[BARC-List] Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition 21-22 March 2006

[Dan Malloy]

Radio Habana Cuba 
Dxers Unlimited 
Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition for 21-22 March 2006 
By Arnie Coro 
Radio amateur CO2KK 

Hi amigos radioaficionados worldwide. a salute from Havana now seeing a
beautiful beginning of spring with a gorgeous blue sky and temperatures in
the region between 
20 and 30 degrees Centigrade , that is from 68 to 86 Fahrenheit !!! And this
nice weather also brings in excellent spring tropospheric propagation , that
is making many Cuban radio amateurs able to communicate from one end of the
archipelago to the other on the ever popular two meters or 144 megaHertz
band. Access to far away two meters band repeaters is now happening on an
everyday basis, due to the peculiar spring weather patterns here..Item two:
A geomagnetic storm, strong enough to trigger high latitude aurora borealis
should be almost over by the time you hear this program or read the script
on the world wide web. The high speed solar wind coming from a coronal hole
in a geoeffective position was the cause of this disturbance. And now there
is one developing sunspot group that has a complex magnetic configuration
that may trigger even class M solar flares during the next 24 to 72 hours. 
So be on the alert for possible solar flares, that may produce sudden short
wave blackouts. 
Item three: Amigo Randy from UTAH, tells me that he really wants to homebrew
one of my regenerative receiver designs.. Randy has several short wave
receivers and amateur bands transceivers, but he wants to listen soon to a
radio built with his own hands. and sure amigo Randy, the thrill of
listening to a homebrew receiver is second to none. even when you have built
several of them, each new one bringing in those short wave signals to your
headphones is quite something. The range of possibilities open to home
builders of simple radios is simply amazing, as amazing as the fantastic
sensitivity and selectivity that well designed regenerative receivers will
show in actual practice. 
But let me tell you something amigos. so far, after lots of experiments, I
have yet to find a solid state regenerative design that may match the
performance of a well build vacuum tube one. 
More about short wave listening, antennas, radio astronomy and radio noise
detection coming up as Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition continues in just
a few seconds. 

.. 
Si amigos, you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, just a few weeks away now
from our 45th Birthday. and all along those 45 years, our station has issued
tens of thousands of QSL cards and also sent a large number of letters to
listeners around the world. Since 1997 we are able to receive and reply via
e-mail, but we still prefer to be able to send a hard copy QSL card or
letter to radio hobby aficionados. You can request your QSL card by sending
a detailed signal report and comments about our programming. Send mail to
arnie at rhc.cu, again arnie at rhc.cu, and VIA AIR MAIL , our postal mailing
address is also very easy to remember. Send an AIR MAIL postcard or letter
to Arnie Coro,Radio Havana Cuba, Havana Cuba.  Now our next menu item: As
the solar cycle enters into its final months, ionospheric absorption goes
down to very low values, and this is making possible excellent reception of
frequencies between 100 kiloHertz and 10 megaGertz.The region of the radio
spectrum that is going to be more productive during solar minimum years. And
talking about solar activity, my good friend , Cuban solar astronomer Angel
Gonzalez Coroas, has confirmed to me , in an e-mail sent on Monday that his
visual solar patrol has not yet shown a single high latitude young sunspot
that will signal the reall start up of solar cycle 24. Angel tells me that
his February observations of the very quiet sun with many spotless days, was
, in his opinion, just the beginning of cycle's 23 minimum. and that he is
pretty sure that cycle 24's first sunspots are going to start erupting
during the next few months.Scientists can tell the difference between the
sunpots that belong to the old and those that are part of the new cycle,
because there are several easy to recognize indications that help to
distinguish between spots from the old cycle and those from the new one. One
final comment, according to recent scientific findings, that correlate
pretty well with past cycles, the still to start cycle 24 may be one of the
most powerful on record, matching even super solar cycle nineteen that
averaged 207 sunspots during its period of peak activity. If this forecast
becomes true, then radio amateurs around the world will enjoy the best
higher bands propagation conditions in half a century !!!... 
... 
Radio astronomy , backyard radio astronomy as some people call it, is
becoming increasingly popular among radio hobby enthusiasts that want to be
at the cutting edge of technology. but even with simple equipment amateur
radio astronomy is within reach of anyone. As it was recently demonstrated
to me by a long time friend. a good quality, sensitive TV set, equipped with
a low noise VHF-UHF amplifier and several different antennas will make
possible some very interesting radio astronomy projects , like for example,
the monitoring of meteor showers, or keeping a close watch on solar activity
that can actually be recorded using simple equipment. 
Old C band satellite dishes, especially the bigger ones that are now retired
due to the use of much more modern technology are ideal for solar radio
astronomy, if you can install them using an automatic solar tracking system
and a digital recorder.Measuring solar noise with a Dicke radiometer
technique is within reach of the typical advanced VHF-UHF and Microwave
radio amateur enthusiast !!! 
And of course , that you can also tune your dish and receiver to the
hydrogen line frequency, and point the antenna into deep space. expecting
that maybe your homebrew radio telescope will be the first one to receive
signals sent by extraterrestrial intelligent life forms !!! 
.... 

Si amigos, receiving short wave radio is becoming more and more difficult,
especially inside cities. the radio frequency noise levels are increasing
everywhere at an alarming rate, and so far, there doesn't seem to be a
chance of this coming to a standstill. One of the bad sources of radio noise
that interferes with short wave reception in particular are overhead power
transmission lines.Distribution lines in the two thousand to fifteen
thousand volts are the main culprits, but if you happen to live near to
higher voltage transmission lines like 33 kilovolts, 110 kilovolts and even
higher super power lines in the 500 to 750 kilovolts range, then your short
wave reception problems are going to be pretty bad. For example, a friend of
mine Jose , CO2JA, that's his ham radio callsign, happens to live less than
200 meters, that is about two city blocks away from the pathway of a 220
kilovolts transmission line that links the western part of or island with
the center of the nation.  Jose tells me that during the very early hours of
the morning, when water condensation covers the super high voltage
insulators, he can even smell ozone at his house.an indicator of the arc
overs happening atop the high voltage power line insulators. 
Jose simply can not operate on the amateur short wave bands during the worst
periods of power line arcing. he receives an S9 PLUS 60 dB S meter reading
from 100 kiloHertz all the way up to 30 megaHertz , that makes a two way QSO
on any of the 9 amateur bands between 160 and 10 meters, that is from 1.8 to
29.7 megaHertz absolutely impossible. 
That's of course a worse case scenario, but many of us have to often deal
with power line noise from lower voltage distribution lines that have bad
insulators, or leaky power pole transformers.Locating the faulty insulators
or bad transformers is not very difficult, by using a small portable radio
tuned to an empty channel on the AM broadcast band. As you approach the
leaky arcing insulator or the bad distribution transformer, the noise coming
from the small portable increases , and it is very easy to actually pinpoint
the source by moving the radio so that the ferrite loop antenna will produce
a minimum signal . After some practice you can learn how to locate noisy
power line sources, and then ask the local power company to fix the problem,
something that after all is also in their best interest. as leaky lines
loose a lot of valuable electricity that the utility has to generate and can
not sell to its customers. 
The power company crews that specialize in line maintenance now have a
special ultrasonic detector that pin points the source of the fault by means
of a small parabolic dish, similar to the ones used for direct satellite
reception. 
The ultrasonic power line leak detectors are much more easier to use than
trying to find the noise source with a radio, but, if your reception is
being hampered by power line noise, by all means, use your portable radio
around the neighborhood and try to find the source , so that when you call
the utility's engineering department they will be able to repair the line
faster !!! 
And now amigos, as always at the end of the show here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast. Solar activity is low,but there is at least one active sunspot region that has developed a complex magnetic configuration that may lead to class M flares erupting during the next 48 to 72 hours. Optical sunspot count is between 30 and 35, and the equinoctial propagation conditions are very much with us despite the very low solar flux that we are seeing at this moment. Don't expect sporadic E openings for the next 4 to 5 weeks, and do be on the lookout for another period of very low ionospheric absorption expected to start by late Wednesday, when evening AM broadcast band conditions are going to be excellent once again. Don't forget to send me your comments about the program, requests for circuit diagrams of my collection of homebrew receivers and any radio hobby related question that you may have unanswered yet.. send mail to arnie at rhc.cu, again arnie at rhc.cu, and VIA AIR MAIL send  a postcard or letter to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba