Sunspots - Sunday February 4th 2018

Solar flux is 70 and the sunspot number zero. A=3 and K=1.

QSYed to LF RX

Rather early, I have QSYed to 136kHz WSPR RX and 136kHz OPERA RX. I hope I catch some stations this evening.

UPDATE 2055z:  G3XIZ, 2E0ILY and G4FTC spotted on 136kHz WSPR and G3XDV spotted on 136kHz OPERA. All these are using the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground as the RX antenna.

Men to Mars? - NOT amateur radio

SpaceX test fires its big Falcon Heavy rocket next week. There are ideas to put men on Mars using this. There is a fair chance the launch will fail, apparently.

See https://gizmodo.com/spacexs-best-hope-for-sending-people-to-mars-will-launc-1822638923 .

Amplitude Modulation (AM)

At one time this was the dominant mode on all bands. With more stations and the advent of SSB, AM was widely scorned on HF as it took too much space and was not as effective or efficient as SSB. Actually there is plenty of space for AM on some bands.

On 10m there is plenty of space, with 29-29.1MHz (someone please tell the RSGB) as the best place to find AM. There are AM nets on 160m and 80m and there is plenty of space on VHF. For some reason AM is "out of fashion" on the VHF bands with FM the predominant mode. Certainly in the UK you can often get AM gear (ex Private Mobile Radio) at knock down prices. On 2m, AM activity can be found around 144.55MHz in the UK (again someone please tell the RSGB that AM usually takes less bandwidth than FM).

So, overall, AM is worth a go. Personally I would not use AM on busy HF bands, but there are bands where it makes good sense. I well remember not many years ago hearing beautiful AM from the USA and Canada. on 10m AM.

See www.amrally.com .
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/tenbox

Cambridge University Colleges - NOT amateur radio

Having lived in or near Cambridge for 47 years, one is in great danger of taking it all for granted. Every year people travel from all over the world to see things I can see for free every day.

Every week I walk past this college on my way to my lectures on Weather and Samuel Pepys as part of my University of the Third Age courses. I have to keep pinching myself and saying, "this is a beautiful city". This is Sydney Sussex College.

See https://www.sid.cam.ac.uk/ .

The slow march downwards

The latest solar figures have been published showing a steady decline in solar activity. We can expect a quiet period now for several years.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/

More OFCOM

More exciting stuff from OFCOM.

See https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/110718/3.6GHz-3.8GHz-update-timing-spectrum-availability.pdf

Sunspots - Saturday February 3rd 2018

Solar flux is 68 today and the sunspot number zero.  A=4 and K=0.

6m MSK144 RX

For a change I am not on 10m, but 6m MSK144 RX instead. In Europe, 50.280MHz remains a decent place to lurk. At the moment it is aircraft reflection, random MS and maybe tropo. As yet, no spots.

UPDATE 1335z: 3 spots so far. Best DX is GM6VXB (619km) quite strongly late this morning.

UPDATE 1706z:  So far 4 stations in 3 countries spotted. Although not the best DX today, SM7FJE (905km) was an interesting one. Random MS or aircraft?

Fuel prices creeping up? - NOT amateur radio

Certainly over the last month, UK fuel prices have been rising. Although the pound is stronger against the dollar, the wholesale price of oil has been rising faster.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/commodities/143908/default.stm