Re: [HCDX] Dxers Unlimited script for the mid week edition 20-21 February 2007

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

Radio Habana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited-s mid week edition for 20-21 February 2007
By Arnie Coro
radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados around the world.. you are now listening to 
or reading the script of the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited, the 
one and only radio hobby program that accepts the challenge of dealing 
with each and every aspect of this wonderful way of enjoying our spare 
time RADIO... from listening to the weakest daytime AM broadcast station 
that your radio is able to pick up, to watching the screen of your 
computer as extremely weak digital signals produce perfect copy thanks 
to the wonders of the unique PSK31 keyboard to keyboard digital 
communications mode... you can also be left without sleep trying to 
figure out why a new homebrew radio does not work as expected, or maybe 
you will simply fall asleep at the operating position of your amateur 
radio station during a contest.. YES AMIGOS, SI, sure, radio is a 
fascinating hobby and listening to Dxers Unlimited will certainly help 
you to enjoy it a lot more.. Here is now item one of this mid week 
edition of the program: Very low solar activity prevailed for several 
days, with a zero optical sunspot count happening for several days in a 
row, but that did not stopped enthusiastic participation in a worldwide 
CW Morse Code contest that took place during the weekend despite the 
fact that the higher frequency bands were not widely open. I did worked 
several stations on the low edge of the 15 meteres or 21 megaHertz 
amateur band, and just a the end of the contest Sunday , at around 6 
thirty PM my local time, my 1 Watt power output CW rig went on the air 
on 20 meters and several of the top contest stations completed a two way 
contact with my station , adding the new multiplier to their score.
As always, ham radio contests boost activity a lot, and bands that were 
supposedly closed suddenly are full of signals from the contest 
participants that enjoy this type of amateur radio activity a lot.
Item two: It is true, some specific types of electronic components are 
becoming more and more difficult to find, but radio hobby people are 
resourceful and find them in the most hard to believe places. For 
example, old desktop computers that are now replaced by faster machines 
are a treasure chest of parts for the radio experimenter. Dinosaurs by 
today computer standards, ancient XT 286, 386, 486 and several of the 
earl Apple machines have lots of useful parts that can be recovered and 
used in your radio projects. Among the most popular parts to recycle 
from old computers are integrated circuit voltage regulators, quartz 
crystals and oscillator modules, high current diodes and high power 
transistors and field effect transistors from the power supplies, as 
well as nice metal cases that when properly modified will give your 
projects a professional touch. For example a local radio amateur here in 
Havana used an old 486 computer box to house his new five hundred watts 
linear amplifier. He only had to make a new front panel, and the top 
cover that can be opened very easily saved him a lot of metal work. 
Another local ham has used a computer power supply box to house a 
switched mode power unit capable of delivering 20 amperes at 13.5 volts, 
and fully protected against overloads. This conversion from computer 
power supply to ham radio use is becoming very popular here in Cuba, as 
more of the older machines are phased out of service.
Standby now for more radio hobby related topics coming up as Dxers 
Unlimited+s mid week edition continues... I am Arnie Coro in Havana, 
back with you in just a few seconds...

......

Si amigos, yes my friends, you are listening to Radio Havana Cuba or 
maybe reading the script of the program, or perhaps listening to your 
computer program that provides voice output from the screen text for 
those of you that can not see . Yes, I am posting the scripts of Dxers 
Unlimited not only at our website www.radiohc.cu ENGLISH page, but also 
at several Internet lists that have worldwide readership among radio 
hobby enthusiasts. And from the feedback I am receiving , this seems to 
be a really worthwhile effort. Among the e'mail messages received from 
Dxers Unlimited-s script readers there is one from New Zealand, a 
country that is not withing our regular short wave broadcasts coverage, 
but that from time to time , especially during the equinoctial periods, 
receives our signals. According to listener Lou from New Zealand, he is 
able to pick up Radio Havana Cuba on the 9550 kiloHertz frequency 
starting in late February and continuing until around mid-April. Lou 
sent a question to our ASK ARNIE section of the program... he wants to 
know more about the so called terminator line propagation that is how 
short wave radio signals travel with very little attenuation along the 
line that separates day and night. Well amigo Lou, I must say that the 
also known as GRAY LINE PROPAGATION continues to fascinate me more than 
fourty years after I worked an Australian station on 40 meteres  while 
running a very low power homebrew transmitter during a Dx expedition to 
the Isle of Youth to activate the then very rare CO4 prefix. The time 
window for working Australian, New Zeland and Japanese stations from the 
Isle of Youth, south of Cuba was not very long, but it was really worth 
to set the alarm clock for a very early wake up and enjoy nice two way 
contacts while running just 5 Watts into a sloping dipole antenna. 
Several years later , after that very succesful Dx expedition to the 
Isle of Youth a group of Cuban radio amateurs went to Avalos Key, a 
small island near the Isle of Youth where a worldwide skin diving 
tournament took place. We made very good use of that opportunity to once 
again enjoy the fantastic GRAY LINE or TERMINATOR LINE PROPAGATION mode 
from the Caribbean to Australia, New Zealand , Japan and many of the 
Pacific Islands... that seems to take place even during solar minimum 
years. Many US and Canadian amateurs vacationing in the Caribbean have 
also enjoyed this unique propagation path that works with very low power 
transmiters and simple antenna systems. Just a half wave dipole sloping 
from a high mast near the ocean is all you will need to work many DX 
stations , even while running low power...
Now here is item three: It also part of ASK ARNIE today... I am now 
answering a question sent by listener Eva Maria, from Spain, who was 
able to pick up our 11760 kiloHertz signal late at night her local time. 
Eva Maria says that she is studying English and uses her short wave 
radio to pick up English language broadcasts to train her ear, and that 
is how she found out about Dxers Unlimited. I already sent her via 
e-mail our URL , so that she can listen to the program via the Internet 
streaming audio feed, that is on from 05 to 07 hours UTC, rather early 
in the morning for Eva Maria, but she said she has to wake up early to 
catch a train that takes her to Barcelona where she works... It is an 
almost one hour ride and she has to be at the train station very early 
in the morning, so she is able to listen to Dxers Unlimited as she gets 
ready to go to work.
Si amigos, Dxers Unlimited is now available to you all via short wave , 
on the world wide web audio stream and also you can read the scripts by 
visiting our website at www.radiohc.cu <http://www.radiohc.cu/>.

.......

This is the mid week edition of Dxers Unlimited amigos, and here is item 
four of today.s program... Another visit to my radio , electronics and 
computers workshop. Join me and learn about how an old Pentium II 
computer is now back on line using the KNOPPIX LINUX free software 
operating system that has made possible that this old machine is 
providing very nice copy of radio amateur signals using the PSK31 
keyboard to keyboard communications mode. The old Pentium II running at 
333 megaHertz CPU clock frequency and with just 128 megabytes of RAM is 
using a small 4 gigabytes IDE hard drive, and a black and white VGA 
monitor... This very simple computer system configuration provides 
perfect copy of PSK31 and other digital communications modes, using an 
old sound card for signal processing. An also freeware program, DIGIPAN 
is used for working PSK31 stations mostly on 20 meters during the local 
daytime hours and on 40 meters at night.I have also loaded into the old 
revived Pentium II several LINUX free software programs that allow me to 
make instant propagation predictions, keep a nice log of all the two way 
contacts and even connect to the local ISP for reading the e'mail. Old 
Pentium II and Pentium III computers are ideal for your radio shack 
amigos, and if you are able to spend some money buying a solid state 
flat screen monitor, the noise coming from the cathode ray tube monitor 
will just vannish...Using the LINUX free and open source operating 
system reduces the cost of software to ZERO, and you will be amazed 
about the excellent performance that the most recent LINUX distributions 
are able to achieve even with programs that do require above average 
computer processing power. My just completed REVIVED Pentium II at 333 
megaHertz machine is a very good example of how older machines can be 
used for many radio hobby applications, and also as a nice standby in 
case your main home computer fails...By the way old laptops and 
notebooks no longer able to run the very sophisticated WINDOWS programs 
run very nicely using KNOPPIX LINUX, that loads from a single compact 
disk and is very easily installed by anyone knowing how to type and 
follow instructions...And as I said a while ago, ham radio operators 
around the world are writing more and more software that runs nicely 
using the LINUX operating system, and they will cost you absolutely 
nothing amigos !!!
.....

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