6m FT8 overnight and Friday

In the hope that there might be an opening "across the pond" I was on 6m FT8 overnight. Although there is early Es on 6m here (even at 0530z), no transatlantic signals were spotted overnight sadly. I had a funny feeling about last night, but I was wrong!

UPDATE 0740z: There must be far more people receiving 6m FT8 than transmitting. My own signal has been spotted by 23 stations yet I have only spotted 7. This is despite me only using 10W to the V2000 omni vertical antenna!

UPDATE 1200z: With 51 stations spotting me, today has been a decent day so far on 6m Es. At the moment the Es seems to be favouring northern Europe.

Sunspots - Friday May 15th 2020

Solar flux is 68 and the SSN 0. A=3 and K=1.

Another rally cancelled

Earlier I had confirmation that the Dunstable Downs National Amateur Radio Car Boot Sale has been cancelled. With everything being so odd at the moment I doubt anyone is surprised!

Iris - NOT amateur radio

On our walk earlier we saw these iris. They bring joy to all of us.

They were beside Burwell Lode. There were two clumps about 100m apart.

News - NOT amateur radio

In recent weeks every time you turn on the news it seems like there is only Covid-19 and nothing else. Yes, we all know that this is important, but knife crime, BREXIT and everything else seem to have disappeared! It is worth remembering that news is the stuff they want us to know about. Often lost are good news stories. Sensational stories sell papers and make people watch certain channels. Cynical, me?

More on 8m (40MHz)

Southgate News has a bit more on the Irish 8m beacon. In the article it says there are only 2 beacons operational. I thought this made 3 adding to the ones in England and Denmark. I have since found out that the UK beacon is not operational.

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2020/may/additional-information-on-the-new-40-mhz-beacon-in-ireland.htm#.Xr0ITmjYq00

Certainly, there has been at least 1 cross-band QSO 8m-6m between EI and OE. This looks a bit like the early days on 6m.

I do hope 8m becomes more widely available. It is ideal for Es and MS research. Maybe a few more should apply for special access even on spot frequencies and with power limits on a non-interference basis? This may be the first baby steps we have to take? There has been at least one 8m QSO between EI and LY with the LY getting special permission.

A very good resource seems to be John EI7GL's blog at  https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/p/40-mhz.html.

6m FT8 again

At 0825z, I again switched on my 6m FT8 gear. As usual, 10W to the V2000 omni vertical. Just 4 G spots so far with no evidence here of Es at this time. Best DX spot so far was by M0DEP (224km).  On 6m FT8 RX just M6KOG (48km) spotted so far.

UPDATE 0857z: Best spot of me is by G4AMT (485km) on the tip of Cornwall. 7 spots of me so far today.

UPDATE 1512z:  49 spots of my 10W 6m FT8 so far today. Es seems to be favouring Scandinavia so far.

UPDATE 1850z: Now spotted by 57 stations today so far. Best DX spot was by an EA8.

UPDATE 2015z:  76 spots of my 10W 6m FT8 TX today.  Every time I get my CQs answered my WSJT-X goes to RX only until I turn on "enable TX" again. Still nothing from "across the pond". More stations are spotting me than I am spotting. As most stations will be using quite a lot more ERP than me (more power, gainy yagis) I find this surprising. My 6m noise floor is low.

Sunspots - Thursday May 14th 2020

Solar flux is 69 and the SSN 0. A=4 and K =1.

ICOM IC-705 delayed?

OH8STN reports that the long awaited ICOM IC-705 SDR QRP transceiver has been delayed. Apparently he saw this in a post by ICOM.

Reach Port - NOT amateur radio

Most lockdown days we try to do a local walk. Today it was around sleepy Reach. The port here was made by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago (see photo).

These days Reach Lode is used mostly by pleasure boats and fishermen. As far as I know, their is no commercial traffic.