Rant time - NOT amateur radio

Have you noticed that some things get worse over time? 

My wife has a coat that she got many years ago, so she decided to buy a new one. It is thinner and has fewer pockets. She recently bought me some new pants - they are thinner and shorter. A new National Trust bag has fewer pockets. I could go on and on....

You can see what happens. The buyer tries to get the best "bang per buck" and has a fixed price. He asks the supplier to keep the price down so accepts some compromises to hold the price, hoping the consumer won't care. 

Result? Thinner, poorer, material, fewer pockets. Basically poorer.

Rant over.

Snowy walk - NOT amateur radio

Just now we went for a walk. The forecast was full sun, so it snowed! 

Recently seen flowers - NOT amateur radio

Already, the nights are getting shorter and there is a promise of spring, although we are still in the depths of winter. My wife took these pictures a few days ago.

Yesterday's snow - NOT amateur radio

We had snow yesterday. Most of it had gone by late afternoon, which surprised us.

It is sunny, but icy, this morning. Wind has dropped.

When we get a drop of snow here in the UK we all panic. I can only imagine what people in New England and Canada think of us!  To us, 0 deg C is cold!

The last day on 2m FT8 using 2.5W

In the last day, 30 stations have spotted me on 2M FT8 using 2.5W and the big-wheel omni antenna. Irrespective of conditions these ranges are always possible.

2m FT8 QRP (Wednesday)

The 2m FT8 gear was turned on early this morning. I am again running 2.5W to the big-wheel omni antenna.

UPDATE 0925z:  8 spots of my QRP including EI2FG (565km) again.  If this is aircraft scatter (I have my doubts), it is there very often, which is why I wonder if some other form of scatter is involved on some paths.

UPDATE 1001z:  7 stations spotted here so far. At the moment I am RX only on 2m FT8 with the big-wheel omni.

Elephants - NOT amateur radio

My wife took this photo last week when we had plenty of sunshine. It was taken at the entrance to the walled garden at Hare Park, Chippenham near Cambridge.

 

Sunspots - Wednesday February 10th 2021

 Solar flux is 70 and the SSN 0. A=4 and K=0.

15m FT8 yesterday

Stations spotted on
15m FT8 yesterday 

In the end, my 2.5W 15m FT8 was spotted by 3 stations. in Europe and Africa.

All over the world was spotted on RX. 

This was just with the tiny indoor loop antenna. 

Alexa - NOT amateur radio

A few months ago we bought an Amazon Dot at half price from Amazon. I bought it as it was so inexpensive: if it was no good, I would not have wasted that much.

What has surprised me is how effective the voice recognition is.  Even with my poor voice, it seems to understand me most times. When not in use we turn it off at the mains to prevent it picking up unintentional conversations. 

When it arrived it was much smaller than I expected. At first I wondered if they had only sent the PSU.  At a guess I reckon it is about 10cm across. Sound quality is much better than expected. It is very good.

You can say things like, "play BBC Radio 4" or "play a 1930s mix".

I am impressed. It is much better than I expected. My wife enjoys it even more!