10m FT8 RX

Well I thought yesterday was good on 10m FT8 RX, but today has started even better. Already, Indonesia, Namibia, Thailand and lots besides copied. Amazing. Again the sunspot number is zero.

UPDATE 0948z:  Best 10m FT8 RX DX today is VK6HV (13600km) in Australia. No sunspots!

UPDATE 1152z: Yes today 10m FT8 is even better than yesterday! PV8DC (7830km) in the north of Brazil was spotted at 1132z.

Sunspots - Saturday October 21st 2017

Solar flux is 75 today and the sunspot number still zero. A=8 and K=2.

630m this evening

After a great day on 10m FT8 RX, I returned to 630m WSPR transceive earlier this evening.

As on previous nights more people are spotting me than I am spotting. Either this tells me my RX is deaf (true) or my TX ERP is competing with many others transmitting on 630m WSPR.

Sadly, it is the former as I know my FT817 RX is deaf on 630m and I could do more to reduce the noise floor. Signals need to be quite reasonable to "beat" my noise floor. Last year the noise floor was much lower - I was lucky.

ICOM IC9700 (VHF/UHF/23cms)

This rig was announced in Japan in September. It will replace the IC910 and cover 2m, 70cm and 23cm. I have no idea about price. It looks like the same architecture as the IC7300. At the right price this looks an attractive radio, but I expect it will be too expensive. MLS is already taking £100 deposits.

How to look a total ..... - NOT amateur radio

It pays to arm yourself with facts before tweeting.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41695667

Another rally in the UK

22 OCTOBER 2017 : GALASHIELS RALLY
The Volunteer Hall, Galashiels TD1 3JX

A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

630m WSPR overnight

You may remember that I found the 2 radials across the lawn and an additional local ground made no difference and may have made my ERP lower. This surprised me.

Last night my 10mW ERP was spotted by 11 unique stations on 630m WSPR with best DX a spot from LA3EQ/MW (769km) and I spotted 10 unique stations on 630m WSPR.  This is, I think, the first time more stations spotted me than I spotted others.

Sunspots - Friday October 20th 2017

Solar flux is 74 today. Sunspot number is again zero. A=12  and K=2.

10m FT8 RX

After overnight on 630m WSPR transceive, I am again on 10m FT8 RX. Best DX spotted is 4Z5ML (3571km) in Israel. I assume this is F2 propagation. F1DLZ (362km) also copied in northern France which might be aircraft reflection.

I am still using WSJT-X V1.8.0 rc2. I really must upgrade later.

UPDATE 1105z: Lots of 10m Europeans and lots of DX on 10m FT8 today, despite a sunspot count of zero again. As they say, "FT8 cuts the mustard". Very impressive.

UPDATE 1312z:  Now spotting Mauritius - 3B8CW (9751km). Today has been a very good day on 10m FT8. I expect South Africa next, then South America.

UPDATE 1428z: There is no doubt that today is the very best day on 10m FT8 this autumn. So far, 9 North Americans spotted here as well as every continent except Antarctica.

UPDATE 1716z: Best DX today on 10m FT8 was LU8XAF (13413km) in southern Argentina.

Moved to 630m WSPR

In the last 30 minutes I have moved from 10m FT8 RX to 630m WSPR transceive (10mW ERP). Quite a few spots of my signal on each transmission.