Radio Habana Cuba: Dxers Unlimited mid-week edition for January 9, 2001
By Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK
Hi, amigos! Welcome to the mid-week edition of your favorite radio hobby program coming to you from Radio Havana Cuba. I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK; join me for about sixteen more minutes of all radio hobby-related information.
Here is today's number one headline: Again, OSCAR 40, the ultra-sophisticated ham satellite, makes our banner headline here... seems like there are quite a few things going wrong up there, and some of them don't look like they may be fixed via remote control. So, let's just wait and see how ground controllers try to bring back as many functions as possible. Now a question: Why don't they tell everyone a little more of what they surely know by now happened to OSCAR 40?
Headline number two: No less than two full years of rather nice HF propagation are ahead of us... The issue about the solar cycle's peak is still very much with us, but I can assure you all that we are going to be able to enjoy nice short wave propagation on the higher bands for no less than two more years!!!
Headline number three: Canada is moving ahead fast to grant amateur radio licenses for the High Frequency bands to those who pass just a five-word-per-minute Morse Code test... And why not ban the whole CW Morse Code testing? For one solid reason -- an International Convention signed and approved by National Parliaments of practically every nation member of the ITU. The International Telecommunications Union makes the CW Morse Code mandatory, but with what could be described as a loophole of sorts: It does not specify the speed. So 5 words per minute, which for many countries has been the minimum requirement for a Novice or Beginners license, now looks like it will be the one and only stumbling block for many of you who wish to obtain your amateur radio licenses... But, believe me, 5 words per minute Morse Code reception and transmission isn't all that difficult; as a matter of fact, it is many times easier than even 10 or 12 or 13 words per minute required by many telecommunications administrations for issuing a higher level ham license with more priviledges... My own point of view is to make Morse Code an option, so those who do enjoy communicating using CW may continue to do so, while others who prefer more advanced systems will not need to learn the very difficult for some people Morse code....
Stay right on this same short wave frequency, and I'll be back with you in a few seconds...
Amigos you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and now here is Item one for today, Dxers Unlimited's popular "you have questions" and Arnie answers them... Send your radio hobby-related questions via e-mail to arnie@radiohc.org, or via Air Mail to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba....
Today's question comes from Canada: Arnie, got an old VCR, one of the earlier ones... heard you some time back talking about recycling components from old TV sets and computers... Are VCRs also a good source of parts? Sure, amigo from Manitoba... older VCR machines, in this case the older the better, do have lots of individual components -- electronic and mechanical parts that can be salvaged and recycled... Why the older the better? Well, for a very good reason... older VCRs did not use a lot of ultra-miniature leadless surface-mounted components... most of their electronics was done using resistors, capacitors, and transistors with wire leads, pigtails, that can be very easily desoldered and the parts tested and organized for future use...You will also probably find a nice power supply that in some VCR machines can be recovered all in one piece, and used as very handy supply for your workbench!!! So, amigo, if you happen to have an old VCR machine, again the older the better, you may have a nice and relaxing time just taking it apart... The oldies do have lots of nuts and bolts and washers, too... So why pay for new ones, when the recycled ones are like new and cost nothing!!!! And just before we move on to item two for today, let me add that old TV sets are also a wonderful source of parts, but they MUST BE HANDLED VERY, VERY CAREFULLY, because of the danger posed by the picture tube, which is under very high vacuum and can cause a lot of damage and personal injury if it is not handled properly... So keep this in mind, if you do want to recycle a TV set for electronic parts. Don't start until someone who really knows how to do it removes the picture tube.
Now item two: A very hand test oscillator can be assembled in a few minutes -- it will provide a basic fundamental frequency and lots of harmonics or multiples of that fundamental frequency... You will only need a single battery capable of supplying 5 volts.... What's so nice about this five-minute oscillator? Well, the nice thing about this project is that you only need to wire up a single carbon resistor and two ceramic capacitors to a computer clock oscillator can.... look for them in old and discarded motherboards. I have assembled many of these little very nice test oscillators for different frequencies... got them here for 8, 12, 16, 24, 25, 33, 40 and 50 megaHertz, and I am sure that you will be able to find many more frequencies. NO, they won't move from the frequency... you cannot open them up, so they will only provide a single basic fundamental frequency and its harmonics. I just happened to obtain several of those TTL computer clock oscillators that are tuned to exactly 7.2 megaHertz, and several local hams are having a nice time with these ultra-miniature rigs. To turn them into an actual ON THE AIR ham transmitter, you do have to add a simple LC or inductance capacitance tuned circuit, so that the square waves generated by the TTL circuit will be changed into a nice sine wave output... YES, look around for old computer motherboards and computer plug-in cards, they do have a lot of very useful stuff just waiting to be recycled, amigos!!! REMEMBER... Follow Arnie Coro's advice and start experimenting with your own homebrew radio equipment while using recycled components that cost nothing and allow you to run so many interesting experiments!!!
This is Dxers Unlimited's mid-week edition... Hello Australia and New Zealand friends; it's nice to see how our 22 meter band frequency 13750 kiloHertz is making its way to you during the summer season in the Southern Hemisphere.... And for those who asked, 13750 kiloHertz is beamed to Europe, and reaches you in Australia and New Zealand via what is known as the LONG PATH...
Item three... LONG WAVE listening season is now in full swing, and radio amateurs continue to astonish experts with their achievements on the new 136 kiloHertz band. Wavelength there is about two thousand, two hundred and five meters, so antennas for the 136 kiloHertz are a tremendous challenge. Nevertheless, and once again, amateur radio ingenuity is making things that seem impossible work, and several ham stations have spanned across the North Atlantic already... There are two other low and very low frequency bands available in some countries -- 73 kiloHertz, wavelength of about four thousand, one hundred and nine meters, and the experimental segment below 9 kiloHertz, which was recently opened up to amateurs by some European Telecommunications administrations. An antenna for 9 kiloHertz should be a real challenge, because constructing a one-quarter-wavelength vertical will require a structure of no less than eight thousand, three hundred and thirty-three meters high!!!! BUT, again, hams have found ways of building antennas for both 136 kiloHertz and 9 kiloHertz that do radiate a signal powerful enough to be heard thousands of miles away, although the actual effective radiated power is really very, very small... Low frequency amateur radio... add this new one to the more than fifty ways you and I can enjoy this wonderful hobby!!!
And now my friends, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's short wave plus 6 meters propagation update and forecast: Solar activity is LOW and will probably continue to be at the LOW level until some more active Sunspot regions enter into the visible to Earth solar disk... The daily average smoothed sunspot number for today and the next two to three days will hover very near 120, that is the average sunspot number which is statistically processed so that you can punch that number into your computer HF propagation forecasting software and obtain very reliable predictions. Solar flux is hovering around 170 units and the daily sunspot numbers for the past six days show a very interesting variation, from 128 six days ago to 167 on Tuesday UTC day.
For short wave listeners the best daytime bands will continue to be 22, 19 and 16 meters, with 13 meters running a close second during a few hours every day. Nighttime reception will be very nice from 5 all the way up to 15 megaHertz. Low power amateur radio stations will enjoy working on the 21 megahertz or 15 meter band during many hours every day, and 10 meter band openings will not be lasting so long as during previous weeks. The 6 meter DX season via sporadic E is now about over, and if we don't see much higher solar activity, F2 propagation on 6 meters will be very rare during the next several weeks!!!
See you at the weekend edition of the show, and don't forget to send your signal reports, comments about the show and your radio hobby related questions to arnie@radiohc.org, and if you are already an amateur radio operator, let's have a nice chat on 10 meters, just right on 28.5 megaHertz when the band is open!!!
Arnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
January 9, 2001Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, CUBA
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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