RADIO HABANA CUBA
DXERS UNLIMITED
MID-WEEK EDITION
TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2001
By Arnie Coro CO2KKSend your comments, questions and ideas to: arnie@radiohc.org
Hi, amigos RADIOAFICIONADOS! Welcome to the mid-week edition of your favorite radio hobby program on short-wave and on the World Wide Web... I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK your friend here in Havana, the capital city of Cuba... And here is the menu for today:
Item one: Late season sporadic E events have made FM broadcast band Dxers very happy...And in a few days, the Perseids Meteor Shower may provide VHF Dxers with a unique opportunity to add more stations to their logs... Of course when I mention VHF Dxers I am including radio amateurs, TV DX fans and FM broadcast band DX enthusiasts into the generic term VHF DXERS!!!
Item two: Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are one of the most interesting electronic components -- you can use them as replacement for panel pilot lights, as indicators, and YES, they do work very well as LOW VOLTAGE voltage regulators... You can also use a Light Emitting Diode and a PHOTOTRANSISTOR to make you own OPTO COUPLER, or just go ahead and buy a ready-made factory sealed OPTO-COUPLER, a device that provides a very high degree of isolation between circuit elements... More about OPTO COUPLERS and how you can use them for protecting your computer to radio interface later in today's edition of Dxers Unlimited.
Item three: No doubt, there are three sections of this show that many listeners keep telling me that they enjoy very much. They are the following: ANTENNA TOPICS, YOU HAVE QUESTIONS and ARNIE ANSWERS THEM, and ARNIE CORO'S HF PLUS 6 METERS PROPAGATION UPDATE AND FORECAST..., by the way, today's item three happens to be our ANTENNA TOPICS, and YOU HAVE QUESTIONS will follow... As always at the end of the show, in the public domain, freeware... you will be able to pick up the most up to date HF plus 6 meter band propagation forecast...
Stay tuned right on this same short-wave frequency, Margarita Delgado is my sound engineer and producer, I am Arnie Coro, back with you in a few seconds, amigos!!!
This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and our e-mail address is very easy to remember: arnie@radiohc.org, and our postal mailing address also a very easy one to write to: Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba... no need fo PO BOX number or postal codes, my friends, just send your AIR MAIL postcard or letter with a signal report and comments about the show to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba...
Now here is item two: Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs, are nowadays present in many different types of electronic equipment, and have also found their way into many other applications. Their main use continues to be as very reliable low consumption INDICATORS... But LEDs can do many more functions... among them one that is very useful and yet little known: LED's are excellent low voltage regulators, and besides providing this feature of regulating a small DC voltage, they also emit light when regulating, so you can use them as combination panel light and voltage regulator at the same time! LEDs of a new chemical composition are coming to help Dxers around the world... Want to know why? Well, because a NEW type of lamp that uses this HI-TECH version of the Light Emitting Diode should be an excellent replacement for the troublesome energy-saving light bulbs that are such a terrible source of radio frequency noise...
IF and WHEN the new high-efficiency white colored light-emitting diodes become available at a lower price, I foresee that the life of the present-day electronic ballast fluorescent light bulbs may be counted in months, as there is absolutely no reason to use them once the NOISELESS -- yes, you heard it right, NOISELESS -- Light-Emitting Diode Lamps become available at a lower price.... As many of you know, especially those involved in low frequency DXing, fluorescent lamps in general, and the new energy-saver lightbulbs in particular, generate a tremendous amount of radio frequency noise that makes reception impossible in the vecinity of where they are installed. Replacing ALL of those energy-savers that use radio frequency to activate the fluorescent lamp with the new SUPER BRIGHT WHITE COLORED LIGHT-EMITTING DIODES will make the noise floor go way down, and that will improve your signal-to-noise ratio a lot, so your chances of picking up those rare long wave beacons or the lowfers stations will increase many times!!!
Finally there is a very important application for LEDs when they are encapsulated into a device known as an OPTOCOUPLER. You will want to use an OPTOCOUPLER when connecting your computer's serial port to activate a transceiver's push-to-talk circuit for digital radio modes operation. The OPTOCOUPLER provides a very high degree of isolation, so it protects your computer from any possible damage that may be caused by voltages reaching high values for some odd reason... I hope that you have enjoyed this topic, and if you happen to have more information about the new light-emitting diodes incandescent bulb replacement lamps, why not share it with other Dxers Unlimited's listeners, amigo? Send your info about the new LED WHITE LIGHT replacement lamps to arnie@radiohc.org, and I'll be very happy to share it with the worldwide audience of this show in an upcoming edition of Dxers Unlimited!
[script received incomplete Aug 08, 2001]
Arnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
August 7, 2001Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, CUBA
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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