Sunspots - Thursday February 27th 2020

Solar flux is 70 and the SSN 0. A=4 and K=1.

ICOM IC-705

This QRP radio is still not available. Many think it will be first released in the USA in May at Dayton, although I would expect it to be released in Japan first. As reported on Tuesday, the Chinese Q900 is clearly designed as competition at about a third of the price.   Chinese quality control still bothers me though.

The IC-705 will clearly be market priced so they maximise profits for ICOM and their dealers. This basically means inflate the price as much as the punters will pay. Only drop the price if demand falls.

Elecraft

Elecraft K4 transceiver

Elecraft make some fine products, although they tend to be a bit expensive here in the UK. In the past, I have owned a K1 4-band CW transceiver and a T1 ATU. Their latest newsletter highlights the K4, which is Elecraft's new SDR transceiver. Sadly, this will be too expensive to buy for me, much as I would love one.

See https://elecraft.com/

Beofeng portables

These seem to be "iffy".

They are very low cost, but the quality control seems poor. Some work well, whereas others may be very deaf. It seems to me like the Chinese are still on a learning curve.

At the moment I am not inclined to spend much money on Chinese amateur radio gear. They can do it - see for example of the Apple iPad.

20m FT8 with the tiny indoor loop

A few moments ago I QSYed from 17m FT8 to 20m FT8. Although no-one has spotted my 2.5W yet, it is working on RX with 21 stations spotted so far with AB1EP (4941km) as best DX spotted here so far on 20m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 1514z: With 2.5W and the tiny loop indoors the best DX is ES5RY (1791km). SWR is 1:1.  On 20m FT8 RX 68 stations spotted so far today.

UPDATE 1529z: Changed rigs so now running 6dB more on 20m FT8 TX.

Stations spotted to about
1545z today on 20m FT8 RX

UPDATE 1610z:  Now 97 stations spotted on 20m FT8 RX with best DX spotted K6OK (8413km). It really annoys me that the FCC has really messed up USA calls! At one time K6 would have been somewhere like California. Now K6 can be anywhere. It happens to be California in this case.

UPDATE 1627z:  IU6JJE (1570km) was spotting me strongly. Even with my 10W to the tiny indoor loop he was copying me at -9dB S/N on 20m FT8 TX!  On 20m FT8 RX, 106 stations spotted so far.

20m FT8 TX (10
or less) today

UPDATE 1816z:  8 spots of my 10W 20m FT8 so far today. On 20m FT8 RX 139 spots so far.

UPDATE 1900z: After a QSO on 20m FT8 with an EA5, I have now gone QRT on all bands.

365project - NOT amateur radio

Firstly, to avoid all confusion, this nothing at all to do with Microsoft Word 365! If you want, it can be totally free. For not much you can have total privacy and multiple albums.

For many years my wife and I have sent a picture a day to 365project.org. I think we both started in 2013. Some use this as a way of posting wonderful photographic creations. Others, like my wife and I, just use it as a visual diary. We would win no prizes!

If you have grandchildren, it is good to look back every day and see how they have developed. When we have visitors we can say exactly when they last came! You can look back each month right back to when you started.

You can also, if you want, look at other people's photos. No great photographic masterpieces are needed. Photos can be uploaded by email if you want. Altogether great fun. My user name is g3xbm and my wife foxes37.

The photo shows the snapshots for August 2019. Clicking the individual photos on 365project brings up the full sized images.

See https://365project.org/

481THz

This popped up as a Facebook memory from 2012. It shows G4HJW's optical signal received on my kit "over the horizon". There was no signal visible. This encouraged me to carry out my own experiments.

17m FT8

Last night I decided not to go on any band although this morning I am on 17m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop antenna.

UPDATE 1032z: 21 stations spotted so far today on 17m FT8 RX. Best DX spotted here so far is 9K2HN (4632km).

17m FT8 RX spots to 1300z today

UPDATE 1300z: Now 40 stations spotted today on 17m FT8 RX with best DX spotted being HS5XWY (9469km).

UPDATE 1327z: I have just decided to try 17m FT8 TX (2.5W) with the tiny indoor loop antenna. Already I have been spotted well in the Canary Islands by EA8BEV (3126km).

Cambridge bookshops - NOT amateur radio

When I first came to Cambridge about 50 years ago, there were far more bookshops than now. The biggest was Heffers with several shops scattered across the town. Heffers is now owned by Blackwells of Oxford I think.

I guess many people buy their books on the internet instead (in the main, I do), although browsing through books is still a pleasure. In 20 years' time what will we do?

There are still a few independent second-hand bookshops around. One of these is David's shown in the photo. This has remained much the same over 50 years.

Sunspots - Wednesday February 26th 2020

Solar flux is 71 and the sunspot number 0. A=3 and K=1.