"Our" windmill - NOT amateur radio

We are very lucky to live next door to a 200 year old fully restored windmill. Not many can look on a 4 sailed windmill over breakfast!

The photo shows the mill this morning a few hours after sunrise. My apologies for the compost bins in the foreground.

Sunspots - Friday September 22nd 2017

It is really starting to feel like autumn now. There is a chill in the air and heavy dew on the grass.

Solar flux is 74 today and the sunspot number 22. A=7 and K=1.

630m WSPR receive overnight

7 stations spotted overnight including stations in Norway, Spain and Italy. Not bad with a high noise level from the PC charger and my compromise antenna and ground.

QSY to 630m WSPR RX

As it is now 1830z, I have moved to 630m WSPR (RX only) using the same set-up as last night when I spotted 8 unique stations with best DX Spain at 1525km.

UPDATE 1846z: First station copied, and strongly, was G3KEV (232km).

Es season ended

For a couple of days now I have not seen any Es DX on 10m and 6m.  I was away for 10 days, so I have no idea what happened in that period. If things follow normal patterns, there will still be some Es DX, but these openings will be far less common than in the summer peak months. I shall still battle onwards on 10m WSPR TX and 6m FT8 RX, but catching openings will be harder.

Pompeii again - NOT amateur radio

This is another view of Pompeii, Italy taken on our Italian adventure. One of the main gates to the city is in the background. Pompeii was covered when Vesuvius erupted in AD79 to be rediscovered centuries later.

Sunspots - Thursday September 21st 2017

Solar flux is 73 today and the sunspot number 22.  A=10 and K=2.

10m WSPR TX (500mW)

No spots so far, even though my 10m WSPR beacon has been on since about 0615z.

UPDATE 1548z: Still no reports all day.

UPDATE 1807z: There was a brief 10m Es opening to Germany around teatime with my 10m WSPR beacon copied by a couple of stations.

6m FT8 RX

Since before breakfast I have been on 6m FT8 RX. So far, just G3PXT (82km) spotted.

UPDATE 1550z: So far, 4 spots, all Gs.

UPDATE 1810z: 5 stations spotted on 6m FT8 today, all Gs.

Overnight on 630m WSPR RX

630m WSPR RX Uniques Overnight

Yesterday evening and overnight I monitored 630m WSPR RX using the coax feed to my 2m "big wheel" as the antenna on 630m via a ferrite rod ATU and mains ground - nothing at all special, all feeding the FT817. In all, 8 unique stations spotted including Spain and Norway.