[HCDX] REL Dxers Unlimited's mid week edition + special Sporadic E propagation alert !!!

["Prof. Arnaldo Coro Antich" <coro@xxxxxxx>]

Radio Havana Cuba

Dxers Unlimited

Dxers Unlimited's midweek edition for 19-20  June  2007

by Arnie Coro

radio amateur CO2KK

LATE BREAKING PROPAGATION NEWS

Solar flux at very low levels = 67 units

There seems to be an inverse correlation between

very low solar flux and Sporadic E layer events...

Sporadic E openings reported by 6 meters radio amateur operators from 
the Caribbean  to the Canary Islands and Western Africa

Also many reports of Sporadic E events from North America

to Europe and to Hawaii !!!

Now here is the script of the the mid week edition of the show

Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world and in space... your radio 
receiver is tuned to one of Radio Havana Cuba's short wave frequencies, 
or maybe you are connected to our Internet streaming audio...that 
is available from 05 to07 UTC from our URL at rhc.cu... look for the 
loudspeaker icon sign at the top of the  home page !!!

Whichever way you are listening is certainly nice to have you here with 
me, ready to share about seventeen minutes of all radio hobby related 
information. I am Arnie Coro broadcasting from beautiful Havana, where 
the weather when I was writing the script of the show around 10. AM 
local time , that is 14. UTC, was very enjoyable with a wonderfully blue 
sky , a typical summer day here in, but the weather service forecast 
says that we may be having afternoon thunderstorms...

And, amigos our T storms are pretty special, with tremendous

lightning strikes that do a lot of damage to radio equipment that is not 
properly protected , and  talking about T-storms today I am bringing 
again at the request of many listeners a special feature from New 
Zealand radio amateur ZL3NE, Zulu Lima Three November Echo, in which he 
sustains something that I found out and published exactly 41 years ago 
in 1966 . 

In other words, the New Zealand radio propagation expert is convinced, 
as I am too, that T-Storms have are  somehow linked to a certain type of 
Sporadic E layer propagation openings !!!

More about propagation briefly: solar activity at extremely low 
levels... with the 10.7 centimeters microwave radiation from the Sun 
around 67 units, a figure considered by scientists to be the baseline 
activity of the Sun, and of course, quite normal during the solar 
minimum years.

Standby now briefly for a short break and station ID... Dxers 
Unlimited's midweek edition will continue in a few seconds.

......

Amigos you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba, the name of the show is 
Dxers Unlimited, and here is our special report for today... New Zealand 
Propagation expert's information, coming from a link on the DF5AI VHF 
propagation research website.

Have paper and a pen ready or your tape recorder at hand, so that you 
may be able to copy the URL of DF5AI 's excellent website.

Now here is ZL3NE's report:

He starts his comprehensive analysis by explaining one particular  VHF 
propagation event that happened  

on the 22nd of May of 1999. Looking at the North American weather map 
which showed where thunder / lightning storms of high intensity were 
located, and above the location of the Millstone Digisonde station there 
was a sign of good activity. This looked interesting, so I looked at the 
dxworld.com 6 meter page and here we had contacts taking place from 
Canada to the United States directly over the Lightning storm as shown 
in the map.

Armed with this information he connected to the Millstone web page and 
looked up the time list, down loaded their charts and there it was 
showing up very nicely. Their chart showed that the E layer had reached 
12.5MHz. Taking the usual multiplication factor of 5 we now had 
propagation recorded for 6 meters. A confirmed mode of propagation 
induced by lightning, (otherwise known as sporadic E), as we had the 
weather map showing the lightning storm, the contacts and the ionsonde 
charts showing ionization to 12.5 MHz all at the same time.

When the storm died out, the ionsonde data returned to normal and 
propagation ceased.

Here is now another very interesting report, that has a tremendous 
scientific value, because the phenomenon repeats itself with amazing 
identical effects on the Southern Hemisphere, the event happened on 
December the 21st 1995 at 6pm. ZL3 NE describes that on that day from 
5pm to 6pm he had a poor opening on 6 meters to Sydney. At two minutes 
past 6 pm the band suddenly opened with Sydney stations S9+, then I 
found I had VK6 stations S7. (Western Australia 5000 km ).

After exchanging reports with these I switched to two meters and yes the 
Sydney stations were S9 on two meters. Just before 7pm I listened to the 
TV weather for my lightning update, and what did they say? A very 
aggressive thunder storm started at two minutes past six, and that it 
was located in the center of the path between Auckland and Sydney. That 
was exactly the same time as both bands opened here! Local stations 
further north or south of Auckland did not get the propagation like we 
had, as their path was out of the area ionized by the thunder storm.

The next day the news papers commented that the storm died out around 
8pm and that was the time when two meters closed to Sydney. For this 
type of information it is a do it yourself job and these are things you 
have to organize yourself as they are not available of the shelf.  

The New Zealand propagation expert then describes yet another very 
interesting VHF propagation event when that he heard VK9NS in Norfolk 
Island some 1200 km north of his location calling ZL4BTN.

He had perfect copy of VK9NS by back scatter with a lightning storm 
centered between him and the ZL4.He called Vk9NS and  exchanged 
reports,but at that moment he could not hear him on the direct path.

This is a perfect example of back scatter with signals being reflected 
off the ionization brought about by the lightning flashes.

And ZL3NE underscores that we get a lot of propagation like this as cold 
fronts sweep up the South Island from the South and these usually have 
lightning storms in the leading edge of the cold front. Half way between 
Christchurch and Auckland is an area which grow a lot of apples so when 
they get hail from thunder storms the media reports as to how many 
thousands of cases of apples etc were destroyed, and yes every time he 
gets these reports he finds his log full of 6 meter band contacts with 
Amateurs in Christchurch, New Zealand, once again, confirming that 
lightning generated during the thunderstorm produced the abnormal 
Sporadic E skip propagation.

Now, be ready to copy as ZL3NE is producing a daily VHF propagation 
forecast for North America on a daily basis, and this is what he 
published at his website on Saturday June 24th. 2005..

VHF Propagation Forecast for

North America, based on the Weather conditions prevailing on Saturday 
the 24th of June at midday in W0.

Situation. A long warm front extends from W1 to W5. Lightning from T 
storms present in the following US call areas 4,5,7 and  9.

Typical paths. W4 to 5. W4, 5 to 7 and 9. W6 and 7 to W890. Prop from 
VE567 south .

Again a quiet day for tropo but watch for Es from over the lightning 
storms in W4579.as this is the best time of year for this.

Well amigos, I am now sure that many of you will start looking with 
great attention to the most comprehensive weather maps available !!!

That's what I have done here since 1963, when I started to notice a very 
clear link between the San Jose ionospheric vertical incidence sounder 
recordings and amateur radio reports of 6 meters band propagation , and 
also of reports sent to several club magazines by TV  and FM band Dxers...

.....

Si amigos we do QSL, we continue to QSL now with our beautiful 45th 
Anniversary of Radio Havana Cuba QSL card, on Monday I autographed a big 
stack of them so that Irma can send them to RHC listeners around the 
world that send us signal reports and comments about our programs. Send 
your reports via e-mail to

arnie@xxxxxx

again ,arnie@xxxxxx, or VIA AIR MAIL, send a postcard that is of course 
less expensive, to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, Cuba...

Now here is our next item , our popular technical topics section, that 
will feature today information on how to prepare a special extension 
cord for your radios that will protect them and also help to reduce the 
noise coming from the power line. Here is HOW TO do it..

Obtain a length of around 3 meters but no more than 5 meters of good 
quality  number 14 three conductors flexible power wire,  a 100  by 100 
millimeters or 4 by 4 inches plastic junction box and a three prong male 
power line plug .

Fit the three wires to the male power plug carefully, watching that you 
follow the color code for the ground wire approved by your electricity 
board, and proceed then to put on the box two dual power line female 
receptacles, that will give you 4 connecting options.

Connect the other end of the power cord to the two dual

female receptacles , and then place in parallel with each of them a 
SURGE SUPPRESSOR rated for 130 volts AC.

The SURGE SUPPRESORS are sold under different names.. like TRANSZORB , 
SURGEKILLER etc...and they are rated for specific applications.

That will complete phase one of your equipment surge protected homebrew 
extension cord, so now we can proceed to add the four 1 kilo volt .01 
micro farads disk ceramic capacitors that are connect from each side of 
the power line to ground. 

After the ceramic disc low inductance capacitors are added , your 
extension cord plus junction box will also help to bypass radio 
frequency noise to ground before it reaches your radio's power supply.

You may want to add a toroidal core of large enough diameter and wind 
the two live wires trough it for at least 10 turns, but if you can't 
find the toroidal core, I have achieved good results using a ferrite rod 
and winding ten to fifteen turns of the two plastic insulated wires that 
are live.

The other option available, that will cost you practically nothing and 
could be a  last step in assembling your homebrew extension cord, is to 
search for a discarded TV or computer CRT monitor, disassemble the 
horizontal output transformer square ferrite core, and use it to wind 
about 10 turns of the three wire cable as near as possible to the 
junction box.

Of course that you can use a bigger box and instead of 4 female sockets, 
you can have 6, 8, 10 or even 12 sockets to connect your equipment .

Tests done at my home QTH and at several more locations show that using 
this homebrew extension cord fitted with transient suppressors, and 
radio frequency blocking devices helps to reduce the noise picked up by 
the typical low or medium prized  radio receivers.

As you may had realized , homebrewing this power cord doesn't require 
the use of special tools... as a matter of fact  a screwdriver set and 
diagonal cutting pliers are all the tools needed to assemble this very 
useful addition to your listening post of ham shack...

.....

And now amigos, as always at the end of the show, here is Arnie Coro's 
Dxers Unlimited's HF propagation update and forecast... Solar activity 
is at extremely low levels, sunspot count during the past several days 
was ZERO, repeat ZERO, and the equivalent daily solar flux is at rock 
bottom levels, not even reaching 70 units  and not expected to move up 
soon, but because solar scientists are detecting signs of increased 
activity at the Sun's limb, an indication of an active sunspot group 
about to rotate into view this quiet Sun condition may change later 
during the week.....

Don't forget to send your signal reports, radio hobby related questions 
and the all important for me comments about this program amigos.

Your comments do help a lot to select the topics

to be dealt with here, and also which radio hobby questions are most 
important for the audience of Dxers Unlimited...send mail to 
arnie@xxxxxx or VIA AIR MAIL to Arnie Coro, Radio Havana Cuba, Havana, 
Cuba. See you all at the weekend edition of the show, on the air 
Saturdays and Sundays UTC...

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