Low cost QRP rigs

There is little doubt that the Elecraft KX3 is the very best QRP radio on the market, but it is very expensive here in the UK. The most popular QRP radio is the FT817 and the price of this has dropped considerably. It is rumoured that an FT817 replacement will be announced at Dayton next year. The IC703 is no longer produced and there is a scarcity of good priced QRP radios in the UK. Yes, there are a few Chinese radios appearing and there are a few QRP radios covering single bands or a very limited number of bands. I find it amazing that ICOM do not propose to market the IC7300 10W version outside of Japan or that the big Japanese companies never tried to produce an FT817 beater. It has taken Yaesu all this time to think about an FT817 successor.

Grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

We have our young "London" grandchildren here for a few days. "We always spend Halloween at Granny's". Hide and seek in the dark, pumpkins, blind man's buff, cooking, Halloween hats etc. These days it has become very commercialised sadly, but we will do our best to give them a good time. My health is not as good as it could be.

Halloween is the eve of All Hallows Day (All Saints Day). Some believe the celebration of Halloween dates back to Pagan times.

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

QRT

The internet has not been reliable today. It comes via cable and is normally fast and reliable. I sync'd the 10m beacon after lunch when I could get accurate time off the internet. I have now gone QRT for the day. There have been lots of 10m WSPR spots today again and the last USA spot was at 1702z.  6m has been quiet again here today, although the 6m station (which depends on the PC for audio and timing) was off air some of the day.

Power cut and first USA 10m WSPR spots

We had a power cut at lunch time and our internet was off for about 1 hour. The first 10m WSPR spot from the USA was WJ9H (6361km) at 1344z. I suspect the first spot would have been earlier had the internet not been off and my time sync wrong.

OFCOM and the 5MHz contiguous amateur allocation

I am very pleased to see that OFCOM (on behalf of the British government) has signed the common European position in support of a contiguous amateur (secondary) allocation at 5MHz at WRC15 starting next week. It is still far from a "done deal" with 150 countries represented there.

Sunspots and 10m - Thurs Oct 29th 2015

Sunspot number is little changed at 71 (K=1) and 10m propagation remains "poor".

Rain - NOT amateur radio

Rear lawn and ornamental cherry

For some reason we seem to have had far more rain than normal in East Anglia, UK. The west of England seems to have had better weather.  Is this climate change?

As I write this it is, guess what, raining again. I am not sure if this is why we have such intense autumnal colours this year. The reds seem more intense this autumn.

Solar storms

With falling solar activity, the likelihood of extreme solar storms is falling. I see the Southgate news site reports that research has indicated the earth suffered a couple of destructive solar storms more than 1000 years ago. If these happened today they would pose a real threat to power supplies, satellites and our whole way of life in the 21st century. We cannot ever be complacent as these events often happen "out of the blue".

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2015/october/extreme_solar_storms.htm#.VjCdPCtEd80  .

10m WSPR and 6m WSPR so far today

The 10m 500mW WSPR beacon and the 6m WSPR station were switched on at breakfast time. F2 spots on 10m from RA3UDF (2693km) and EA8/LA3JJ (2870km).

All quiet on 6m  WSPR so far.

UPDATE 1115z:   More Russian 10m WSPR spots as well as Finland. All F2 propagation I think.

UPDATE 1120z:   FG5LA (6689km) was the first South American to spot my 500mW WSPR on 10m today at 1118z.

UPDATE 1850z:  W4DEX (6390km) was the first USA station to copy me on 10m WSPR at 1218z. Plenty of 10m USA spots since then.

UPDATE 2020z:  K9AN (6505km) was the last USA station to spot me on 10m today at 1656z. All quiet on 6m although I did spot M0ICR early today although the spots were not uploaded to WSPRnet.

Sunspots and 10m - Wed Oct 28th 2015

Sunspot number is little changed at 78 (K=1) but 10m is expected to remain "poor". It remains to be seen if this means another profitable day on 10m WSPR as often I get best results on 10m when conditions are supposed to be "poor" for some odd reason.