Sunspots - Friday July 13th 2018

Solar flux is 73 today and the sunspot number still 0. A=8 and K=2.

10m

This season, I have been concentrating on 10m WSPR TX. Certainly 6m FT8 is easier with spots every time I TX with QRP.

On 10m WSPR TX (500mW) it seems much harder. I have had days with loads of European spots and the occasional days with spots from South America.

This Es season I have not tried 10m SSB or CW. I suspect it would be easier to get 10m SSB QSOs than WSPR spots!

UPDATE 0910z: No 10m WSPR spots.

UPDATE 1752z: 7 unique stations spotted me today. Best DX spot was by EA8BFK (2880km).

UPDATE 2147z: QRT.

6m FT8

Although I have been on 6m FT8 for about 30 minutes, the only spots on RX are Gs. As usual, a brief QRP CQ brought spots from several Gs, but there were no Es spots.

UPDATE 0857z: Plenty of 6m FT8 RX spots now from the Canary Is, Iberia and Bulgaria. Best DX on 6m FT8 RX so far is EB8AC (2989km).

UPDATE  1755z: Too many 6m FT8 RX Es spots today. The logbook is filled with EU stations and Canary Is. spots.

UPDATE 2147z: QRT.

4m (70MHz) band

More and more countries are getting access to the 4m band.  The latest seems to be Israel that has been given access this summer on a temporary basis. I keep saying that I should try the band - maybe next year?

Although I have been on the band briefly with a very unsuitable antenna and homebrew transverter and working over 200km with about 1W CW, this was many years ago.

Also, I remember working ZB2VHF with 4W of AM on 70.26MHz from university in the late 1960s. I don't recall the antenna, but it was not a beam I seem to remember.

See http://www.70mhz.org/

Transatlantic FM DX

Southgate News reports that Newfoundland Band II FM signals were copied in Northern Ireland.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2018/july/88-mhz-trans-atlantic-signals-heard-in-ireland.htm#.W0Zy8fZFzIU

Sunspots - Thursday July 12th 2018

Solar flux is 73 today with the SSN still zero. A=8 and K=1.

Trump balloon - NOT amateur radio

President Trump is visiting the UK and many here do not want him. Apparently there is a balloon of him in a nappy (diaper blimp flying over London). He has already managed to upset the German chancellor by his remarks.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-44798408/donald-trump-baby-blimp-ready-to-take-first-steps

Echolink

For the first time in about 6 years, I had a couple of QSOs via distant repeaters using Echolink on the PC. It was so long since I used the system that both my email had lapsed and I had forgotten my password! I had to send a copy of my licence to get re-validated.

This morning I was listening to a repeater QSO in Christchurch, New Zealand and this afternoon I had a QSO with a hand-portable via a repeater near London and then a QSO via a repeater in northern Hungary with HA9OX. Quite fun.

The overall impression was repeater activity around the world is low: I had to work quite hard to find anyone to talk with. Maybe I should try Zello or IRN? Activity levels in the USA surprised me. I thought it would be quite easy to find activity in the local mornings on the urban repeaters over there, but all were quiet.

Now I know it works I can try again.

Double-yoker - NOT amateur radio

We have bought free range eggs for years, but today we saw our first double-yoker in ages when we had gammon and eggs for lunch.

6m FT8

Already plenty of Es on 6m. I am on 50.313 FT8, mostly RX. DX from Scotland, Italy, Hungary and Romania so far on 6m FT8 RX. A brief TX period (calling an HA) resulted in spots by S52D (1234km) 22 minutes ago. As usual, I am running 2.5W to my V2000 omni vertical antenna. ERP is probably about 1W as the CB coax feeding it is lossy.

UPDATE 1047z: So far today, 18 different stations in 5 countries spotted on 6m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 1505z: Now 23 different stations in 5 countries on 6m FT8 RX. Es seems to have "gone off the boil".

UPDATE 2046z: At the end of the day, 24 stations in 8 countries on 6m FT8 RX. After a promising start, disappointment. Time to go QRT.