Sunspots and 10m - Wed Oct 21st 2015

Sunspot number has fallen slightly to 77 (K=3) but 10m propagation is again expected to be "fair". We have seen USA 10m spots now for several days in a row and I expect this to continue, except on very disturbed days, until the spring.

Clocks go back in the UK this weekend! Dark evenings. CQWW SSB this weekend.

Back on 10m WSPR and 6m WSPR

After a temporary glitch with the PC (internet time sync failed) I am now back on both 10m and 6m WSPR. It takes about 15-20 minutes for the 10m beacon to stabilise. Anyway, back on both bands.

QRT on all bands

A few minutes ago I turned off the 10m and 6m rigs until after breakfast tomorrow. Quite late in the day I spotted M0ICR (90km) on 6m WSPR. This is the only spot on 6m in several days of trying. Tomorrow I may only go on 10m.

Tony Benn - NOT amateur radio

Currently, I am reading the diaries of Tony Benn, lent to me by a friend. Tony Benn was very much on the left politically. He was well respected as an honest man even by those who were on the opposite side of the UK political divide.

In the UK we have a very right wing media (papers etc.) and Tony Benn was often the person they liked to ridicule and misquote. He always "stuck to his guns" and talked much good sense.

He died aged 88 of a stroke in 2014 after a long political career.  He is a UK politician many loved to hate.  Personally I think he deserves to be better understood and seen as "his own man" and not the man hated by the right wing press. Someone said, "he was a principled politician". We have very few of these today.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn .

ON4KST Chat

Many VHF, UHF and microwave enthusiasts use  http://www.on4kst.com/chat/start.php to arrange skeds, certainly here in Europe. There are also chats for EME and for the LF and MF bands.

To use the facility you need a user name and password.

F2 on 10m WSPR

I see that lots of far Europeans and near Asians are spotting my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon including LZ, YO, RA3 and 4X. Nothing further yet. I think these are all single hop F2.

Still very quiet on 6m with no spots given or received on that band. I am still active on 6m, ever hopeful.

On 6m 30dBm 20% TX, 80% RX and on 10m 27dBm 100% TX with randomised TX frequency.

UPDATE 1500z:  Not a single spot from North or South America today on 10m so far. I am surprised as F2 conditions on 10m looked so promising. Things may change, although I would have expected spots from these areas by now. 10m is indeed fickle with a mind of its own!

UPDATE 1528z:  Eventually a 10m WSPR spot by K9AN (6505km) at 1518z. There have been other USA spots since. Not sure why 10m opened later today than yesterday?

UPDATE 1915z:  It looks as if 10m USA openings will be most days now. These are the unique stations that spotted me on 10m WSPR today:

10m WSPR unique spots today

Sputniks again

Just received this email from Peter in The Netherlands...

"Hello to all Sputnikers/Vanguarders,
We spent two days in rain and cold on the island, so we expected visitor count to be low...
That tuned out not to be the case and as I already said: Putting old computers with a morse-key attached to it in a radio room generates questions, need for demonstration and a general unbelief that "we" actually could reveal all sorts of trials into text by simply listening while talking to somebody else...
As a result real radio was at times possible but we also had to cope with noise and power drops as the generator did not function 24/24.
I first tried 40 metres with the GRC9 and managed to make two QSO's, checked activity on 30 metres, sent some CQ's there on what I guessed must have been around 10.115 MHz but no response... I then unpacked my KX3 that I took with me as a last minute decision, to have a monitor and after checking the transmitted sigs decided to rapidly go back to 40 metres with the GRC9... Work to do.
I made three nice QSO's on 30 metres with the KX3 short before we had to arrange our leave for the day. It may be an island but I rather would not leave expensive things for the taking.
Sunday was just as rainy and cold. After switching on the GRC9 40 literally burst with activity with rapid 5NN's all over the place. Not a good environment to try a QSO using a simple superhet with DC-receiver-like bandwidth.
But even more visitors arrived that needed insight in what we were doing and more children that, once shown some action with a morse key, could hardly be persuaded to hand it over to someone else.
So: Did we make a lot of DX? No. But we did a lot of PR for CW, for Hamming and for showing that sending messages with simple means still is possible in this internet day-and-age...
72/73
Peter
PS: As I have no good pictures of this session, the attached photo is an older one I took on a similar summer session. Later we decided to use no more that two laptops as 4 in a row is near impossible to manage...:-)"

And this from Oleg... 

"Dear Space Friends,
thanks Peter PA0PJE for interesting story/picture. Sure, new young PA operators will be on the air soon.
Sputnik  Days  finished. But somebody can send results before October 25. After that date an "officially" totals will be published.  Thanks to all participants and readers! Even Sputnik Days closed but milliwatting is continued. Our discussion group is not closed, you can inform about your milliwatting news here."

Sunspots and 10m - Tues Oct 20th 2015

Both sunspot number and solar flux are higher. Sunspot number today is 94 (K=3) and for the first time in a while daytime 10m conditions ar expected to be  "fair" rather than "poor". I am not surprised. We should expect decent 10m conditions today.

UPDATE 0918z: Well we are off to a promising start with spots on 10m already from EA8/LA3JJ (2870km) and RA3UDF (2693km). Both are probably F2 propagation. 6m is still quiet.

Another good 10m day

It is almost as if someone has turned on a big switch in the F2 layer! Yet again, 10m has been good to the USA and elsewhere. It suddenly happened a few days ago. Before that, conditions on 10m were not too good. Things on WSPR were tougher because of the relatively low activity levels.

I think conditions will be generally good this autumn, winter and spring, although I suspect this time next year things on 10m will be much tougher, unless we are lucky. Sunspot numbers are gradually falling and a year from now things could be a lot worse.

In the meantime, let us enjoy the good conditions on 10m.

UPDATE 1950z: EA8/LA3JJ has been spotting me all day, no less than 50 times. IK1SKC (977km) is a puzzling distance: it could be Es or F layer backscatter. Still, it has been another good day on 10m WSPR. The timing would suggest Es, but no other stations in Europe copied at the time. I have just gone QRT on all bands but will be back on 10m WSPR and 6m WSPR after breakfast.

Quiet day - NOT amateur radio

Anglesey Abbey this afternoon - signs of autumn

OK, so I am still not feeling fully back to normal following my stomach bug. This really did hit me for six. My immune system must be relatively poor. On top of the stroke after-effects I really have suffered more than I would have in the past.

Today, my wife has her U3A course in Cambridge so I have had a fairly quiet morning so far. I shall prepare lunch later and there are a few household jobs to do, but I think one has to "listen to one's body". At the moment it is telling me to go easy and don't do too much.  I expect I shall soon be back to my new "old self".  At the moment most things leave me exhausted.

I am monitoring 10m WSPR and 6m WSPR mainly in the lounge.

UPDATE 1325z:  We are off to Anglesey Abbey to see the autumn leaves.