Sunspots - Tuesday January 5th 2021

 Solar flux is 78 and the SSN 0.  A=3 and K=1. 

2m FT8 QRP (Monday)

At about 1940z, I QSYed to 2m FT8 QRP with 2.5W and the big-wheel omni antenna. 

I was briefly on TX and was spotted by just 1 station G0LRD (26km) and I have spotted a couple of G stations. 

At the moment I am RX only as I need to go on 2m FM TX with the other radio for the East Cambs Net on 144.575MHz.

Chickens - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows 2 of our grandchildren with the chickens they look after. It was a Facebook memory today. 

These grandchildren are far older these days! This must have been several years ago.

Christmas over - NOT amateur radio

Just now we put away all the Christmas decorations, cards and the Christmas tree. Everywhere looks bare. Monday is our usual housework day, so today, rather than January 6th, made more sense.

This Christmas was odd and it did not feel like Christmas. We all hope Christmas 2021 will be much better.

20m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop

At about 0905z, I went on 20m FT8 RX. Immediately, stations were spotted.  At 0940z 76 stations already spotted.

UPDATE 1219z:  176 stations spotted with WW1WW (5237km) the first North American spotted at 1123z.

UPDATE 1402z:  287 stations spotted with 11 North American stations spotted so far. 

UPDATE 1528z:  356 stations in 5 continents so far spotted today. The furthermost spotted is PY2LCD (9686km) in Brazil.

Heathkits

Back in my early teenage years I was given a Heathkit electronics workshop for Christmas 1961. This was earth shattering and started me in the radio hobby and radio career in later life. The online Heathkit Virtual Museum seems to have closed, but the pages were archived and can still be seen.

Heathkits were famous for their excellent building instructions and quality. They tried to make a comeback in recent years, but what was on offer was not that impressive.

See https://web.archive.org/web/20190206173903/http://www.heathkit-museum.com/hvmhstory.shtml

Radio (and other) magazines online

Long gone companies
and rigs!

There is a wonderful resource online if you are after old publications. Some may have been withdrawn following protests by publishers.

See https://worldradiohistory.com/

As an example, see https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/Ham-Radio-Today/80s/HRT-1988-11.pdf

Many of the companies advertising, and rigs, have long gone. In the future, I can see many other companies going out of business.

HF-125 RX

Do you remember this receiver by Lowe Electronics? 

Until I saw an old advert recently I had forgotten that I once owned one. This must have been a long time ago. As I recall, it was a good receiver, but the casework was a bit basic. I cannot recall selling it. As I remember, it was used for CW DX on 160m and some very impressive DX was copied.

There were later versions such as the HF-225.

Sunspots - Monday January 4th 2021

 Solar flux is 80 and the SSN 0.  A=2 and K=0.

Day confusion - NOT amateur radio

Yet again I am confused! 

Today is Sunday, not Monday. Adding to the confusion, our bin collection was yesterday, 2 days later because of the Bank Holidays. Maybe next week I shall get back in to sync again.  😆