Typical Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

This is a typical Cambridge scene. In the foreground are bikes and the university church, Great St Mary's. In the background is the Senate House, famous for degree ceremonies. The world famous King's College Chapel is about 200m from here.

Because of the corona virus scare, there are far fewer far eastern visitors in the city. I guess this is to be expected.

Solar forecast update

We are rapidly coming to the end of winter. Very early in each month my favourite solar forecast is updated. This is usually done on the first or second day of the month.

Up to now they have put the solar minimum as happening last summer. I hope they are still right. One of the indicators is polarity changes. This can also help us in the forecast of the size of the next peak.

At the moment the "experts" are expecting the next peak to be of a similar size to the last one in cycle 24. Some were predicting a Maunder Minimum with years of no sunspots, but this now seems unlikely.

Chinese poet - NOT amateur radio

In the grounds of King's College, Cambridge is a memorial garden and statue created in 2018 to remember the Chinese poet Xu Zhimo who was a college member about 100 years ago.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Zhimo

Sunspots - Saturday February 29th 2020

Solar flux is 71 and the SSN 0. A=6 and K=2. Not much sign of an upturn yet!

King's College lawns - NOT amateur radio

The lawns at King's College, Cambridge are immaculate. They have plenty of money and plenty of groundsmen.  Probably they spend thousands on their lawns every year.

By comparison, mine look dreadful! Mind you, I spend perhaps £25 a year and there is only one part-time groundsman - me! If the weather is decent, I might cut the lawns here next week as I think it unlikely I can expect the King's College groundsmen to venture out here!

Spring - NOT amateur radio

On Sunday, we start meteorological spring. Not before time as we have had a dreadful February with lots of wind and rain.

This part of the UK has escaped lightly, but some parts have had heavy snow and others bad floods. It has been mild with few frosts here, but much wetter than when I first came to this area. Spring flowers are now appearing and not soon enough.

CLM? - NOT amateur radio

Whilst posting to my blog, I noticed an advert saying proudly, "what to expect from your CLM".

Now, having been retired for nearly 12 years, it is entirely possible that I am totally out of touch with these acronyms.

Apparently it stands for Customer Lifestyle Manager. Sounds like another way of wasting money! Who thinks of these?

Upturn in solar conditions - when?

So far, February has been a big disappointment. Sunspots have been virtually absent and if anything things are certainly no better than last month. If we are to confirm that we have passed the solar minimum, I would expect a few more sunspots and a slow climb in solar flux. Based on the last few weeks, I see neither. It is wrong to expect big changes until next year, but I was expecting hopeful signs.

17m FT8

Today I am on 17m FT8 with the tiny indoor loop antenna. 27 spots on RX and plenty of stations spotting my 10W TX.

UPDATE 1110z:  11 spots of my 10W so far today with the tiny indoor loop antenna.

People that have spotted 
my 10W on 17m FT8 TX today 
with the tiny indoor loop antenna

UPDATE 1345z:  13 spots of my signal and 1 QSO so far today.  On 17m FT8 RX 98 stations spotted so far. 5 continents spotted so far on 17m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop today.

UPDATE 1806z: With 20 stations spotting me with the best DX being N4PYI (4171 miles) today has been good. I shall be going QRT shortly.

UPDATE 1912z: Now QRT on all bands.

Sword fighting - NOT amateur radio

During half term holiday we visited the Oliver Cromwell house in Ely with some of our grandchildren. Here they were sword fighting.