Re: [HCDX] Dxers Unlimited´s mid week edition for 25-26 March 2008

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

Radio Havana Cuba

Dxers Unlimited

Dxers Unlimited´s midweek edition 25-26 March 2008

By Arnie Coro

Radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados, around the world and those of you that are 
now orbiting planet Earth… HF propagation is going to hopefully improve 
during the next several days… that´s good news , due to new sunspot 
active regions, that have already sent the solar flux up to near 80 
units. And after the good news,as always I am pleased toI give you my 
welcome to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited .I am Arnaldo, Arnie, 
Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, your host here at this Radio Havana Cuba 
twice weekly program, devoted entirely to the promotion and development 
of our wonderful hobby , yours and mine: RADIO… a hobby that we are able 
to enjoy in no less than 83 different ways of which some of them really 
defy imagination… from talking on the HF short wave amateur bands with 
an underground antenna installed no less than three feet or one meter 
below your garden´s green turf, to having the unique opportunity of 
helping disabled persons learn about amateur radio, so that can enjoy a 
better quality of life, you can also take part , become an active 
participant of a ham radio DX expedition, and see some of the world´s 
most beautiful tropical islands, the ones that look like and still are a 
sort of paradise away from pollution of all types.

For those of you that love music, let me provide some advice, on the 60 
meters Tropical band some of the world´s most beautiful music is heard 
from sunset to sunrise, if you install a good antenna that will cover 
from 4.5 to 5.1 megaHertzr Tropical Broadcast Band signals coming from 
several South American stations, especially from Brazil, Peru and 
Bolivia, will allow you to hear some very nice music, the type of music 
that your local FM boom box station will never play !!!

Si amigos, yes my friends, oui mes amis, radio is a really challenging 
hobby, that you can enjoy by assembling small electronic kits, with easy 
to fill up circuit boards, and that due to their excellent quality will 
produce excellent results while on the air, and will also have a very 
nice look too…My ever growing list of the many ways we can enjoy our 
radio hobby has now reached up to 84 and I am hopeful that there are 
many more to be explored.

Item two: A Canadian radio amateur caught up on the idea of removing a 
broken down, or obsolete cellphone´s two most two valuable devices… the 
excellent, optimized for voice, high quality electret microphone 
element, and an earphone … He is now collecting cellphones that are no 
longer operational, to take them to a radio club´s meeting where they 
will be taken apart and the microphone and earphone removed so that they 
can be re-used to upgrade ham radio equipment. By the way, cellphone 
batteries are also a very interesting option for those of you that have 
developed a recycling mentality.

Very often a cellphone battery stops working because just one of the 
cells that forms the battery breaks down, while the rest of the cells 
are in good working order. The nickel metal hydride battery packs are an 
excellent source of individual cells that you can then test and assembly 
back into a new battery. For example, I have found out that cellphone 
nickel metal hydride cells fit nicely into the FNB-12 Yaesu battery pack 
that is used by the most rugged FM 2 meters band handie talkie ever 
built, the FT-23-R… as you may realize I have no commercial ties of any 
kind with any radio of antenna manufacturer, but what I have just stated 
is absolutely true. The FT 23-R is extremely reliable and rugged, and 
with an FNB-12 battery pack it will operate for a very long time, making 
this handie talkie an excellent choice for handling emergencies. The 
FNB-12 battery packs are very expensive, so opening them up and 
installing nickel metal hydride cells saved from cellphone´s is a very 
nice money saving option that will also make you enjoy a nice time at 
the home workshop…

So, as I said here last week amigos, please don´t throw away the old 
analog cellphones or their dead batteries, before removing the 
microphone element and the earphone capsule…and opening up the battery 
packs to remove and test the individual cells.

No, I don´t have an FT-23R, my recycled FM handie talkie is an FT-2008 a 
software programmed 16 channels radio that also uses the FNB-12 battery 
packs, but that doesn´t have a VFO to change frequencies at will, as the 
FT-23-R has… But, like my dad used to say… use whatever you have at hand 
to the best of your abilities, and that´s how I spent many hours 
thinking about what frequencies to program into the limited capacity of 
16 channels of the FT-2008 ---By the way my FT2008o two meters band 
handie talkie now has a much better microphone quality NOKIA element 
than the original one, thanks to that simple surgical electronic 
transplant operation mentioned earlier in the program… It took me about 
an hour to extract the analog Nokia cellphone microphone element and 
then proceed to install it on the FT2008 two meters band handie talkie… 
And of course that I am looking around to get a hold of more broken down 
cellphones amigos !!!…

You are listening to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, coming to 
you from Havana, I am Arnie Coro, and here is our next item…

The FAN DIPOLE went up here at CO2KK during the weekend, but propagation 
conditions were so poor that the only thing I can tell about the new 
antenna is that it works quite well picking up international short wave 
broadcasts heard from 5.8 megaHertz all the way up to 18 megaHertz 
during Sunday.

I also tested the antenna on the 20 meters amateur band, and it worked 
quite well , with the standing wave ratio easily brought down to a one 
to one ratio by adjusting the homebrew PI network antenna tuner. .

The overall length of this shorter version of the FAN DIPOLE is
14 meters, and tests will continue during this week, with results made 
known here as I am able to collect them.
It´s certainly a nice looking antenna, and several neighbors have 
already asked if it provides special performance to my amateur radio 
station !!!

Item four: More and more radio hobby related questions keep coming in to 
arnie at rhc dot cu on a daily basis, but I was able to reduce the big 
backlog during the weekend with high hopes of catching up during the 
rest of this week… Now here is the answer to a question sent in by 
listener Frank from Vancouver , Canada, where he listens regularly to 
the 6000 kiloHertz frequency during the 05 to 07 hours UTC transmission. 
Amgo Edgar, you are right, earlier , from 00 to 05 UTC the 6000 
kiloHertz frequency is not beamed to your part of North America, and 
this is why your report that the signal increases significantly at 05 
UTC is absolutely correct. We do use a separate antenna to beam the 6000 
kiloHertz to the Pacific Coast of North America. It provides about 
almost 20 dB gain over a half wave dipole, and the beamwidth of the 
pattern to the minus 3dB is plus and minus about 20 degrees…6000 
kiloHertz can be sometimes hear at really way off the main beam 
locations, like Central America and Europe and even from places like 
South Africa and Australia, or some as near to Cuba as Jamaica and 
Haiti, but this is due to the high transmitter power used on that 
frequency, 250,000 Watts amigos !!!

………..

You are listening to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, and here 
is now our next item…it´s about amateur radio´s upcoming big contest 
this weekend. The worldwide CQ Radio Amateur Magazine WPX, or ham radio 
prefixes contest wil surely generate a lot of activity among ham 
operators around the world and here in Cuba too, were several contest 
enthusiasts are now getting ready for the weekend event, where 
individual operators are allowed to be on the air for up to 36 hours of 
the 48 hours long contest. When sending the logs, one most specify 
clearly the operating times, and if you are operating an individual 
station, the contest rules specifically set the number of operating 
hours to no more than 36. Several DX expeditions , large and small are 
already setting up shop at rare locations to be ready for the weekend 
contest. Now let me tell you that I am not an avid DX hunter on the ham 
radio bands. I have always thought of leaving Dxing on the HF bands for 
having something to do when I retire… But, the temptation to work a rare 
DX station is always inside me, and many , really many times, my nice DX 
QSL cards collection has increased by working the DX expeditions 
previous to a contest, when they are installing their antennas and 
testing the generators and radios. I remember many years ago one of the 
Clipperton Island Dx expeditions that I was able to work on 6 meters, 
just before the contest began !!! So, here is Arnie Coro´sa advice to 
amateur radio operators during the time frame between Tuesday and Friday 
UTC days, be looking around for rare callsigns… those unsual prefixes 
that WPX contest stations use… as this may be a unique opportunity to 
work some of the DX expeditions while they are getting ready for the CQ 
RADIO AMATEUR magazine WPX single sideband voice contest, one of the 
highlights of the spring equinox contest season!!! Here are some of the 
nice Dx expeditions that you may hear testing until Friday UTC and 
operating during the contest all over the weekend…

6Y, JAMAICA. Operators David/KY1V, John/K6AM and Scott/W4PA will be active as 6Y1V during the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest (March 29-30th) as a Multi operator with a single transmitter entry.

> From rare DX entity  7P, LESOTHO. The next big operation will take place this week by Belgium 
operators and members of the Radio Club Secunda from South Africa. They will be active as 7P8FC
from Katse Dam in Lesotho starting from March 27th to

April 3rd. . Activity will be on the 160 to the 10 meters bandsmeters, SSB, RTTY and PSK. The QSL Manager
is ON4CJK. 

The Lesotho team will also be active during the CQ WPX SSB Contest .
and from not so rarely heard, but nevertheless DX … we will be able to pick up Guyana, the 8R prefix , 
with the callsign 8R1K operated by OH0XX, Olli, from Finland.

Last but not least, be prepared to have your big antennas and nice earphones ready for my own CO2KK
QRP or low power entry to this year´s WPX contest , running 5 Watts and using two antennas, 
a multibanda vertical and my new FAN DIPOLE… I hope to be able to work many stations during
the WPX contest amigos !!!

Now, as always at the end of the program, here is Arnie Coro´s exclusive and not copyrighted HF plus
low band VHF propagation update and forecast: two new sunspot groups
formed on the east limb of the Sun.. 
The solar flux has moved up to near 80 and will go
past the 80  magic solar flux number very soon.
Therefore we could see a moderate boost in the MUF of the F2 layer and
some short term improvement of propagation conditions on ham radio bands 20,
17, 15 and 12 meters and shortwave broadcast bands 22, 17, 13 and 11 meters. … DX openings on the 17, 15,
12 and 10 meters amateur bands…More will follow during this week, 
so they are a very good solid reason to keep your ham radio
transceivers on and tuning around
the many beacons that provide information about band openings…
See you all at the weekend  edition of Dxers Unlimited next Saturday and
Sunday amigos !!! And don´t forget to send me an e-mail with your signal
reports and comments about the program, plus any radio hobby related
questions that you may want to ask, as always I am at your service
my friends !!!


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