Re: [HCDX] Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition script for June 2 -3 SOLAR FLARES !!!

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

Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition for June 2-3 2007
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados ! You are listening to the weekend edition of 
your favorite listener oriented and technically minded radio hobby 
program ... Here is now our first item: Solar activity moving up, as an 
active sunspot region seems to be developing to the extent of producing 
even class M solar flares. BIG SUNSPOT: New sunspot 960 emerging today 
over the sun's eastern limb is big and crackling with solar flares. This 
sunspot 960  poses a  real threat for significant solar activity. 
Already it has unleashed four M classsolar flares. One of the eruptions, 
an M3-flare at 1450 UT on Friday June 1st, caused a shortwave radio 
fadeout over Europe. In the Czech Republic, Mirek Najman captured the 
event of a fading 3.5 MHz radio beacon. Astronomers with solar telescope 
should keep an eye on this photogenic active region, while shortwave 
radio listeners should be alert for flare-triggered fadeouts ( The so 
called Moss-Dillenger effect) and other propagation phenomena.
So, me may see some HF propagation disturbances during the first two or 
three days of next week...
Item two: E-mail messages, as well as postcards and letters sent to 
Dxers Unlimited contain signal reports, comments about the program, new 
ideas on topics to be part of the program and a large number of radio 
hobby related questions, coming from both old timers and newcomers alike.
Of those questions the largest number have to do with antennas, with 
advice about buying new radios in second place, followed by requests for 
circuit diagrams of radios and accesories that I have talked about here 
during our Dxers Unlimited program.
Today ASK ARNIE, la numero uno, the most popular section of the program 
will be devoted to answering a question sent by listeners in Ghana, 
Africa, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and a first time listener from 
Barbados that is enjoying some nice FM DX from South America... They all 
want to know about the Trans-equatorial ionospheric forward scatter 
propagation, that provides so interesting DX signals on frequencies as 
high as the two meters amateur band, but that is much more frequent on 
the 10 meters and 6 meters bands...
All I can say amigos is that Trans-equatorial upper HF and VHF 
propagation was discovered by radio amateurs operating from Africa and 
the Mediterranean region, and so far scientists have not really reached 
an agreement about what causes this unique form of signal propagation 
that shows practically no relation to the solar cycle.
Examples of Trans-equatorial propagation include the reception of 
Brazilian FM stations operating from 88 to 108 megaHertz in Barbados, 
Trinidad and Tobago and Puerto Rico. Amateur two meters band signals 
from as far as northern Argentina reaching Puerto Rico, and the history 
making path between Zimbabwe and Cyprus, one of the first ones that was 
fully documented by radio amateurs during the early nineteen fifties.
There are some reports indicating that Trans-equatorial propagation has 
even sent the maximum useable frequency curve to well above 300 
megaHertz, something that indicates an extremely high level of free 
electrons concentrations at F layer altitude...
I hope that this short explanation gives you an idea amigos of what 
Trans-equatorial forward scatter propagation is, and how it is still 
very much a mystery that science is trying to discover using 
sophisticated research tools like satellites equipped with ionospheric 
sounders that work in reverse, that is they send signals from space to 
the ionosphere at the same time that standard ionospheric sounders probe 
the ionosphere from below.
The fact that Trans-equatorial propagation happens at certain times of 
the year is the main clue that scientists are using to find a 
correlation that will fit and finally tell them why this extraordinary 
VHF propagation events happen.
More radio hobby related information follows in just a few seconds, as 
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition continues after a short station ID.
I am Arnie Coro in Havana...

........
This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and 
it's on the air twice weekly for the enjoyment of our worldwide audience 
of radio hobby people... Now here is item three: The Atlantic, Caribbean 
and Gulf of Mexico tropical hurricane season started on Friday, with a 
rather disorganized but later into becoming the first storm of the 
season pouring , that goes by the name of Barry, as the the storm 
starting with the letter A actually occurred before the season started. 
Barry has brought a lot of rain over Cuba's western provinces, including 
the capital city , Havana. The bad weather system was moving into the 
Gulf of Mexico where ,according to tropical cyclones experts, it will 
not gain much strength, so Barry is not expected to be a powerful storm, 
but nevertheless it will pour a lot of rain on its path ... This early 
tropical storm formation seems to be in good agreement with the 
forecasters that said that this year's season is going to be a very 
active one indeed. Amateur radio operators located in the areas where 
tropical storms or hurricanes may strike, should step ahead with the 
preparations to have their portable stations and antennas ready to go on 
the air when required...
.........
Item four: Also related to the Atlantic , Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico 
tropical storm season...radio once again will be playing an important 
role to help
to make better forecasts of the path of cyclones and hurricanes, by 
using a larger number of automatic ocean buoys of two types... ones that 
are heavily anchored at some specific locations and others that will be 
launched from specially equipped aircraft and will be then keep track of 
the drift buoys as they move under the force of the storm's winds. The 
new hurricane forecasting weather buoys will be using HF , VHF and UHF 
frequencies for passing along the data that they are picking up with 
their sensors. The HF signals can reach long distances but are not very 
reliable, the VHF data stream is pointing upwards to the airplane that 
will pick up the data, and the UHF transmitter will send its signals to 
a special antenna that will be beaming up to a satellite with a very 
broad beam so that the rough seas will not stop the signal from reaching 
the satellite , and that requires the use of a special broad beam 
antenna and a rather high power.
A future hurricane weather buoy may be powered by a new type of 
electricity generator that uses the energy of the sea waves to produce 
the electricity required by the weather aid system.
A new form of Dxing... maybe !!! There are radio hobby people that 
devoted all their time to picking up low power beacons or low power 
transmitters used at airports to provide information to the arriving 
public, so it's not difficult to imagine that as soon as these buoys 
start to operate, some Dxers will try at once to pick up their weather 
data streams...
........
  Homebrew your radios, si amigos, you can start by assembling a crystal 
set using high impedance headphones to provide excellent listening 
volume without the need of battery power.  I have in my workshop a 
demonstration crystal radio that picks up seven of the City of Havana's 
most powerful local stations. I show visitors how this radio that uses a 
large size tuning coil wound on a length of two inch or 50 millimeters 
diameter PVC pipe, when connected to my 40 meters band half wave dipole 
antenna provides excellent easy listening audio volume on the two 
thousand ohms headphones.
The crystal set has also a simple interface so that if can feed a two 
transistor audio amplifier fed from a nine volts battery that produces 
room filling volume using a reflex cabinet with an eight inch speaker. 
Radio Progreso's 640 kiloHertz AM transmitter sounds great on this 
amplified crystal set , of which I always keep several computer 
printouts to give away to visitors to my workshop, because this is a 
nice way to bring them into our wonderful hobby !
Phase two of this project will be to prepare some parts kits from 
recycled and fully tested electronic components and , and to include a 
length of PVC pipe and the enamele insulated wire to wind the coil...
The crystal set is assembled using a piece of plywood, and I am keeping 
several ready cut ones , also to give away to visitors who wish to 
attempt to build their first radio. The nice thing is that for those 
that can't find  the high impedance headphones required for the 
amplifier-less radio, assembling the simple two stage transistor audio 
amplifier is very easy , following my written and graphic instructions, 
and then they can use any low impedance headphones of the type used by 
MP3 , cassette or Diskman audio players !
By the way , this simple radio is an excellent receiver for emergency 
situations , as the 9 volts battery will last for a very long time , 
because the  two transistors draw very little current when in operation.
The parts count is minimal, and it is very difficult to do something 
wrong if you follow the written text and the pictorials provided in my 
instructions booklet !
Keeping several of these or other similar kits is a very good idea for 
radio clubs, as visitors will always then be able to leave with a bagful 
of components, a circuit diagram and the hope of been able to homebrew 
their first radio !!!.  And my experience amigos, is that after the 
first one is in operation, a second radio will be shortly aftewards be 
in the works...
The second radio project I have in mind is a solid state regenerative 
detector receiver, that is also rather easy to build, but in this case 
it does require
help from a more experienced hobbyst that will be able to teach the 
person how to solder, and also how to identify properly the electronic 
components involved in the project. With the millions of electronic 
gadgets, from old TVs , computers, fax machines, waiting to be  recycled 
, the amount of parts available after just a couple of hours of 
disassembling broken down or retired equipment for recycling its parts 
will provide more than enough components to  make many of these simple 
receivers...
.......

And now amigos just before going QRT, here is our exclusive and not 
copyrighted HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast: solar 
activity is moving up, sunspot number up to 41 on Friday,  certainly 
higher than during the past week as the new solar active sunspot region 
960  is turning into view… expect solar flux to be reaching as high as 
90 or even 95 units by the middle of the week. Also, chances of Sporadic 
E openings will be increasing from day to day, especially during the 
first three weeks of June. Hope to have you all listening to our mid 
week edition of Dxers Unlimited , next Tuesday and Wednesday UTC days… 
send your signal reports, comments about the program and radio hobby 
questions to arnie@xxxxxx, again arnie@xxxxxx and VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie 
Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.


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