Re: [HCDX] Dxers Unlimited´s weekend edition 10-11 May 2008

["Prof. Arnaldo Coro Antich" <coro@xxxxxxx>]

Radio Habana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's weekend for 10-11 May 2008
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados ! Welcome to the week end edition of Dxers 
Unlimited, the one and only fully integrated radio hobby program, 
covering each and every aspect of the wonderful world of radio... from 
hunting for DX
using the most sophisticated crystal sets that are able to provide 
reception without using no power at all, to sending amateur radio 
signals on the 3 centimeters or ten gigaHertz band to the Moon and 
establishing a two way contact with another operator located half way 
around the world via the Moon bounce signals... In between these two 
extremes there is of course, casual short wave listening to 
international radio broadcasts, the way many of us learned for the first 
time about this nice hobby, and of add to those TV DX, FM broadcast band 
DX, home brewing radio receivers and transmitters or building and 
testing antennas... All in all, have a list of 83 different ways you and 
I enjoy radio... Now here one of them that I had yet to describe here in 
my show, it can be called extreme satellite TV Dxing, using very 
sensitive ultra low noise receivers and relatively large size parabolic 
antennas to pick broadcast satellites that are located very near the 
horizon or even below the horizon at your QTH, so they are not normally 
received at your particular location... By using a combination of the 
ultra sensitive receivers ultra low noise receivers LNB´s, the big 
oversize antennas and the extra help that may be provided by 
tropospheric ducting propagation, TV satellite Dxers have picked up 
signals that have amazed even those who designed the satellite's 
footprints.. As you may realize amigos, there are still many challenges 
to deal with, and every time a radio hobbyst faces one of them, many 
interesting things happen... Take for example, when many years 
ago,during the early nineteen twenties radio amateurs found out that so 
called short radio waves could be used for long distance communications, 
when professional radio engineers of that era as well as scientists had 
proclaimed that the short radio waves on frequencies higher than about 2 
megaHertz or so should be given to amateurs as they were thought useful 
only for short distance communications... Ham radio operators proved 
that they were absolutely WRONG !!

Now here is item one of today's Dxers Unlimited's edition..It´s our 
popular YOU have questions and Arnie tries to answer them section of the 
program, this question was sent in actually in several different forms 
by several listeners... they all want yours truly to tell them how to 
deal with the now almost never ending solar minimum years....The typical 
question was : Arnie, you are
insisting about the end of the solar cycle, mentioning during the your 
program that we are seen again and again many days with a spotless 
Sun... ZERO SUNSPOT COUNT !!! Now please, tell me and other radio hobby 
enthusiasts what can be done to face this extended period of extremely low
solar activity...
Well amigos, I'll be more than happy to provide you all with some ideas 
about how to deal with the now already with us solar 
minimum....officially proclaimed now as the longest lasting solar cycle 
in history…Yes, cycle 23 is now the longest lasting cycle ever registered…
Stay tuned, as Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition continues... I am Arnie 
Coro, radio amateur CO2KK now also getting ready to deal with the SOLAR 
CYCLE number 23 ULTRA LONG MINIMUM... back with you in a few seconds...
........
Si amigos, Dxers Unlimited is a very practical radio hobby show... and 
all along its existence I have always tried to provide my listeners with 
the facts that will help you all to enjoy the hobby... Dealing 
creatively with the many , many, months of very low solar activity still 
ahead of us is today's program main topic... and I do hope that you can 
take notes, tape the program or read the script posted to the ODXA 
e-mail list, the Ontario DX Association YAHOO mail list that so 
successfully has provided its members with up to date radio hobby 
information
SOLAR MINIMUM.... yes, you have heard that dreadful phrase more and more 
often as we approached it during the years 2006 and hit it hard on 2007 
and now also during 2008, when scientists are said that a period of 
extremely low solar activity will continue to spoil HF propagation 
tremendously as solar cycle 23 comes to an end... But, first things 
first... don't think that one cycle comes abruptly to an end, and the 
next one starts at the flip of a switch... Solar cycle 23 is still 
winding down, and we have already seen the first sunspot groups of cycle 
24... as the two cycles overlap for a period lasting many months... 
Cycle 23, the present one, was a higher than average one, but now 
scientists are forecasting that cycle 24 will be no match to the 
previous two cycles, but that's something yet to be seen...
Now finally as promised, here is the answer to today's question sent to 
our ASK ARNIE section of Dxers Unlimited by a large number of listeners 
from all around the world... Here is ARNIE CORO´s RADIO HOBBYSTS 
STRATEGY TO DEAL WITH SOLAR MINIMUM !!!!
First things first.... monitor the Sun's activity more precisely than 
ever, as during the solar minimum there are certain periods of higher 
activity that will provide you with nice Dx opportunities on the higher 
frequency bands..As a matter of fact, not too long ago we have just gone 
trough of those "active periods" during this extended solar minimum.
So, rule number one of the game: MONITOR THE SUN on a daily basis and 
keep a record of the daily number of sunspots, the solar flux and 
information about
coronal holes...
Your solar records will help you plan in advance for any upcoming 
contest, as the Carrington solar rotation, the 27 days and forty one 
minutes that the Sun takes to rotate at its Equator will help you to 
forecast periods of lower or higher solar activity...
NOW, second rule of the game: MONITOR the HF bands using the higher 
frequencies first approach, also known among experts as the downward sweep..

A receiver with a slow motion dial drive is ideal for this purpose, and 
it is second only to a HF spectrum analyzer connected to a wideband 
antenna system, a really broadband omnidirectional antenna system, 
equipment that is totally out of the question for normal people like you 
and I... Doing the downward spectrum sweep with a receiver connected to 
my 14 meters long Tilted Terminated Folded Dipole wideband 
omnidirectional antenna, will give you information about the highest 
frequency that is propagating at anytime... For example, Monday late 
evening local time here in Havana, it was actually about two o'clock in 
the morning, I ran a downward sweep starting at 21.5 megaHertz, and met 
with the first signals on the 25 meters international broadcast band, 
around 12 megaHertz...very weak signals, but they were surely DX and not 
groundwave.It was obvious that the maximum useable frequency curve was 
way down , something that led me to keep tuning down in frequency until 
I reached the 30 meters amateur band, where several very weak CW signals 
could be heard. Solar flux was at rock bottom level at that time...
So, if you have not yet built your wideband TTFD short antenna for the 
frequency range between 7 and 35 megaHertz, it's about time to start 
collecting the materials and homebrewing one, as this antenna will be 
your number one aid to create your own propagation forecasts during 
solar minimum years...
More about how to deal with SOLAR MINIMUM as Dxers Unlimited's continues ...
.......
Si amigos, solar minimum is here, but that doesn't mean that you have to 
shut down your radios and wait until the sunspots are back... Here is 
now Arnie Coro's number three tip for dealing with the solar minimum 
years...
Build yourself a large sized magnetic loop antenna, capable of operating 
from 1.5 to 5 megaHertz.... If used for receive only applications, the 
magnetic loop may be tuned using a conventional receiving type variable 
capacitor... Why do I recommend the magnetic loop for the 1.5 to 5 megaHertz
frequency range... well, because a lot of DX activity will be happening 
there during the long months when the sunspot count will be extremely low...
A good friend of mine, with whom I discussed the strategy for the solar 
minimum years recently, said that he was getting ready to homebrew a 
five meters by five meters magnetic loop, using the fiberglass spreaders 
that are made for building cubical quad antennas for the amateur 
bands... He has already made a two by two meters square magnetic loop, 
using RG-213 coaxial cable for the antenna element with very good 
results...And he is looking forward on how to deal with the much heavier 
five by five meters version of the magnetic loop that he affirms will be 
able to tune down to the low end of the AM broadcast band, where Dx 
stations from Europe may be picked up clearly on split channel 
frequencies in the Americas during the solar minimum.
Now rule number three: And this one applies only to amateur radio 
operators rule number three calls for calling CQ DX as much as possible 
, yes, calling CQ DX every time you have an opportunity...do it on 30, 
40 and 80 meters as much as possible during your local evening hours and 
you will be surprised to see that calling CQ DX at three o'clock in the 
morning local time on an otherwise apparently almost dead 40 meters band 
, may bring in DX from halfway around the world, exactly as it happened 
to me on the low end of 40 meters band at exactly that time from Monday 
to Tuesday my local time, that was at 0700 UTC
..
Last but not least, if you are the happy owner of a lot of real state 
where to install long wire antennas, by all means try them ! A Beverage 
long wire terminated antenna three,four or five city blocks long, 
mounted on typical fence posts at about 2 meters above ground will bring 
incredible DX from the direction to where the termination of the antenna 
is looking at... Some low frequency Dxers, the guys that enjoy most the 
solar minimum years have installed not one, but several long wire 
terminated Beverage antennas in
preparation for the very low solar activity expected during the next two 
years...
Well amigos, I hope that this information on how to deal with the solar 
minimum years will be useful to you all, both newcomers and experts... 
the newcomers to the hobby will be seeing their first quiet Sun, and we 
the old timers are now remembering really lengthy periods of the quiet 
Sun as the one that happened during 1965...A year that was named by 
scientists the International Year of the Quiet Sun.
AH... and before I forget... running a little higher power on your 
amateur radio transmitting equipment will also help to deal with the 
solar minimum..
Boosting your transmitter power from 10 Watts to 100 Watts, that is by 
10 decibels will improve your chances of having nice two way contacts 
under a very weak
ionosphere ...
If you have any further questions or doubts about how to deal with the 
low sunspot counts coming ahead, send me an e-mail to inforhc@xxxxxxx, 
again, inforhc@xxxxxxx, or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana 
Cuba, Havana, Cuba

And as always, I will be more than happy to answer your questions and 
make good use of your comments and ideas on how to improve Dxers 
Unlimited...
.....
Well amigos, I hope that the information provided during today's Dxers 
Unlimited will be useful for you all... now , here is our exclusive and 
not copyrighted HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast... 
Nice sporadic E openings seen here in Havana on Thursday and Friday 
mornings... I picked up several TV channelsl 2, 3 and 4 stations using 
my 2 meters long VHF TTFD omnidirectional antenna... But unfortunately 
could not work any of the 6 meter band operators calling CQ DX, because 
at the time that the 50 megaHertz band opened up, I had to leave for a 
meeting at RHC !!! !!! Solar flux is at rock bottom levels of 66 units 
and the number of sunspots is ZERO... See you all at the midweek edition 
of Dxers Unlimited next Tuesday and Wednesday UTC days amigos, and don't 
forget to set aside a little time to send me feedback about today's 
program to by sending a postcard or letter to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana 
Cuba ; Havana, Cuba thanks to your help,future editions of Dxers 
Unlimited will hopefully be a bit better than this one !


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