BBC Local Radio - NOT amateur radio

Southgate News reports a recent outage that affected a lot of the BBC local radio stations.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2017/september/eighteen-bbc-local-radio-stations-fall-silent.htm#.Wau-cLpFzIU .

10m JT65

From Facebook, I see that I was copying LUs on 10m JT65 last year at this time. I was speculating the propagation was Es linking with F layer nearer the equator. I guess the mode to try now is FT8? With good propagation, I guess this is still possible.

Sunspots - Sunday September 3rd 2017

Solar flux is 103 (high) and the sunspot number 71 (high for this part of the cycle). A=26 and K=3.

Cambridge Leper Chapel - NOT amateur radio

After an age, I have updated the churches blog at https://eachurches.blogspot.co.uk/ with the Cambridge Leper Chapel that dates from the 1100s. We visited this for the first time today, although we have been past it many times.

ICOM IC9700

My thanks to Steve Wigg for alerting me to this new ICOM radio being previewed at the Tokyo Ham Fair this weekend. This will be a VHF/UHF/23cm rig.

See http://www.icomuk.co.uk/News_Article/3508/19388/ .

They still try! - NOT amateur radio

Already, there is hacker activity on this blog again. Should the blog suddenly behave oddly, you will know why. Already this blog has had more visits than it often gets in a whole day. Bots I suspect.

I see another of my blogs also has high visitor numbers.

Usually they look every month, then play their nasty games elsewhere. It always comes from the same sources. I see high numbers, check the map, and I know it is hackers rather than genuine visits.

Sunspots - Saturday September 2nd 2017

 Solar flux is 93 today. Sunspot number is 62 (quite high). A=19 and K=5.

10m WSPR today

As usual, I am on 10m WSPR TX with my 500mW beacon. Apart from local G4KPX (14km) the only DX so far today is EI3RCW (505km). This could be Es or aircraft reflection.

UPDATE 2022z:  10 unique spots today with the best DX 1812km. If this is still Es, then this is very late in the season. Now QRT.

6m FT8 again

I have been RX only on this band/mode since before breakfast. Although most spots are of G stations, there has been one Es spot so far of HG9SM (1508km).

UPDATE 1950z: 6 countries spotted in the last 12 hours. Now QRT.

10m WSPR (TX)

Although only active for about 1 hour, OH2VMP (1734km) has spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon several times. Is this Es or even single hop F2?

UPDATE 1725z:  With OZ9QV (864km) just spotted, I suspect this is Es.

UPDATE 1938z: With 16 unique spots since teatime, another great Es day on 10m WSPR. This season seems never ending!