Cavenham Heath - NOT amateur radio

Cavenham Heath is about 15 miles from here. It is a national nature reserve and a great place to see rare stone curlews. We saw 12 but they were about 400m away. The heather will be at its best in about 2 weeks. There were damselflies (see photo) everywhere.

Rye - NOT amateur radio

In 2012 we went to Rye in Sussex. It's a delightful place with old houses and cobbled streets. We were fitter then!

10m WSPR

Since just before lunch I have been on 10m WSPR TX with the 500mW TX beacon. As yet (1342z) no spots so far.

6m FT8

Just before lunch my 10W and V2000 sending and receiving 6m FT8 were turned on. It is now 1326z. So far, 2 stations have spotted me today and I have spotted 6.

UPDATE 1500z:  7 stations have spotted me and I have spotted 14.

Reach Village - NOT amateur radio

Reach, shown in the photo, is a sleepy village some 9 miles from Cambridge. We like walking around here. In Roman times it was an important port. It is at the northern end of a defensive earthwork.

Sunspots - Sunday August 9th 2020

Solar flux is 75 and the SSN 11. A=5 and K=0.

My antennas

For 6m, 2m and 70cm vertical I use a "white stick" vertical omni called the V2000. I have probably has this for at least 15 years! It is fed with low cost, CB, 50 ohm coax. On 70cm I could gain several dB if I replaced this with half decent coax. On 2m and 70cm SSB and FT8 I normally use the 2m big-wheel omni.

On the photo, the V2000 is on the left. The big-wheel is above my head and slightly right.

Not shown are the 10m loop (in the shack) and the earth-electrode "antenna" which gives me very good results on 630m WSPR. Norway is reached most nights despite the 10mW ERP on 630m.

Different PC

Since just before lunch I swapped the shack pc to a different one. It seems to be working fine on 10m FT8.

Perseids meteor shower

Many people like to make VHF contacts in meteor showers. Modes like FT4 and FT8 should be particularly effective I think. Signals are often strong, but short lived.

I see Southgate News has a link about this.

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2020/august/perseid-meteor-alert.htm#.Xy570jfYq00

New blog editing interface - TOTALLY CRAP!!!! - NOT amateur radio

In the end I had to revert to the old interface to edit this blog as the new interface is unusable!

Like Bas yesterday, I have sent them my feedback. If you have a blogger.com blog please send them your feedback too. The more people the better.

The old interface is fine, whereas the new is painfully slow.