Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited's weekend edition for 11-12 October 2003

By Arnie Coro

Radio amateur CO2KK



Yes amigo, you are now listening to Radio Havana Cuba, on the air and on the world wide web ... This
is the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited, coming to you as always Saturdays and Sundays UTC days.
Our mid week edition is on the air Tuesdays and Wednesdays UTC... Now here is item one of today's
show: Both ham radio operators and short wave listeners around the world have enjoyed several days
of excellent HF propagation conditions, but scientists now say that we will have yet another
geomagnetic disturbance starting sometime after Monday. The latest forecast for the next solar
rotation peak calls for a maximum solar flux reaching barely 140 units, yet another indicator of the
slow decline of solar cycle 23.... Here in Havana the 10 and 12 meters amateur bands showed some
nice activity during the local daylight hours on Friday, October the 10th, a National Holiday here
in Cuba, so we radio fans here had time to explore the bands during our normally working hours. Item
two: Its known as fox hunting, but there is no fox involved... it's yet another nice way of enjoying
our wonderful hobby, you will learn more about radio fox hunting in today's edition of your favorite
radio hobby program, Dxers Unlimited with yours truly Arnie Coro... We will be answering listeners
questions, as we have a really huge backlog , something that makes me a very happy person indeed,
because it indicates that many people around the world are learning about radio and want to know
more .

At the end of the show, as always, we will be presenting the now tied as number one most popular
section of the program with the YOU HAVE QUESTIONS... so you should have your notepad ready for
Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF plus low band VHF propagation update and forecast.

Stay tuned right on this frequency or connected to www.radiohc.cu, as Dxers Unlimited continues in
just a few seconds...

.....

Si amigos radioaficonados, there are more than 73 ways that you and I may enjoy this wonderful
hobby, and fox hunting is one of them... well, actually you don't go out hunting foxes, because fox
hunting is the name given by radio amateurs around the world to locating hidden transmitters by
means of direction finding equipment. The fox hunters combine amateur radio with physical exercise,
as locating a hidden transmitter out in the countryside will certainly involve a lot of cross
country activity. There are different types of amateur fox hunts, from rather simple VHF low power
equipment located within a limited area, to real tough competitions when the participants are
provided with a map of a rather large area where the hidden transmitter to be found is located. Fox
hunting is in my opinion a very nice way of boosting the activities of radio clubs, because it can
be arranged in such a way that many persons can participate, and because fox hunting involves only
receiving the signals from the hidden fox, then would be amateurs that still don't have their ham
licenses may participate and learn more about the hobby.

Not too long ago we organized a fox hunt at Havana's Metropolitan Park, all along the Almendares
River banks... it was a lot of fun, and the very low power just 10 milliWatts fox transmitter was
really hard to find... The Havana fox hunt was the second one we organized, and plans are in the
works to have another one soon... The Cuban Federation of Radio Amateurs, our national ham radio
organization provided an award for the winner, and all of us that participated had a very nice time
on that Sunday morning. Fox hunting, finding hidden radio transmitters using homebrew direction
finding equipment is not only a nice physical exercise, it is also a very useful know-how, as one
learns how to located transmitters that may be the source of one of the worst problems facing today'
s VHF and UHF operators, the generation of what are known as intermodulation products, something
that is becoming an everyday problem in large metropolitan areas. Ask your radio club executives
about fox hunting and when do they plan to organize a day outdoors that can bring a lot of fun to
all the members , and don't forget to look for nice prizes to be handed to those that find the
hidden transmitter or transmitters, because you may want to organize a multiple transmitters hunt in
order to make the day outdoors still more challenging !.

......

This is Radio Havana Cuba , the name of the show is Dxers Unlimited, and you can pick up our
short-wave broadcasts at different times of the day on the following frequencies 6000 kiloHertz,
9505 kiloHertz, 9550 kiloHertz, 9820 kiloHertz and 11760 kiloHertz... Now here is item three of
today's program, our very popular you have questions and Arnie tries to answer them section of the
show... Today's first question came from Africa,where we are enjoying a growing listenership...
Mbula Kwange writes from Ghana, he wants to learn about how to become a radio amateur operator. Here
is part of his letter: Dear Arnie, I have spend about a year and a half listening to international
short wave broadcast stations, and one late evening your Dxers Unlimited show came in loud and clear
on my small digital readout portable radio. I want to learn how to become an amateur radio operator,
because I am sure that as you said it's a very interesting aspect of the radio hobby. Well dear
amigo Mbula in Accra, Ghana... first things first... try to get in touch with local radio amateurs
or your local radio club, learn about the telecommunications rules and regulations of your country,
and then obtain the help of someone that will guide you into ham radio... It is something
characteristic of amateurs to help newcomers, so it won't be difficult to find a person or even
several persons that already own their amateur radio stations to help you set up yours. Don't think
that ham radio needs to be an expensive hobby... there are many ways by means of which you can put
on the air a nice beginner's station at reasonable cost... Now question number two: From Europe,
where most of our listeners at this moment pick up our webcasts from www.radiohc.cu, this one came
from Germany, listener Konrad from Stuttgart asks about SLOW SCAN TELEVISION...Konrad wants to know
what equipment is required to start receiving SSTV signals.... Well amigo Konrad, SSTV, slow scan
television is one of the more than 73 ways of enjoying the radio hobby, and with today's technology,
SSTV has become easier than ever... as a matter of fact, Friday, during our national holiday here, I
was helping Nelson CO2ND, a local very enthusiastic radio amateur, to set up his slow scan TV
equipment... And to make things fast, I didn't even connected the computer to the 2 meter FM
transceiver... Instead amigo Konrad, I used direct acoustic coupling... in other words, to transmit
the Slow Scan TV Signals, I just placed the 2 meter FM rig's microphone next to the computer's
loudspeaker, and to receive, it was also very easy to do, by placing the computer's microphone right
next to the FM rig's loudspeaker... Surprinsingly this worked extremely well, and the only little
blurrs I had on one of the received video pictures from Nelson's station was when King Coro, my
Bitchon dog barked right next to the radio... The dog's barks were picked up by the computer
microphone and the slow scan TV picture had some blurrs ... By the way, we were using freeware
software for the tests... A very nice program provided free to the world's radio amateurs by Makoto
Mori, a Japanese ham radio operator and software wizard , who wrote MMSSTV... that can be easily
downloaded from several sites. Makoto's software is very user friendly, and the help files are
excellent... So Konrad in Stuttgart, search the world wide web for the MMSSTV program download,then
install it on your computer and follow the instructions on the help files... Then start tuning
around 14230 kiloHertz on the 20 meters amateur band, where many stations running SSTV get together
. SSTV, slow scan television , one very nice way of enjoying our hobby and bringing in to our homes
live pictures of fellow radio amateurs , schematic diagrams of equipment, and even the photos or our
favorite pets... By the way, King Coro, my dog who is always hanging around the shack forms part of
my CO2KK Slow Scan amateur television pictures collection ¡

Amigo Konrad, good luck with your SSTV and maybe one day we can exchange pictures during a nice ham
radio two way contact between our stations !.

.......

You can pick up Dxers Unlimited with even a one diode, a coil and capacitor and a pair of headphones
crystal radio receiver or use the most sophisticated computer controlled radio, you can enjoy
listening to my show using your own homebrew regenerative set, or just by connecting your computer
to our streaming audio... Yes, there are many ways of picking up this program, but certainly the
ones you all tell me that are most enjoyable are when you are using a radio built by yourself... I
have searched the world wide web a lot looking for simple low cost short-wave radios, and YES ¡, I
have found many easy to build , simple circuit diagrams... I have also spent time testing many of
them, and you know, that results follow a very standard pattern, the nicest , most sensitive, easy
to build and to align circuits are the straight regeneratives, with the ones using a simple radio
frequency amplifier stage providing the best performance. It's simply amazing how sensitive and
selective those radio's from the very early days can be, and you will certainly keep yours operating
even when a super-sophisticated digital computer controlled receiver is at hand !.

And now as always at the end of the program here is Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited's HF plus low band
VHF propagation update and forecast... Solar flux is moving DOWN, and we are expecting yet another
geomagnetic disturbance when high speed particles streaming out of a solar coronal hole will be
impacting upon the Earth's magnetosphere, something that will disturb HF propagation at higher
latitudes after Monday. This past week solar activity has
dropped lower than it was two weeks ago. Average daily
sunspot number was 86.7 and average daily solar flux was 115.8. But
this week represents the second week in a row that geomagnetic
indices have dropped, indicating a quiet and stable earth
environment for HF radio propagation.
Currently we are within a solar wind stream, but a north-pointing
interplanetary magnetic field keeps geomagnetic activity to a
minimum. Current projections show stable
geomagnetic conditions over the next few days, with planetary A
index around 10 untilOctober 12. Following this weekend on
Monday, it shows planetary A index rising to 30 for October 13-14.
Predicted solar flux is 105 for October 10-11, 100 for October 12, and 95 for October 13-14.
Following this is a rise in solar flux, passing 110 around October
16, 120 on October 18, 130 on October 21, and 135 on October 25-26.
These are, as you may expect, rough estimates based upon the last solar rotation, but as you all
know well the SUN can provide us with very interesting events that so far science is not able to
predict ¡

See you all at the mid week edition of the program and don't forget to send me your signal reports
and comments about the showto arnie@rhc.cu again, arnie@rhc.cu, they are most appreciated and make
possible for me to provide you all with a better radio hobby program amigos !.