UK Rally

Saturday 2 DECEMBER : SOUTHS LANCS ARC WINTER RALLY
Bickershaw Village Community Club, Bickershaw Lane, Bickershaw, Wigan WN2 5TE. There are a limited number of pitches available. Stall holders entrance from 7.30am, public gain entrance is from 9am. There will be a Bring & Buy, special interest groups and trade stands. Catering is available on site. Entry £2.50. Jason, G0IZR on 01942 735828

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

10m FT8 RX

Although I have been on 10m FT8 RX since before breakfast, nothing yet spotted.

UPDATE 1112z:  Just one spot so far - G0OYQ (177km), which could be aircraft reflection.

UPDATE 1308z:  PD1DL (324km) near Alkmaar has been spotted. Aircraft?

UPDATE 1600z: No further spots today.

UPDATE 1655z: G8YPE (153km) spotted.

Overnight on 630m WSPR

Yesterday, for various reasons I did not venture on to 10m FT8. Overnight on 630m WSPR my 10mW ERP was spotted by 9 unique stations and I spotted 10 uniques. Not the best of nights.

This evening I may try 137kHz WSPR RX with my crap antenna and deaf RX to see if anyone at all can be spotted overnight. The trouble is there are few stations TXing on 2200m. Most are RX only.  It is like operating with no hands and legs, HI.  If I do go on 137kHz, this will be the first time at this QTH. We have lived here for 4 years.

I suspect my earth-electrode "antenna" will be better than my vertical on 137kHz. At 137kHz the earth-electrode "antenna" is probably quite an effective loop.

Sunspots - Thursday November 30th 2017

Solar flux is 74 and the sunspot number 14. A=8 and K=0.

The US president: is he stupid? - NOT amateur radio

To become president of the USA you have to be rich and clever. Mr Trump is obviously the former and, arguably, the latter. So what on earth possessed him, allegedly, to repost some far right stuff on Twitter?  My advice, although I doubt he reads my blog (that would be something!) would be to check sources carefully before tweeting and consider whether the tweet sent is worthy of being sent or not. Maybe he employs people to check what others say about him? Silly me, bad things said are just "fake news" of course.

"Make America great again".

In this case I agree with the UK Prime Minister - Trump was WRONG to retweet these far-right videos. Doing so make him seem stupid, in my eyes. Others are quite entitled to think him wonderful.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42166663 .
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42172032 .
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42176507 .

I have reached my personal conclusions, although in a free world others are fully entitled to have theirs, even if radically different from mine.

Brother's visit - NOT amateur radio

My brother has been staying for a few days. He left this morning. It was good to see him.  The next time we see each other will probably be in March. We he is here, my wife always manages to find "little jobs" for him to do. This time we visited a local charity shop and the dump. Luckily he is quite happy being busy.

OFCOM and 5.8GHz

OFCOM has made an announcement about 5.8GHz spectrum.

See http://ofcom.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/i/FA5636C938F705722540EF23F30FEDED/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

630m WSPR overnight

My 10mW ERP WSPR was spotted by 7 unique stations and I spotted 6 uniques. Not a great night.

Sunspots - Wednesday November 29th 2017

Solar flux is 71 today. Sunspot number is 14. A=8 and K=1.

Allocation of amateur callsigns

Southgate News reports on another Freedom of Information request to OFCOM.

See https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/unallocated_uk_amateur_radio_cal_4#incoming-1071737  .

Yet again, I think OFCOM has provided the data on a minimalist basis.