Sunspots - Friday January 31st 2020

Solar flux is 74 and the SSN 11.  A=12 and K=2.

At the moment, it looks like we have just passed the solar minimum, although we will need several more months to be sure. It will be interesting to see what my favourite solar website has to say in a few days time.

Return to 160m FT8

Crowded 160m FT8!

Trying to find a space to call CQ on 160m FT8 with the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground this evening was hard even though most FT8 signals are just 50Hz wide. I have never, ever, seen it so busy (see first photo).

My 10W FT8 CQ resulted in no QSOs, but was spotted by 21 stations throughout western Europe (see second photo).

Spots of my 10W FT8 160m CQ just now

Best DX on 160m FT8 RX so far is RV0AR (5577km).

UPDATE 2210z: The first North American spotted was WU1ITU (4862km) at 2142z.

481THz beacon

It is some years since I designed my optical gear. This is a photo of my beacon TX which was copied well over the horizon.

Other bands with the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground

Just for fun yesterday, I tried (not very hard) to use my earth-electrode "antenna" on 40m and 30m FT8. Using the auto-ATU in the FT991A I tried to get a good match. On both 40m and 30m the SWR was too high, so it failed to even try! On 40m FT8 RX it was still seeing plenty of spots even so.

At some point I must try the unun in my x80 to load up the coax to my big-wheel antenna. With the auto ATU in the FT991A it may match on some bands.

G3TFX yesterday

Richard lives in the same village and often pops in.

Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

My wife made this collage yesterday when she went to her U3AC course in the city. It is beautiful and all too easy to take it for granted. The bikes in the bottom photo are typical of Cambridge.

160m FT8 overnight

Overnight I returned to 160m FT8 RX with the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground. It was an average session with just under 600 stations spotted with just 5 North Americans, 1 Caribbean and no South Americans.  Best DX spotted was KV4FZ (6762km).

Stations spotted overnight on 160m FT8 RX

Sunspots - Thursday January 30th 2020

Solar flux is 74 and the SSN 11. A=9 and K=2.

Wayback machine - old internet sites

It is possible to find many old websites from the past that are old and long gone by looking on the Wayback Machine that archives and takes a snapshot of many closed websites. For example, today I viewed one of my websites created 23 years ago (www.lapr.demon.co.uk). I think my first ever website was created in 1994 using Compuserve. I shall have to see if I can find it!

A tip: keep a record of the URL of your old websites. Many of my old ones I can't remember, so I cannot do a search!

Crystal sets

It is some years now since I last played with crystal sets. If you have never tried these I urge you to have a go. These are powered entirely by the received signals, so no batteries or power source of any kind is needed.

Being envelope detectors, they are only really suitable for AM, although I have detected SSB and CW signals on mine in the past. There are even designs for band 2 FM using high-Q circuits and slope detection!

In the past, I have copied all over the world on a short wave crystal set. These were genuine receptions from the originating countries and not from relays nearer home. I have copied several amateur signals on 160 and 80m too.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/crystalset

See also https://crystalradio.net/crystalplans/index.shtml