10m FT8 after breakfast

After breakfast I hope to go on 10m FT8 with the tiny indoor loop antenna and 2.5W. The last few days have been disappointing.

UPDATE 1337z:  Just M1BXF (Gavin, local) spotting me so far. Everything turned on at 0844z. No spots of others yet.

UPDATE 1728z:  Just 2 spots of me today - worse even than yesterday - and these were local and fairly local Gs!  No Es here today. So far, just 2 Gs spotted here with best DX G6ZYF (70km).

UPDATE 1948z:  3 spots of me today, all Gs. On RX 3 stations spotted. No Es here today.

Optical illusion - NOT amateur radio

This puzzled me! It looks like a spiral, but isn't! I first saw this on a Facebook post some years ago.

SPAM comments removed NOT amateur radio

It would seem someone has been putting adverts as comments on my blogs. As soon as spotted these are marked as spam and deleted.

Thursday walk - NOT amateur radio

In the warm April sunshine we did a nice walk as shown in the photo.

Sunspots - Friday April 19th 2020

Solar flux is 69 and the SSN 0. A=5 and K=1.

Another rally postponed

I have been informed of another rally that has been postponed.

Again, if the background is white and the text hard to see on some screens, I apologise, but this is how I received this. Basically the Kempton rally has been postponed until  November.

Sunday 19 APRIL : POSTPONED until 15 NOVEMBER

WEST LONDON RADIO & ELECTRONICS SHOW (Kempton Rally) Kempton Park Racecourse, Staines Road East, Sunbury on Thames, TW16 5AQ. A talk-in station will be on air. Car parking is free and doors open at 10am with disabled visitors gaining access 10 minutes earlier. There will be trade stands and a Bring & Buy as well as special interest groups and lectures. Catering is available on site. More details from Paul, M0CJX on 08451 650 351, info@radiofairs.co.uk www.radiofairs.co.uk.

A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

GB3PX 6m repeater

I am not a great repeater user.

Last night, on the CDARC net, someone mentioned the 6m FM repeater GB3PX at Barkway, near Cambridge.

Today, I gave it a try. It is on 50.780MHz with a 500kHz shift and 77Hz tone access.  After a few false starts when I found out how to select the right repeater shift, I managed to access it. It was very quiet. I called several times but no-one was on.

Later, I may see which other 6m repeaters I can access. Somewhere I shall have to find a list with tone access frequencies.

UPDATE 1925z: Although I can access GB3PX very well, every time I called no-one responded. I can just (sometimes) access the Bury-St-Edmunds 6m repeater as well, but no others. A useful resource for a list of 6m repeaters in the UK is https://www.ukrepeater.net/repeaterlist1.htm?filter1=6M

10m FT8 hoping for better luck!

A few moments ago I turned on the 2.5W 10m FT8 to the tiny indoor loop. So far just spot by local G4KPX (14km), although I am hoping for better results than yesterday when I only got spots from 3 locals on 10m FT8 and no QSOs.  There was one Spanish station yesterday that did not appear on PSKreporter for some reason.

UPDATE 1928z: Now QRT. Only spots from locals here and no Es noticed here. If anything, today was worse than yesterday!

Walk - NOT amateur radio

We have just got back from our walk. The photo shows the beauty in ordinary things when we look.

Sunspots - Thursday April 17th 2020

Solar flux is just 68 and the SSN 0. A=7 and K=2.

I thought this was on hours ago!