UK rally this weekend

I have been notified of this rally:

Saturday 5 DECEMBER : SOUTH LANCS WINTER RALLY
Bickershaw Labour Club, Bickershaw Lane, Bickershaw, Wigan WN2 5TE. OT 9am, traders 7.30am. £2.50, B&B, C, DIS, CP, SIG, DF, TS, LB. Jason, 01942 735 828.

A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

Windows 10

Since updating my shack PC to Windows 10 my PC has decided it has no wi-fi devices! Luckily I have just managed to repair it so have just gone onto 10m WSPR and 6m WSPR and resynced to internet time. This is much later than I had intended. Originally I had a weak but reliable wi-fi connection in the shack.

Sunspots and 10m - Thurs Dec 3rd 2015

Solar flux is 94 today and the sunspot number is just 26 today. K=1 and 10m propagation is again expected to remain "poor". I am again not expecting much on 10m WSPR.

It is some days now since my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon was spotted in the USA. Deteriorating conditions are having more of an effect this side of Christmas than I was expecting. I was expecting USA spots most days until late spring. Maybe I was wrong.

Official "old fart" - NOT amateur radio

I am officially a boring old fart!

Coming back from my U3AC course on the buses today I could not help overhearing the word "like" interjected many, many times in every sentence by most youngsters! Also, most under 30 years old seem to be in love with their smart phones. In days gone by we'd actually talk, but these days this would be too much to ask.

10m quiet

Only a single spot on 10m WSPR from DK6UG (633km) at 1430z.

This evening my 5mW ERP 472kHz WSPR was copied by DL-SWL (701km).

UPDATE 2220z:  I was wondering why WSPRnet was not reporting the many stations I am copying on 472kHz RX. For some reason, my shack PC has no internet connection. I shall have to fix this tomorrow.

Sunspots and 10m - Wed Dec 2nd 2015

Sunspot number has fallen to 27 and solar flux remains below 100 at 94. K=3 and 10m is forecast to remain "poor".  I am not expecting wonders on 10m and 6m today!  I stayed on MF until about 1030z. Now I am active on 10m and 6m WSPR but all is quiet here so far today.

472kHz analysed

Over the last 2 weeks, I received 19 unique spots on 472kHz WSPR using my 5mW ERP from the earth-electrode "antenna". On RX I spotted a total of 23 unique stations. Most were without a preamp and on the deaf FT817.  On RX I have still to carefully analyse the Excel data supplied by Bert, but the impression is that the RX preamp helps the copy of very weak signals but has not (so far) enabled me to copy and decode more stations. This is the breakdown.

My 5mW ERP was copied as follows:

3 Germany - DL-SWL and DL-SWL/1 - best DX at 701km
1 France
3 Netherlands
11 England
1 Wales

On RX I copied the following unique stations (most copied many times):

1 Spain - best DX is EA5DOM at 1525km
8 Germany
1 Norway
5 France
1 Begium
2 Netherlands
5 England

K for Kernow (Cornwall)

Cornish amateurs are being allowed to use K (e.g. GK0***) all next year. There are some special awards for working stations in Cornwall.

See  http://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/headlines/2015/11/27/k-regional-identifier-for-cornwall/ .

More from OFCOM

See http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/?utm_source=updates&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1st-tues-dec15

Blah, blah, blah, blah........

Quango, quango, quango, quango.

When will their dribble stop? Is any value added?

All very quiet on 10m and 6m WSPR so far

It was a very quiet morning on both 10m WSPR and 6m WSPR with no spots at all. This is a bit surprising as I was expecting some DX spots on 10m WSPR today. We will have to see what happens this afternoon. On 6m I was surprised to see not a single spot. There was a strong carrier on 6m WSPR but I think his timing was off as there was no Doppler yet he did not decode.

UPDATE 1356z:  Still no spots at all today on 10m WSPR or 6m WSPR.