14 May 2021

10m FT8 QRP (Friday)

10m is wide open this morning with Es. I am told 6m is good too, It would not surprise me if Band 2 FM broadcast opens too. 2m? Probably too high.

I am on 10m FT8 RX at the moment after a brief period on QRP TX with 2.5W, then 1W, and the indoor tiny loop. 115 stations spotted on RX and 16 stations spotted me in my very brief TX period.

UPDATE 1028z:  255 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today and I have been spotted by 27 stations on TX, most with just 1W to the tiny indoor loop antenna. Probably going down to 500mW soon.

UPDATE 1055z: Now TXing with 500mW. 2 spots of my TX so far. 280 stations spotted so far on RX.

UPDATE 1222z:  338 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX. Even with just 500mW TX I have been spotted by 4 stations. 

UPDATE 1342z: 397 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX with just the indoor tiny loop today. Fantastic Es conditions. Just a handful in Asia and Africa (probably Es).

UPDATE 1439z:  517 stations spotted today on 10m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop. This is definitely the best day yet this Es season. One was W1JR (5267km). This latter one was probably Es.

Spots of my
1W (sometimes
500mW) 10m FT8
TX with the tiny
indoor loop
UPDATE 1520z: 568 stations so far spotted in 5 continents today on 10m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop on the shack windowsill and I have been spotted by 56 stations on TX. I have never used more than 1W and quite often 500mW today.

Stations spotted
today on 10m
FT8 RX
UPDATE 1840z:  887stations have been spotted today on 10m FT8 RX and 104 stations have spotted me on TX despite running 1W or less to the tiny indoor loop.
at

3 comments:

  1. KeithFri May 14, 12:53:00 pm GMT+1

    10m has been open nearly every day since last weekend, on some occasions until after midnight. It’s like the old days of the 1980’s sunspot peak! I’m pleased to report that there’s also been quite a bit of SSB and CW activity too - it’s not been all FT8.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JonathanFri May 14, 08:28:00 pm GMT+1

    When the band opens up wide and FT8 is chock-a-block, I've had quite a bit of success using FT4 instead. Although you might think the 3dB loss compared to FT8 might be significant for QRP, I've found that the fact there's less interference and quicker QSOs to match the Es fading works out really well. Today FT4 worked really nicely on both 6 and 10m.

    73s
    Jonathan

    ReplyDelete
  3. KeithFri May 14, 10:35:00 pm GMT+1

    Good idea, Jonathan! I hadn’t thought of that. I ran a few test transmissions on 10m FT8 earlier; with 5 watts I was heard in 17 countries, and with 500 milliwatts in 8 countries. I was quite happy with that.

    Regards,
    Keith G0RQQ
    Lincoln

    ReplyDelete