All the grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

A photo showing all of our grandchildren.

Well nearly - NOT amateur radio

Halloween is next week when our grandchildren are back at school. So, tomorrow we are having an early Halloween party. Our granddaughter decided to try her hat today!

Solar cycle 25 start

"While smaller spots with the correct polarity alignment of cycle 25 regions have been observed at high latitude locations as early as 2016, this overview will only include spots large enough to have been visible at a 1K resolution. In the case of reversed polarity cycle 24 regions, those that are not at a sufficiently high latitude (ie. 30 degrees or more), are considered most likely to belong to cycle 24 and will not be included in this list until closer to the actual solar cycle minimum (likely to be sometime between August 2018 and February 2019)."

Notice the last few words. This was copied from http://www.solen.info/solar/cycle25_spots.html .

Bury St Edmunds earlier - NOT amateur radio

Earlier today, we went to Bury St Edmunds with 2 of our grandchildren. It was market day. Bury St Edmunds still has a very old fashioned East Anglian feel. Unlike Cambridge it is not filled with Far Eastern visitors with their selfie sticks. It feels "authentic".

The photo shows my wife with 2 of our 4 grandchildren.

Overnight on 472kHz WSPR

Last night was average. Although I spotted my best DX of the season on 472kHz WSPR RX , my own 10mW ERP was only spotted by 7 UK stations.

472kHz WSPR RX last night

472kHz WSPR TX last night

10m FT8 today

Although I was out for several hours I left the RX running on 10m FT8 RX. There were quite a few spots from Europe today, although nothing further spotted so far.

UPDATE 1635z: No spots outside Europe today on 10m FT8 RX. 15 spots today, so far. Plan to stay on 10m for a few more hours then try MF WSPR.

UPDATE 1555z: A single spot from the Canary Is now.

UPDATE 1812z: The first South Americans came through at 1652z on 10m FT8 RX today.

Sunspots - Wednesday October 24th 2018

Solar flux is 70 and the SSN is zero. A=4 and K=0.

Cactus Day - NOT amateur radio

No, we'd not heard of this either! It was an invention of our granddaughter. To celebrate this day, we will celebrate Oct 22nd as Cactus Day every year from now on.

The photo show the cake that our grandson iced.

Why cactus? Absolutely no idea! 😀

QSYed to 472kHz WSPR

As 10m DX seems to have stopped, I have again QSYed to 472kHz WSPR. As usual, my 10mW ERP is set at 20% TX so I am on RX 4 times out of 5. This means I transmit about once every 10 minutes. I shall be on overnight. With increasing noise floors it is getting harder to spot weak signals, so if you spot me you are doing well. Best of luck!

UPDATE 2050z:  Not a bad start this evening with 8 spots on RX with best DX IW4DXW (1190km). On TX, 6 spots of my 10mW ERP so far tonight, all in England

Blood test - NOT amateur radio

About 10 days ago I had a blood test. Today, I rang to get the results. "No further actions required". Although I had no symptoms, this was good news. As you get older, one wonders if something lurking will be found.