FT8

There is little doubt that FT8 digital mode has taken the world by storm. Bandwidth is much less than JT65 and QSOs are faster although I think it needs stronger (weak) signals to work. One thing it does is concentrate operations in a small part of the band, so fleeting openings are more likely to be noticed.

As many know, I keep a watchful eye on 10m FT8 RX. Although openings are now much rarer than at the peak of the sunspot cycle, they do occur. Rarely does a day pass when 10m does not open to somewhere overseas. In the last few weeks it has opened to South America. Even the very briefest openings get noticed. At one time a quick CQ on SSB would have led to 10m being given up as a "dead" band.

Try FT8 on a higher band: you may be surprised.

WSJT-X, which is the software needed, is totally free.

See https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html.

Cheese rolling - NOT amateur radio

This saddens me. A cheese rolling contest has been cancelled this year. They hope to do it in 2019. We English like doing odd things and it would be sad if this tradition died out.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-42788965 .

Fake speed camera - NOT amateur radio

All I can say is well done that lady.

I certainly hope it makes some drivers slow down. The next thing we'll hear is this is causing a health and safety hazard and has to be removed.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-berkshire-42775070/berkshire-mum-fakes-road-camera-to-tackle-speeding-cars

Amateur files - useful link

My friend Steve G1KQH has sent me an interesting link. These are amateur radio related files in pdf format.

See http://www.n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/ .

Giddiness - NOT amateur radio

This morning, in the drizzle, we did a short walk at Wicken Fen. I find walking along the board walk there very hard nowadays. Perhaps it is the water on either side, but I always feel giddy there since my 2013 stroke. I find having to concentrate so hard exhausts me these days. Pathetic. Today, it was wet too, which made it even harder. On the positive side, there were few people!

Daytime 630m WSPR RX

For a change, I am on 630m WSPR RX in the daytime. A couple of spots with best DX PA3ABK/2 (306km).

UPDATE 1308z: G0MRF (139km) is always a good signal with me, but his daytime S/N is much worse than in the middle of the night. I presume this is due to my local noise level being higher rather than propagation.

UPDATE 1420z: 3 different stations in 3 countries spotted so far. Best DX spotted F5WK (364km).

UPDATE  1615z: LA3EQ (769km) is currently the best 630m WSPR spots today.

UPDATE 1745z: 5 uniques in the last hour with best DX DH5RAE (995km).

UPDATE 2245z:  My last spot was at about 2116z, so the PC lasted over 9 hours on its internal battery - impressive!

Last night on 630m WSPR RX

Again, an average night here with 15 uniques copied. As far as I know, these were all stations spotted before and all EU stations. G3XIZ was actually very very strong (+9dB S/N). What is shown here is a second spotting probably as a result of my system handling strong signals!

Sunspots - Saturday January 27th 2018

Quiet and not much happening. Solar flux is 69 and the sunspot number zero still. A=8 and K=2.

630m WSPR RX

Just before 1900z, I decided to go onto 630m WSPR RX with the earth-electrode "antenna" that has been successfully used on previous nights with the preamp and shack PC on battery power. Already 3 spots in the very first period.

MLS discounts

MLS is again doing its "something for the weekend" discounts. If you were thinking of buying any of these, you might save a bit.

See https://www.hamradio.co.uk/