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Re: [HCDX] Dxers Unlimited script for June 9 -10 2007
Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition for June 9-10 2007
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK
Hi amigos radioaficionados, welcome to the weekend edition of Dxers
Unlimited, your favorite radio hobby program. I am Arnaldo, Arnie, Coro
radio amateur CO2KK, your host here at this twice weekly radio hobby
show, dealing with all of the more than 80 different ways that you and I
enjoy this wonderful way of spending our spare time...RADIO... But some
times even more, when we take time away from rest to work on a new
project or participate, as I am doing during this weekend in a radio
amateur contest. This a very specialized ham radio competition , because
it is limited to the VHF, UHF and Microwave amateur bands, making it a
lot more difficult because propagation of the range of frequencies from
50 to 50,000 megaHertz is quite different from the way short wave
signals behave. The June, American Radio Relay League VHF QSO Party
Contest has seen Cuban radio amateurs participating in past editions,
and winning too, as at least in two occasions Cuban ham teams have won
the DX station first place position.
I spend the whole day Friday installing the three antennas for the
contest, the 6 meters HENTENNA, the two meters band 6 element YAGI and
the 70 centimeters 13 elements YAGI. I will also be using my vertical
phased array of three five eighths of a wavelength elements, because at
the same time the ARRL contest will be in progress, we run a VHF contest
on two meters FM mode, because this is the most popular band among Cuban
radio amateurs.
There is also going to be a CUBAN ROVER station that will be traveling
to different grid square locators , because each square counts as an
additional multiplier for the contest.
Si amigos, yes my friends, oui mes amis... radio amateur contests are a
lot of fun, but I warn you, they have two distinctive characteristics,
one is that once you participate in a ham radio contest, you will find
yourself getting ready for the next as soon as the last QSO is coming to
an end, and two, they are simply exhausting, so my advice is that you
ask for a Monday off work whenever you take part in a weekend long
contest !!!
Be on the lookout for T49C, that's a special callsign, with the T4
prefix that Cuban radio amateur stations use during contests.
Also, please look for CO2KK, as I will also be taking part in the
contest !!!
Now stay tuned , a quick station ID follows, and Dxers Unlimited's
weekend edition for June 9 and 10 will continue in a few seconds
I am Arnie Coro in Havana
.........
The name of program is Dxers Unlimited, you are listening to Radio
Havana Cuba and here is our next topic of today's program.
Setting up a ham radio contest station is a lot of fun, and it can be as
easy as just using your regular home station " just as it is" or as
sophisticated as creating a VHF, UHF and Microwave ROVER station using
a special 4 wheel drive vehicle , like an SUV in order to be able to
climb to mountaintop locations where your contest station will be able
to reach really far away stations via ground wave, thanks to the high
altitude where you have gone with your vehicle.
A ROVER station operation during the June ARRL VHF QSO Party Contest is
much looked by other contest stations, because a ROVER can move from one
GRID LOCATOR or GRID SQUARE to another and according to the rules of the
contest, each GRID SQUARE counts as a new multiplier. In other words,
each time you work a ROVER station that is located at a new GRID, your
total contest score is multiplied.
T49C, Cuba's top level entry for this year's VHF contest will be moving
to several GRID SQUARES during the contest, giving participants the
unique opportunity not only of obtaining a new multiplier for the
contest score, but also in many cases, adding a new GRID for the many
awards like the VUCC that starts with the first 100 grid squares and has
stickers and endorsements for additional squares that you can work.
Wall paper, as radio amateurs call the diplomas given for obtaining the
awards are a way that you can show to your visitors the results of your
many hours of chasing DX signals amigos ! . A ham radio shack with a lot
of wall paper, that is a lot of diplomas is always a nice looking room,
as the wallpaper seems to blend nicely with the radios !
And talking about contests and ROVER stations, let me add that a top
notch ROVER is not only excellent for working a VHF-UHF and Microwave
ham radio contest, but is also a very useful mobile unit whenever there
is need to deploy a highly effective station during a natural or man
made disaster.
As a matter of fact, as a very good friend of mine that is a full time
ham radio contests fan likes to say, each contest is not only a lot of
fun for the participants but also an excellent training exercise to
develop the communications skills that may help to save lives during an
emergency .
For example, a ROVER station equipped with radios for working on the 6
meters, 2 meters and 70 centimeters band, and a set of omnidirectional
antennas, as well as another set of high gain
directional antennas, can be deployed to a good location and used as a
relay for a command post , relaying traffic between handheld radios and
the ROVER, that then can in turn reroute the traffic on another band to
the disaster command post.
One of the reasons, and as a matter of fact , one of the main reasons
why so valuable radio frequency spectrum space is still allocated to the
amateur radio service is precisely its unique characteristic of
providing emergency communications links under the most difficult
circumstances and when many other systems fail due to excessive traffic,
like in the case of cellular telephones, or due to the loss of big
towers where antennas are installed.
When disasters strike, amateur radio operators know what to do, and many
of us have specially prepared emergency kits self contained into boxes
that are easy to transport, and where you can find everything needed to
deal with the emergency, from radios, batteries , antennas, cables,
plugs , spare microphones and tools , to drinking water and some food
rations to take care of the operators vital needs for a period of no
less than 48 hours... My advice is that in true amateur radio spirit,
all ham operators should prepare an emergency operations kit, and keep
it ready with periodically renewed batteries , and you can even add a
solar panel or a crank up generator to recharge the batteries.
Si amigos , yes my friends, oui mes amis... the Tropical Hurricane
Season of the Atlantic Ocean from North of Equator up, the Caribbean Sea
and the Gulf of Mexico is now in progress and this is certainly a good
time for those of you living in areas that may be struck by a tropical
storm or a hurricane to have your amateur stations ready , in case there
is the need to use it, and remember that trying to organize an emergency
station when the storm is just a few hours a way is not the best thing
to do, and I warn you that if you leave your preparations for the last
minute, when you reach the place where your station is required to
operate, something important will always be missing... Believe it, It
has happened to me a couple of times, and that's why I decided to
prepare the EMERGENCY RADIO BOX, with a complete list of everything that
the experience drawn from the last SIX, yes you heard it right, the last
SIX hurricanes have clearly shown that are essential to assure that the
emergency station will be able to work properly, and that the operator
will have drinking water and a basic food supply for at least 48 hours
after deployment.
..............
Si amigos , yes my friends, oui mes Amis in Canada and the Caribbean
that speak French, but also are able to listen to Dxers Unlimited in
English... here is now the most popular section of the show... ASK
ARNIE... with answers to your radio hobby related questions... Today's
question is coming from several Caribbean islands and South East Mexico
, more precisely from the Yucatan Peninsula, areas that are frequently
affected by tropical storms and hurricanes... Dxers Unlimited's
listeners from Jamaica, Turk and Caicos, Barbados and Dominica, as well
as from Merida and Cancun want to know if there is a specific type of
antenna for the 40 meters amateur band that has a high degree of
survivability when the wind is blowing more than 100 or 120 miles per
hour.... because they all have seen their 40 meter wire dipoles break
down in the middle of the storms...
Well amigos, there are good news for you all, we have been working on a
prototype of a 40 meters band antenna that may be able to survive when
the wind is blowing constantly to around 100 miles per hour and gusting
up to 150 miles per hour. It is a short antenna, using the inverted L
configuration, and it is installed using short masts, of not more than 4
or 5 meters above the ground. In some cases one end of the antenna can
be tied to the roof of a building, and the other end to a short , rugged
and very well guyed mast. This antenna uses a small loading coil and is
fed with 50 ohms coaxial cable. Antenna modeling software show that its
gain is about minus 2 decibels or maybe minus 3 decibels below a full
size 20 meters or 66 feet long half wave 40 meters dipole, the type of
antenna that due to its long length and the fact that it is fed at the
center with a coaxial cable downlead tends to break down as soon as the
wind speed exceeds 70 or 80 miles per hour... Our new EMERGENCY INVERTED
L OR, as we have named it EMIL antenna, is easy to build, can be kept
ready to be installed in your emergency station box, or as I am going to
do at my home QTH next weekend, after this weekend VHF contest of
course... you can install one permanently at your home station and have
it always ready for action, and also test it under actual operating
conditions and compare its performance with the regular half wave 40
meters band dipole.
For those of you that may be asking now, why use 40 meters for handling
communications emergencies at a local or semi-local level, the answer
is because a unique propagation mode, known as NVIS, or Near Vertical
Incidence Skywave , provides excellent coverage of a large area without
having to install the station at a hill top or high rise building , as
required when using VHF and UHF frequencies.
And now amigos, ready to copy... as always at the end of the program
when I am here in Havana, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's
propagation update and forecast....
Sunspot numbers for May 31 through June 6 were 11, 41, 45, 58, 58, 63
and 47 with a mean of 46.1. The 10.7 cm. microwave solar flux was
74.6, 79.4, 83.2, 87, 85.7, 88.8, and 87.1, with a mean of 83.7.
Estimated planetary A indices were 4, 6, 7, 10, 8, 3 and 2 with a mean
of 5.7. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 2, 5, 5, 7, 8, 2 and 2,
with a mean of 4.4. Sporadic E openings are expected to happen
frequently during the next two weeks, and hopefully during this VHF
contest weekend... Don't forget to send me your signal reports and
comments about the program , as well as any radio hobby related
questions you may have... send mail to arnie@xxxxxx of VIA AIR MAIL to
Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba...
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