active as 7P8FC from Katse Dam in Lesotho starting from March 27th to

April 3rd. . Activity will be on the 160 to the 10 meters bandsmeters, SSB, RTTY and PSK. The QSL Manager is ON4CJK.

The Lesotho team will also be active during the CQ WPX SSB Contest .
and from not so rarely heard, but nevertheless DX … we will be able to pick up Guyana, the 8R prefix , with the callsign 8R1K operated by OH0XX, Olli, from Finland.

Last but not least, be prepared to have your big antennas and nice earphones ready for my own CO2KK QRP or low power entry to this year´s WPX contest , running 5 Watts and using two antennas, a multibanda vertical and my new FAN DIPOLE… I hope to be able to work many stations during the WPX contest amigos !!!

Now, as always at the end of the program, here is Arnie Coro´s exclusive and not copyrighted HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast: two new sunspot groups formed on the east limb of the Sun..
The solar flux has moved up to near 80 and will go past the 80 magic solar flux number very soon.
Therefore we could see a moderate boost in the MUF of the F2 layer and some short term improvement of propagation conditions on ham radio bands 20, 17, 15 and 12 meters and shortwave broadcast bands 22, 17, 13 and 11 meters. … DX openings on the 17, 15,
12 and 10 meters amateur bands…More will follow during this week, so they are a very good solid reason to keep your ham radio transceivers on and tuning around the many beacons that provide information about band openings… See you all at the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited next Saturday and Sunday amigos !!! And don´t forget to send me an e-mail with your signal reports and comments about the program, plus any radio hobby related questions that you may want to ask, as always I am at your service my friends !!!