Low thunder risk here

At the moment the Met Office weather forecast is showing no thunderstorms hereabouts today. I shall probably reconnect my shack PC and antennas shortly.

See https://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortung/europe/index.php?lang=en

Sunspots - Tuesday July 30th 2019

Solar flux is 65 and the SSN 0. A=4 and K=1. Still bad - I suspect this is very close to sunspot minimum.

Hackers? - NOT amateur radio

Periodically, visits to this site shoot up, then die down again. I am sure this is not a sudden interest in amateur radio. More likely it is hackers doing their regular probing. As I have said before, I hope they go away.

6m FT8

So far today, 19 stations spotted on 6m FT8 RX. I have not yet been on TX.

UPDATE 1445z: 128 stations spotted so far in the last half day, all Europeans.

UPDATE 2042z: Still 128 stations spotted on 6m FT8 RX today. Soon be time to go QRT.

Sliding UK pound - NOT amateur radio

Perhaps it is not too surprising with a no-deal BREXIT possible with the Conservative right wing government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that the UK pound is sliding against major currencies.

In my view (others are free to disagree) we are being run by a bunch of total idiots. The sooner there is a General Election and a second referendum on leaving the EU the better.

Although I voted to remain in the EU in 2016, I can see a lot wrong with that institution. In my view, the EU needs reforming or it will fragment. The EU is doing itself no favours by carrying on as it does. This could turn even more people against the EU, which it can ill afford to do.

The UK has always (at least in my day) wanted free trade, but ultimate control of our laws and who lives and works here. Personally, I can see nothing wrong with that. No-one wants a hard border in Ireland, ever. We have never sought political union. Yes, we should come together for defence and good trade deals.

In my view, the EU needs to be more flexible. Sour grapes?

Coming back from York on the train - NOT amateur radio

On Saturday we returned from York by train. It was cheaper to come back first class than second! On LNER we had nice seats, free food and free drinks.

Amateur satellites

In all my time in amateur radio I have only had 1 QSO through a satellite and that was many years ago from 10m to 15m. I have rarely used low orbit satellites. In my early days I had fun listening to the download frequencies of Oscar 6 and 7. I recall hearing North Americans on 2m on late passes.

Sunspots - Monday July 29th 2019

Solar flux is 65 and the SSN 0.  A=4 and K=2.  Basically rubbish.

6m propagation from Europe to Australia

When I first heard of this I was sceptical, but the more I read the more I think this is true.

Apparently several stations were worked, so this very unlikely to be pirates. This appears to be E layer propagation, but multi-hop Es seems to be very unlikely. I am sure some of these long "real DX" paths are not multi-hop Es. As this was at the same time as a 6m opening to Japan on 6m, there is some speculation that this is whatever E layer propagation gets to Japan plus some TEP.

See southgatearc.org/news/2019/july/unusual-opening-from-europe-to-australia-on-50-mhz.htm

See also https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2019/07/unusual-50-mhz-opening-from-australia.html

Oscar 100 - geosynchronous amateur satellite

As many will recall, I take the occasional peek at the Goonhilly web SDR, which monitors the narrowband transponder on Es'hail satellite, also known as Oscar 100.

In my view activity seems lower than a month ago. Certainly activity is not great and has definitely not increased as I once expected. Looking just now on a Saturday afternoon, the most I saw were 5 stations active on SSB at one time. By now I was quite expecting the main issue to be too many stations, possibly overloading the transponder.

It seems people have fun getting a signal through the satellite, then lose interest.

See https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/