Sunspots and 10m - Wed April 29th 2015

Sunspot number has fallen yet again to just 36 (K=0) and 10m daytime propagation is expected to be "poor".  With quiet conditions, I am not ruling out a late, short USA 10m opening. Yesterday 10m did open to the USA but only a single station spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon and that was late in the evening.

UPDATE 1038z:   On 10m WSPR EA8BVP (2986km) was spotting me early again and IZ6QZB (1475km) has spotted me once.  I think this is a mix of single hop F2 (EA8) and Es (IZ6).

USA on 10m WSPR after all

Well I'll be damned! AC2EG (5610km) has spotted me several times on 10m WSPR in the last half an hour.   So, despite my dire expectations, 10m WSPR has opened to the USA for the fourth day running! This despite forecasts for 10m being "poor" today. Amazing.

6m WSPR - spots by G3ZJO

So far this afternoon, G3ZJO (79km) has spotted me lots of times on 6m WSPR this afternoon. No great DX but this looks like pure tropo. So far, I have not seen any Es on 6m.

No USA (yet) on 10m but some good N-S DX

As yet (1525z) no sign of spots from the USA but FR1GZ (9724km) has spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR several times this afternoon. If this is another "poor" day, then I am happy.

UPDATE 1934z:  Still no sign of any USA 10m WSPR spots of my 500mW WSPR beacon today. Plenty of spots from EA8BVP and FR1GZ but absolutely nothing from the USA. I think we were lucky having propagation across the North Atlantic for the last 3 days. I guess the band could still open to the USA but  this is pretty unlikely now.

EA8BVP early

EA8BVP (2986km) has already spotted my 10m WSPR many times starting at 0640z. This is very early.

UPDATE 1527z:  As yet, no USA spots but FR1GZ has spotted me several times.

Sunspots and 10m - April 28th 2015

Sunspot number has fallen again to 42 (K=1) and the forecast for 10m is "poor".

At last - a 6m WSPR spot!

The last few days have been very quiet on 6m, but this evening, at last, I was spotted by a relatively local station M0MVB (30km) at a decent -10dB S/N.   Still no Es reports on 6m as yet.

UPDATE 1842z:  3 further reports received from M0MVB. All suggest some influence from aircraft reflections as there was Doppler shift on all reports or it could be M0MVB's rig drift? On one spot (later than those shown) the drift was 4Hz, which definitely looks like a plane.

6m WSPR spots this evening from M0MVB

A bad NEVADA warranty day

Sometimes major dealers do themselves no good at all. I feel compelled to blog this as this dealer should know better.  I have been very patient but after waiting so long my patience is running thin.

Today I had to chase NEVADA as they had neither answered my email or first class mail.  All I was doing was following instructions in the box that said I needed the dealer to add his stamp for the warranty to be valid. No email reply yet received. I am patiently waiting after about 6 weeks.

"Lincoln President Mk 2 - Warranty
(bought from Nevada on Feb 25th 2015 on invoice 275xxx)
Since posting this (copied my original email here) in early March by email and first class post I have heard ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at all. I need confirmation this rig is covered by warranty. Frankly I am appalled - you could forgive me for thinking Nevada is only interested in the initial sale and not the warranty.

Please do me a favour and contact me!  No excuses please - just action. All I am asking for is decent customer support. This is not too much to ask of a major UK dealer, is it?"

I hope they will reply tomorrow.

I have also had very poor customer service from a local carpets supplier, Glasswells, having been waiting about 6 months to have a stained carpet replaced free under warranty. It took a month (last October) to wake them up from their slumber (2 emails before any action) and here I am in April 2015 still waiting! Apparently the carpet is now to be replaced on Friday this week.

This is not my day!

10m Es?

SA5SDR (1358km) has spotted me several times today. I suspect, at this distance, this is Es propagation. Although I have been spotted in the USA today on 10m WSPR, conditions seem "on the edge" - this is not the best of days, although I am grateful the band opened at all.

10m USA WSPR spots - yet again

For the 3rd day in row,10m has opened to the USA with N4ZQ (7125km) spotting my 10m 500mW WSPR at 1420z. This despite a relatively low sunspot number and a forecast of "poor" 10m propagation. I think I can expect further USA 10m WSPR spots later.