Nepal second earthquake - NOT amateur radio

News is just breaking that a second large earthquake has struck eastern Nepal. This was a 7.3 magnitude quake and it must have been so frightening for those poor people already struggling to come to terms with the first earthquake a few weeks ago. It must be so hard for the children.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32701385 .

6m WSPR - early Tuesday

G4DUL (68km) has been exchanging 6m WSPR spots with me this morning as has Eddie G3ZJO (79km). No 6m Es seen yet on WSPR, but it is still very early.

Early 6m WSPR spots today

UPDATE 1104z:  G4FFC (45km) has recently been spotted. His signal has 2 distinct traces but no clear signs of any aircraft reflections. The 4Hz drift  (on both his traces) maybe his warm-up drift and some movement of my RX.

UPDATE 1500z:   As well as spots exchanged with G3ZJO, I have received G8EPQ (77km) a couple of times on 6m WSPR. This looks like pure tropo studying at the RX traces, but Bob G8EPQ tells me there are lots of Easy Jet flights going over his QTH. Certainly there was no evidence of aircraft on the traces I saw. Maybe with planes with the right amount of Doppler (i.e. low) I might see G8EPQ at other times too?

UPDATE 1522z:  Although quite a few UK stations on 6m, no Es seen so far today. I shall keep looking.

10m - I know why no WSPR spots!

I just found out why I had zero spots with my 10m WSPR beacon! The positive power lead was open circuit so the beacon, although supposedly connected to the PSU had no power! Doh! I must be so stupid. I check on a lounge PC and although 6m was fine, the stand-alone 10m beacon was not. I must have disturbed the wires when I disconnected it last week. Anyway, it is now on and I am hoping for some spots today.

UPDATE 0925z:  Almost immediately being spotted by G4IKZ (18km) and Italians via Es on 10m.

UPDATE 1055z:   OE3BUB (1229km) has spotted my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon several times in the last 1/2 hour. This is Es.

UPDATE 1510z:  Only local G4IKZ (18km) spotting my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon so far this afternoon.   Despite the high sunspot number and the Es season, it is very quiet, so far, here.  Maybe things will liven up later? Maybe tomorrow I'll go on 10m RX for a change? It is quite a while since I looked for WSPR spots on this band. As I can only RX on one band at a time, I shall have to go QRT on 6m tomorrow.

10m yesterday

With my 500mW WSPR beacon I was on 10m TX all the time but was spotted by no-one yesterday. However I see that G4IKZ was spotting a reasonable amount on his Moxon beam. I think Nick was beaming south. He must have a useful gain in the favoured direction compared with my compromised antenna. Nick copied nothing after early evening yesterday.

UPDATE 0926z:  See later post. The problem was at my end! Doh! I am so stupid.

Better today?

Sunspot number has climbed to 188 (K=3) and 10m conditions are forecast to be "good". Just maybe things will be better on 10m today. It is hard for them to be worse than yesterday.

10m - no luck today?

I only switched on my 10m 500mW WSPR beacon mid-afternoon after being off-air for several days. Unlike 6m, which has been fairly productive with G stations today, 10m has been a total blank, I think EA8BVP may be off the air on 10m as he has regularly spotted me for weeks.

Both 6m and 10m will be running overnight now I am back home, although I think the K=4 suggests conditions are rather too disturbed to support much DX at my power level on 10m WSPR. Just maybe my 500mW on 10m will be spotted by some moderately distant Gs tonight?

UPDATE 2047z:  Still absolutely zero on 10m WSPR today.  This has been the worst day on 10m for a very long time. Not even a single Es spot to liven things up and not a single G station, not even the locals!

UPDATE 2128z:  Still no luck on 10m WSPR today.

6m WSPR - aircraft reflections?

I am pretty convinced that some of my 6m and 2m WSPR spots are only possible when aircraft are in the right place at the right time with acceptably low Doppler. This evening Eddie G3ZJO was spotted several times with quite high Doppler on occasions. I am not convinced that I am copying Eddie as a result of planes - I think his signal is copied by pure tropo, but I am convinced some signals are only copied as a result of aircraft reflections, much as happens on bands like 23cms upwards. G3WKW (134km) is an example of a station I only seem to copy by aircraft reflection on 6m and 2m.

G3ZJO has analysed M0YOU's signals in his blog. See http://g3zjo-radio.blog.co.uk/2015/05/11/six-meters-aircraft-reflections-20343648/ .

UK General Election - NOT amateur radio

The Conservatives are back in UK government with a small overall majority. Unless they lose this majority in by-elections in the coming years (people do die) they will be in power for around 5 years to come. Of course, if they lose this slim majority and lose a confidence vote there could be another general election sooner.  The people of the UK voted in a "first past the post" election, so what will follow is largely due to us entrusting them with power.  We can expect more cuts to welfare benefits but, arguably, this is what the majority wanted.

The Labour party failed to explain why they should be entrusted with power and our money. Instead the nation chose a majority Conservative government.  We will have an EU referendum in 2017. I personally expect we will vote to stay in, but the UK expects more common market and less federalism in return.  A lose common market, i.e.a big free trade area, is what we joined, not a United States of Europe. I like France, Spain and Italy etc because they are unique and special in their own ways. Long may this continue.

WSPRnet issues (still sluggish at 1740z)

I am not sure if this is just a temporary blip but I am having great trouble accessing the main online database for WSPR called WSPRnet. It is taking an age to load. Although I have managed to access the database (after some minutes) I an shown as receiving no spots on either 10m or 6m.  This may just be poor conditions or others failing to upload spots. I hope it is just temporary.

UPDATE 1545z:   G6IMT (65km) is exchanging spots with me on 6m. With low Doppler, this could be pure tropo. I just checked the online traces from G6IMT and there are plenty of reflections from aircraft evident, although the traces that decoded may have been the direct tropo signal. Typically G6IMT is about -15 to -17dB S/N with me running 5W. Not sure what antenna he is using.

UPDATE 1740z:  So far nothing at all on 10m WSPR.

UPDATE 1742z:  I see that I spotted G3ZJO earlier this afternoon on 6m WSPR (-21dB S/N)

Pye PF8

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/pf8 .

In my younger days I was a design engineer with Pye Telecom and one of the projects I worked on back in the 1970s was the Pye PF8.  In its day this was a very novel transceiver, with few controls to get broken, an internal antenna and a DC-DC converter so it ran on a couple of rechargeable batteries.  I was responsible for the antenna and the TX audio but was also heavily involved in debugging the many issues we had.  The product became world famous as Bodie and Doyle used the radio in the TV show "The Professionals".  Not that many were sold and on the second hand market they are very hard to find. I know some have been put to use on 70cms. They worked well in the end but they were a nightmare to work on at the time.

It was around this time I met Clive Sinclair.  He was interested in compact antennas for his little TV and was interested in co-operating  on RF ICs. Neither happened but I was flattered he had asked me for advice!