Special thanks to Arnie Coro, for sharing his program script with our blog followers
(GVH)
The
International Lighthouse and Lightships Weekend took place on August 18-19, and
several Cuban amateur radio clubs stations participated using the special
prefix T4.
For
your information the International
Lighthouse and Lightships Weekend, is one of the largest yearly operating
events in the amateur radio calendar, with more than 400 lighthouse/lightship
activations in 40 countries, and tens of thousands of amateur stations wanting
to work them.
By
the way...this year is the 25th anniversary of the event from which it all
began. The very first Northern Lighthouse
Weekend was organized in 1993 by the Ayr Amateur Radio Group with activity
from just 10 lighthouses in Scotland and the Isle of Man. But something about
'the romance of lighthouses' found a resonance with radio amateurs; the idea
quickly spread world-wide and grew into the remarkable event we know it today.
The
solar activity is at very low levels... although a single solitary small
sunspot broke the sequence of days without sunspots. Experts explained to me
that the small active region is not expected to produce powerful solar flares
and is expected to fade out soon.
The
present summer season of the northern hemisphere has brought a rather normal
sporadic E layer activity, with several good days when transatlantic contacts
were possible on the 6 meters band.
More
information about HF propagation conditions at the end of the show when you
will receive the latest Arnie Coro's HF plus low band VHF propagation update.
Answering
another question from Dxers Unlimited listeners, they all want to learn
more about Trans Equatorial Propagation, also known by its acronym TEP. Amigos TEP
is a propagation mode that sometimes even makes possible, two meters band
contacts between Caribbean stations and Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia,
Uruguay and Paraguay, while using low power stations.
Well,
I must say that the TEP, the Trans Equatorial Propagation opening here in Cuba
are not as good as those enjoyed by my amateur radio friends located in Trinidad
and Tobago, Saint Lucia and Barbados and Puerto Rico.
Here
three band openings start usually are around 20 hours UTC and the peak
months are March and September, coinciding with the spring and autumn
equinoctal periods and are at a minimum during the summer solstice. I usually
monitor six meters on the international DX window frequency of 50.110 kHz,
where experienced operators call CQ DX using single side band voice.
Sometimes
you can even tell from where the signals are coming, before even picking up a
callsign, by paying attention to that very peculiar way of speaking Spanish
that is typical of the Argentineans and Uruguayans or the Portuguese language
spoken by the Brazilian radio amateurs.
Once
again for your information the TEP can link up with Sporadic E propagation
and place signals from the far end of South America into the United States and
Mexico, and sometimes even as far as Canada.
If
you are an amateur radio operator you can make very nice two-way contacts while
running low power and a very simple two to three elements Yagi or cubical quad
antennas, that can be easily built at home and without expending a lot of money
as readily available materials are used.
Again,
for those of you radio amateurs that live in the Southern United States and
in southern Mexico, and Central America, September will very probably bring in
many Trans Equatorial Propagation events that will open up the 10 and six-meter
bands during your local afternoon and early evening hours, although I have made
contacts with Chile and Argentina on
six
meters past midnight my local time here in Havana.
This
is the weekend edition of your favorite listener oriented and technically
minded radio hobby program, with yours truly Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK as
your host.
Here
is now our next topic... more information about simple end-fed antennas now in
use here by several Cuban radio amateurs that operate on the shortwave ham
bands from 40 to 10 meters. Operators are achieving good results with a very
simple wire antenna that has the advantage over a dipole that it is fed at one
end using a balanced to unbalanced broadband transformer.
There
are ongoing discussions about the impedance transformation ratio required for
this end-fed antenna, and all I can say that my tests using a second such
antenna 25 meters long installed horizontally show that using a standard
factory built four to one balun and 50 or 75 coaxial cable makes possible to
operate on the 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meter bands using my wide range PI
network antenna tuner.
The
length of the coaxial cable downlead is at my station is less than 15 meters
losses due to high standing wave ratio are minimal. The antenna behaves as
an omnidirectional system on 40, 30 and 20 meters, but starts to show up some
directivity above the 20 meters band...
Si
amigos, my friends, oui mes amis, this is the weekend edition of Dxers
Unlimited, now ASK ARNIE the second most popular section of this show.
Today
answering a question sent by listener Herman from Bogota, Colombia who monitors
Radio Havana Cuba via our Internet streaming audio, and via shortwave on 11840 kHz.
Herman lives outside the city in a residential neighborhood, so he can install
a wire antenna from a 10 meters mast on his roof going to another similar
mast at the end of the backyard. I recently told him to try a center fed group
of dipoles, cut for the 40, 20 and 15-meter bands, that can also be tuned to
17, 12 and 10 meters with the aid of his antenna tuner. The dipoles are
separated from each other by insulators that are 15 centimeters long, made from
the dielectric that is used by RG213 coaxial cable, by removing the center
conductor using heat from the soldering iron.
Ys,
radio amateurs from many different countries that are QRP or low power fans can
be heard on the air on the 15 meters band frequency of 21.060, using CW
Morse Code with their very low power rigs. Plans are now in the work to make a
special operating event next October the fourth to celebrate the 57th anniversary
of the launching of the first ever artificial satellite, Sputnik One, that had
on board the first radio transmitter that went into space and sent radio
signals from an orbiting space satellite.
Several
of the radio amateurs involved in the Sputnik One anniversary in recent years
will be again celebrating, having already built a small vacuum tubes
transmitter that is an exact replica of the rig that went up and sent its
signals on two frequencies, 20.005 and 40.005.
The
original Sputnik frequency of 20.005 MHz is not assigned to the amateur radio
service, it was decided that the replica transmitters will operate on the
nearby 15 meters band, on the frequency internationally agreed to be used by
low power, or QRP CW amateur radio stations, that is 21.060 MHz. The
transmitter designed by the Soviet radio engineers for the first man made
satellite, Sputnik One, used very ruggedly built subminiature vacuum tubes.
Poor
propagation conditions on the HF bands continue and solar activity is expected
to be extremely low during the next several days.
See
you all at the middle of the week Dxers Unlimited edition next Tuesday and
Wednesday UTC days.
Send
your signal reports, comments about this and other programs, and radio hobby
related questions to inforhc@enet.cu, and via air mail to: Arnie Coro, Radio
Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
(Arnie
Coro/R Havana)