Dxers Unlimited 30-31 October 2011

Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition

Radio Havana Cuba, radio hobby program
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
 

RE; Cuban Weather Service keeping track of Hurricane RINA
The Cuban Weather Service, Instituto de Meteorología , is keeping track of Hurricane RINA,
that is now on its way to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.
Amateur radio operators that are members of the Liga de RadioExperimentadores de Mexico are getting ready to deal with the emergency that should start soon, as the Category II storm approaches Yucatan. Likewise, the Hurricane Watch Net that operates on 14325 kiloHertz Single Sideband Voice will be activated also. The HWN is typically a daytime operation, but in the past, when required the Net Control has found a 40 meters band frequency.
Amateur radio operators in Cuba are also getting ready for the upcoming storm, and during the next two or three days they will standby to provide 40 meters band relays to Mexican stations that may be located too close to each other and for that reason can not establish contact between them.
When the storm approaches Cuba, then the Mexicans will provide the relays !
The International Amateur Radio Union has an emergency coordinator for the area C, that comprises Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Turk and Caicos , and five other island of the Antilles... Since 2005, I am in charge of that responsibility as :
IARU Region II Area C Emergency Coordinator Arnaldo ( Arnie ) Coro CO2KK
Posted by Arnaldo Coro at 9:34 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: amateur radio emergency communications, Dxers Unlimited, ham radio, hurricane Rina emergency communications
Aurora Borealis over North America after the impact of a shower of protons coming from a Coronal Mass Ejection . The yellow band is visible light... Radio signals in the lower VHF bands will be returned back to Earth from the Aurora Borealis Curtain, and they will have a typical fast, flutter type fading... Radio amateurs that operate on the 50 megaHertz and the 144 megaHertz bands use the aurora bounced signals to communicate.
Aurora Borealis VHF propagation is one of the more than 86 ways that you can enjoy the radio hobby, IF you live within the area where the Aurora Borealis can be seen,
During the past several days, Aurora Borealist displays have been sighted at unusually low latitudes, and when seen below about 40 degrees North, they show a red color that so far scientists
have not found out why it happens.
Posted by Arnaldo Coro at 9:17 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Amateur radio program, Arnie Coro CO2KK, Aurora Borealis, Dxers Unlimited, VHF propagation
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition for 24 October 2011
Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition for 25 October 2011
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world, now enjoying the best propagation conditions on the high frequency amateur bands that we have seen in more than
seven years... YES, the Sun is providing us with an almost constant flow of radiation
that is keeping the upper atmosphere ionization at level never before seen since maybe
2004.... Record breaking WOLF numbers are been registered by the world's optical
astronomic observatories.. Just to give you an example, the Catania Astrophysical
Observatory in Sicily, one of the world's reference centers for solar optical observations registered a record breaking WOLF number of 212 last week....The number of active sunspot regions is really impressive and experts describe solar activity for the past several days with the word ERUPTIVE, that meaning that class C and M solar flares are happening at a high rate.... The most practical and really wonderful result of this level of solar activity is that radio amateurs are enjoying the best conditions in a long time when they operate on the 10 meters ham band... that spans from 28.000 to 29.700 megaHertz.
Ten meters is my second favorite amateur band.... only second to the fascinating and really magic 6 meters or 50 megaHertz band amigos.
During the past several days, while running between 3 and a maximum of 50 watts into a wire antenna, I have made some really wonderful two way contacts on the 10 meters band....So, here is your amigo Arnie Coro advice... IF you are a radio amateur and have a transceiver capable of operating on 10 meters, it is NOW the right moment to start using it... If you do not have a 10 meters band antenna at this moment, then go right now to the ham radio handbook and find out how to make a simple wire antenna... A half wave dipole for 10 meters is just a length of wire of around 5 meters split at the center and fed with 50 ohms coaxial cable... You can install it practical anywhere, and there is even no need to install it horizontally, as it will work quite well as a sloping dipole , with one end hanging from a mast and the other end sloping down at a 45 degrees angle...
Si amigos, yes my friends , oui mes amis... The 10 meters band most basic antenna the half way dipole , just around 16 feet of common wire , using three homebrew PVC plastic pipe insulators is all you will need AT THIS TIME AND MOMENT, to work such fantastic DX stations as the T32C expedition operating from Western Kiribati
in the remote Pacific Ocean island paradise...
Stay tuned for more radio hobby related information amigos, and again, a reminder, HF propagation on the 15, 12 and 10 meters band is as best as you can expect !!!
I am Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK the host of Dxers Unlimited, back with you
in a few seconds after a short break for a station ID.
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Si amigos!!! Sure it is a lot of fun, when I tell fellow ham operators that are contacting with my home station CO2KK, that yours truly is the only person in the whole world that can legally call CQ DX on AM while running 250 kiloWatts to a 20 dB gain curtain array... Of course that this is a joke, based on the fact that this program, Dxers Unlimited begins with me making a call to all short wave listeners and radio amateurs that goes like this ... CQ DX CQDX CQDX THIS IS HAVANA CALLING.... and of course that it is heard over Radio Havana Cuba transmitters that run 50, 100 or 250 kiloWatts output power into different high gain antenna systems... Even on 5040 kiloHertz our frequency used for domestic service of the Cuban archipelago, the CQ DX call is heard on a 100 kW transmitter using a Tropical Band high vertical take off angle antenna, that shows an effective gain of 6 dB over a standard half wave dipole !!!
Now back to the excellent propagation conditions on the high frequency bands from 10 to 30 megaHertz.... Tuesday October 24th was yet another excellent day on 10 meters, with the band opening up here in Havana to Europe and Africa just a little before sunrise... amazing as this may sound, the European amateur stations were coming in at signal levels well over S9, with the more powerful ones equipped with better antennas hitting past the S 9 plus 20 dB over S9 mark... The band was full of signals from the CW segment up past 28.5 megaHertz, and at the top end of 10 meters where AM stations are heard, several of them were also coming in loud and clear. Several 10 meters band FM repeaters were also pegging the S meter here in Havana even as late as 4 PM local time...
I had several very nice two way amateur contacts on 10 meters with several long time listeners of Dxers Unlimited, something that is always a very rewarding experience, as it was the case with Edward from British
Columbia, Canada, who began to listen to Radio Havana Cuba when he was a teenager... Ed speaks Spanish fluently and it was a really enjoyable QSO .
The callsign of his station is Victor Echo Seven Bravo Victor....and my very modest 50 Watts station received a nice S9 report from that northwestern Canada location.
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Fixing radios.... bringing them back to life... is one of the more than 85 ways that you and I enjoy this wonderful radio hobby. Radio hobby enthusiasts that accept the challenge of reviving broken down receivers are a special kind of people, that never keep for themselves their findings, that is they share whatever they learn about a certain model of radio receiver or amateur radio rig... It is certainly an outstanding characteristic of those people like you and I, who share
the know how, so that others may fix their equipment
without having to spend a tremendous amount of time
trying to find out where the problem or problems are located. During the past weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited, I mentioned my failed attempts to revive a nicely well kept UNIDEN CR 2021 receiver, that was also sold as a Radio Shack DX 400... Well, in true radio hobby spirit I did received several suggestions regarding the symptoms that the CR2021 had... absolutely NO AUDIO output... One of the suggestions came in even with several photos of how the bad electrolytic capacitors look when they break down !!!
Here is part of the e-mail that amigo Rod, radio amateur KB8DNS sent with his suggestions to help me fix the radio...

here is what Rod told me : I heard you ask for help on this receiver while listening Sunday evening. I am a short wave listener and amateur radio operator (KB8DNS) and I work on several different short wave receivers such as the SONY ICF-2010, SW55, SW77 and various Grundigs, Etons including the Uniden CR-2021.
In most cases the audio failure can be traced to two or three different areas. Since your 2021 has no audio with either speaker or head phone jack, the jack itself could be at fault since it is a switch when one connects head phones. Second area would be with the electronics and the fact the receiver is starting to show it's age, I would suspect that an aging capacitor has failed. I find this common in receivers that have been stored for a while after using. The capacitor looses it's "form" and can short out sometimes taking the audio amp with it and at times even a B+ switch, a simple transistor switch, this is how the CPU turns on the audio circuits.
At times the "bad" capacitor will show that it is blown because of the erupted aluminum case. The audio amp can also show a burnt or blow out on the surface. If a B+ switch is used it may not show that it is blown out.
Attached are two JPEGs of repairs I have done. These are SONY ICF-2010, you can see the bad capacitor from it's round end of the case is bulging, there are relief lines. Sometimes the insulating material is poking out.
Schematics for this radio are hard to find, even the DX-400 version. hope this helps! 73 Rod KB8DNS
Well amigo Rod, thank you very much for your help
and it is nice to know that you have developed the know how to fix so many solid state receivers that otherwise
may go the junk pile, or simply stand useless in a shelf
anywhere in the world !!!
I will keep you all Dxers Unlimited's listeners on how the repair of the broken UNIDEN CR2021 goes, and as
always, a reminder that working on solid state radios does require a big illuminated magnifier, a thermostatically controlled soldering iron, a proper set of hand tools, and above all, a lot of concentration
and patience... It is something NOT to be done in a hurry, as you can spoil the radio forever by just one mistake.... solid state equipment are NOT as forgiving
with mistakes as the old vacuum radios are amigos.
Now, my apologies today, as I had to record the broken
well in advance of going on the air, so this HF propagation forecast will just tell you that everything points to a continuing period of excellent short wave propagation conditions that may be interrupted by one
or maybe more solar flares.
Send your signal reports and comments to inforhc at enet dot cu or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro , Radio Havana Cuba , Cuba
Posted by Arnaldo Coro at 7:48 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: amateur radio, Arnie Coro, CO2KK, Dxers Unlimited, Dxers Unlimited Arnie Coro CO2KK Radio Havana Cuba radio hobby program amateur radio, solar activity, Solar Cycle 24
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition for 23/24 October UTC
Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited's week end edition for Sunday 23 and Monday 24 UTC days
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos radioaficionados all around the world and orbiting Planet Earth aboard the International Space Station where amateur radio provides crew members with a nice way of spending part of their spare time...
Si amigos, yes my friends , oui mes amis .... amateur radio is the first hobby that has made it into outer space !!!
Now here is very important news for all radio hobby enthusiasts that enjoy short wave listening and operate amateur stations on the HF bands from 80 to 10 meters and on the 6 meters VHF band... Here is a Solar activity update for you to optimize the time devoted to Dxing amigos...
The Sun continues to be very active, with almost every day revealing new sunspots active region . We saw one new sunspot group on October 9, another on October 10, two more on October 11 and two more on October 12. Keeping the daily observations
We saw another new region on October 13, two more on October 15, two more on October 17, one more on October 19 and three more on October 20. Summing up there have been 28 new sunspot groups making an appearance in the last 30 days, taking as the last day of this routine checks Thursday October 20. But certainly the most relevant news wass the sunspot number reached during Thursday, October 20. The daily sunspot number was 195, a level not equaled or bettered since nearly eight
years ago....Then it kept moving up and the Catania Astrophysical Observatory daily optical solar scans registered a still higher figure of the Wolf number that reached 212, surpassing the figure registered eight years ago, on November 26, 2003, when it was 209.
The closest the daily sunspot number came to equaling Thursday’s value was on July 4, 2005 when it was 192.
The average daily sunspot number rose more than 66 percent the week ending on Thursday, going up by 63.2 points (October 13-19) over last, to 158.6, while the average daily solar flux for the same period rose more than 15 percent (or 19.1 points) to 144.2. With the geomagnetic indices this week below the previous week, radio amateurs have frequently been working stations on other continents as late as midnight (local time) on 10 meters. The bands are alive. Sunspot numbers for October 13-19 were 147, 157, 166, 158, 165, 155 and 162, with a mean of 158.6. The 10.7 cm flux was 137.6, 136.1, 137.7, 151, 152.6, 146.8 and 147.3, with a mean of 144.2. The estimated planetary A indices were 5, 2, 8, 7, 4, 5 and 7, with a mean of 5.4. The estimated mid-latitude A indices were 3, 1, 4, 7, 2, 5 and 5 with a mean of 3.9.
So as you have just heard amigos... even with a very modest wire antenna, as simple as a half wave wire dipole for the 10 meters band, that has an overall length of 5 meters or approximately 16 feet, and a low power transmitter you can make two way amateur radio contacts with stations half way around the world !!!
The latest forecast from several different international scientific organizations shows solar flux at 160 from October 21-22, 155 and 150 on October 23-24, 145 on October 25-27, 135 on October 28, and then 130 on October 29 through November 3. During the next few days, this represents a substantial increase in solar flux, so conditions are going to be better than ever during the present solar cycle amigos....and if you are not yet involved in the fascinating world of amateur radio, then this is the right time to apply for taking your ham radio license test so that you may enjoy the next three to four years of much better short wave propagation conditions!!!
Now standby for a few seconds, as we are going now to take a short break for a station ID... I am your host Arnie Coro , radio amateur CO2KK in Havana...
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This is Radio Havana Cuba , the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and my e'mail direct mailing address is inforhc at enet dot cu, now I will repeat it slowly and phonetically, india, november, foxtrot , oscar, romeo,
hotel charlie, symbol for at, echo, november, echo, tango, symbol for dot charlie, uniform, and the postal mailing address is Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana , Cuba...
Now here is item two of this weekend edition, that can be heard during its second re run on 5040 kiloHertz, from 2300 to 0000 hours UTC, just after the top of the hour news, and that should be starting up at approximately 2305 hours UTC.... If you happen to have in storage a 10 meters single band transceiver that was shelved when solar cycle 23 sent the HF propagation conditions into the doldrums... then it is now the right time to bring it back into daily use, because those single banders , when connected to a simple vertical ground plane or a half wave wire dipole antenna will make possible two way contacts with other amateur radio stations thousands of miles away during many hours every day....
Item three: Answering a question sent by several listeners from Nigeria, Australia, India, the USA and Canada... They all want to know if we are already into the peak of solar cycle 24, considering the big an unexpected surge in solar activity... So here is once again ASK ARNIE , our program's most popular section ... and the ANSWER is that heliophysicists , the solar scientists are now scratching their heads, as the Sun's behavior is totally unexpected. As a matter of fact they were forecasting levels of peak solar activity to be reached during the second half of 2012 or the first half of 2013, much lower than the sunspot numbers that we are registering every day right at this moment. So, my own analysis is the following... we may be seeing either an earlier peak, or better yet, the solar cycle will continue to move forward and be reaching a much higher peak than the maximum Wolf number of 90 to 95 units that was accepted by many scientists to be the maximum for this cycle, that so far was to be much weaker than the four previous cycles... As the last days of October of 2011 continue to go by, the Sun may be telling scientists that they may be quite wrong amigos !!!
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This is the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited... and here is now our technical topics section of this radio hobby program....Trying to fix a broken receiver here.... it is a very nice looking UNIDEN CR2021, a very similar radio as the Radio Shack DX400 . The CR2021 has no audio output, and so far I have not been able to obtain a schematic or the workshop technical manual...
What I do see is that the digital readout works... the radio accepts frequencies to be changed on both the FM and the AM ranges and the S meter light emitting diodes light up properly when a local station is picked up , that is selected by pressing the keyboard buttons corresponding to the frequency that I want to listen to.
But something quite amazing is happening, using another receiver, that has continues tuning from 100 kiloHertz to 54 megaHertz, I can not pick up signals from the UNIDEN CR2021 intermediate frequency amplifier stages, that according to the S meter indications are working ... So, amigos, any help will be most appreciated... especially if any of you has had experience fixing those radios, or has at hand the circuit diagrams and technical manual for the CR2021... Again the prime sympton is absolutely NO audio output, even when plugging in headphones in order to bypass a possible open circuit loudspeaker !!! Send your suggestions to inforhc at enet dot cu.... I will be waiting for your email messages amigos ...
And now just before going QRT here at the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited, here is Arnie Coro's exclusive and not copyrighted HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast.... Due to the substantial and sustained increase in solar activity registered during the past two weeks, please take notice that HF propagation conditions are better than ever at this moment that what they had been for the past 8 years... YES, the HF bands are wide open, and even 6 meters the first VHF band is providing exceptional F2 layer long distance contacts ... that have combined in the northern hemisphere with the the Trans Equatorial Propagation season, that also enhances the 10 meter band signals... Be prepared for more solar fireworks as more M and even X class solar flares, that may produce solar radiation storms that in turn may cause short wave blackouts...
Finally, let me add that more sunspot active regions will soon rotate into view, as they are seen to be active now on the farside of the Sun, a possibility that is available to scientists for the first time since the history of solar research... According to several sources that I have consulted , the present solar cycle 24 is the one that will provide science with never before seen results , thanks to the existence of such outstanding space research instruments as the STEREO pair of satellites that keep a total watch of the whole solar sphere....
See you all at the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited
next Tuesday and Wednesday UTC days amigos , just after the half hour news....
Posted by Arnaldo Coro at 7:44 AM 0 comments Links to this post