The VERY quiet Sun

Have you noticed how long we've been now without any sunspots? The graph at http://www.solen.info/solar/ suggests it's been almost 7 weeks now. A few months ago we were expecting the start of cycle 24 and some hopeful signs were emerging. Then things turned down again and it is doubtful we've started to enter cycle 24, although the slightly increased solar flux levels may be a hint. We can only wait and see.

At least the higher HF bands plus 6 and 4m will be livened up by sporadic-E shortly. If we were entering a long Maunder minimum (I doubt it) then the summer spor-E "sport" could be the best DX opportunities we'd get on 10 and 6m.

Ham radio and a school football team reunion

Last night, I attended a reunion of my junior school football team of 1959. Amazingly, of the team of 11, everyone attended apart from one person who sadly died last year. Among those attending the reunion was someone I have not seen in over 40 years who, it turns out, has been working in VK-land in mobile radio. Paul has the calls VK2ZPB and more recently M0GJL. As you can imagine, we talked as much about ham radio as the football matches back in 1959.

JF1OZL - still the best!

http://www.intio.or.jp/jf10zl/ is a magic site if you are keen on simple QRP homebrew radios. Kazuhiro Sunamura has such a creative talent and I just love his hand-drawn schematics and layouts. He has a unique ability to turn a few components into a fantastic QRP SSB, DSB, AM or CW transceiver. Not to be missed!

VLF resources

Radio Waves below 22kHz at http://www.vlf.it/ is an excellent place to find information on VLF and ELF natural radio. Renato Romero who hosts this page also has a book called Radio Nature on the subject.

At some point I want to restart my interest in this part of the spectrum but at the moment I am short of time.

DX Crystal sets

Jim's Crystal Radio Page at http://www.hobbytech.com/crystalradio/crystalradio.htm has some very neat crystal set designs with high performance receivers. These units also look like works of art as they are so elegant.

There are other excellent resources at Gollum's Crystal Receiver World http://www.oldradioworld.de/gollum/ .

VHF AM controversy

This Sunday's RSGB News contains a piece about AM operation on 145.8MHz in Scotland and alleges that some AM operators have been deliberately interfering with International Space Station communications on the same frequency. I do not know if this is true or not. If it is, then it should stop: there is no place for such behaviour in our fine hobby.

What I do know is that the RSGB has been EXTREMELY slow in publishing frequencies for VHF AM in the UK. Although people have been urging the RSGB to put an AM "centre of activity" or calling frequency in the band plans, this has still not happened, although a brief mention of 144.55MHz has been added in the footnotes a few months ago.

My recommendations are:

(1) All AM users in the UK migrate to 144.55MHz.
(2) AM operation on 145.8MHz should be phased out as soon as possible.
(3) Use of 145.8MHz for AM should be done with care to avoid any interference with ISS operations.
(4) The RSGB should publish 144.55MHz in the 2m bandplan as the agreed centre of activity for AM users.

AM is a great mode allowing simple homemade gear to make useful contacts. It would be a shame if AM users got a bad name as a result of this negative publicity.

S54S website

The website of Aleksander S54S has some great circuit ideas including many fine QRP transceivers such as the Tinka shown here. See http://lea.hamradio.si/~s57nan/ham_radio/index.html

Ham gear reliability "league table"?

As yet, I've not had a single failure with any piece of commercial ham radio gear I've owned and operated in nearly 40 years. OK, the gear is usually QRP, working in a benign shack environment and not abused. Perhaps I'm just lucky.

I'm wondering if anywhere there is a "league table" showing how reliable various makes and models of ham radio gear are? It sounds like something that someone may have compiled but I've not seen one. The nearest are the reviews on eHam.net.

Back home again

Now back home after our holiday in NZ. It is a wonderful country with splendid scenery and very kind and friendly people. We felt very "at home" there despite being on the opposite side of the planet from the UK. It is good to know such nice places and people still exist in our crowded little world.

As yet, I've not managed to do any operating back home as we are looking after our little grandson. Hopefully I will get on the air this week in the evenings.

ZL operation (more)

This is a picture of ZL/G3XBM/P operating from the hotel balcony in Queenstown, South Island, NZ. Nothing heard or worked on this occasion. Next real opportunity is Thursday March 12th when we get back to Christchurch. The far west coast of South Island around Haast is pretty remote with no mobile phone coverage at all, the nearest fuel 90-120kms away, nearest fire station 2 hours away and only one BC station audible on MW and Band 2 FM.