Autumn - NOT amateur radio

Suddenly we seem to have moved from summer into autumn. The nights are getting rapidly darker earlier, the temperature has dropped and it suddenly feels like autumn. I enjoy all the seasons, but they seem to come around sooner. Where was summer? Yesterday we planted primroses instead of the begonias which die in the first frosts. The picture shows the primroses under the windows at the front of our bungalow.

Active on 10m JT65

For just over an hour, I have been on 10m JT65 only. As yet, no spots given or received.

UPDATE 1012z: My 10m JT65 has been spotted in Austria and Poland. Es?

UPDATE 1050z: Now being spotted by 9A2WB (1430km) and I am spotting 10m JT65 stations from all over Europe.  Today looks good on 10m Es, well I assume this is Es. This is definitely a good case for JT65 running in the background. On SSB a quick CQ is unlikely to be successful on 10m.

10m JT65 at noon today - stations spotted this morning

See https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

UPDATE 1106z:  Now being spotted in Germany on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 1148z:  PSK reporter map for me looks more like mid-summer!!  If 10m is wide open around Europe, I suspect 6m might be too.

Sunspots and 10m - Thursday October 13th 2016

Solar flux is 99 today and the sunspot number 40. K=5. The forecast for 10m F2 propagation remains "poor".

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.