Garden - NOT amateur radio

Another view of the back garden

Not visible are my earth-electrode "antenna" for 630m (are you surprised?) and my end fed wire Par antenna covering 10m, 20m and 40m. This antenna works on other bands with an ATU.  Also out of sight are my 6m, 2m and 70cm vertical V2000 and my 2m horizontal big-wheel omni and 2m halo.

As you can tell, I do not like big, ugly antennas! The garden would fit a 66 foot long wire - maybe next winter?

6m and 10m WSPR

At 1236z I moved to the 10m WSPR beacon (500mW 100% TX) and 6m WSPR (1W ERP 20%, 80% RX, V2000 vertical antenna) simultaneously. It will be interesting to see if there is Es in evidence on 6m too. With 6dB less power on 10m, I expect to get spotted less often.

UPDATE 1325z:  EA1FAQ (1249km) has spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR 2 times so far. Still quite decent reports too.

UPDATE 1445z:  EA1FAQ is now spotting my 500mW 10m WSPR at -12dB S/N, implying that a few milliwatts would have been quite enough. My reports from him are getting better.  No spots yet on 6m WSPR.

10m Es

Within minutes of going on 10m WSPR I am spotting Hungarian stations well by Es. A promising start to what I think will be a good day on 10m.

10m WSPR so far

UPDATE 0934z:  HA9AL is coming in here at a very strong -2dB S/N now. 10m is very good currently to central Europe. This is quite early in the day for Es. 6m is probably good too.

UPDATE 1134z:  Plenty of 10m WSPR Es with lots from central Europe.

The morning on 10m WSPR - clearly Es season!

472kHz (630m) WSPR overnight

Last night I stayed on 472kHz WSPR overnight. I was going to try WSPR on a different band but decided after all to go back on MF.  There are now far fewer active stations than back in the better months. Activity will pick up again come the autumn. No DX spots given or received on 630m WSPR. I think it is now really is the time to pull the plug on 630m WSPR until the autumn.

Sunspots and 10m - Wed May 11th 2016

Solar flux is 90 today. Sunspot number is 70 (K=2) and the forecast for 10m remains "poor" yet again. We might see a little N-S 10m F2 propagation. We live in hope.

At 0910z I switched from 630m WSPR to 10m WSPR.

70cm UKAC tonight

I very briefly listened on 70cm in the 70cm leg of the RSGB's activity contest - the UKAC that runs for 2.5 hours on Tuesday nights. Very few stations were heard, so I've given this one a miss. Really I have no suitable antennas for 70cm at the moment. On the last 70cm UKAC I just used my 2m halo.

Corsican wind? - NOT amateur radio

Years ago we spent a couple of great holidays on Corsica.

My wife is trying to do a quiz in the newspaper and is stuck on a wind in north east Corsica with the second letter "i" and the last letter "t". She is adamant these letters are right. I tried Googling to no avail. I thought I knew this, but obviously I don't.

Any thoughts?

The quiz was in yesterday's Daily Telegraph which we got free with our shopping.  I try to vary the paper and sometimes get The Guardian or The Times. I only get them as they cost us nothing - well some will (rightly) argue we pay through Waitrose's high prices. Aldi is certainly less expensive, but our local store is some way away.

American hotels and breakfast - NOT amateur radio

One of my first surprises on trips to the USA was that few (no?) hotels offer breakfast. They expect you to get this down the road. Most have places to eat very nearby, but if you are not used to this it comes as a surprise. I have an old work colleague who is in Indiana for a conference and he was caught out. The hotel and conference centre was a place to meet and sleep, but little else.

Once, in eastern Canada, we stopped for breakfast at a roadside cafe. There were 6 fried eggs and lots more on the plate. It was huge. We did not go hungry!

Arecibo EME in 1964?

Way back in my youth, I recall that USA amateurs got access to the huge 1000 foot dish at Arecibo in Puerto Rico for early EME (moonbounce) tests. This was extensively reported in QST and the RSGB Bulletin at the time. I think this was 1964 or 1965.  As the dish was huge, it gave smaller stations a chance with EME. EME started soon after WW2 I believe but for many this was their first chance.

In more recent times there have been other activations. EME takes real dedication but recent advances in digital techniques have made EME more accessible to smaller stations. It still needs a lot more power and antenna gain than I have!  Some of these activations are on YouTube.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1agnioRKJw .

Rain - NOT amateur radio

Well, perhaps we have had the good weather for the year!  Our nice dry and warm spell came to an end after dark last night with rain. The big high we had has slipped away and we are now (once again) in a stream of wet and windy weather dominated by low pressure systems. It is not that cold but several degrees lower than the highs we saw in the last few days. The sun has gone.

Part of the rear garden yesterday