630m WSPR overnight

Last night I was on 630m WSPR (10mW ERP, 20%). I was spotted by 12 unique stations with best DX a spot by LA3EQ (769km) and I spotted 13 unique stations.

Sunspots - Sunday October 22nd 2017

Solar flux is 78 and there are sunspots! Sunspot number is 11. A=10 and K=3.

FCC and outmoded regulations

Southgate News reports that the FCC is continuing with the removal of outmoded regulations.

"eliminating unnecessary rule provisions, and making the agency as efficient and effective as possible"

Well, that should be pretty easy.

Does this mean they might be quicker in future releasing LF and MF amateur bands? You have to admit that they are definitely not fast! They are the laughing stock of the rest of the world.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2017/october/fcc-scraps-telegraph-regulations.htm#.WeuujbpFzIU

Grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

For the next few days we have 3 of our 4 grandchildren staying with us. The picture shows them having tea together in our kitchen.  The wine is not theirs!

Now on 630m WSPR

For the last 20 minutes or so, I have been on 630m WSPR (10mW ERP, 20%)   Quite decent conditions.

Driving and mobile phones - NOT amateur radio

Whilst driving along yesterday I narrowly missed being hit by a car driven by a young girl who seemed to be texting.

My son's 28 year old brother-in-law was struck by a car several weeks ago. He has a brain injury, many broken bones and is still unconscious in an Australian hospital. He is fighting for his life. At the time he was a pedestrian crossing on green. The driver (busy on her phone I think) went through a red light and just ploughed him down. His family, his girlfriend and her will be affected for life.

So, PUT YOUR MOBILE PHONE AWAY WHEN DRIVING. People can wait. Concentrate on driving!!

630m WSPR overnight

Overnight, my 10mW ERP was copied by 8 unique stations. In turn, I copied 9 unique 630m WSPR stations here with best DX DH5RAE (995km). No LAs last night sadly.

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.