Oscar 100 activity (or lack of it)

As regular blog readers may know, I take a very unscientific peek at the Goonhilly web SDR to judge activity on the narrowband transponder of this geosynchronous satellite. Activity levels remain low with plenty of space for new users. When I looked just now, there were only 2 QSOs going on! OK, some are at work, especially in Europe, but in many places people are not.

See https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/

Get together - NOT amateur radio

Yesterday my wife had a few friends around (socially distanced!) to help celebrate a couple of birthdays. Here they are by the windmill next door to us.

6m FT8

or about the last hour (it is now 1012z) I have been on 6m FT8. Nothing has been spotted on RX and on TX just 2 Gs have spotted me so far.

UPDATE 1055z:  2 Gs spotted on RX here and just 2 spots by Gs of my 10W to the V2000 vertical omni.  No Es seen.

UPDATE 1813z:  Just the 2 G spots of me today and just 7 Gs spotted on RX. No signs here of Es.

2012 shack

This photo appeared as a FB memory today and shows the shack at the old QTH in 2012. 

Sunspots (at last) - Thursday September 24th 2020

Solar flux is 73 and the SSN 13!! A=11 and K=4.

IC-705 in the UK?

Just wondering if anyone in the UK has received one yet?  ICOM UK were expecting them "mid September", but I have not heard of any with customers yet. I haven't ordered one as they often fix early life issues with hardware or firmware updates. It is also far too expensive. I can wait. Although I have a few videos on my site, new ones are appearing most days now.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/ic705

Rear garden - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows our rear garden on September 23rd. Most trees are still in leaf. Another month? 

Sometime in October we'll have a lot of dead leaves to collect. We had 2 trees pruned nearly 2 years ago. They need doing again.

TinySA

Thanks to Martin, G8JNJ, my attention has been brought to a small spectrum analyser that is well within amateur budgets. It also acts as a signal generator. Amazing. In Europe the TinySA may be obtained from  the Danish Amateur Shop.

See https://shop.edr.dk/vare/tinysa-spectrum-analyzer/

See https://www.tinysa.org/wiki/

6m FT8

Today, I decided to go on 6m FT8 (0830z). Already 1 station has spotted me - G0DYW (77km). So far, he is the only station spotted on 6m FT8 .

UPDATE 1257z:  6 stations have spotted my 10W to the V2000 vertical omni today so far. 4 stations spotted so far with the furthermost being F6HGB (985km).

UPDATE 1430z:  Now spotted by 7 stations with the best being DJ8RZ (881km) on TX and I have spotted 5 stations on RX.

UPDATE 1925z: 12 stations have spotted me with the furthermost being SM7CAD (1140km). Gone are the days of big Es openings for this year, but even with my small system there is still some occasional DX.

Covid-19 Joke - NOT amateur radio

 This was on Facebook earlier.