New webpage on 10m JT65

My main website at www.g3xbm.co.uk has a new page on 10m JT65. It is a sub-page under the HF section. See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/10mjt65 to go directly there. Presently, the sidebar navigation to the sub-pages is broken and I need to fix this.

10m JT65 - another good day

https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

My QRP station has been on 10m JT65 (2W) since breakfast time. With my signal spotted in Europe, Asia and South America, I cannot complain! I have still to spot, or be spotted, in North America this autumn. On the map where I have been spotted is shown in the boxes with hours. The smaller map points show stations I have copied in the last 12 hours (13 South Americans so far, which I think is the best yet this autumn).

UPDATE 2124z: This is without doubt my best day this autumn on 10m JT65 with 26 South Americans spotted and a couple of stations on that continent spotting me, despite my 2W and poor antenna.

My main website - an apology

See www.g3xbm.co.uk .

Whilst trying to update my main website, I seem to have accidentally removed the navigation pane on the left. My apologies. I am trying to fix the issue.

Sunspots and 10m - Wednesday October 12th 2016

Solar flux is 100 today. Sunspot number is 56 band and K=1. The forecast for 10m F2 propagation remains "poor".

Windows 10: am I alone? - NOT amateur radio

For about a week now my main PC has been unreliable. It was upgraded to Windows 10 without any issues months ago, but it has been problematic recently and says it is now missing a file and won't boot. I recently did a defrag. Although this is a well used machine, and this may be coincidence, I seem to have had issues since the BIG Windows 10 update which took 1.5 hours to install.

Am I alone? Is this my PC or a more general issue? Incidentally the PC in question is a Dell Inspiron  i5 with 1TB hard drive.

10m JT65

More in hope than expectation, I am now active on 10m JT65. Although there is quite a bit of activity, I have neither spotted or been spotted by anyone on 10m tonight. Soon I'll go QRT and come back on 10m JT65 after breakfast.

UPDATE 2030z:  Nothing spotted, so time to go QRT on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 2040z:  Now QRT on all bands.

UPDATE 2044z: From my logbook I see that 20 countries were spotted on 10m JT65 in the last week.

OFCOM updates

See http://ofcom.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/i/8CE39B7251DA2FC3/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C .

More news from OFCOM.

10m QRP to the USA

Still nothing spotted here from the USA on 10m. Tomorrow, I shall probably use 10m JT65 all day. If the band is going to open across the Atlantic this autumn, JT65 is probably my best chance.

There is some (a little!) hope this autumn, but this time next year USA openings on 10m are unlikely. We are now on the downward slope of cycle 24. Cycle 25 is unlikely to start until 2020 and the peak may be poor.

70cm UKAC this evening

Although I have no suitable antennas, just my 2m halo which matches, tonight is the monthly 70cm leg of the UK activity contests organised by the RSGB.

As my voice is still very poor, I shall probably be on for much less than an hour.  It starts at 1900z and ends at 2130z. As usual I shall be QRP with 5W SSB. Even with my poor setup, I am often surprised by what I can work. Give it a go!

Stations worked on 70cm this evening - 5W and 2m halo

UPDATE 1950z: After 30 minutes I had to stop because of my poor voice. G4CLA (105km) was the best worked tonight - not bad with 5W and a 2m halo fed with lossy RG58 coax! One not shown was in our village.

Before radio

See http://www.newmarketlhs.org.uk/shuttertelegraph.htm . A reminder that even in the days before radio, messages could be sent a long way. My thanks to John Mullins for sending me this link. Fascinating.

This system was set up by the UK Admiralty in the early 1800s, presumably to give early warnings of a French attack.

If memory serves me right, Morse came on the scene in the early 1840s. By the late 1800s most of the world was connected by telegraph - the Victorian Internet. We were better connected than I thought before radio.