Ferrite rods as TX antennas

Something similar has been on before, but I make no apologies for this gentle reminder!

Ferrite rods will work on TX as long as the ferrite does not saturate and the material is fine for the intended frequency.

Low power usually means millwatts or low watts. Some years ago I gave it a try with a random ferrite rod (characteristics unknown) on WSPR with great success. To be honest, it was far better than I expected. I think of ferrites as distorting space with the effective size being proportional to the effective permeability of the ferrite.

I wonder what would happen on 7MHz FT8?

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/antennas/ferrite_tx
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_core

UPDATE 1344z: Well I had to try 40m FT8 with the ferrite rod on TX!! With no earths connected and no HF antennas here apart from the highly tuned 10m indoor loop, I have 8 spots already using the FT817ND at 2.5W. Best DX spot was  -7dB S/N from F5NK (936km). Highly impressed! This is the first time at this QTH with this antenna.

UPDATE 2003z:  12 spots of me today so far on 40m FT8 with just the tiny ferrite antenna. I guess the biggest problem is being buried by bigger stations on the same frequency without realising.

Gilbert and Sullivan - NOT amateur radio

Every year a nearby village does a G&S production and we usually go. This year they cannot sadly. The photo shows the production some years ago of the "Pirates of Penzance".

Museum visit (2017) - NOT amateur radio

Most weeks in the summer months our local museum next door gets school visits.

At the moment these are not possible. Hopefully they can happen next year. The photo shows one such visit in 2017.

Another shack view

The photo was taken yesterday and shows the operating position in the shack. The tiny WSPR beacon is on a lower shelf and probably not clear.

Sunspots - Tuesday June 16th 2020

Solar flux is 70 and the SSN 11. A=4 and K=1. The sunspot number is still not zero, which may be a good sign.

10m WSPR TX (500mW to the tiny indoor loop antenna)

At about 1300z the 10m WSPR beacon was turned on.  No spots yet.

UPDATE 1630z:  No spots.

UPDATE 1802z:   Spotted in Italy and Switzerland.

UPDATE 2020z:   QRT. In all, 4 unique stations have spotted  me.

Recent lockdown walk - NOT amateur radio

On Friday we did a nice walk around the village of Reach. The photo shows what we saw.

Hepburn tropo forecasts

This is a resource that I rarely use, but it looks useful for looking ahead at VHF tropo conditions.

See http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo_eur.html

Online 2m FT8 screen-grab

A station near Cambridge, G0LRD, has a very useful screen-grab of 2m FT8 activity as seen at his QTH. I find it useful to check my signal is clean and as expected. He gets me strongly. He seems to see very similar stations to me.

I still find 2m FT8 amazing. My low ERP signal seems to get spotted far and wide irrespective of conditions. I am convinced these are not aircraft reflections as these sort of ranges seem possible at any time even with low ERP. It is so easy that I hardly bother these days.

Soon, I think I should try harder on 70cm FT8 to see what is possible.

See http://82.71.9.63:8080/cap/

What is this? - NOT amateur radio

On our walk yesterday we saw this plant. It looks like a dandelion but is about twice as big.  Any help greatly appreciated.