Lots on 10m WSPR

10m WSPR is off to a decent start this morning with plenty of European and Russian activity despite the falling sunspots. This is the WSPR log in recent minutes. As you can see, stations from from all over the place, although no "real" DX yet - just Europe and Russia so far.

Recent 10m WSPR spots this early morning

Sunspots today

Sunspot count has fallen even more today to 28 and 20-30MHz propagation is forecast to remain "normal".

Already, I an getting 10m WSPR spots from several Russians.

Karen, RA3APW is in the UK this week so his Moscow based 100mW 10m WSPR beacon will not be active whilst he is in the UK he tells me.

QSYed to 472kHz WSPR

Tonight, at the moment, there are no less than 60 stations active on 472kHz WSPR.  This is more than I can ever recall.

Since QSYing to 472kHz about an hour ago I am spotting, and being spotted by, the same stations as previously.  I guess I need to "up" my ERP to at least 100mW to start to reach new stations. That means antenna work, which is currently out of the question because of my health.

DK7FC (669km) is currently the best DX here on RX. Stefan puts out a potent signal on 472kHz and 137kHz WSPR. My best report (on TX with 5mW ERP) is G3WCB (101km).

Solar Cycle 25 Predictions

It has been notoriously hard to predict future solar cycles, but the science is improving all the time. Right now, the experts are predicting that solar cycle 25 will be very small indeed. Some think we are moving towards another Maunder Minimum when solar sunspots all but vanish for around 50 years. If so, most of us alive now will never experience "good" HF conditions ever again in our lifetimes. Experts can be wrong!

See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/25/first-estimate-of-solar-cycle-25-amplitudesmallest-in-over-300-years/  .

On a positive note, poor solar activity often means the lower frequency bands are better. With some luck, we may have a new international contiguous band at 60m in a few years' time. This depends on WRC2015.

Regarding cycle 24, it looks like the peak was Feb 2014.
See http://www.solen.info/solar/  .

Simple 10m rigs

As 10m slides to the "quieter years" of the solar cycle it will soon be time to look again at using this band for local communications. It makes an ideal band to natter across town and I still think a 10m Fredbox is worth a go. The receiver, a simple super-regen is extremely simple, very sensitive with a simple RF amplifier, but lacking in selectivity so would NOT be useful when the band is busy. At night time in the quieter years it would be perfectly fine. The alternative is a simple 10m DSB rig, which would  be compatible with SSB transceivers.

At the moment, my poor health is stopping me doing both of these projects.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/10m_op?pli=1  .
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/tenbox .
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/10msimple_sb .

10m from N.Ireland

An interesting spot this afternoon on 10m WSPR in the form of GI4BTG (498km). This unlikely to be Es (skip too short) and the most probable mode is F2 backscatter.  As far as  I am aware, this is the first time GI has been spotted here on 10m WSPR.

Good 10m conditions

Several different 10m WSPR stations in the USA being spotted this afternoon. CX2ABP has been spotted 4 times already from South America. With Japan this morning, 10m has been good today already by F2.

UPDATE 1740z: Good 10m propagation to the USA. These are recent spots on 10m WSPR. Some VERY strong reports!

10m WSPR recent spots here.

Fredbox schematic

Fredbox 2m AM transceiver

The Fredbox was my design for a 10mW AM transceiver for 2m use back in the 1970s. It was rebuilt a few years ago and a 6m version was spun off. The same basic approach would work on 10m and 4m too, but I have not completed versions for these bands.

Even 2m 10mW AM was enough to work across the English Channel handheld on 2m and the 2m Fredbox made several 60 mile handheld QSOs . For quite a while it was used to natter across town in Cambridge. The Fredbox was named in honour of local Fred G8BWI back in the 1970s.

The Fredbox and Sixbox have appeared in G-QRP SPRAT and in Practical Wireless mags. The schematics also appeared in several foreign language magazines too. The circuits are basic and certainly capable of being improved.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/fredbox.
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/sixbox .
 

Declining sunspots

Sunspot count today was down still further to 38 yet 20-30MHz propagation remains "normal", With 10m open to the east (Japan) and west (USA) F2 conditions on 10m seem pretty good so far today.

First 10m WSPR spots from Japan and USA here today

JH1GYE (9380km) was spotting me at 0834z this morning and I have spotted him too. JH6LAV was also spotted this morning

WB4CSD (6025km) spotted my 2W 10m WSPR signal today at 1224z. This was the first (for me) in the USA today. Since then, WSPR spots have been exchanged with several stations in the USA. Since before breakfast Europeans have been spotted here and this has continued all day.