Radio Habana Cuba: Dxers Unlimited mid-week edition for January 2, 2001
By Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos, welcome to the first edition of Year 2001 of Dxers Unlimited, coming to you from Radio Havana Cuba... With the daily solar flux figures still a nice and healthy above 160 mark, and also a nice and low value A index planetary geomagnetic disturbance indicator, it seems like we are certainly going to enjoy a beginning of the year 2001 period of HF propagation...
Today's first 2001 show will be bring you a nice menu of all radio hobby related topics, first the headlines... as you have already heard, the end of year 2000 broughtand the beginning of year 2001 will continue to provide radio hobbyists worldwide a period of excellent HF propagation conditions... later during this weekend we may see a geomagnetic disturbance, but right now, and until at least Friday, the bands from 160 to 10 meters are going to be in pretty good shape. 10 and 12 meters will provide radio amateurs with worldwide DX during the local daylight hours and even after sunset, while 20 meters will be open 24 hours a day... During your local evenings 40 and 30 meters will provide excellent DX, and even 160 and 80 meters will be in good shape, too... High solar flux hovering above 160 units and a rather nice and low A index are responsible for such nice year's end and beginning of 2001 HF propagation.
Headline number two: the future!!! What's going to be the future of amateur radio during this new century? Stay tuned for some thougths about how amateur radio can not only survive, but actually develop during the next 100 years! Headline number three of this first of the year edition of Dxers Unlimited: Now almost confirmed.... it seems like Year 2001 will see the first-ever not too expensive digital signal processing short wave receivers... According to some sources at least two major manufacturers are giving the finishing touches to their prototypes of tabletop short wave radios that will do the signal processing after the second mixer using DSP technology....
Stay tuned for more all radio hobby related information coming to you from Havana... I am Arnie Coro, and I wish you all a Very Happy and Prosperous Y2K PLUS ONE! I'll be back with you in a few seconds...
This is the mid-week edition of your favorite radio hobby show... yes amigos, my friends, mes amis, this is Dxers Unlimited and here is item one for today:
Amateur radio's greatest challenge for the next 99 years?
There's no doubt that this wonderful aspect of the radio hobby will have to face its greatest challenge ever during this new century, and it is none other than bringing in young people into our ranks. Here in Cuba, the average age of amateur radio operators is going down at a fast rate, and that is really good news. YES, many Cuban young people are joining the ranks of ham radio, and are learning how to build their own radios and operate them; they are also learning how to work DX, and are beginning to enjoy ham radio contests too... The young generation of Cuban radio amateurs is much more computer-oriented than we, the older hams, so they are moving at dazzling speeds into the digital modes.... Old computers with simple interfaces and very cleverly written software for the MS DOS operating system and also for LINUX are providing the new generation of Cuban amateur radio operators with the opportunity of enjoying both computers and radios!!! My perception is that national amateur radio associations around the world should work hard to promote the hobby among the younger generation, so that many more people can learn about this wonderful hobby.
One of the most important contributions to amateur radio development is, without any doubt, designing and building simple receivers, transmitters and transceivers, that can be made available in kit form and be assembled by newcomers with the help of more experienced radio amateurs. My point of view is that expensive -- in the near thousand dollar and higher price bracket -- radios, will not help a lot bringing fresh blood to the hobby!!!! So, here we keep working on simple designs, like one I'll describe here today a little later, after this short musical interval and station ID...
This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited. Our mailing address is very easy to remember... send your signal reports, QSL requests and comments about the show to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba... And our e-mail address is arnie@radiohc.org.
Now here is item two of today's mid-week edition of Dxers Unlimited, our first program on the air during this year 2001: CM6FG, Fernando Gonzalez is a Cuban radio amateur who lives in a very small town; he has a completely homebrew ham station, and Fernando enjoys constantly upgrading his equipment with more homebrew gear. A few days ago I was talking to him on the 40 meter band, which here in Cuba is used for local contacts during daytime, as it provides very effective island-wide coverage via Near Vertical Incidence Skywave or NVIS propagation. Well, Fernando CM6FG and yours truly CO2KK QSO went into our typical technical talk, and Fernando told me about his most recent experiment -- a one transistor plus one integrated circuit receiver that had left him amazed by the excellent results... He told me that originally the circuit was a REFLEX design, in other words, a radio circuit in which the detected audio signal is fed back to the radio frequency stage so that it will do double duty, but CM6FG added regeneration to the reflex one transistor plus one diode circuit and ended up with a very sensitive, low parts count, easy to build receiver. For the receiver's audio he used a high gain audio integrated circuit, the TBA210 or A210 as it is known locally, and he powered the radio from a 9 volt homebrew regulated supply.
His REFLEX REGENERATIVE tunes from the upper end of the broadcast band up to the high end of the 80 meter ham band with a single tuned circuit, so CM6FG is able to pick up several AM broadcast stations, amateurs on the 160 meter band, and he also picks up hams on 80 meters. The ultra simple circuit can receive standard AM when it is not oscillating, and when the regeneration control is advanced it allows him to pick up both CW Morse code and Single Sideband signals. As usual during Cuban amateur contacts, I promptly asked him for the circuit diagram, which he then described very carefully ON THE AIR... Yes, you can send another amateur a not-too complex circuit diagram by describing very carefully how the parts are wired together. Fernando, CM6FG, used an old receiver's variable capacitor, and a small length of a ferrite rod as the core for the three coils that his receiver uses, which are: the tuning coil connected in parallel with the variable capacitor, the small base circuit coupling coil, and the collector regeneration coil... As soon as our QSO came to an end, I haywired the CM6FG Reflex Regenerative circuit, and connected the output to my workbench test amplifier...The radio started to pick up AM broadcast stations immediately, and later during the evening, I was able to pick up several Cuban, Canadian and USA amateurs on the 80 meter band with excellent quality.
Fernando's "REFLEX REGENERATIVE" is still in an experimental stage; he is testing different resistor values for the transistor's base circuit, and he is also experimenting with different transistors types that are locally available... CM6FG told me that the audio amplifier needs no more work, and he has already settled on the parts values, so he will be sending me via post the complete circuit diagram of the radio as soon as it is finished... Then, as always, I will make it available at Dxers Unlimited so that listeners can download the files and enjoy building this very simple, but truly very effective little radio...
Just one transistor, a very common NPN bipolar silicon one, and an integrated circuit audio amplifier... with a 9 volts DC supply will provide many hours of listening enjoyment from this nice little project that you can build with your own hands in a few hours time !!!
Yes my friends, start year 2001 with a beautiful Radio Havana Cuba QSL card, send your signal report and comments about Dxers Unlimited to arnie@radiohc.org and if not yet in cyberspace, send your QSL request via AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
Now, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited HF plus 6 meters propagation update and forecast: We must keep a very careful watch of solar active region number 9289, as it may well generate powerful class M flares during the next several days, and due to the fact that this sunspot group will be in a rather effective geo-effective position, any of those flares may disrupt radio communications here on Earth! Six meter band operators will continue to have chances of 50 megaHertz openings, as the daily solar flux figures will be in the above 140 to 150 region. Daytime DX in the range from 20 to 40 megaHertz will be very enjoyable, so if you are already an amateur radio operator set your bandswitch to 10 meters when at home during your local daylight hours and even an hour or two after local sunset. Year 2001 may see cycle's 23 maximum activity according to some sources... and even if the maximum is already behind it is certainly, in my opinion, going to be an excellent year for short wave propagation on the higher bands!
See you on TEN... tune for CO2KK right on 28.5 megaHertz, plus or minus 5 kiloHertz and let's have a nice Year 2001 QSO!!!
Arnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
January 2, 2001Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, CUBA
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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