Radio Habana Cuba's Arnaldo "Arnie" Coro passes away in Havana

 

Prominent Cuban journalist and professor Arnaldo Coro Antich passes away

Havana, January 8 (RHC)-- In the early hours of this Sunday morning, the outstanding journalist and university professor Arnaldo (Arnie) Coro Antich, with a long working career in Cuban radio, passed away in Havana.

Winner of the National Radio Award 2017, Coro was born on July 2, 1942. From a very young age, he was linked to radio broadcasting. He was an expert radio amateur (his call sign: CO2KK) and a specialist in Mass Media and New Information and Communications Technologies.

He taught as Assistant Professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations of MINREX and served as Vice President of the Cuban Commission for the Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage, created by UNESCO.

Arnie Coro was the author of numerous scientific and technical publications, including the book "La Guerra Radial de Los Estados Unidos de América Contra Cuba," published in 1984.  

He was the host of the internationally-renowned radio program "Dxers Unlimited," which he kept on-the-air for many years on the English-language broadcasts of Radio Havana Cuba. "Dxers Unlimited" was one of the most popular radio programs in English and was considered a professional guide to shortwave listening around the world.   

Arnie's last working years were spent in Radio Habana Cuba’s English language service, a group that regrets his death and sends its condolences to his family and friends.

https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/309905-prominent-cuban-journalist-and-professor-arnaldo-coro-antich-passes-away

Arnie's look at amateur radio's FT8

Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited middle of the week edition for Tuesday 12 June 2018
By Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK


Yes amigos as always you are most welcome to another edition of Dxers Unlimited, our station's twice weekly radio hobby program... This is the middle of the week program that goes on the air just after the half hour news bulletin. I am Arnaldo, Arnie, Coro radio amateur CO2KK , and here is item one of the show.... the ever popular section of Dxers Unlimited.... ASK ARNIE

The question came from long time ... listener Edward from Vancouver, Canada sent an email telling me of the nice results he has achieved with his 14 meters long  version of the TTFD antenna... Edward says reception from 5 to 30 megaHertz is excellent, and he has already tested the antenna for transmitting on the 30 and 20 meters band, making comparative tests with half wave dipoles for both bands. Arnie, he writes, your version of the TTFD using the 800 ohms homebrew terminating resistor and a 9 to one balun feeding into 75 ohms coaxial cable works well on both 30 and 20 meters, and is usable for daytime short range contacts on 40 meters too... Edward added that he picks up our 6100 kilohertz transmission to the Pacific Coast of North America just like a local FM station, something that made our RHC's engineer, Argelio Rodriguez a very happy person indeed.

And now a  Dxers Unlimited special report about amateur radio The great FT8 debate: A  new automatic linking digital communications mode that goes by the short name of FT8 has become extremely popular on the amateur bands since last year ... As a matter of fact FT8 contacts have made possible never before seen achievements on the short wave amateur bands...

Opinions about the use of the FT8 communications protocol are been published at many amateur radio world wide web sites....  You will soon here what your friend, Arnie Coro,  CO2KK  thinks about it...but before here is how  British radio amateur Mark, callsign M Zero B LF voiced his points of view that I am now quoting here: Mark says in his lengthy essay: I’ve been pondering for a while about whether or not I should add my own opinions to the polemic about FT8, the now year-old digital mode that has taken the ham radio world by storm. A few things recently have convinced me that I should, which I’ll go into a little later in this short essay.

First off, a step back: What is FT8? It’s the latest in a line of digital modes developed by Joe Taylor K1JT, that permit two-way radio contacts to be made with incredibly weak signals, that are often below the noise floor.

Until last year, most of the modes in this family were used for specialised purposes such as EME (bouncing radio signals off the moon) or meteor scatter. This meant that they were adopted by a small subset of radio amateurs for their specific purpose.

About a year ago, FT8 came onto the scene.AND HERE IS THE MAIN DIFFERENCE --- Mark explains that  Its main difference over the other modes in the lineage is the speed of an ‘over’: reduced from for example 50 seconds in JT65 to just 15 seconds. This made it much more suitable for generalized use, and very quickly FT8 was adopted for general contacts.

A post by Clublog author Michael G7VJR in January this year shows how exponential the popularity of this mode was in the second-half of 2017; a trend which seems to have continued. I was certainly part of this band-wagon of FT8 fans. I logged my first FT8 contact on 16th July 2017, and to date I’ve made 118 QSOs using the mode from home.

Some people have tried to argue that FT8 isn’t amateur radio. I disagree. For a hobby founded on experimentation, technical challenge and self-training in all forms of communication, FT8 is the very essence of what amateur radio advances should look like. It’s very clever technology with some seriously complex maths behind it, that represents (technically) a significant step forward from what we had before. Si amigos, I will like to read again that part of Mark's posting: listen carefully

Some people have tried to argue that FT8 isn’t amateur radio. I disagree. For a hobby founded on experimentation, technical challenge and self-training in all forms of communication, FT8 is the very essence of what amateur radio advances should look like. It’s very clever technology with some seriously complex maths behind it, that represents (technically) a significant step forward from what we had before.

Mark adds:
I also believe that FT8 has its place in our shacks. One of the biggest threats we have to the hobby is that, particularly in sub-urban environments, noise floors can be very high from consumer electronics. Furthermore, in a globalized world, national regulators appear generally impotent to enforce the regulations that are supposed to avoid pollution of the radio spectrum from poorly-designed equipment. This was one of the reasons for my speedy adoption of FT8. Frankly, from my location on the outskirts of Cambridge, I wouldn’t be able to work as far without the support of the weak-signal error correction that’s inherent in the mode.

This is all the more important during solar minimum, which I suspect plays a large part in the quick spread of FT8. For the next few years, the stage of the sunspot cycle means that radio wave propagation will be hard, especially on higher HF  bands. Having a mode available which allows low signal-to-noise ratio contacts is certainly a help to communication on those bands, which would otherwise be ‘dead’. And then, here is what I consider to be a very well thought analysis about one essential advantage of using the FT8 digital mode. Mark says: The other fantastic thing about FT8 is that it brings, for the first time, objective signal reports to the hobby. We all know that ’59’ is a nonsense, but in the more ‘manual’ modes, we don’t have anything better.

Using actual, genuine, signal-to-noise measurements for signal reports allows more meaningful comparisons of equipment, antenna performance and propagation research.

Si amigos, yes my friends , oui mes amis... Here is more to add fuel to the controversy about the now extensive and intensive use of the FT8 digital mode as expressed by Mark M0 Bravo Lima Fox....
Mark continues by writing: However, in recent months a few things have happened, which started to quell my enthusiasm for the mode.

First was one day when I was working from home, doing my day-job. Since the computer was on anyway, I left FT8 running, periodically clicking the ‘Log QSO’ button when I saw it on the screen. Operating like this, I managed to make about 25 QSOs during the day without even realising it. None of those contacts were memorable. The computer made them for me, while I worked on other things. Moreover, the nature of the FT8 exchange (the facts that you have only 13 characters per over, and that changing the text of an over from the defaults can confuse the other operator) means that I felt no connection with those people at all.

FINALLY, THERE IS NOW A VERY IMPORTANT POINT OF VIEW ABOUT THE EXTENSIVE WORLDWIDE USE OF THE FT8 MODE...Similarly, the focus in the community on monitoring the main FT8 spot frequency on each band, means that other contacts seem to be being missed. I know lots of people are pouring over the stats to see whether FT8 activity is ‘new’ activity, or to the detriment of other modes.

In an upcoming edition of Dxers Unlimited, I will continue dealing with the controversial FT8 digital communications mode... Now  please listen carefully  to my preliminary point of view.... As a soon to be 59 years on the air amateur radio operator.... I have learned to give a very high value to the human aspects of our wonderful hobby.... and sincerely , I believe that using FT8 does nothing to promote new friendships among the world's amateur radio operators...machines do not make friends with people !!!!

Amigos , I wrote the first part of the script of this show Sunday morning... while monitoring the 6 meters amateur band searching for possible sporadic E skip signals that could make possible skywave contacts during the ARRL June VHFcontest.... At just twelve noon local time ,  16 00 UTC , nothing heard in the form of CW or SSB stations, and , as expected, on 50313 the FT8 parking spot, several signals where picked up by Jose CO2XN who happens to have the best 6 meters station in Havana,
with his 7 elements YAGI antenna...

Your opinions about the use of the FT8 digital mode are most welcome.... send them to inforhc at enet dot cu and also to arnie@rhc.cu amigos
(Arnie Coro CO2KK)
(graphic-DX World)

DXers Unlimited weekend edition, March 11

Special thanks to Arnie Coro, for sharing his latest program script from March 11, 2018


Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited weekend edition
For Sunday March 11 2018
By Arnie Coro
Radio amateur CO2KK
Hi, my friends, mis amigos, mes amis,  radio-aficionados from all around the world  that are just now listening to this weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited coming to you from sunny La Habana, Cuba, where we continue to enjoy the most gorgeous spring weather that you can imagine... Ideal weather for swimming, sailing and also to go to the beach at night with your inseparable companion, the AM broadcast band receiver and if possible also take to the beach a tuneable loop that can be connected to your radio...

I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK your host at this twice weekly radio hobby program and here is our first new item...

Cameroon Dxpedition to begin operations starting March 15
Members of the Italian DXpedition Team (IDT) will be active as TJ3TT from the Republic of Cameroon between March 15-29th. Tango Juliet three tango tango will be the callsign used... Now a list of operators mentioned  in the announcement----starting with Mac/JA3USA, Silvano/I2YSB, Vinicio/IK2CIO, Angelo/ IK2CKR, Marcello/IK2DIA and Stefano/IK2HKT.  And then Fred, the operator of  IK7JWY, will be the HF pilot station. Activity will be on 160-10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY.

Suggested frequencies are:
CW - 1826, 3530, 7025, 10115, 14030, 18068, 21030, 24890 and 28030 kHz SSB - 3775, 7090, 14260, 18128, 21260, 24950 and 28460 kHz RTTY - 14084 kHz
A very quiet Sunday continues to dominate the Solar Terrestrial relationships... day after day , optical observations show no signs of sunspots... something typical of the tail end of a solar cycle....this period of very  solar activity continues to provide very low ionospheric absorption of the lower frequency spectrum producing excellent reception of the the LONG WAVE and the  AM medium wave broadcast bands

According to the recently published opinions of several space weather experts, we are now, yes right now, continuing to enjoy one of the best low frequency Dxing seasons since the year 2014..... As expected the month of March will certainly may bring many interesting propagation conditions on the lower frequency bands, thanks to the expected much lower ionospheric absorption on the D layer already explained here at Dxers Unlimited.

Those of you that live in the Northern Hemisphere will be able to enjoy excellent propagation on the 160 , 80 , 60 and 40 meters bands during the time frame between your local sunset and about two hours more after your local sunrise.... and that will provide you with about fourteen hours of interesting propagation conditions . Those of you with capability to receive on the new 630 meters band will like to explore what is happening in that medium wave amateur band, now available to radio amateurs in many countries around the world.

Now here is an invitation. Yes I want to invite you all amigos, so that you can share with other Dxers Unlimited's listeners your latest DX catches... I would be pleased to receive some of your personal first hand experiences that you have had so far during this 2018, especially regarding if you have noticed better propagation conditions on the lower frequencies since the beginning of this year. And then your DX catches will go on the air here to help others enjoy this wonderful hobby....
the one you and I enjoy so much : RADIO

I am your host Arnie Coro in sunny La Habana, Cuba Yes amigos, QSL , QSL on the air and directly to your e mail and postal address too.... Sure, here at our station we are proud to answer each and every signal report, e-mail, letter and comments about our programs received since from the very first day that we went on the air with the predecessor of RHC, the Onda Corta Experimental Cubana. Now our next celebration is coming up... On the first day of May of 1961, we used the name Radio Havana Cuba for the first time.... I still remember how we used a US made VHF studio to transmitter link, around 159 megaHertz to send our audio from Revolution Square, the Plaza de la Revolución, to the downtown studios of Radio Progeso

The great challenge of today's radio amateurs and Dxers is without doubts the ever raising levels of radio frequency noise signals that interfere with reception of signals all over the radio spectrum...
At a recent radio club meeting a conversation came up about how some of us radio amateur operators  have such a high noise level, something that make that a great many signals are lost in that noise.  Depending on the frequency or band you listen to, some are experiencing 20db above S9 as their noise floor....  Me too... yes ! At CO2KK, my ham radio station, located in a downtown residential neighborhood  I have to deal with a S5 to S7 noise floor on 80 metres, and a S3-S5 on the 40 meters band.

RFI is interference caused by YOUR station equipment getting into other devices, from TVs, to electronic organs, to your touch controlled paper shredder or your cellphone .  EMI is interference FROM other electronic devices which cause your receiver noise floor to rise. Perhaps this is, not entirely technically correct, but it serves a practical purpose .

As our lives become filled with technology in every possible form, the likelihood of electronic interference increases. Every lamp dimmer, garage-door opener or other new technical “toy” contributes to the electrical noise around us. Many of these devices also “listen” to that growing noise and may react unpredictably to their electronic neighbours. Whether it’s called EMI, RFI or TVI [Television Interference], unwanted interaction between intentional and unintentional receivers and transmitters has stimulated vigorous growth in the field of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC).
Now at the end of the show an update about HF propagation.... what was happening on Saturday 10 March, 2018

Only one day (March 2) showed any sunspot activity over the past reporting week, with a daily sunspot number of 11 so average daily sunspot activity declined from 6 to 1.6. Average daily solar flux went from 68.3 to 67.6.

No sunspots have been seen since March 2.
Geomagnetic indicators were quiet, with average planetary A index dropping from 10.4 to 5.1, and mid-latitude A index from 7.4 to 4.6. Predicted solar flux is 68 on March 11-15, 70 on March 16, 72 onMarch 17-29, 70 on March 30, 68 on March 31 through April 11, 70 on April 12, and 72 on April 13-22.

Send signal reports and comments to inforhc@enet.cu or via Air Mail to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba


.

Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited

Mid-week edition: 29 August 2017

Hi amigos radioaficionados all around the world now enjoying the slightly better short wave propagation conditions that happen as we approach the  autumn equinox  !!! Propagation conditions on the HF bands from 20 to 6 meters have taken a turn for the better, especially within the frequency range between 14 and 25 megaHertz!

I am your host Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, also having a good time listening to the the HF bands although the solar flux is hovering just near 80 units. Near Vertical Incidence Skywave propagation mode continues to provide short range communications during the daytime, especially on the 40 meters amateur band.

Item two: Some of the world's prominent solar scientists are really concerned about the possibility of an upcoming second edition of the so called Maunder Minimum, when the Sun stopped from generating sunspots for a period of around 70 years... Other scientists believe that the abnormal behavior of the present solar cycle is not as bad as initially thought, something that we are all hoping to be what would happen... If solar cycle 25, the next one, shows a very slow start up period, then radio amateurs around the world will have to deal with a situation at least as worse as the final years of cycle 23, when extended periods without sunspots left the higher bands dead for weeks and months...

Item three: Here at the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, coming to you from Havana amigos... No HF propagation, no sunspots, or very weak solar activity does not mean that the amateur radio hobby will go down the drain... Hopefully there are several very interesting options that range from the extended use of the very low and low frequency bands by means of advanced digital communications protocols to the launching of many more ham radio satellites, including perhaps , if funding can be found, the placing in orbit of several Molnya type satellites... or we can even dream of one or two geostationary ham radio satellites !!!

The present day amateur radio satellites are all orbiting the Earth at rather low altitudes, so their coverage is limited to a rather small footprint. In other words, the small footprint means that the time slot available to communicate between two stations operating via satellite is only a few minutes, even during the best passes... The fact that today's satellites are at such low height is what in my opinion have prevented more radio amateurs from experimenting with this type of space link...

As a young ham said to me during a satellite communications conference that took place at the venue of the Cuban Federation of Radio Amateurs here in Havana, it is barely worthwhile to build special antennas , install tracking software and learn how to use it, plus having to obtain VHF and UHF equipment capable of operating on Single Side Band and CW modes, only to enjoy perhapes two or three daily brief periods when the satellites that are operational can be reached from the place where one is located.

In a certain way the young ham is right... my perception is that a single new satellite placed at a much higher Earth orbit, so that the time window available for its use could reach at least half an hour four times every day will dramatically change the number of ham radio satellite users, to the present very few to a much larger number of experimenters...

Although the availability of dual band 2 meters and 70 centimeters FM handie talkies that can access the FM repeater type of satellites using a small dual YAGI hand held antenna , has increased the number of users of those satellites, at this moment what everyone is waiting for is for a satellite that could ride piggyback on one of the many professional geostationary birds that are constantly been launched. But so far, the owners of those expensive satellites, that  are worth hundreds of millions of dollars have not accepted the risks involved in providing extra space and electric power to a ham radio satellite that will form part of such a package. Insurance companies will not accept an extra satellite without the proper certification of compliance with many complex technical regulations….
In the meantime, there is still another very interesting Earth orbiting spaceship... the International Space Station that is fully equipped to operate on several amateur bands... The ISS is active from its low Earth orbit, and whenever the crew members that are licensed amateur operators decide to take a break, they communicate with fellow hams all around the world !!!

You have questions and your amigo Arnie tries to answer them as soon as possible, directly to your e-mail or postal address and also on the air too... Today's question came from five different locations, Argentina, Guyana, South Africa, the USA and New Zealand....

Dxers Unlimited's listeners in those five countries want to know more about the SLIM JIM low take off angle vertically polarized  antenna , especially the one designed to work on the world's most popular ham band.. 2 meters. There is a worldwide agreement that specifies the use of narrowband FM on the two meters band , using vertical polarization... At this moment there are more amateur radio stations in the world using the two meters band on the FM mode with vertically polarized antennas than in any other ham band... So, 2 meters band vertically polarized antennas are very popular, and because they are easy to homebrew and can be made with low cost materials, it is a fact that those antennas are really popular projects.

Among 2 meters band vertical antennas that are easy to make and show good performance, my favorite is the SLIM JIM, a type of folded monopole that when properly build and installed is capable of producing a very nice low take off angle vertical antenna pattern, exactly what you need to communicate via ground wave.

As a matter of fact the SLIM JIM two meters band vertical shows a much better performance than a half wave dipole at the same height, and that is way the British designed SLIM JIM has become so popular among the millions of hams around the world that communicate with each other using the 2 meters band...

And now that I am talking about what according to my own personal experience is the most efficient single element omnidirectional vertically polarized antenna for the two meters band, the SLIM JIM, let me add that the easiest to build and tremendously effective directional antenna for two meters also originated in the United Kingdom... It was created by Les Moxon, and for that reason is known as just as the MOXON, or better yet as the MOXON Rectangle antenna... that has a very high front to back ratio, plus an extremely wide horizontal pattern coverage...

In an upcoming edition of Dxers Unlimited, and at the request of several listeners , I will provide you with more information about the MOXON rectangle antenna that is now also becoming very popular among ham radio operators that are using them on the 20, 17, 15 , 12 , 10 and 6 meter bands... But let me add that they are single band antennas.... although I as have just said, the MOXON is a single band directional antenna system...

And now amigos, just at the end of our mid week edition, here is Arnie Coro's HF plus low VHF band propagation update and forecast... 

Expect soon to starttheTRANS EQUATORIAL PROPAGATION season that this year may be an early starter. Solar flux hovering between 75 and 80 units and the night time maximum usable frequency nose diving even below 7 megaHertz...Don't forget to send your signal reports and comments about this and other RHC programs to inforhc@enet dot cu, or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba

Dxers Unlimited Edition, May 2, 2017

Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited middle of the week edition for Tuesday 2 May 2017
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK

Hola mis amigos radioaficionados now listening to the middle of the week edition of Dxers Unlimited... this is certainly the one and only radio hobby program that attempts to cover each and every one of the more than 90 ways of enjoying this wonderful way of spending our spare time having  a lot of fun with our radios....

India is at the forefront on the use of Digital Radio Mondiale technology. The current test period includes one hour a day of DRM broadcasts at twenty five different transmitting stations.... But the single most important drawback to DRM Digital Radio Mondiale continues to be the lack of low and medium cost eceivers that are still sadly missing .... Another recent news item brought information about an integrated circuit capable of demodulating all possible transmission modes, including standard AM, FM, and several of the already on the air digital radio modes, like DRM, the IBOC or HD Radio and all different DAB modes....

Massive production of this new digital integrated circuit that automaticallly detects the modulation mode in use , producing clear audio output, could be the breakthrough every one is expecting in order to introduce the most efficient digital modes at a worldwide scale.... In the meantime, DRM capable receivers continue to be expensive, while those for HD Radio and DAB are slowly becoming available at lower cost... More updates about digital radio transmission modes at an upcoming edition of Dxers Unlimited.
Item two: Coming to you from Dxers Unlimited's middle of the week  edition... a short form solar activity update.... The Sun is going  through another period of very low activity, and just three sunspot  active regions with a single sunspot inside are visible, so the current  sunspot number was 33 late Monday UTC day...

Item three one of the show... Si amigos, many of you I am sure will want to experience the unique joy of listening to a radio receiver that  you have just built... I can share with you my very special day , way back in 1956 when the radio in kit form that was my birthday present started to pick up station CMZ on one thousand ten kiloHertz, and at the low frequency end of the little radio's dial I was listening to CMQ's powerful signal on 630 kiloHertz...The radio used just a single 3S4 miniature triode... and was powered by two batteries.... a one point
five volts size D cell for the vacuum tube's filament and a twenty two and a half volts battery for feeding the plate voltage for the 3S4. The receiver used a classic regenerative circuit using the Armstrong plate feedback method, controlled by a variable capacitor throttle control...

It took me a while to understand how the radio could be made more and more sensitive until it starting howling like a lone wolf ... the howl audio note was bad for my ears !!! Then about a week after using the radio , one evening , while tweaking the throttle regeneration capacitor just at the point before the radio started to oscillate , a weak signal arount the center of the dial could be heard and it was a station speaking in English.... Si amigos, yes my friends, oui mes amis, that was KAAY , from Little Rock in Arkansas on 1090 kiloHertz, and just at
slightly higher frequency the scond DX station was coming in... it was WBT from Charlotte North Caroline on 1110 kiloHertz, and I kept the radio going from one station to the another until about three o'clock in the morning... Needless those two first AM Broadcast Band stations picked up by very simple battery powered regenerative receiver turned me into a lifelong fan of AM Band Dxing.... Oh, and before I forget, the radio can be built nowadays , because it uses very common parts that are still available....

Si amigos, you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, this is our middle of  the week edition of Dxers Unlimited, I am your host Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK, and now more about home brew radios, that use a low number of parts and can be built at home with a few hand tools, a low wattage soldering iron and a low cost digitalmultimeter...

You must learn how to identify electronic components like resistor, capacitors, transistors, integrated circuits and vacuum tubes pin outs.... It will take some time, and you will want to obtain the help of more experienced radio hobby enthusiast ....buy be assured it can be achieved and after some time your know how will be enough for you to build your first simple radio...

My advice is to try to build a simple crystal receiver to which you add a one or two transistors audio amplifier so that good headphone volume can be achieved from the local and near local AM broadcast band stations....

Item four:  More information about the spring and summer sporadic E layer propagation season, just starting at this moment. According to several ionospheric propagation experts, they expect this year's sporadic E main season spanning from early May to late July could be surprisingly active... The gurus say that there seems to be a reverse connection between solar activity and the sporadic E layer events...

In other words during solar minimum years it seems that less solar activity
somehow helps to enhance the probability of the formation of high ionization density patches at the height of the E layer that may produce outstanding propagation events... Amateur radio operators having stations capable of operating on the 10 and 6 meter bands will be able to make DX contacts on those two bands during the summer Sporadic E season now starting... The real challenge brought by Sporadic E layer events is that so far they have proven to be impossible to predict... so far there is no method that can tell in advance when one of such super density sporadic E layer patches starts suddenly brings in DX signals for periods as short as a few minutes or maybe even hours and then
suddenly just vanish...

For 6 meters band operators the sporadic E events make possible working DX stations several hundreds of miles away, with the first skip zone area coming after a zone of no signals... There is also the possibility of double and triple hop skip signals when two or three patches of high density sporadic E clouds align themselves properly...

Si amigos, we will soon learn if the forecasts of a very active sporadic  E layer Dx season is going to happen or not... and if you do have a nice  FM broadcast band radio it would be possible during very good band  openings to pick up far away FM stations via sporadic E very high  density patches to raise the maximum usable frequency past the one hundred megaHertz band.

And now at the end of the program here is our propagation update and forecast for the next several days--- solar activity at very low levels, just a lonely weak sunspot active region in sight Tuesday morning local time in Havana, around 12 hours UTC... a quiet ionosphere due to the very low ultraviolet radiation levels, so the maximum usable frequency reached by the best North to South propagation paths will barely reach 20 megaHertz at peak times... Be on the look out for sporadic E  openings... it is now clear that the late spring and summer E skip season is well under way...

 I am already receiving reports from Six Meters Band radio amateur operators from North America and the Caribbean telling me that they have already made the season's first E skip contacts...

AMIGOS please don't forget to set aside a little time to send me a signal report and your most appreciated comments and radio hobby  related questions to  Dxers Unlimited. Send mail to inforhc@enet.cu .

 Postal Mail: Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana , Cuba

DXers Unlimited middle of the week program

Radio Havana Cuba

For broadcast May 31 2016
By Arnie Coro, CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados... listening via short wave and also by means of our streaming audio from www.radiohc.cu. with twice daily English language feeds. I am your host Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK now ready to start the middle of the week edition of your favorite radio hobby program...

There are four active regions visible on the solar disk. NOAA solar active sunspot  region 2550 and new region 2551 were responsible for some minor flaring , including a single C1.0 flare (from NOAA 2550, peaking at 13:24).

Here is item one... As anyone monitoring the HF bands will easily find out, the low solar activity continues to limit the chances of short wave propagation on frequencies above 20 megaHertz, even during the best times of the day at any given location. The exception comes when sporadic E layer openings move the maximum usable frequency up past the 25 megaHertz range. Long time RHC listener from Florida Richard
reported his first ever 6 meters amateur band contact via sporadic E with KP4EIT,     one of the most active Puerto Rican VHF operators… Congratulations to both 6 meters operators that will surely continue to enjoy the already in progress sporadic E layers season.

Observations confirm that solar cycle 24 continues to show very weak activity as compared with any of the previous 5 solar cycles .

Item two: You have questions and I do my best to answer them... Yes amigos, every day the e'mail brings in most interesting questions from listeners all around the world... Like for example the one sent by Luis from San Jose, Costa Rica who listens regularly to our 6000 kiloHertz frequency that he picks up way offside of the main beam !!!

Luis asks why it is not possible for him in Costa Rica  to pick up more stations from other countries in the Americas besides Cuba, Argentina and  Brazil, that are the three most active ones… He also reports several low power stations from Peru and Bolivia….

Well amigo Luis, let me tell you that at this moment they are just a  few stations on the air on the short wave bands with high enough power to be heard on a regular basis...
And to answer the other part of your question, I will be back in a few seconds after a short break for station ID. I am your host Arnie Coro in sunny Havana, Cuba...

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

This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and yes amigos, we do QSL, we do send QSL cards to listeners that report our programs, and this is done absolutely free of charge... Now part two of the answer to amigo Luis , who lives in Costa Rica.

Besides Radio Havana Cuba, that can be picked up, using a rather simple short wave receiving antenna, you may be able also to pick up several stations from Brazil, as well as Argentina Peru  Colombia and Bolivia., that are also on the air , especially on the 60 and 49 meters bands, but the stations are using low power and simple low cost antenna systems because they are intended primarily to provide local or regional coverage.

When HF bands propagation conditions are good, you may pick up several of those low power stations from Peru, Bolivia , Ecuador , Colombia and Mexico... reception of those low power short wave broadcasts , mainly on the 60 and 49 meters band and also at times on 31 meters.... this will usually take place very late in the evening your local time or just before local sunrise.
For both short wave listeners and amateur radio operators the installation of an adequate antenna for obtaining best results within the frequency range from 3.5 to 29.7 megaHertz is quite a challenge to say the least. City dwellers, and especially those who live in apartment building face a great challenge when trying to listen or to operate on the 80 to 10 meters ham bands  ,  because of the severe restrictions imposed nowadays  regarding the installation of external antennas on any type of building and the extremely high local noise levels . The only option left for many Short Wave Listeners and Radio Amateur Operators is to install a magnetic loop antenna and try to place it at the best possible location .

The rooftops of high rise apartment buildings are an ideal location for VHF, UHF and Microwave operation if you happen to be living at one of the top floors, but are quite useless for that purpose if your apartment is located close to the ground requiring the installation of a very long length of transmission line needed to reach a rooftop antenna adding very high losses to both receive and transmit signals add to this if you are fortunate to obtain permission to install a rooftop antenna by the building managers.

But, despite all those difficulties, I very often come across a ham radio operator that with a lot of ingenuity manages to operate, for example, on the 20, 17 15 meters, 12 and 10 meters bands, using different types of compact antennas.

Do notice that also  mention the 12 and 10 meters HF bands despite the fact that the size of antennas for those bands is small enough to make them fit across a balcony rail  ... But 20 , 17 and 15 meters are certainly the most popular DX bands when propagation conditions are let's say, normal or slightly above normal, and that is why people living in housing facilities with severe restrictions as regards to the installation of external antennas, try , in the first place to put up an antenna system that can be tuned to 20, 17 and 15 meters.

One of the regular Dxers Unlimited's listeners , who is also an avid ham radio operator asked about what could be done to install an antenna for the 20, 17 and 15 meters band that could fit into his apartment's balcony that measured from one end to the other roughly 5 meters or about sixteen and a half feet.
His  already in use 10 meters half wave dipole brought some local contacts, and also some DX when the band is open, but as everyone now is fully aware, the 10 meter band openings via the F2 layer are going to become very rare indeed due to the prevalent very low lack of solar activity.

So, here is what I advised him to do...

Go ahead and build a compact  short dipole antenna using two easy to make  loading coils terminated at each end with two end loading capacitive hats, that will make possible to operate on the 20, 17 and 15 meters bands with rather good efficiency, and also on the 30 meters band with somewhat reduced performance. You must use a balun or balanced to unbalanced one to one broadband transformer at the feedpoint of the antenna.

The antenna I suggested fits perfectly into a slightly less than 15 feet or about 5 meters horizontal space, and when fed via a factory made or a  homebrew one to one balun and using a wide range antenna tuner has proven to provide excellent performance. One good advantage of this antenna is that it can be installed in a couple of minutes when you want to operate or listen to the radio, and likewise it can be taken down and placed in storage at a corner of the balcony !!!

The good efficiency of this antenna design despite its
short length, is due to the use of two carefully built high Q loading coils and the nice looking well designed end loading spiders, that act as an effective capacitive load.

The two loading spiders are built using eight wires that are carefully soldered to a circle made of 6 millimeters or about a quarter of an inch copper tubing. Each leg of the antenna is just two and a quarter meters long and they end up connecting to the end loading spiders ... The center insulator supports a one to one balun transformer, and the antenna is fed with a short length of RG213 or RG8X coaxial cable that connects it to the antenna tuner.

And now  at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited 's HF propagation update and forecast. Expect sporadic E openings to become more and more during June as solar activity continues to be  very low to low . The night time maximum useable frequency curve continues to exhibit its usual upward  swing that starts after sunset, something typical of the northern hemisphere summer season. Solar flux  around 80 units. And please don't forget to send your signal reports and comments about this and other RHC programs to inforhc at enet dot cu ...
(Arnie Coro/R Havana)

Arnie Coro predicts very good tropical band conditions

Jose Miguel Romero and playdx posted the following from Arnio Coro of Radio Havana Cuba.

Arnaldo Coro 

Tropical Bands Conditions are expected to be very good for the next few weeks as we enter into the equinoctial DX period.... Cuba has 4765 kHz Radio Progreso,,, 5025 kHz Radio Rebelde and 5040 kHz Radio Habana Cuba, and I am still working with my colleagues at Radio Cuba to start broadcasting once again on the 90 meters Tropical Band... Suggested frequencies 3350 and 3365 ... and you can send your suggestion to arnie@rhc.cu 

This is an old SNIEG air cooled transmitter that we will run at around 30 kiloWatts into a NVIS dipole antenna... operation planned for between local sunset and about two o'clock in the morning local time. Reports for RHC 5040 kHz can be sent to arnie at rhc dot cu, and will be replied with a nice newly printed QSL card ... 73 and DX Arnie Coro CO2KK host of Dxers Unlimited Radio Havana Cuba

__._,_.___

---

Radio Havana Cuba: DXers Unlimited

Radio Havana Cuba Dxers Unlimited's  - middle of the week program  for Tuesday 29 July 2014
 By Arnie Coro - radio amateur CO2KK

 Hi amigos radioaficionados all around the world and orbiting our  planet aboard the ISS. Yes, there are radio amateur operators on duty  at the International Space Stations and whenever they can take a break, you can pick up their FM voice mode transmissions on the two  meters amateur band frequency of 145 dot eight hundred megaHertz...

 The spacecraft is in a low Earth orbit, so the signals can be picked up for a short period even when there is an overhead pass.... I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK your host here at the middle of the week edition of Dxers Unlimited, and YES, amigos I was one of the pioneers here in Cuba to use amateur radio satellites, a complex technology that has enjoyed ups and downs in the preferences of the  world's ham radio enthusiasts... At one time, several of the so called EASY SATS, made possible for many operators to establish regular two way contacts using standard factory built radios.... and simple antennas.... But those days are now over, and the present generation  of amateur radio satellites are in my opinion much more difficult to access and the time windows available for making contacts are very,very small, and that is yet another drawback. Ideally a geostationary amateur satellite would be the way to go, but many experts say that although it could cover only one third of the Planet

 Earth from its Clarke Belt orbital slot, so many amateurs will try to use it that it would be quite useless due to the interference caused by so many stations trying to communicate, even if the super ham satellite offers many transponders. Then, add to this the extremely high cost to build a the geostationary satellites, and also the need to find a suitable launching vehicle that will also cost a fortune.

So, what we are seeing now are small, low Earth orbit satellites that  have created interest among a few radio amateurs, like Cuba's top satellite operator, Hector CO6CBF, who has broken several records from his Cienfuegos city of central Cuba operating position.

 Hector CO6CBF has built his own special antennas as well as azimuth and elevation rotors to turn them for optimum access to the satellites.... Si amigos, yes my friends , oui mes amis, amateur satellites are flying, but they are flying at low heights making long distance contacts a tremendous challenge for the operators that must rely on minimum height above the horizon passes to assure the longest possible contacts... Stay tuned for more radio hobby related information coming to you from  La Habana, where we are going through a period of extremely high  temperatures and low relative humidity...

 I am your host Arnie Coro,

 my ham radio callsing is CO2KK

 and I will be back in a few seconds after a short break for a station ID
 ..................................

*Yes amigos, this is Radio Havana Cuba, and here are some recent schedule changes that took place on July 25th .... Starting on Friday July 25th UTC day, we are no longer using 9550 kiloHertz from 11 to 13 hours UTC, and also NOT using 15340 kiloHertz from 13 to 15 hours UTC.... Then, here is now another important schedule change.... since Friday July 25th, our 11760 kiloHertz frequency continues to be on the air after 15 hours UTC and until 19 hours UTC broadcasting programs  that we were previously only streaming to the Internet. The first three hours from 15 to 18 UTC are in Spanish, broadcasting our new CUBA ONLINE magazine show that received many nice reports from listeners picking it up via the streaming audio from 1. www.radiohc.cu, and who suggested that we made it available also via short wave, something we have done using a 100 kiloWatts transmitter on 11760 kiloHertz with the 6 dB gain omni directional antenna that provides coverage to parts of North America, all of Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the northern areas of South America. Reports received so far confirm what our engineering department had calculated to be the 80 percent of the time service pattern. So, give it a try, and tune in to 11760 kiloHertz from Radio Havana Cuba from 15 to 18 hours UTC and then from 18 to 19 hours UTC in other Arabic and Portuguese....*

 Now here is item three of the middle of the week program of Dxers Unlimited...

Over the weekend, several Perseid meteor shower advance fireballs were detected by observers, and this can best be described as signals of the beginning of the annual August Perseids meteors display. Normally, the best time to watch would be during the shower's peak: August 11th through 13th. This year, however, the super moon will cast an interfering glare across the nights of maximum activity, reducing visibility from 120 meteors per hour (the typical Perseid peak rate) to less than 30. Instead, late July-early August might be the best time to watch as Earth plunges deeper into the debris stream of comet Swift Tuttle, before the Moon becomes full. For radio amateur operators the yearly Perseids are among the best showers for meteor
scatter propagation Dxing attempts.

Now let me explain in detail ---- PERSEID METEOR SHOWER BEGINS as the Earth is entering a broad stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Although the peak of the shower is not expected until August, meteors are already flitting across the night sky.

By the way, TV Dxers in the days of analog television broadcasts were able to log many low band TV stations within the frequency range of 54 to 88 megaHertz in the Americas using the ionized trails of meteors entering the upper atmosphere. You had to be pretty lucky so that the burn of the meteor will coincide with the time of a station ID... but dedicated TV Dxers proved that this happened more often than expected, as they kept cameras in front of the TV set's screens and also later kept videocassette machines running all the time during the meteor showers ... I began TV Dxing in the middle of the nineteen fifties, and was able to log the audio channel of the then on the air BBC One TV from London, when the super active solar cycle 19 sent the monthly sunspot counts to the above 200 mark, something never before again seen ever since....

 Digital Terrestrial Television broadcasts using any of the several available standards are not DX friendly at all, something that has taken its toll, reducing the number of TV Dxers dramatically in every country where the analog blackout takes place....

Nevertheless there are still many nations around the world where the analog TV signals are still on the air and the analog blackout is not expected to take place until a few years from now.

At the end of the show a short form solar activity and HF propagation update. Sunspot number hovering around 140, the solar flux was near 130, and the effective sunspot number was around 85 Tuesday at 15 Hours UTC, add to this that all the active sunspot regions show no signs of powerful magnetic activity. Best HF propagation conditions on the Northern Hemisphere to happen after local sunset and until one hour past sunrise.... So , here is Arnie Coro's advice for short wave listeners and radio amateurs alike if you want to pick up DX stations, stay awake after midnight and go to sleep one hour after your local sunrise !!!

Yes amigos, your signal reports, comments about this and other Radio Havana Cuba programs and radio hobby related questions are most welcome to the following e'mail address: inforhc@enet.cu

inforhc@enet.cu. or VIA AIR MAIL

Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba
(wb, Germany/HCDX)

Update on Cuba's Radio Progreso

Message from Arnie about Radio Progreso Tropical 60 meter band station.

Dear amigo Wolfie:
Radio Progreso's successful test from October to December of 2013 using 4765 kHz frequency registered to Cuba at the ITU with 50 kW omnidirectional and high take off angle antenna was completed on the last
day of December and starting January 1 2014 it is now a permanent daily service 7 days a week.

Under study now is the possibility of extending the on the air time starting at 2300 UTC, so that the broadcast will be from 2300 to 0500 UT.

As regards to reports received and QSL verification, the station will issue a QSL card soon, and in the meantime listeners who report correctly the transmissions will receive a QSL letter.

Please note that the postal mailing address for the 60 meters Tropical Band reports is:

Radio Progreso
Atte: Transmision Banda Tropical
PO BOX 3042
Codigo postal 10300
La Habana
Cuba.

In the meantime I will continue to relay the e-mail messages sent via Radio Havana Cuba's inforhc@ enet.cu
to Radio Progreso's Chief Engineer Ing. Jose Antonio Fuentes Beltran that is going to be the person in charge of verifying and signing the QSL letters now and QSL cards when they come from the printer.

At this moment Cuba has on the air three short wave services Radio Havana Cuba in eight languages using frequencies on the 60, 49, 31, 25, 22, 19, and 16 meters bands.

Radio Rebelde  on 5025 kHz 60 meters band

Radio Progreso on 4765 kHz 60 meters band.

73 and DX
Prof. Arnaldo Coro Antich ( AKA Arnie Coro on the air)
Advisor / Senior Consultant to the Director General
Radio Habana Cuba
(via wb, wwdxc BC-DX TopNews Jan 29)
(WWDXC/Top Nx 1148/02 Feb)

DXers Unlimited weekend edition, June 6-7

Radio Havana Cuba
By Arnie Coro, 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 continues at very low level, although the only active sunspot region continues to keep the daily optical sunspot count above ZERO During this week we saw one day with a sunspot count of 23, the highest recorded in a long long time !!!

Another sunspot region seems to be developing right at the edge of the solar disc...Astronomers , both professional and amateurs alike, equipped with high tech solar telescopes should keep an eye focused at the edge of the solar disc's northern hemisphere... where the new action region may emerge at anytime now. The only may actually fade out before it moves out of sight from the Earth in the next few days....

Item two: Today ASK ARNIE, la numero uno, the most popular section of the program will be devoted to answering a question sent by listeners in Botswana, Africa, New Zealand, Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, Canada, the USA and a first time listener also from the Caribbean..who lives in Antigua, where he used to have a lot of very difficulty listening to short wave stations because of the presence of the now not operational BBC and Deutsch Welle super power relay facility.

Our amigo Derril from Antigua is also telling me that ha has been enjoying some nice FM DX from South America.

Those amigos who sent today's question are very interested about the so called Trans-equatorial ionospheric forward scatter propagation, that provides so interesting DX signals on frequencies as high as the two meters amateur band, TEP is much more frequent on the 10 meters and 6 meters bands. Although there are well verified reports of regular TEP propagation from the Caribbean to Brazil on the 2 meters amateur band.

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 F2 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 and up to UHF bands propagation events happen.

More radio hobby related information follows in just a few seconds, asDxers Unlimited's weekend edition continues after a short station ID.
.......

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 the first day of June and already we have seen a very early instance of a low pressure area moving near Cape Hatteras, it had a a rather disorganized activity and never became the first storm of the season pouring.

Actually, this tropical event occurred before the season started. We have had lots of rain over Cuba's eastern provinces also related to the Atlantic , Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico tropical storms and hurricanes season...radio once again will be playing an important role to help to make better forecasts of the path of cyclones and hurricanes, by scientists now having access to use the data provided by 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 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. The use of forward error correction digital transmission modes is essential in order to assure that the data picked up by the buoys will reach its destination at the weather forecasters offices.

A new form of Dxing... maybe !!! May monitoring the ocean anchored and drift weather buoys becoming number 90 of our list of ways of enjoying this wonderful hobby ?... Who knows ?

As many of you know, 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.

By the way, I have picked up a great number of drift nets beacons and similar transmitters used by sea going fishing trawlers that operate them near or inside the 160 meters amateur band.
.......

Homebrew your radios, si amigos, GO AHEAD !!! Don't think it over twice,you can start by assembling a simple easy to build 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 my 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 impedance 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 bass reflex cabinet with an eight inch speaker.

Radio Progreso's 640 kiloHertz 50 kiloWatts AM transmitter here in Havana,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 other 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 !

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 flux around 70 to 71 units, down from the 75 units it reached earlier in the week.

The daily sunspot count has moved from 15 to 23 then down to 19 and later two times to 17 , following the path of solar active region 1019 that is now desintegrating and fading away...

The already high probability of Sporadic E openings will be increasing from day to day, especially during this first three weeks of June. Keep checking the FM broadcast band for signs of DX stations, that usually show up on locally unused channels, or atop of weak semi-locals.

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@rhc.cu, again arnie@rhc.cu and VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
Cortesia de Manolo de la Rosa
(Arnie Coro)

Radio Havana Cuba, DXers Unlimited

Radio Havana Cuba, DXers Unlimited weekend edition May 30-31, 2009

By Arnie Coro CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world, and the six space travelers now orbiting in space !

I am Arnie Coro radio amateur CO2KK welcoming you to my twice weekly radio hobby program that really tries to cover the more than 85 ways you and I enjoy our wonderful hobby, from participating in an exhausting whole weekend worldwide amateur radio contest like the one taking place right now, to relaxing at a the sandy beach of a tropical tourist resort listening to a far away AM broadcast band station that is heard on your little portable radio with a nice and clear signal thanks to that interesting propagation effect known among experts as sea gain...

Sure, this hobby is always challenging, and when you think that already you have gone through all the possible aspects of it, then someone comes out with a radically new antenna, a new digital communications mode using computers or suddenly finds out that there is still a lot of room for experimenting at the millimeter wavelengths...

Si amigos, yes my friends, oui mes amis in Canada and the French speaking Caribbean that listen to this program, radio is simply fascinating...

Take for example this weekend's CQ Radio Amateur magazine WPX CW contest, when thousands of amateur radio stations around the world are on the air to try to work as many new prefixes as possible...According to my own on the air on 40 meters, so far the WPX contest this weekend was quite a challenge to the participants due to the extremely low solar activity that has prevailed for the past week.

From the very beginning on Satuday at 00 UTC when the contest started, that was Friday evening for us here in the Americas, it was clear that the bands above 14 megaHertz or 20 meters would offer participants very few chances of working many stations, and as a matter of fact, fifteen and ten meters should remain totally closed for F2 mode propagation for most of the time.

So far those really rare goodies picked up on the ham bands, the really hard to work prefixes have shown up on 40 meters, because working on 160 and 80 meters has had to deal with the extremely high QRN that is atmospheric noise levels .

Other maybe not so rare, but nevertheless interesting stations heard during the weekend WPX ham radio CW contest showed up during a short lived opening on 15 meters Saturday morning my local time, when I was giving the finishing touches to the script of this program.

I also heard several South American stations on 10 meters too , proving once again the well known " ham radio contest effect ", that brings in DX stations on an otherwise dead band...

And new prefixes continue to be assigned to amateur stations in countries with a deep rooted tradition in promoting our hobby; that is the case of the prefix 5P7 , that I had never heard before... it took some time to find out that it was a station from Denmark...

And before going over to the next item, once again the world heritage site of the Ecuadorean GALAPAGOS ISLANDS was on the air during an amateur radio contest.

The HC8 prefix would be easy to work for radio amateurs in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean during the Sunday morning local time slot.

More radio hobby related information follows as Dxers Unlimited's mid
week edition continues...

.........

This is Radio Havana Cuba , the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and here is our next item in today's weekend edition of the program... More about compact antennas for HF and some interesting antenna modeling done, not using computers but in real life, in actual practice, but by building scale models of some antennas... Yes you heard it right a one fifth or one tenth scale model of HF antennas provides a lot of practical information and those scale models have the advantage that they are easy to reproduce and modify.

For example , a working model for the 6 meters or 50 megaHertz meters amateur band of the electromagnetic ground plane antenna system, proved that using a proper ground system, the efficiency of the EMGP vertical antenna will match the radiation efficiency achieved by a full size quarter wave vertical to within a very small percentage.

As a matter of fact, very carefully done field intensity comparative measurements between a full size quarter wave 6 meters band vertical placed at the center of a metal plate that has a diameter of three meters, and an EMGP antenna cut for the same 50.3 megaHertz center frequency proved to be almost exactly the same...

A very interesting finding if you take into consideration that the EMGP antenna's height above the ground plane is just 1/12 of a wavelength, that for the 50 megaHertz or for the 6 meters band it's 24 centimeters or just about nine and a half inches...

Now please compare this antenna height with the 55 inches or about one point fourmeters required by the full size quarter wave or 90 electrical degrees high antenna system for operating at the low end of the six meters ham band.

For six meters band operation of local links , this extremely EMGP low profile antenna will be an excellent choice to be used when extremely strong winds are expected, like when a hurricane is approaching.

An EMGP or electromagnetic ground plane antenna for the 40 metersamateur band, will be only about three and a half meters high above the ground plane, but I must clarify to my listeners that it would not be a very good emergency antenna because it will not have enough high vertical angle radiation , something that is essential for short range Near Vertical Incidence Skywave propagation, as required for short range communications within an affected area.

Nevertheless, modeling the EMGP as a "real life" antenna on 6 meters proved to be a very interesting and rewarding experience, and something that was done in just a few hours of my weekend spare time...

If you don't have enough space where to install a short wave antenna system, don't overlook the possibility of homebrewing an EMGP antenna, that when properly made, will provide reasonable results on the band for which it is cut on transmit, and good receiving on the next lower and higher adjacent bands.

If you want to know more about the EMGP , the Electro Magnetic Ground Plane antenna, send me an e-mail to inforhc@enet.cu , and I will reply with the EMGP Antenna Design Package, with detailed instructions on how to homebrew these antennas for the amateur bands between 80 and 10 meters meters...

......

Si amigos, yes... ASK ARNIE continues to be at the top of your preferences, according to the e-mail messages, letters and actual on the air two way amateur radio contacts... here is ASK ARNIE today... answering a question sent by listeners Rosie in Alberta, Canada,a listener from the USA, Pedro in California and Ian , who tells me that he listens to our 11760 kiloHertz transmitter quite often at his Southern England QTH.

I also received a report and the same question from New Zealand where our 11760 kiloHertz 100 kiloWatts to a 6 dB gain omnidirectioanal antenna deliver a nice signal too, with amazing good quality as amigo Brian tells me in his e-mail.

Well Rosie, Pedro,Ian and Brian want to know more about the recently advertised and much prometed Spiral end loaded antennas that I mentioned here at Dxers Unlimited, and in the case of Ian, who happens to be a very enthusiastic radio amateur operator, he wants me to telll him the difference between the Petlowany and Tak antennas, if there is any difference at all...

Well amigos, the spiral end loaded antennas are really nothing new at all... I remember reading about spiral loaded antennas for the very low frequencies a long time ago, in an article that presented an extensive review of several types of top loaded antennas for operation on very low and extremely low frequencies, using huge top hats made by spiraling a lot of wire .

Then many years ago , some time after reading that article, I went to Cardenas , a city of Matanzas province near Varadero beach. Cardenas has a very nice seaport , where a coastal radio station using the callsign CLC, operated on the now no longer used 600 meters or 500 kiloHertz marine band was installed.

To my surprise the vertical antenna located an an excellent salt marsh swampy area on one side of the bay, had a rather large sized top hat to provide additional loading to the about 70 meters high tower, that was physically too short to resonate efficiently on the 460 to 512 kiloHertz band where it had to operate.

This was just a capacity hat made of spokes and wires, and not a spiral top loading of the tower.

Several months later I had the nice opportunity of talking to the designer of that low frequency band antenna system, and he told me that due to the complexity of the spiral loading configuration, he had opted for the much simpler capacity hat, but he added that a spiral loading system proved to be much more efficient when he was doing "the numbers", that meaning when he was calculating the new antenna for the marine communications site.

I asked him about the size of the projected spiral loading device and he said that even when made with the same diameter as the capacity hat, the spiral was much more efficient and provide much better loading of the structure, something that is essential on those very short antennas for the long waves.

Then, he told me about an experiment that ran under his supervision, when two engineering students that were writing their thesis , made a 10 megaHertz scale model of the 500 kiloHertz antenna system... in other words a one twentieth scale ratio.

The students, the designer said, had much more time to play with the antenna's top loading, and they found out that winding a one quarter wave of wire into a spiral of enough diameter , the antenna's resonant frequency went down dramatically while retaining a rather high radiation efficiency.

But again, he added, the main problem was not of an electrical nature, but one related to the mechanical complexity of keeping the spiral wound loading device in place at the top of a tower when heavy winds are blowing.

In the case of both the Petlowany and the Tak spiral loaded antennas, because they are both dipoles used in a horizontal configuration , keeping the end loading spirals in good shape is not as complicated as with the high towers...So, amigos, now you know a bit more about spiral loading of antennas, and why the Petlowany and the Tak antennas are almost identical !!!

.....

Now ready to copy, as the program is coming to an end, and Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast will now go on the air... Solar activity was at extremely low levels, with ZERO sunspot count and the solar flux at 69 units and even lower below...

So, the daytime maximum useable frequency continues to be only barely above 20 megaHertz for short periods, and staying even below 15 megaHertz on some circuits ...

The chances for Sporadic E propagation in our hemisphere is now approaching a maximum for the year, as we enter the month of June...

By the way. there is great expectation for the upcoming ARRL June VHF QSO Party Contest, because if the very low solar activity continues , we may see some really big sporadic E events happening.

Hope to have you all listening to the midweek edition of the program that will be on the air Tuesday and Wednesday UTC days amigos, and don't forget to take a little of your valuable time to send your signal reports, QSL card requests and radio hobby related questions directly to inforhc at enet dot.cu, again, inforhc at enet dot cu or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba.

DXers Unlimited midweek ediition March 3-4

Radio Habana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited Dxers Unlimited's midweek edition for 3-4 March 2009
By Arnie Coro CO2HK

Si amigos ! This is the midweek edition of Dxers Unlimited, coming to you as solar activity goes down again after a brief transit of a small sunspot across the solar disc. The Sun is as quiet as you can imagine, with five days in a row of an absolutely spotless solar disk... Nevertheless, listening to the international short wave broadcast bands Tuesday morning here in Havana, showed once again to me what high power and good antennas can do................It is simply amazing and surprising how many short wave stations can be heard even when solar activity is at minimum levels.

The solar flux is hovering very near the baseline figure of 68 units, and as I said a moment ago, the sunspots are simply absent...Last week's solar report says that only one sunspot group (Catania number 96, NOAA AR 1013) was observed during the week. It was reported as a sunspot group by Catania on February 25, and by NOAA on February 25-27. The only noticeable flare it produced was the A3.2 flare peaking at 07:14 UT on February 27. It was accompanied by an EIT wave and dimming event starting at 07:09 UT. The associated CME was weak and narrow, but was possibly associated with an interplanetary shock registered by ACE and SOHO/CELIAS around 05:00 UT on March 3. The NOAA AR 1013 was visible until the end of the week as an Halpha plage.

Item two: The upcoming Atlantiv, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico hurricane season is due to start on the first day of June and it will last until the last day of November. Radio amateurs are getting ready to deal with what is expected to be yet another lengthy and active tropical hurricane season, enhanced once again by global warming.
W
e have seen previous hurricane seasons like the 2005 one when all the letters of the Latin alphabet were used , so it was necessary to name storms Alpha and Beta....because the meteorologists simply had no more names available, after more than 26 storms ... Once again amateur radio emergency nets will be available for linking the affected areas to the rest of the world
when professional communications systems fail due to the hurricane force winds and heavy rainfall.

Item three: A listener wrote from Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands of Spain asking for more information about the NVIS , Near Vertical Incidence Skywave antenna systems. He describes his location as far from ideal for short distance HF communications, and wants to install one of these antennas
that will help him to be able to talk via skywave to the other nearby islands of Menorca Ibiza and Fomentera, that form part of the Balearic Islands archipelago...
Item four: Taking care of rechargeable batteries is a very important aspect of emergency preparedness... overcharging lead acid accumulators will ruin them, and will also generate dangerous fumes... So, later in this program, I will tell you more about safe ways to assure that your rechargeable batteries will be ready when the emergency comes !

Now stay tuned right on this frequency , or if you are listening to our Internet streaming audio in English that is on the air from 05 to 07 UTC, keep the connection , as Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition will continue in just a few seconds... I am Arnie Coro, radio amateur CO2KK in Havana...
.....
This is Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and for those of you that are picking up this program for the first time, let me say that it's on the air twice weekly with the most up to date radio hobby related information, including my special HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast, that today will provide ham radio contest operators with a special report ... Several years ago I wrote an article about my first six meter band contact, that happened way back in 1959, the article was published by the UK 6 meters Group website and their excellent specialized 50 megaHertz band magazine... Now today and at the request of several
listeners of Dxers Unlimited, I am pleased to present here thatarticle, that I hope you will enjoy as many of the UK Six Meter Group members did way back in 1998...So here I amnow starting to read the article:
My First Six Metre QSO
By Arnie Coro, CO2KK (at that time CM2DL)
Issue 57, May 1998

It was way back in 1959... November 16th 1959 to be exact. My good friend Pepe, CO2GX, now a silent key, was keeping his 4-400 with 3000 volts on the plate on 50.400 for me to find his carrier on my 6C4-12AX7-6AQ5 regenerative receiver... For those not familiar with those 'valves' or 'tubes' they are the equivalents, more or less, of an EC92, an ECC83, and the audio output I think is an EL??? Well, that's not really important, what matters is that 2GX kept talking and talking, while I frantically tuned the super-regenerative detector looking for him... Finally, after about half an hour, I hear Pepe's voice loud and clear...

My just finished two element beam fed with RG58U was picking up my friend's signal so loud, that I had to turn down the volume control... (Yes I had to tune a band set capacitor with a screwdriver to find him, that was the reason for the delay).
Pepe was on 40 metres also, as we were using that band for liaison, he asked me many times if I had found his 50.400 AM, and sure enough, I finally came back to him with a " te copio Pepe.", "I read you Pepe ..." and feedback...as his audio, picked up by my receiver, was going back to his QTH via my own 40 metre rig...

Then Pepe said... go ahead and transmit... I am now tuning the band for you. I fired up my little three watt rig on 50.100 ??? and CO2GX answers my call, not on six, but on 40 metres... and once again there was the feedback... as we soon "discovered" that we had an excellent full duplex link... 7 MHz to 50 MHz !

I marked the super-regen dial very carefully at the 50.400 CO2GX frequency, and asked Pepe to change his crystal, something he did by just removing the quartz from the holder... only to find out that his 'crystal control' was partial, as I could still hear him without a crystal in his rig!

Arnie C02KK plugged in a 50.100 rock, and I found him very easily, as my main variable capacitor had but one single movable plate, so my bandspread was quite nice... (finding the right setting for the bandset was, of course, the real problem!). Two minutes later, I told Pepe to turn down the volume on his 40 metre receiver, proceeded to call him on Six and he came back to me on 50.400! Those were the days of crystal control, when stations had to look for others exploring from about 50.000 to 51.500 Megahertz, as that was the range of the crystal frequencies available here in Cuba. It was not surprising to hear a QSO going on between a station on 50.400 and another guy on 51.500.

Yes, that was my first six metre QSO, followed a few hours later by an F2 QSO with a California ham whose call I can't remember... all I recall that he was in Pomona, and that I could copy him very well for a few minutes around eleven o'clock in the morning my local time...

This was ... many years ago... and Six meters continues to fascinate me, like that very first day I remember so well . Well, that was the article that was published in 1998 by the UK Six Meter Group magazine and website...that I hope you have enjoyed... and of course, even during solar minimum years, Six Meters continues to be THE MAGIC BAND, with many different propagation modes available, like Sporadic E, Auroral E ,FAI an acronymn for a mode of propagation that is known as Field Aligned Irregularities, and from time to time, stationary cold fronts provide tropospheric ducting that sometimes open up six meters for long distance groundwave propagation too...

You can learn more about SIX METERS, the magic band, by visiting http://www uksmg.org, again the URL to go to is http://www.uksmg.org
.......

Si amigos, your radio hobby related questions are answered fast when you send them to inforhc@enet.cu, I send the answer direct to your e-mail, and many of them also go on the air to help others that may have similar questions and can benefit from the answers... today's question came from Mallorca, Spain... ham radio operator and short wave listener Guillermo, EA6XD, wanted to know why I prefered to use a folded dipole driven element for my special NVIS Yagi antenna instead of a regular single wire half wave dipole... The answer to Guillermo's question is that because reflector element is located very close to the driven element, if you use a standardhalf wave dipole, the impedance at the center will go down to between 12 and 15 ohms... ... then if you use a folded dipole, the impedance will move down from 300 ohms to about 50 to 60 ohms, so you will only need a one to one balun to connect your feedline... By moving the folded dipole driven element up and down, you
can find the height above the reflector that gives the minimum standing wave ratio. In many of the antennas that I have built, the SWR can be brought down to less than 1.2 to 1, an almost perfect match for all practical purposes, and if you are a perfectionist, then , simply connect the antenna to your transceiver or transmitter by means of an antenna tuner !!!

And now amigos, just before going QRT, here is our exclusive and not copyrighted , in the public domain, for free distribution to all radio hobby enthusiasts, Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast. Solar activity is at extremely low levels... no less than five days in a row without a single sunspot ... zero sunspot count, and the microwave solar flux at 2800 megaHertz is hovering near the minimum baseline activity figureat just 68 units...

Very quiet geomagnetic conditions will prevail, and the maximum usable frequencies will be rather low, with short , but useable time windows when you can certainly work DX with your average power 100 Watts amateur transceivers... For contest operators, the best bands will be 160, 80 and 40 meter bands and they will let you add lots of multipliers, but during your local daylight hours on Sunday, do try 20 meters I expect some openings on that bands until late afternoon local time. And don't forget to set a little time aside to tell me about how many DX entitities you have worked or monitored , and it this propagation forecast helped you !!! Send mail to inforhc@enet.cu, or VIA AIR MAIL, send a postcard or letter to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana , Cuba
(Arnie Coro)

Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition 10 Feb

Dxers Unlimited
10 – 11 Feb
Mid week edition
by Arnie Coro CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world ! Welcome to the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, your favorite radio hobby program...

The one and only attempting to cover all of the 84 ways that you and have the possibility of enjoying this wonderful way of using up your spare time. Sure, there are some of the that are really sophisticated, while others are as simple to implement at almost no cost, like AM broadcast band Dx using standard unmodified domestic consumer type radios ! As a matter of fact, AM band Dxing today has received quite a boost worldwide, thanks to the availability at very low cost of what can best be described as a new generation of lightweight , really portable receivers that use a radically different integrated circuit capable of extraordinary performance.

As a good friend of mine , who is a senior telecommunications engineer told me recently, the new Walkman type receivers, of which the Sony Model SRF-59 is the most well known example, make possible picking up amazingly far and weak AM broadcast stations, something that has created a new generation of AM Dxing fans....

They have set for themselves a strict set of rules,that include not using external antennas, that is, staying away from boosting the radio's performance by any external devices. But, not everyone is abiding by the rules, and just placing a Sony
Walkman SRF-59 near an external loop antenna brings in still more DX, as I was able to verify during a weekend daytime AM Dxing session.

More about AM medium wave broadcast band Dxing later in today's midweek edition of the program.

Item two: Radio amateurs are using free and open source software more and more, and there are several excellent programs for running the digital communications modes that are written specially for the LINUX open source operating systems.... Among those that have captured my attention is FLDIGI, a software that allows the radio amateur user to operate on practically all of the most popular digital communications mode, and that, as a free and open source program,is available at absolutely no cost.

FLDIGI, has a very nice looking graphical user interfase, and the learning curve is quite reasonable for anyone familiar with the use of computers.

Digital communications modes are becoming much more popular among the world's radio amateurs, because they provide excellent two way contacts while running low and very low powers and even during poor propagation conditions.

Si amigos, your radio or your computer is picking up Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition , and here is part two of today's feature dedicated AM broadcast band Dxing. Keeping a daily record of solar and geomagnetic activity is essential if you want to really enjoy Dxing stations that operate from 530 to 1700 kiloHertz...You must also keep in mind that AM broadcast band channels that are used in the Americas, that is ITU Region II, are spaced by 10 kiloHertz, while the other two world's ITU Regions I and III use a 9 kiloHertz channel separation. That difference is not relevant for users of analog AM receivers, but those using digital radios, do have to switch from 10 to 9 kiloHertz channel spacing when attempting to pick up the transatlantic or
transpacific AM stations,depending on your geographical location.

The presence of transatlantic stations when propagation conditions are very good is often detected by listening to the heterodynes or "whistles between channels" caused by the different channel separation in use by European and African stations, the most likely to be heard during periods of very low solar activity in the East Coast of North America and the Caribbean, when AM band Dxing is at its best ...

The extended period of very low solar activity that is considered by scientists as not typical to say the least, has prolonged the tail end of solar cycle 23 well beyond the classical 11.1 years average, and for that reason, low frequency propagation conditions have been very good for a much longer period than during the three last solar cycles.

Now here is item three: What can be done with an obsolete, but still in good working conditions laptop computer ? The very fast development of computer software that demands more and more machine resources like hard disk drive space, random access memory available and the CPU clock speed , has rendered as obsolete both desktop and laptop machines that still work well and may have a useful lifetime extending for several more years . So, radio amateurs that have already learned how to use different flavors of the LINUX operating system, have installed FLDIGI free and open source software and are using the old machines connected to their transceivers. It is interesting to underscore that the obsolete laptop machines are a much better choice for this application than the desktop computers, because the liquid crystal displays do not generate radio frequency noise , in contrast with the cathode ray tube monitors that cause lots of problems to the reception of weak signals because of the type of high voltage technology that they use.

Setting up the laptop computer to transceiver interfase is not a difficult task, but be aware that the best interfase systems make use of a device known as an OPTO-ISOLATOR , that provides extremely good protection of the computer serial or USB ports that are used to connect the transceiver to the laptop machine. You can certainly start to monitor the amateur bands for digital communications modes using a simple connecting cable, but the chances of running into trouble in case radio frequency energy leaks into the computer ports is extremely high... For receive only applications , a very simple connecting cable can be made in a few minutes, but if you want to transmit digital signals, please follow your amigo Arnie Coro's advice and learn about the fully optically isolated interphase systems, and build or buy one, before starting to transmit using the digital modes. Once your fully isolated interphase is installed and you are familiar with the FLDIGI software, you can start monitoring the ham band segments where the popular PSK31 digital mode is in use...

PSK31 is very easy to decode and you will see many ongoing two way contacts by just watching the waterfall display on the computer screen.

Yes amigos... don't keep that obsolete Pentium II or III laptop machine idle... Don't store it in a closet, or keep it inside a drawer... put it back to work for your enjoyment of the amazing amateur radio digital communications modes, that are capable of just unbelievable performance while running very low power from your transmitter...

This is the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, and just to give you an idea of the extremely quiet Sun, the last weekly report about solar activity speaks about a totally quiet Sun, with absolutely no sunspots for the whole week, and also no signs of possible active sunspot regions on the farside of the Sun.

Solar flux also at very low and absolutely steady level, so as a direct consequence, we are seeing a very weak ionosphere, with extremely low free electrons concentrations at the altitudes of the D, E and F regions.

Item five: A visit to my workshop... just taking a look at the ongoing projects and repair jobs... I am attempting to repair a Midland FM mobile 25 Watts transceiver that forms part of Anita and Ramon's ham radio station ...

Anita and Ramon are blind and they have found in the amateur radio hobby a very nice way of meeting new friends, and learning about communications modes. But they can not repair the broken down transceiver , so they must rely on the help provided by fellow hams for fixing their broken down equipment. The Midland set fried the audio output integrated circuit, and the original part is not available locally, so what I am doing, and about to finish , was to adapt another type of integrated circuit audio amplifier that can be found here at the TV set repair shops, and also I am adding a protection circuit, a very simple one, that will prevent the IC audio
amplifier from breaking down once again in case the loudspeaker is accidentally disconnected...

So soon CM3 AAR , Charlie Mike three Alpha Alpha Romeo, amiga Anita and CM3 RVG, Charlie Mike Three Romeo Victor Gulf, Ramon, by two very good blind amateur radio friends who live in the small town of Guines some forty miles away from Havana, will have their two meters base station back on the air...

By the way the very easy to implement protection against the accidental disconnection of the loudspeaker, can be easily implemented by anyone that owns radios using high power output audio amplifiers... It simply consists of soldering a fifteen ohms two Watts carbon resistor in parallel with the loudspeaker output terminals. I was able to find an empty area in the Midland FM transceiver, where the extra load resistor could be placed...In case the loudspeaker is disconnected , the fifteen ohms resistor is always there, placing a load at the output of the integrated circuit audio amplifier , thus preventing it from breaking down because of the lack of load.

......
And now amigos ,as always at the end of the program, here is our exclusive and not copyrighted HF and low band VHF , 30 to 50 megaHertz, propagation update and forecast... Solar activity is expected to continue at extremely low levels, with the 10.7 centimeters wavelength solar flux staying below 70 units and the solar wind speed diminishing below the typical 350 to 400 kilometers per second and with a very low protons per cubic centimeter count. The propagation conditions on the frequency range above 15 megaHertz will be extremely poor... but the lower frequencies, in contrast will provide very nice DX windows, especially between 400 kiloHertz and three megaHertz...

Keep monitoring the low band TV channels and the segment between 30 and 50 megaHertz for any signs of possible sporadic E openings that are happening even during the usually very inactive for E skip month of February. Hope to have you listening to the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited that will be on the air Saturday and Sunday UTC days, and don't forget to send your signal reports, comments about the program and radio hobby related questions to inforhc at enet dot cu or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana , Cuba.