Radio Habana Cuba: Dxers Unlimited for June 12, 1999
By Arnie Coro CO2KK
Hi amigos, welcome to the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited. I am Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK, your friend here in Havana and host of this twice weekly radio hobby show...
Here is item one: VHF-UHF contest weekend... the annual June VHF QSO Party is in progress as you are listening to this program... and my own radio club entry CO-0-VHF will be on the air on 6 meters, 2 meters, and possibly 70 centimeters... so, if you are already a radio amateur and need a QSL from Cuba on 6 or 2 meters, maybe the bands will open up and we can work you!
Item two: some numbers to look at carefully... listen to them -- Average Sunspot Numbers since last December: December registered 81.9, the January... when the SSN went down to 62.4, February's SSN was 66.1, then during March it went up a bit to 69.1, only to take another downward dip to in April to 63.1, finally the latest month for which we have an average, MAY shows a significant increase in solar activity that took the Average Sunspot Number to 106.3... This means that solar cycle no 23 went trough a period of LOWER activity, and has apparently started to recover... Some interesting long range F2 propagation on the 6 meter band may be telling us that the cycle is hopefully making a comeback!
Item three: simple radios continue to attract the attention of Dxers Unlimited's worldwide audience... Now I have a computer file with all the data for building an Ultra-Simple Transmitter for amateur radio that uses just one single integrated circuit... YES you heard it right, a single IC does everything... and although QRP, that is low power, it provides excellent performance... I have uploaded both the picture and the schematic of the complete Ultra-Simple Transmitter, built using the so-called UGLY or DEAD BUG construction technique, here to Dxers Unlimited's website where you can download it. Just click on the link! Now stand by for a few seconds; I'll be back after a brief musical interval.
You are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and amigos, a VHF amateur radio contest is now in progress; my radio club's entry CO-0-VHF is on the air on 6 and 2 meters, and according to my propagation forecasts, we may well work into Europe and Africa on 6 meters if 50 megaHertz continues to open like in did during the last two days.
Item four: A question coming from a listener in Spain... yes , you heard it right, there are Dxers Unlimited's listeners in Spain too... well this listener owns a scanner and wants to build a broadband antenna for his radio... So, I just finnished answering his e-mail and recommending him to build a DISCONE, a vertically polarized omnidirectional antenna system that is extremely broadbanded.. So , if you happen to own a scanner , and want your radio to bring in lots of stations, build yourself a DISCONE antenna, which is a design that has a low frequency cut-off, and behaves essentially like an almost perfect antenna from that low frequency cut-off up to a frequency up to five times as higher... in other words, a well-designed and built discone will show rather low standing wave ratio from, for example 50 to 250 megaHertz, if the low frequency cut-off is 50 megaHertz... If your discone is designed for a 130 megaHertz cut-off frequency, then a single discone, with a single coaxial cable will allow you to pick up stations using your scanner from 130 megaHertz all the way up to even 500 megaHertz... Learn more about the DISCONE... it's the scanner radio's owner best choice!!!
Want to ask any question about the radio hobby? Have e-mail access ? Then just drop me an e-mail with your question... mail to arnie@radiohc.org, and I'll be more than happy to help... and you can include a signal report, and comments about this show too if you wish to do so... Our Radio Havana Cuba QSL card will be mailed to you to your postal address, IF the report checks OK, of course.
Item five: Last week I explained why even when solar activity was rather high, propagation on the HF bands was not so good... and many of Dxers Unlimited's listeners sent in e-mail commenting about how nice it was to learn about SEASONAL VARIATIONS of ionospheric propagation... for those of you that could not listen to that edition of Dxers Unlimited, please do remember to visit our webpage and download the scripts of the show... there you can read all the explanation about WHY despite record breaking sunspot numbers during the past two weeks, HF propagation is not as good as during the spring equinox or the winter season...Our URL is www.radiohc.org, and when there, click to Dxers Unlimited's webpage, then go to the scripts and download as many as you wish... You will also find there the latest SOLAR ACTIVITY CHARTS too.
Item six: As I am writing the script for this show, at fourteen hours UTC, that's ten in the morning Saturday my local time here in Havana, the SIX METER BAND is open... too bad that the contest does not start until 18 HOURS UTC, or two pm my local time, let's hope that the band stays open until then, or that another six meter opening starts right at the beginning of the contest !! By the way, the team at CO-O-VHF includes CM2CE Al, CO2WF, Winston, CO2CW Carlos, and yours truly CO2KK.. we will be operating the station from a high rise building not far away from my home... the antennas are installed at some 75 meters above street level, so we expect to have nice coverage via ground wave to be able to work adjacent grid squares both on 6 and 2.
Item seven: for those of you withoug INTERNET access... here is our postal address... send your signal reports, comments about Dxers Unlimited and radio hobby related questions to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba... as easy as that, no need for PO BOX number, just write on the envolope... Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
Item eight: another listener question... he wants to know which is the best antenna for amateur radio work, when you cannot install an external antenna... here is the answer... first of all amigo, there is something missing in your request... YES, you must tell me on which band or bands you want to operate.... because VHF and UHF bands operation without external antennas is pretty easy to implement, especially if you have some nearby repeaters that may be accessed from your location. For HF work, especially on the bands from 10 to 30 megaHertz my advice is to install a tuned loop system of the so called magnetic type... although magnetic loops tune very sharply and require constant retuning, even when you move frequency just a few kiloHertz, in my opinion they are the best compromise antennas for indoor use when you want to work the HF bands. Again, the magnetic loops are your best choice for an indoor HF antenna, especially for the 30, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meter bands. And for VHF and UHF there are many choices ... my favorite indoor antenna for the two meter band, the one I keep ready INDOORS all the time when the weather is bad, or when I need to stay operating during a thunderstorm, is a very simple JAY antenna built using a length of TV twin lead. In the next few days, I'll make this simple 2 meter antenna design available at Dxers Unlimited's webpage for you to download, too.
And now, just before going QRT here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's propagation update and forecast... Solar activity will be LOW, we may see some kind of geomagnetic disturbance coming up on the 14th of june,and possibly another similar coronal mass ejection related event about a week later... Daily sunspot counts are rather high, but this will not, and I repeat, will not improve HF propagation much, due to the typical ionospheric thermal expansion characteristic of the summer months that should reach its peak during the next few days! In the meantime, check the higher bands, from 21 megaHertz up for sporadic E events, and if you enjoy TV Dxing or FM band Dxing... June is the best month of the summer sporadic E season!
Arnie Coro CO2KK
Havana, Cuba
12 June, 1999Postal address:
Arnie Coro, "Dxers Unlimited"
Radio Havana Cuba
PO Box 6240, Havana, CUBA 10600
phone: 53-7-814243
phone res: 53-7-301794
e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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