10m Es

EA6FG (1415km) in the Balearic Is was spotted not long ago on 10m JT65. As there is early Es, I may QSY to 6m JT65 until mid-afternoon. As yet, no-one has seen my 10m JT65 although I am QRP.

Sunspots and 10m - Sunday August 21st 2016

Solar flux is 78 today. Sunspot number is 12 (falling). K= 1. The forecast for 10m F2 propagation remains "poor".

23cms the inexpensive way

A very very long time ago I went on 23cms RX with a homemade 4el yagi (tiny, indoors) and borrowed RX converter. This must have been about 1976 or 1977.

There is an relatively inexpensive way of getting on the band (transceive) if you have an FT817 or FT290 to drive it using an SG-LAB transverter. The transverter is about £140 and is made in Bulgaria. Output on TX is a useful 2W. This set-up could be ideal for portable use.

See http://gm1sxx.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/that-elusive-23cms-beacon-gb3csb.html .
See http://www.sg-lab.com/TR1300/tr1300.html .

Yaesu at the Tokyo Ham Fair

It looks like there are no nice surprises from Yaesu, sadly. I think all these radios are ones we have seen before.

South America (again) on 10m

With good Es in Europe I am beginning to think my 10m JT65 South American spots (I have just been spotted in Paraguay again and have spotted a station in Sao Paulo, Brazil) is a mix of Es and some variety of F layer propagation. I am no propagation expert but think equatorial spread-F may be a factor? It seems more than coincidental that all my South American JT65 spots on 10m have been on days with good European Es. I am thinking that Es is linking with some sort of F layer propagation nearer the equator.  Equatorial spread-F is meant to occur after sunset.

There are several papers on equatorial spread-F, so I suggest you Google these if you are interested.

UPDATE 1728z: No further South American spots this evening on 10m JT65, well not so far. No further Es either.

Beacons - some useful data

You may not have seen this comment, so I have reproduced it here:

Hi Roger,

GB3VHF (2m), GB3UHF (70cm), GB3BAA (6m) & GB3SEE (10GHz) are always good signals into the SUWS WEB SDR, so you can check their on-air status anytime.

http://websdr.suws.org.uk/

Many other UK and European beacons are also audible when conditions are good.
 
Regards,

Martin - G8JNJ

SUWS is Southampton University, where I nearly did a PhD in 1971. This would have been with Dr Ryecroft in VLF space physics. Still, I did get to lunch with Josselyn Bell who first discovered pulsars. In the end I stayed in industry, but often wonder how life would have been had I done the PhD.

Dragonflies - NOT amateur radio

Black-tailed Skimmer?

This must be the season for dragonflies as we saw loads at Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge today. Most were flying, so hard to photograph. This one was very obliging! The dahlia garden there is now open.

10m Es today

The Belarus station EU7FBB (1931km) was spotted very early (and he spotted me) and there has been widespread Es on 10m JT65 already. This is encouraging.  Best DX on receive JT65 is a station in Finland and it is only 0908z!

Sunspots and 10m - Saturday August 20th 2016

Solar flux is 79 today. Sunspot number is 37 (K=2). The F2 10m propagation is forecast to be "poor" yet again.

ICOM IC7610

Although likely to be far too expensive for me, ICOM is expected to launch the IC7610 transceiver at this year's Tokyo Ham Fair. They may well have already done so. This is an SDR version like a IC7300 on steroids.