Societal changes - NOT amateur radio

The recent Covid-19 outbreak has brought out the best and the worst in people. Overall, when this is behind us (whenever this is!) I hope we are all kinder to each other.

Certainly we have had a couple of offers of help already. In difficult times people are coming up trumps.

20m FT8 (again!)

As usual, I have gone on 20m FT8 again with the tiny indoor loop and 10W. At 1545z 34 reports of my 10W, all from Europe with best DX being a spot be OH60KSA (1862km). I guess this must be a special prefix. No QSOs yet, but I was late getting on today. Nothing from the USA yet today.

UPDATE 1734z: Now 63 stations spotting me with best DX a spot by OH6GZD (1998km).today

UPDATE 1950z:  67 stations have spotted my 10W 20m FT8 today so far.

Where I come from in South Devon - NOT amateur radio

This is where I come from in South Devon.

Village tragedy - NOT amateur radio

Almost 300 years ago there was a tragedy in our village. A puppet show was being put on in a barn. Someone locked the door. There was a fire and 78 people were killed. At the time, when the village population must have been much smaller, this must have been a real tragedy. The dead are commemorated in our churchyard.

Sunspots - Tuesday March 17th 2020

Solar flux is 70 and the SSN 0. A=7 and K=1.

Adverts I HATE - NOT amateur radio

If there is one sort of advert I absolutely hate it is one like this designed to whet our curiosity with words like:

"Seniors born before 1969 are snapping up this new benefit" 

In my view this is click bate. Without clicking, we feel we might just be missing out, so many will click.

20m FT8 with the tiny (45cm diameter) indoor loop

After sorting out the WSJT-X issue, 35 stations have spotted me so far. Best DX was a spot by N4DJT (4213 miles). 312 stations spotted on 20m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 1424z: 451 stations have now spotted my 10W with UA9MA (4630km) being the furthermost to the east. On 20m FT8 RX 420 stations spotted so far.

Stations spotting my 10W FT8
to the tiny loop on 20m today

UPDATE 1904z: Now 103 stations in 4 continents have spotted my 10W today. See map to see who spotted me. On 20m FT8 RX 701 stations have been spotted on FT8 today.

WSJT-X issue

Just now I switched from 2m FT8 to 20m FT8. I was very puzzled that none of my spots were appearing on PSKreporter. I checked on the "all bands" tab and they were there!  For some reason PSKreporter was reporting me as still being on 2m!

After a restart, all was well with plenty of 20m RX and TX spots.

It seems that if you change bands you have to restart the programme or even restart the PC.

If you see rare DX stations reported on 2m, blame me!

Rally cancellations and postponements

Understandably in the current situation quite a few rallies are being cancelled or postponed until later in the year. 

See https://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/ for the very latest news.

Oscar 100 QRPP experiment with FT8

Southgate News reports on a QRPP FT8 experiment from Brazil on the geosynchronous Oscar 100 satellite. The aim is to get people experimenting with real QRP via the satellite.

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2020/march/amsat-brazil-qo-100-experiment.htm#.Xm9HIMiTK00