Radio Habana Cuba: Dxers Unlimited Weekend edition for June 24, 2000
By Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos! Welcome to the weekend edition of your favorite radio hobby show on short wave. With the solar flux hovering around 175 units and the Earth's geomagnetic field more active than during weekdays, there is lots of DX waiting for you... Example: JA2BAY, Hide, from Japan, coming into the Caribbean, Southeastern USA, Mexico, Central America and even as far South as Argentina Saturday morning local time with a booming SSB signal... Heard Hide working Puerto Rico and Argentina in tandem, when it was six thirty in the morning my local time here in Havana, that is 10:30 UTC... Yes, of course, Hide, JA2BAY has a really big 40 meter band directional antenna system, a YAGI beam... but that should boost his signal by some maybe 8 decibels above a half wave dipole, and he was pinning my transceiver's S meter here in Havana... So yes, early morning DX is plentiful on the 40 meter band even with such a high solar flux of 175 units, and the typical summer static crashes.
Item two: Dxers Unlimited's you have questions section will answer today a request by a listener in Canada that wants to know why amateur radio equipment, and of course he means, transmitting equipment, can disrupt TV reception, even when the TV sets are connected to a cable distribution system.
Item three: TV DX all over the place....the Sporadic E TV DX season is now in full swing... I have seen the MUF climb way past TV channel 4 just a few minutes after an opening started, a sure fire indication of very high ionization of the sporadic E clouds, and by the way, you really don't need much of an antenna to pick up low band TV channels during a good sporadic E opening.
Item four: The technical topics section with more about dead solid state high tech radios, and some fault finding techniques that I would like to pass along.
All this and maybe a bit more, during today's weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited... My sound engineer and producer is Margarita Delgado, I am Arnie Coro in Havana, back with you in a few seconds...
Dear Arnie, I am afraid -- yes, that's true -- I am afraid that my recently adquired amateur radio transceiver may disturb my neighbors' TV reception, even though they are all connected to a local cable system...That's the heading of a letter sent by a Canadian listener... He sure sounds worried, and his attitude is a very positive one... YES, before starting to operate an amateur radio station, it is a very wise move to follow these recommendations:
1) Install the station properly, and I mean it! Haywire installation, poorly soldered coaxial cable connectors, antennas without any weather protection provided at the feedpoints will take you to a surefire confrontation with the neighbors, as your station will very probably cause TVI or television interference. But that's not all; you may also disrupt FM broadcast band reception, pagers, and even cellphones and baby monitors. So, my number one advice amigo from Canada, is to install your equipment properly and carefully, not in a rush, take your time, and be sure that all the equipment is in perfecto working order.Now number 2) Test your installation at low power first, and start with your own home. If you find that running your amateur radio station on the 15 meter band at a 25 watt carrier power level, via the antenna tuner, does not generate TVI on your own TV set or sets, then you can proceed to test at the typical 100 watt output level of the standard run of the mill ham transceiver.
3) Choose your amateur transmitting operating hours wisely, and according to your particular location, something I think is really important. A downtown ham station, located in an apartment complex that has to deal with maybe twenty, fifty or even one hundred very close neighbors should, in my humble opinion, not be operated on the HF bands during peak TV viewing hours. That's asking for trouble, to say the least... You can go to QRP power levels, that is using power outputs below 10 watts, but even at QRP levels, some nearby TV sets with bad connections, poor indoor antennas etc. can be knocked out by a low power signal in the vicinity. I am not advocating that you do not operate your ham station whenever you wish, but experience counts, and many amateurs have found that by judiciously using certain operating frequencies and power levels, peaceful coexistence with neighbors is perfectly possible.
And, once again, properly installed equipment, the use of well-designed antenna matching units, low pass filters and reasonable power output will do the trick in most cases. In some particular situations, filters must be fitted to the TV sets and VCR's -- something that must be approached with a lot of caution, as you don't want to be blamed for any problems that your neighbors equipment may have!!!
Finally, there is always the option of operating very late at night, or during the early morning hours, or as many amateurs do nowadays, operate your mobile station while driving to and from work, something that at the peak of the solar cycle during the next year or so will be very enjoyable, as you can work the world from a mobile station on the 10 and 15 meter bands!!!
You are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and our postal mailing address is really an easy one to remember -- send your signal reports and comments about this show directly to me: Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana Cuba. That's it, no need for PO BOX or Postal code, courtesy of the Havana's main post office, you can just write on the envelope of your letter or on your postcard: Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba, and I'll be very happy to QSL back to you as soon as possible. Our INTERNET e-mail address is also easy to remember, just arnie@radiohc.org.
Now item three: TV DX all over the place... sporadic E layers at some 100 kilometers above the Earth are acting as excellent mirrors for VHF TV channels to be seen up to two thousand kilometers away. And when the MUF goes above channel 6 in the Americas, then the FM broadcast band becomes full of DX signals too. So, be on the lookout for TV DX signals by monitoring your low band TV channels. Here in Havana I have picked up TV stations from Chicago, St Louis, Tulsa, Mexico City, Santo Domingo,Guatemala City and Caracas during the past few days, using a really old black and white TV set connected to a broadband TTFD homebrew antenna. Lots of fun watching Mexican TV not via satellite, but direct from XEW's TV 2 in Mexico City. Monitoring the FM band, brought skip signals from Toronto for a few minutes, while signals from Jamaica, an unsually short hop, made their way to my Grundig Satellite 700 receiver without any external antenna at all, just the telescopic whip.
Enjoy the summer TV DX and FM broadcast band DX season, and e-mail me some of your nice loggings to arnie@radiohc.org
Item four: At the request of several Dxers Unlimited's listeners, here are some more tips on solid state high tech microprocessor controlled radios and things to look for when they do break down. Some of the older transceivers and receivers using solid state devices, CPU's and surface mounted devices, or SMD's, have aged badly... they may actually die -- not of old age, but of poor manufacturing techniques. For example, I found out that many Kenwood receivers and transceivers, both HF and VHF, started to act strangely, with intermittent operation, then becoming absolutely dead. The cause of the problem was traced to poor circuit board manufacturing... the plated through holes on those boards started to fail after a number of years, and that's why the R5000, the TS140, TS430 and TS440 or the TR7800 models may be found at fleamarkets and hamfests so often. If you have a lot of patience, and a gambler's mentality, good eyesight and of course, good luck, you can many times revive one of those otherwise excellent receivers and transceivers by patiently redoing every single plated through hole in every PC board. As I just said, you do need a lot of patience, good eyesight, the radio's technical manuals and circuit board pictorials, but it can be done, and once done, the radios will perform very well for a long, long time.
And now just before going QRT, here is Arnie Coro's HF plus 6 meters propagation update and forecast. Solar activity was moderate, but may fall to low within the next few hours. Solar flux hovering around 175 units, and the A index a little on the high side, up to 15 to 18 units, but possibly moving down as you are hearing this show. These solar terrestrial conditions will allow excellent DX conditions especially on the 15, 17 and 20 meter amateur bands, and the 13 and 16 meters international short wave broadcast bands after your local sunset. Expect lots of sporadic E openings, with some offering double or triple hop contacts. So, yes, Europe may be worked on 6 meters from the Caribbean or the East Coast of North America, and West Coast of North America stations may be able to work Japan too. Background noise levels on 40 meters will take a dip just before sunrise, giving DXers a chance to make some nice catches on that band, too. See you on 6 meters, and don't forget to try our 11705 kiloHertz SSB transmissions! Send me a signal report to arnie@radiohc.org
Arnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
June 24, 2000Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba
PO Box 6240, Havana, CUBA 10600
phone: 53-7-814243
phone res: 53-7-301794
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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