Lightning?

The weather forecast is for thunder and lightning moving up from France during tomorrow. This will mean disconnecting the 10m and 6m rigs. I'll do that in a minute.

G&S - NOT amateur radio

Nearly every year we go to a summer theatre held in a barn in a nearby village. They always do a Gilbert and Sullivan production. This year it was "The Gondoliers". As usual, for a totally amateur group, it was excellent. This has become part of our June landscape now. The Gondoliers was first produced in 1889.

Cranial osteopathy - stroke update

In Cambridge I had my second session today and almost fell asleep!

 

The osteopath is convinced that many of my issues are due to stress (my body has taken quite a beating these last 2 years) and she is teaching my body to relax. I have 3 more sessions booked, maybe more later. The next one is in 2 weeks time.  The session today was all massage and very relaxing. She massaged my head and body.  

 

Some would call cranial osteopathy a "snake oil" treatment. I remain open minded but I shall definitely continue as long as I think it is helping me.

Mizuho QRP SSB rigs

I don't think this company still exists.

At one time you could buy Mizuho single band SSB handhelds for many bands up to 2m including many HF bands.  I owned the 2m 200mW pep version (MX2) and managed to work some decent SSB DX with mine mostly with a 1/2wave whip on the rig. The main issue was the poor battery life, so I tended to use an external 9.6V battery.

My rig was used in the main with a homebrew 2m-10m transverter and I worked all over the world on 10m with just the tiny Mizuho rig on the desk.

If I remember right I covered the CW and main SSB parts of 10m by having a couple of crystals in the transverter. Somewhere I still have the transverter, although it has not been used for years.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/mx2 .

Good deal on 10m multi-mode rig

From Steve G1KQH (font or fount of all knowledge) comes news of a very good deal from Nevada:

http://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/amateur-radio/transceivers/mobile-transceivers/president-lincoln-ii

 

73 Steve
http://www.g1kqh.talktalk.net/

Sunspots and 10m - Thurs June 11th 2015

Sunspot number is virtually unchanged at 105 today (K=3). 10m is expected to be "fair" again, so with just Es to liven up 10m it is likely to be an uneventful day. Likewise, Es could add some interest on 6m as well.

So far no Es spotted here on either band on WSPR.

6m Es this teatime

I see that my 1W ERP 6m WSPR was spotted by DL5AP (709km) at 1708z this evening.  Other than this single spot, it has been G spots given and received with the best DX being G4BRK (134km). No real DX spots given or received on 6m and pretty quiet on 10m too here.

Quiet on 10m WSPR today

Apart from a spot by CT1JTQ (1843km) at 0850z and HA9AL (1455km) at 1208z it has been very quiet on 10m WSPR today.

Pye Telecom PF8 - NOT amateur radio

Some years ago I was professionally involved in the design of this innovative transceiver. I am sure I mentioned this on the blog not too long ago.

Some people managed to find rare examples on the secondhand market and converted them to 70cms use. They are hard to find as not that many were made.

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

CCS - NOT amateur radio

One of my activities is running the website for the choir my wife sings in. They perform a major choral work with professional soloists and a professional orchestra usually in the spring in the Cambridge area. Sometimes it is in Kings College Chapel, sometimes elsewhere.

See https://sites.google.com/site/cambschoral/ .