Return to 630m WSPR (10mW ERP, 20%)

As 10m FT8 seemed quiet, I have QSYed to 630m WSPR for the evening and overnight. As yet, no spots but it usually takes several minutes for the transverter crystal to warm up and stop drifting. This affects TX.

UPDATE 1840z:  No less than 5 unique stations spotted my very first 630m WSPR transmit period this evening. My drift was high (up to 3Hz), but this soon drops to 0Hz.

UPDATE 1850z:  My noise floor (S7) is surely limiting what I can copy on 630m. As an example, not a single station has been decoded here so far this evening on that band. My slightly deaf FT817 does not seem to be much of a problem.

UPDATE 2104z: Quite a decent haul in the last 2 weeks. These are the unique stations who spotted me in the last 2 weeks and this with a poor antenna and just 10mW ERP. Just think what a decent antenna could do! In the same period, I spotted 27 unique stations despite my S7 noise floor. I am sure this is limiting what I can spot.

UPDATE 2202z: G0LUJ (278km) is currently the best DX spot of my 10mW this evening.

WLN Portables

Several people have bought these portables under various names at very low cost. Steve G1KQH pointed this out and a search under one of these names resulted in this Russian YouTube video which shows how disassemble the transceiver. There is a lot of radio here. Expect to see a lot more of this transceiver in future.

Solar conditions

Gradually, the sun is going to sleep. Sunspot numbers and solar flux are declining and this will be the case until around 2019. Of course, these are averages and sometimes conditions are much better. The forecasts for the next sunspot maximum are not great. The best I've seen is a peak about the size of the last maximum. It could be much worse!

See http://www.solen.info/solar/ .

Old friends - NOT amateur radio

They say, "there's no friends like old friends".

This morning, we had a visit from old friends who moved away from our village several years ago. We picked like we'd seen them only yesterday. My wife is in the middle.

The photo was taken in our front garden with "our" windmill in the background.

10m FT8 RX

Although I've been on 10m FT8 RX since early morning, just EA6 and OZ spotted so far.

UPDATE 1646z: No more spots seen here today on 10m FT8. Disappointing.

630m WSPR overnight

In all, 11 unique stations spotted my 10mW ERP 630m WSPR last night and I spotted 11 uniques here. An average night.

New cubesat - Oscar 91

Southgate News reports that a new cubesat is "up there".

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2017/november/radfxsat-launched.htm#.WhFcpbp2vIU

Sunspots - Sunday November 19th 2017

Solar flux is 75 today and the sunspot number 14. A=6 and K=3.

630m WSPR

For the last few hours I have been on 630m WSPR (10mW ERP, 20%). So far just spots from Gs although (as usual) I am spotting DH5RAE (995km).

UPDATE 2108z: So far this evening, 9 unique spots of my 10mW ERP WSPR on 630m. These were all G stations.

Takeaway Tax? - NOT amateur radio

To my mind, this is a no brainer. Takeaway boxes that are not environmentally friendly should be heavily taxed. These are a major source of litter and such a tax would make suppliers switch to better materials that are better for everyone.  Switching is easy and they just need a nudge.

I also get annoyed with supermarkets: these days all packaging should be environmentally friendly. The big supermarkets should be blazing the trail and telling their suppliers. Waitrose is bad, with lots of their packaging unclear about whether or not it can be recycled. I find this totally not excusable in this day and age. They should lead the way.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42033760 .