Es on 10m JT65 again today

Yet again, there was Es in evidence on 10m JT65. I was spotted twice in Poland with best DX being HF9D (1305km) and I spotted several others around Europe.

Another windmill view - NOT amateur radio

Last week I posted a view of "our" windmill in a posting called "winter sun". On Christmas Day we went for a brief walk around the village and saw the windmill from a different direction over the allotment gardens. We had much better weather than we expected.

No solar forecasts yet

As my feed is still showing yesterday's data I have not yet been able to update the solar data yet. This will be done as soon as it becomes available.

UPDATE 1858z:  My source is still showing the data for yesterday, so I am unlikely to post the solar data for today now.

10m JT65

Although I stayed on 10m JT65 overnight, there have been no new spots since G4CJC in north London yesterday. I am still hopeful of some winter Es and possibly some N-S F2 propagation to southern Africa. We had this in recent days when there were no sunspots and conditions were not too brilliant on 10m JT65.

Really I should QSY to MF at night as this tends to be more successful, despite my poor "antenna" and low ERP (5mW) on 472kHz.

Pink auroras

Thanks (again) to Southgate News comes news of pink auroras. There were 3 days now without sunspots although today the sunspot number is 13.

See http://spaceweather.com/ .

Silly Games Season - NOT amateur radio

Christmas time and silly games times!

Here we are playing "Pie Face" with Lis (my XYL) getting cream all over her nose thanks to our grandchildren! This is in the kitchen, although the rest of our house looks like a disaster area. As my wife says, "clean mess".

UKAC 2016 70cm results

Overall in 2016 I came 121st out of 184 in the AL section of the 70cm part of the Tuesday evening UKAC sessions.

Considering I run 5W to a 2m halo fed with lossy coax and I am on for usually well under 1 hour because of my poor voice, I think this is fine.

Sunspots and 10m - Tuesday December 27th 2016

Solar flux is 73 today and sunspot number 13. A=22 and K=2. We might see some N-S propagation on 10m?

10m JT65

Last night, I remained on 10m JT65 overnight, but just G4CJC (73km) in north London spotted. No Es or F layer DX so far today.

Christmas TV - NOT amateur radio

From the BBC website, Christmas TV viewing figures. I am not a royalist at heart but cannot think of a president who would do as well as our current queen. At 90 years old she does a remarkable job. Her husband Philip is 95! Charles will have a hard act to follow.

1. The Queen at 3pm - BBC One and ITV - 7.7m
2. Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special - BBC One - 7.2m
3. The Great Christmas Bake Off - BBC One - 6.3m
4. Mrs Brown's Boys Christmas Special - BBC One - 6.1m
5. Call The Midwife - BBC One - 6.1m
6. EastEnders - BBC One - 5.9m
7. Coronation Street - ITV - 5.8m (not including ITV +1)
8. Doctor Who - BBC One - 5.7m
9. Frozen - BBC One - 4.7m
10. Emmerdale - ITV - 4.2m