Sunspots and 10m - Sunday Feb 15th

Sunspot number today is 49 and 10m propagation "poor". This is the first "poor" forecast for a long while.

Tenner 10m CW transceiver

Click for bigger image.

The Tenner is a very simple CW rig for 10m. It produces about 500mW output and has worked across the Atlantic on many occasions. Offset RX-TX seems to work out at about right, although no special circuitry is employed. This simple circuit just works. Although I used an "at hand" SBL1, any double balanced mixer is likely to be OK. Although I did not try it, a homebrew DBM would be fine. Google it.

472kHz WSPR

I shall be on 472kHz WSPR overnight but will go QRT on 28MHz (10m) shortly.

DK7FC remains my best spot this evening an RX and PA0RDT (243km) is currently the most distant station spotting my 5mW ERP to the earth-electrode "antenna".

Shack limited access this week

Busy birdwatching

We have different grandchildren staying this week depending on the days so I have limited access to my shack.  I should be able to do some WSPR for the first few days, but later in the week will be more difficult as there will be a cot in the shack!

Today we went birdwatching, counting the different species spotted on a 1 mile village walk. The elder grandson (aged 7) is into categorising and collecting. 12 species mostly seen (a couple heard).

Sunspots and 10m today - Sat Feb 14th 2015

Sunspot count is marginally higher at 59 today. 10m propagation is again predicted to be "fair". Although the 10m band has opened to the USA again, this morning on 10m was pretty flat with just the odd European station logging my 500mW beacon.

UPDATE 1310z:   GM4WJA (624km) has been spotting me on 10m.   This could be back-scatter or even winter Es. The distance is far too short for F2.

Stateside spots on 10m WSPR today - Sat Feb 14th 2015

During the morning the odd European was copying my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon.  No "astounding" DX from distant countries.

The first transatlantic spot today was at 1222z by K3ZV (5692km).

Last USA 10m spot of my 500mW beacon was K3EA (5657km) at 1854z.

472kHz WSPR

Earlier this morning I turned off my 472kHz WSPR station. G0LRD (25km) was being regularly spotted and PA0RDT (243km) was copying me overnight.  Best DX spotted by me was F1AFJ (607km).

10m WSPR - DX spots of my 500mW beacon

The first USA spot of my 10m 500mW beacon was by K9AN at 1304z. I see I have also been spotted by VK6XT (14719km) a couple of times today and by FR5ZX (9740km) a couple of times. Considering the forecast of "fair" 10m propagation, today has already been very good.

UPDATE 1630z:   Plenty of USA stations still spotting my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon.

UPDATE 1745z:  Still plenty of USA stations still spotting my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon.  I suspect this opening will continue until well past 1800z. It has been dark here  since about 1715z.

UPDATE 2140z:  The last USA station to spot my 500mW 10m beacon was K9AN (6505km) at 1824z. Still being spotted in Europe until 1908z.

10m beacon now ON

My 10m beacon was turned on just before 1100z. So far, it has still not stabilised so is drifting a little as the reference warms up, only G4IKZ (18km) has seen me. It will be well after 1200z I expect before any stateside stations see me today.

UPDATE 1109z:   LA9JO (2096km) is the best DX spot of my 500mW 10m WSPR so far this morning. He was spotting me at -8dB S/N, which was very strong. I assume this was single hop F2 propagation?

Digital experiments

In all my time in amateur radio I have never once experimented with microprocessor programming and I have done very little "digital" design.  This seems to be a gap in my knowledge, although I am still not really interested, preferring RF design, especially QRP.  I must say I remain very impressed with Wolf's (W5OLF) tiny WSPR-AXE-CW beacon: this goes to show just how much can be achieved with so little physically. Maybe this is a whole area I should embrace? The trouble is it is impossible to be an expert at lots of things, unless you are very bright. Certainly I do not consider myself a polymath!