Sunspots - Wednesday February 12th 2020

Solar flux is 71 and the SSN 0.  A=5 and K=1.

70cm activity contest

Starting at 2000z is the RSGB organised activity contest on 70cm (UKAC). As my voice is poor, I use 10W and I have no suitable antennas (I use my 2m big-wheel omni) my time is usually well below an hour. Activity levels are far better than normal on 70cm SSB and there is no compulsion to submit a log. I usually do even though I rarely work a great many stations.

Overall, it is fun. To me, this is how contests should be.  Scoring is simple and there are multipliers for new grid squares.

UPDATE 2115z: Despite my QRP and 2m omni antenna, I managed 7 QSOs in this contest. No great DX worked, but great fun for about 40 minutes.

70cm SSB stations worked this evening

Fewer Far East visitors? - NOT amateur radio

Trinity College, Cambridge

At any time of the year, Cambridge has plenty of visitors from overseas. They come to see the historic college buildings, some of which date back centuries. It is all too easy to take them for granted. This year there are fewer Far East visitors, for obvious reasons. I suspect this year we will see a big hit in visitor numbers from the Far East.

160m FT8 RX

Using my earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground I have QSYed to 160m FT8 RX. So far, 65 stations have been spotted. Best DX on 160m FT8 RX so far is R6FFB (3236km).

UPDATE  2137z: Been back on 160m FT8 RX for about 30 minutes. 188 stations spotted this evening so far. No North Americans yet.

17m FT8 RX today

As today is my course in Cambridge I decided to leave my tiny indoor loop antenna monitoring 17m FT8. The map shows the stations spotted so far.

Sunspots - Tuesday February 11th 2020

Solar flux is 70 and the sunspot number 0. I think the more active side is facing away from us. A=5 and K=1.

472kHz WSPR RX overnight

As you may remember, the PA in my transverter has been damaged, so I am on 472kHz RX only. Last night was very disappointing with just LA8AV and F1AFJ spotted here.

160m FT8

Since my temporary repair to my earth-electrode "antenna" I have been on 160m FT8 RX. So far 139 stations spotted with best 160m FT8 RX DX being RC9F (3515km) in Perm.

UPDATE 2200z: Earlier I tried looking on 1907kHz for Japanese stations, but none spotted. Now back on 1840kHz FT8. An earlier FT8 CQ (10W) was spotted across western Europe.

UPDATE 2226z: The first North American spotted was K1UO (4973km). 320 stations spotted so far this evening.

160m FT8 RX spots here this evening so far

Visit

This morning I had a visit from Chris M0PZC, who came to see my antennas and tap me for some information. Me?  The advice I could give him was limited, but probably holds good for many:

• Be prepared to fiddle to see what works for you.
• Don't believe the experts all the time. If you want the very best performance towers, beams and high power could help, but for much of the time compromises will do just fine.
• If wider bandwidths like SSB don't work for you because of local manmade noise use narrower bandwidth modes like FT8.
• On HF bands and 6m (probably 2m too) loft-space antennas and a few radials can work well. Get as much vertical wire up (a quarter wave electrically) as you can and coil this up to make a helical quarter wave if need be. Cut the length to get lowest SWR. Here I am thinking of loft antennas, but the same advice applies outside too.
• On 6m and 2m FT8 aircraft scatter, polarisation does not seem to matter.
• On 10m and 6m sporadic-E (Es) a few watts of SSB to almost any antenna (even a wire dipole indoors) will allow you to have European contacts.  Es is best May, June and July in the UK.
• On HF, I have rarely found polarisation matters.
• Go portable if all else fails.

On 160m SSB my noise level is S9, but with FT8 I have no issues at all on RX or TX.

My overall message is just have fun! Find out what is best for you by playing around. Amateur radio means different things to different people - just enjoy what gives you pleasure.

Snap!

Yesterday I reported that my earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground suddenly stopped working. An inspection this morning revealed the issue: my wire had snapped.

I did an emergency repair and the SWR on 160m was back to normal. Sadly the output on 630m was still zero suggesting the output FET has been damaged. Until this can be repaired I shall have to restrict myself to RX only on this band.