Sunspots - Friday December 29th 2017

Solar flux is 71 and the sunspot number zero. A=5 and K=0.

Bots? - NOT amateur radio

Blog visit numbers are up today and this corresponds with high visit numbers from Romania.  Although I may be wrong, this could be probing by bots looking for vulnerabilities. This is one reason I change passwords regularly. If you are looking for holes, look elsewhere! If you are a genuine visitor from Romania, you are most welcome. Probes of this kind usually take place about once a month.

France - NOT amateur radio

Our "London" grandchildren are in France with mum visiting their French grandparents.

One of the French grandparents made this Michael Jackson outfit, which was an instant hit.

They grow up fast these days!

I think they are there for a week. In the meantime we have the "other" 2 grandchildren and their mum and dad until Saturday.

HF - the forgotten spectrum?

The USA proposals for WRC-19 and WRC-23 have been published. My reading is that many administrations are more interested in the GHz bands than HF.

Perhaps many administrations have given up on HF? Maybe there is too much noise on HF and there is little money to be made from HF. On GHz bands there are plenty of opportunities to sell spectrum.

Broadcasters are abandoning shortwave. This is good news (perhaps) for radio amateurs.

472kHz WSPR

PA0A was copied in Reunion last night. He is always a good signal with me, but Reunion Is a very long way!

Christmas Cards - NOT amateur radio

This year, with the high price now of 2nd class post in the UK, I was expecting far fewer cards in the post.  Numbers are a little down, but we still had quite a few.  Of the ones missing, I expect a few were posted to the wrong address or you can hear the partner saying, "do you know who we forgot this year?". We all forget someone!

Rare snow - NOT amateur radio

Until this winter, we have not seen snow for some years. We have had the odd flurry, but not decent snow that has stayed. Yesterday it snowed (unexpectedly) all morning and there is still snow on the ground this morning.

This is a photo of 2 of our grandchildren in the snow yesterday with their mum.

10m FT8 RX

Yesterday was another good day on 10m FT8, but nothing spotted here today so far on 10m FT8.

UPDATE 1048z: SQ9RHS (1323km) has been spotted strongly.

UPDATE 1644z: No further spots since the Polish station this morning. Disappointing.

UPDATE 2027z: I see that I spotted German and Danish stations today on 10m FT8, but these did not upload to PSK Reporter Maps. I must have lost internet connectivity in the shack.

Sunspots - Thursday December 28th 2017

Solar flux is number 71 today and the sunspot 11. A=7 and K=2.

Growing up fast - NOT amateur radio

Our elder grandson, growing up all too fast.

The picture was taken a few days ago over Christmas.