[BARC-List] Dxers Unlimited mid week edition for 14-15 November 2006

[Dan Malloy]

Radio Habana Cuba

Dxers Unlimited mid week edition for 14-15 November 2006

By Arnie Coro

radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados ! This is the mid week edition of Dxers
Unlimited, and here is our first news item... It's my pleasure to inform
you that starting November the 14th and later on November the 15th UTC
day we will be using our new frequency 6180 kiloHertz to replace 9820
kiloHertz from 01 to 07 UTC with our English language program to North
America and the Caribbean...Please notice that 6180 kHz will be on the
air two more hours than 9820 Khz due to the fact that the propagation
conditions on 6 megaHertz are much better than on 9 megahertz during
that time frame. More details about how we will be using this frequency
and why we moved down from 31 meters later in today's Dxers Unlimited.
Item two: still fascinated by the communications possibilities that CW
radiotelegraphy provides while using very simple equipment. My latest CW
activity was on 40 meters, while running real QRP with a homebrew vacuum
tube little rig that has two stages to provide a very stable and nice
sounding signal controlled by a quartz crystal.., that incidentally was
built 62 years ago in 1944 in the middle of the second world war and
was installed on one of the radios used during that conflict.

For receiving with that set, I am using also a homebrew radio, a version
of the super regenerodyne , that has excellent sensitivity and
selectivity when the regeneration control is carefully set as near as
possible to the point of oscillation...With just about 7 Watts input
into a half wave dipole antenna, it's amazing how many stations come
back calling you when a standard three by three CQ call is made during a
period of good propagation conditions...

Please remember that 40 meters is a daytime band for short range
contacts, but that it does open up for round the world QSO's during your
local evening hours...

Stay tuned , more follows in a few seconds, when the mid week edition of
Dxers Unlimited continues... I am Arnie Coro in Havana...

...............

This is Radio Havana Cuba's Dxers Unlimited and here is item three of
today's show: Bad news, several e-mail messages,about fifty of them,
sent during the past 10 days by Dxers Unlimited fans were erased
accidentally and so far no recovery was possible.Of course not all the
messages were erased, just those in the pending to answer folder and I
do remember that several listeners have asked questions to the ASK ARNIE
section of the show, and others wanted more details about the SUPER JAY
low cost , easy to homebrew two vertical elements fed in phase antenna
for the two meters band,

So, amigos, my apologies, yes it was my fault, and please write again,
so that I may send you the answers to your questions and a nice QSL card
too...

Send mail to arnie at rhc.cu, again arnie at rhc.cu ...

Now item four: ASK ARNIE the most popular section of Dxers Unlimited is
going to deal today about a question sent in by a listener in the UK,
who is picking up our 6000 kiloHertz signal around 01 to 02 UTC... Roy
tells me that the audio quality and modulation percentage are quite OK,
but that it's simply too late to listen to Radio Havana Cuba in Europe,
so he asks when are we going to broadcast to Europe at a good time .
Well amigo Roy, we are working on this, and maybe soon you will be able
to pick up our station all across Western Europe with a good signal and
at the best time for listening !!!

Second question: High speed Internet connections , like ADSL, HDSL and
similar technologies are now the subject of great concern among radio
hobby enthusiasts around the world... It seems like some of those
systems radiate powerful modulation less signals all over the short wave
spectrum.. Listener Francesco from Naples, Italy asks what can be done
to remove the unwanted interference, by the way Francesco listens to our
webcast from www.radiohc.cu from 05 to 07 UTC whenever he can, and is
telling me in the e-mail message that ever since he had the ADSL
installed, his reception from 2 to about 8 megaHertz has become almost
impossible...ANSWER: Amigo Francesco, you can talk to your telephone
company technical people, and they may want to test some different ADSL
router at your QTH... according to one of my local phone company
engineers not all ADSL routers generate the same levels of interference
to the short wave bands, so it may prove to be a good idea to have then
test equipment from a different manufacturer....

And question number three of today's ASK ARNIE section of the show...
listener Harry from Nova Scotia , Canada, wants to know what can be done
to cancel the terrible noise that a new set of high power quartz halogen
lamps that he has installed in his new kitchen are generating... Amigo
Harry, I am almost sure that instead of using a standard linear power
supply to provide the 12 volts DC required by your quartz lamps, the
system you bought uses a switched mode power supply , similar to the
ones one sees in computers, but probably built with lower interference
protection standards... If you know the amperes drawn by the lamps, you
can find a linear supply and run the lamps from it, checking what
happened to the noise... If the noise is gone, then you can start buying
the parts to homebrew a linear supply that in this case will be very
simple, as it doesn't need to be well filtered or regulated.

A regular transformer and four rectifier diodes both rated for about 150
percent of the maximum current that your quartz halogen lamps require
will be a practical solution to your problem... As soon as you have it
working send me another e-mail amigo!!

.......

Now here the information about our 6180 kiloHertz frequency that we will
be starting to use it November 14 and 15th UTC days... Again for those
of you interested in sending reports, the antenna is a new curtain array
, beaming to 340 degrees azimuth from Havana, effectively covering
Central North America.... We will be running 100 kiloWatts and the
estimated antena gain is around 17 decibels above a half wave dipole, so
the effective radiated power on the main lobe is quite something amigos
!!! So I expect very good reception reports from places like Chicago,
Milwaukee, Toronto, Ottawa, and also from Atlanta, Nashville and
Louisville in Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky... The new antenna's take
off angle of the main lobe is around 15 degrees above the horizon, and
there is a minor lobe high up around 65 degrees that may produce a nice
NVIS signal in South Florida too...

Item six: Still more about the SUPER J 2meters band wire plus PVC pipe
antenna... Yes, it's ideal as a club project, especially when the club
also owns a 2 meters band repeater... At the Old Havana section of the
city, the radio club members have already built about 20 antennas, with
excellent results. At my Radio Club in Plaza de la Revolucion
municipality, about 5 have been built so far, and more are in the 
works...

The total cost of this antenna's is extremely low, and their efficiency
compared to really expensive commercially built similar antenna systems
is very high.

As a matter of fact, I ran a comparative test during the weekend,
between three antennas. A reference vertical half wave dipole, a
homebrew SUPER J , and a commercially built two elements in phase
vertical using longer 5/8 wavelength elements... This was a practical
on the air test, not running a computerized modeling program... and the
results showed that the homebrew low cost antenna was delivering
practically the same signal than the commercial one... So , amigos,
think about how much you can improve your 2 meters band station's
coverage by spending just a few hours building the homebrew SUPER J...
More information available from arnie at rhc.cu, again arnie at rhc.cu...

And if after you see the detailed construction drawings you have any
doubts, just send them to me and I'll will try to clear them up for you 
...

......

This is Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition amigos ! Now here is our next
item of today's program...One of the most unusual ways of enjoying the
radio hobby is listening to atmospheric noise... YES, you heard me OK,

there are some people that design and build equipment and antennas just
to try hard to pick up static discharges that may be happening two
blocks or two thousand miles away. They are know as atmospherics, or
spherics for short, and they do offer a lot of information regarding
what is happening in the Earth's lower atmosphere... Information
obtained and processed does provide alot of valuable knowledge to
scientists, and at least two well known scientists affirm that this data
may be used to forecast sporadic E events even up to an hour before they
actually start...

And now amigos, with this interesting propagation related item we come
to an end of this edition of Dxers Unlimited... HF propagation
conditions are excellent at this moment, with solar flux around 90 units
and the A index at a nice and low 02 at the time I was taping the show
at 20 hours UTC Tuesday, that is three o 'clock

local time in Havana... Expect very nice AM and Tropical Band DX during
the next three evenings your local time... And check the frequency range
from 10 to 18 megaHertz just before sunset, again your local time...

Hope to have you listening to the weekend edition of the program, next
Saturday and Sunda UTC days amigos !!!