RADIO HABANA CUBA
DXERS UNLIMITED
WEEKEND EDITION
SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2002
By Arnie Coro CO2KKSend your comments, questions and ideas to: arnie@radiohc.org
Hi, amigos around the world! Welcome to the weekend edition of your favorite listener oriented radio hobby program. I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, your friend in Havana and host of this twice-weekly show, devoted entirely to the promotion and development of our wonderful and fascinating hobby, your hobby, my hobby: RADIO!!!
And here is item one: One of the year's big contests is now in progress, lots of activity on the classic HF bands, and no, no, the 30, 17 and 12 meter amateur bands, known as the WARC bands are NOT USED for amateur radio contests... So monitor with your receiver capable of tuning to single side band signals on the 80,40,20,15 and 10 meter bands, and you will certainly pick up a lot of nice DX stations that are participating in this contest that will come to an end at just as the SUNDAY UTC days is over....
ITEM TWO: Medium wave AM band Dxers are not enjoying a very nice spring equinoctial DX season this year... too many geomagnetic disturbances, K indexes too high, and solar flux still well above 150 units have combined to increase ionospheric absorption, background noise levels and to makes things worse, atmospheric noise from thunderstorms seems to be higher than normal for this time of the year... BUT, as I have always said here, when propagation is not good at one end of the spectrum, usually it is nice at another end, and YES, we are enjoying some nice DX on the 12 and 10 meter amateur bands, and the 13 meters international broadcast band is providing short wave listeners with excellent reception during many hours every day, including some local nighttime activity too...
ITEM THREE: Amateur satellites are in orbit and working well.. some of them have lived well past what their designers expected them to last.... just to mention two such cases, the Russian RS12-RS13 satellite pair riding piggyback atop a COSMOS navigation satellite are working nicely after more than a decade of having to face the harsh space environment, and the same holds for British made UO14, an FM repeater that I had the nice opportunity of testing early Saturday UTC from my amateur station CO2KK with surprising results, as I was using an indoor receiving antenna!!! More about amateur low earth orbit satellites later in today's edition of Dxers Unlimited.
Amigos, you can obtain your amateur radio operators license rather easily nowadays, just a test that is not more difficult than the one everyone takes to obtain a drivers license, and some countries are now offering full amateur radio operating priviledges by passing a slow CW Morse Code receiving test at just 5 words per minute!!! Yes, we are in the 21st Century and amateur radio has lots of new technologies available for you to enjoy...
Find out about your local radio club, join them, and start studying for the ham radio license test amigos!!! Yes, you will remember me when you make your first amateur radio contact and start learning more about this fascinating hobby, one of the more than 64 ways that you can enjoy RADIO!!!! Margarita Delgado is my sound engineer and producer, here at RHC studio 7, stand by for more radio hobby related information coming to you in a few seconds.
You are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, a 100 percent QSL station amigos!!! Send your signal reports and comments about this program to arnie@radiohc.org or via AIRMAIL to Arnie Coro Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba....
Amazing as it may sound, I was holding a small 6 element homebrew Yagi antenna with my right hand, the microphone of my two meter FM rig with the left hand, and talking to a ham radio operator in Texas via the UO14 FM repeater satellite... Amazing for two reasons, the antenna was indoors... inside a building that has a reinforced concrete roof with lots of rebars, and the uplink power used to access the satellite was about 2.5 watts!!! Oh, yes, the 2 meter band antenna was my regular omnidirectional 6 dB gain vertical, but, sure, I was picking up the UO14 satellite downlink using the small hand held Yagi inside my shack amigos!!!
Saturday morning local time I tried again, at another UO14 satellite pass, but something was wrong with the 70 centimeter band antenna connector and I could not hear the satellite, while many other hams did heard CO2KK quite well according to several e-mail messages that I received just a few minutes after the UO14 satellite had vanished below the horizon....
Well, it happens that to access this and other similar FM repeater satellites you do need a special dual YAGI antenna that combines in the same boom between three and four elements for two meters and from five to seven elements on 70 centimeters... The antenna has a handle so that you can actually point it manually to the satellite to obtain the best reception!!! A dual band handheld FM transceiver running about five watts on the two meter band uplink will provide many nice two way satellite contacts...
Now, another thing you will need is to learn how to run a satellite orbital prediction software on your computer, so that you will known when each satellite will be flying near to your location so that you can access it....Si amigos, yes my friends, the FM low earth orbit satellites are a lot of fun, and they are certainly an ideal demonstration of what can be done with simple equipment when you want to show a friend how interesting amateur radio can be... Of course you must time your demonstration so that your friend or friends will be on the spot exactly when the satellite is flying nearby!!!!
If you already have a good scanner capable of tuning to the UHF 70 centimeter amateur band, even with the rubber duck you will be able to pick up the UO14 satellite by tuning your scanner to 435.070, 435.075 and 435.080, as the Doppler shift will make the satellite frequency change as it flies overhead... Again tune your scanner to the UHF band frequencies of 435.070, 435.075 and 435.080, use the narrowband FM mode and the best possible antenna, then, run one of the several freeware satellite orbits forecasting software, and go out of your home, in the open, and listen first on the lower frequency 435.070 and you will soon be picking up radio amateurs talking trough the UO14, be aware that this is a low earth orbit space vehicle, so each pass won't last very long!!!
More about LOW EARTH ORBIT SATELLITES here at Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition, coming to you from Havana amigos!!!
You have questions and Arnie tries to answer them, Dxers Unlimited's is second most popular part of the show, because, amigos, YES, Arnie Coro's HF plus 6 meters propagation update and forecasts continue to be, according to a recent survey, Dxers Unlimited's most popular section!!!
Well now here is today's question: Arnie, got a C band satellite dish from a neighbor that has just upgraded to the Ku band birds, I've got everything, including the C band receiver and the cables... My question, what can I do with this equipment?
Well, amigo from Georgia, USA, if the C band satellite receiver is in good shape, and the LOW NOISE BLOCK DOWNCOVERTER of LNB is also working OK, then one very interesting application for the C band ex TVRO equipment is to turn it into a SOLAR RADIO TELESCOPE.... Sure, you can become an amateur solar radio astronomer by adding a chart recorder and a few other components to the ex TVRO C band dish and receiver.... IF the equipment is not in good shape, you can still make good use of the dish itself for UHF TV reception, by placing a dipole plus reflector at the parabolic reflector focal point, and of course, the receiver itself can become a very nice source of electronic components for recycling... and by the way, the older equipment provides the most parts, as more modern satellite receivers use highly sophisticated surface mounted devices and integrated circuits!!! I hope this answers your question and will help other Dxers Unlimited's listeners to grab all available retired C band dishes and receivers and make good use of them, saving those TVRO sets from the dumpster!!!
Now more about amateur satellites.... The easy sats, as they are also known, include the RS12 and RS13, two birds that are still in orbit, working very well despite the fact that they have both exceeded by far their life expectancy. RS12 and RS13 even have their own website, where enthusiasts get together and exchange information on how they are enjoying working on CW and SSB using them. The RS12 and RS13 have several transponders that can be switched to operate on different modes, combining uplink and downlink frequencies on the two meters, ten meters and fifteen meter bands. The ten meter band is always used as a downlink, while the 15 meter band is used only as a downlink. The 2 meter band equipment is used both for uplinking and downlinking. Let's see how it works...
When RS13 is operating using the so called mode T, you uplink on the 15 meter band, using CW or SSB between 21.260 and 21.300, and you listen for the downlink on the 2 meter band, from 145.860 to 145.900... The RS13 satellite has a beacon that sends out a strong signal very near 145.860, so even when there are no amateur stations operating, you know that the satellite is flying within your access range by just monitoring the CW beacon, but keep in mind that there is Doppler shift, so the frequency can be slightly different from the nominal 145.860!!! RS13 is now operating using mode T, and is providing nice QSO's to ham stations that have installed a simple half wave dipole antenna for the 15 meter band, and an omnidirectional antenna for two meters... The two meter band receiver should, of course, be capable of picking up the so called narrow band modes, that is CW and Single Side Band among others... In an upcoming edition of Dxers Unlimited I will tell you more about amateur radio satellites, one of the more than 64 ways that you and I can enjoy our wonderful hobby: RADIO!!!
And now amigos, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF plus 6 meters propagation update and forecast... Let's start with 6 meters, YES, the band is opening up for long range Trans Equatorial Scatter DX almost every afternoon and evening here in the Caribbean and at other locations along the North-South paths, for example between the Mediterranean and Africa...
The daily solar flux is hovering above 170 units, and that's keeping the 10 meter band wide open during this weekend as I was able to verify Saturday morning and early afternoon while working the WPX Contest now in progress. This coming week will be a good one for the HF bands in general, but we may see some more geomagnetic disturbances. AM band and Tropical band conditions are not going to be very nice, but you may pick up some DX on those bands especially just before sunrise...
See you at the midweek edition of Dxers Unlimited amigos, and don't forget to send your QSL requests, signals reports, radio hobby related questions and comments about this program via e-mail to arnie@radiohc.org and VIA AIRMAIL, a postcard will be nice, to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
Arnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
March 30, 2002Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, CUBA
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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