Radio Habana Cuba: Dxers Unlimited weekend edition for December 23, 2000
By Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK
Hi all!!! Seasons Greetings and a Very Happy and Prosperous Year 2001 to all Dxers Unlimited's listeners worldwide. I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, your friend here in Havana and host of this twice weekly hobby program, devoted entirely, absolutely to each and every of the more than 50 ways that you and I enjoy RADIO!
Here are the headlines: ITEM ONE... still silent... YES, the OSCAR40 amateur satellite is still silent, no beacon heard, and command stations are now waiting for yet another possible automatic reset... As time goes by, the chances of recovery of the most sophisticated and expensive ever amateur satellite become more and more remote!
Second headline: While some self-appointed experts are now saying that the Solar Cycle Maximum has already happened, others are betting for a Year 2001 maximum.... What is now almost sure is that solar cycle 23's peak will not exceed 140 smoothed sunspot number unless something really spectacular takes place during the next 6 months...
Headline number three: Get ready to enjoy very good HF propagation conditions during the last week of this year 2000... The frequency range from 15 all the way up to 30 megaHertz will bring in lots of DX during what's left of this year, amigos! Daytime propagation on the 10 and 12 meters amateur bands is going to be absolutely wonderful!!!
Now stay tuned for more radio hobby related information coming to you from Havana. Ricardo Queral is my sound engineer and producer replacing vacationing Margarita Delgado, I am Arnie Coro, back with you in a few seconds...
Amigos, you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited and yes, propagation conditions during the rest of year 2000 should be pretty interesting, with some real nice DX available on the higher HF amateur bands...
Here is now item one of our menu for today.... Our very popular ANTENNAS section of Dxers Unlimited today is going to answer a question sent in by not one, not two, but five listeners, and it has to do with an everlasting discussion... Here is the question: Arnie, I have a very small space to install a ham radio antenna, I have already installed a 2 meter band homebrew J pole antenna made from 300 ohm twin lead, following your step by step instructions... NOW, I have enough additional space for a SMALL HF VERTICAL, and the question follows... Will a small HF vertical be worthwhile?
Well, here is the answer.... YES YES YES!!! Installing even a small HF vertical will allow you to work DX on the higher HF amateur bands, all the way from 20 meters to 10 meters... My very small (just 2 meters high, that's a bit more than 6 feet high) vertical for the 20, 15 and 10 meter bands works DX like a champ, and it is very easy to build, requiring rather easy to find materials. You can even make it a single band antenna for 10 meters, now that 10 is in such excellent shape. A single-band, 2 meter long antenna is a VERY EFFICIENT radiator on the the 10 meter band, requiring just a very easy to make capacity hat loading, and a simple matching system... If you are a 15 meter band fan the same antenna, with a simple, easy to build base loading coil, will put you there too...
As a matter of fact, I have recently advised a local ham precisely about this kind of easy to homebrew dual band vertical. His is just a length of 2 inch or about 50 millimeter diameter PVC drain pipe; it is actually 2 meters long, and it supports two no.14 wires that are soldered together at the top, middle and bottom of the antenna to simulate a large diameter pipe. The antenna resonates on 28.5 megaHertz with a capacity hat made from 4 spokes of number 10.copper wire. The matching is done via a simple network at the base of the antenna. To make the antenna resonant on 15 meters, a base loading coil is connected in series with the antenna, and that's it... As a matter of fact, you can make the basic vertical tune to 20, 17,15 or 12 meters by changing the base loading coils! The antenna does require the installation of at least 4 radials of about 10 feet or 3 meters long, and if you have room and enough wire for them, 8 or 16 radials will increase the efficiency of the system.
With such a simple vertical antenna system installed in my garden, I have worked no less than 50 DX countries since last September without any particular effort to chase DX, just listening to the 10 meter band DX window from 28.480 to 28.510. So, now that the weather in North America seems to be pretty rough, maybe you can spend some of your year's end spare time assembling this simple vertical; remember to feed it using 50 ohm coaxial cable and to place it as far as possible from metal objects. This antenna can be used indoors too, but the efficiency will not be as high. It is a nice attic antenna, especially when you can install several radials under the carpet.
Again, it is just a 2-meter, or about 6 feet long, length of 2-inch or 50-millimeter PVC pipe, to which two no.14 wires are attached all along its length. If you wish, you can use 3 or 4 wires, but two will do the job... Do remember that the 2, 3 or 4 wires MUST BE SOLDERED TOGETHER at the top, middle and bottom, so as to simulate a length of rather large diameter tubing. Testing this system with an antenna analyzer will be the ideal way of setting it up for each band you want to work, but you can also use a grid dip meter and a standing wave ratio meter to bring the system to resonance at the desired operating frequency.
ANY DOUBTS about the KK-6 ultra small vertical antenna? If you have any doubts about this simple, yet rather effective, and low-cost amateur radio antenna, just send me a post card via AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba... and if you are already in cyberspace, send your e-mail to arnie@radiohc.org.
This is the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited... and here are some notes about solar cycle 23 that I think will be of great interest to you all... Seems like the cycle will peak real soon... possibly during the first 6 months of year 2001... this according to some experts, while other experts are now saying that the solar maximum is already history, and that April of this year 2000 brought the peak of this cycle. My personal opinion is that it is still too early to decide which group of experts is right and which is wrong... However, solar flux figures in the 200 solar flux units figures are still very much with us during the past rotations. For all practical purposes, we will continue to enjoy really excellent DX propagation on the higher amateur bands, while short wave listeners are advised to keep their radios scanning the 16, 13 and 11 meter bands for new stations that have started using those bands during the present B00 HF planning period.
Now item four of today's weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited... Digital communications modes are about the only way that the new low frequency amateur bands can provide real long range DX. Some special and rather sophisticated computer software is required to dig those extremely weak LF signals on the 73 kiloHertz and the 136 kiloHertz NEW BANDS out of the noise. There is a very interesting operating mode that goes by the name of QRSS, or very slow Morse CW... the QRSS software allows the station's operator to provide CW Morse Code dashes that can last as long as several seconds, and then the dots will be of the appropiate length in relation to the dashes. This QRSS, or ultra-slow CW Morse Code Software, is not heard, but actually seen on the computer's screen!!!
Using very narrow computer synthetized filters and ultra-slow CW that sends the dashes as 9-second long transmissions, several radio amateurs have now crossed the Atlantic on the 136 kiloHertz band using extremely low effective radiated power. AND, these sophisticated techniques may soon be bringing a lot of interesting contacts on the higher frequency bands during periods when those bands are supposedly closed! As you see, amigos, computer technology -- far from removing potential radio amateurs from our hobby -- is actually bringing in a lot of know-how to communications technology... And one final comment: the Low Frequency Enthusiasts run several Lists using the Internet as a link to exchange all their experiences and the results of their experiments on both the 73 kiloHertz and 136 kiloHertz amateur bands, which are now available to operators in several countries.
And now, amigos, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's exclusive, but not copyrighted, in the public domain HF propagation update and forecast: Solar activity will be LOW during the next 5 days, BUT watch for signs of an increase in activity from solar active region 9280, which now has at least two large spots. The smoothed sunspot number for the 23rd of December is 147, while today's actual sunspot number is 164. We are seeing a 10.7 centimeters solar flux of around 190 units, which will keep the higher bands wide open during the local daytime hours. The actual number of sunspots for the last six days was 229, 174, 163, 183, 161 and 164 -- and there is a coronal hole that may well send some solar wind gusts that may generate aurora borealis at high latitudes during this weekend.
Radio amateurs must be on the alert for possible 6 meter band openings during the next three days, and for short wave listeners, here is Arnie's special advisory: Be on the lookout for possible rare DX stations reaching your receivers when the geomagnetic disturbances are in progress during the rest of the weekend, and the same holds for Medium Wave AM broadcast band Dxers at high-latitude locations...
See you next Tuesday and Wednesday UTC days at the mid-week edition of Dxers Unlimited. In the meantime, enjoy this wonderful hobby, and if you are not yet an amateur radio operator, mark year 2001 as the one to obtain your ham license amigo!!! As always, I'll be on 28.5 megaHertz, plus/minus 5 kiloHertz, ready to have a nice on-the-air chat with Dxers Unlimited's listeners around the world....
prepared 12-23-2000; transmitted 12-28-2000
delayed in transmission due to heavy weatherArnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
December 23, 2000Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, CUBA
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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