Another cancelled rally

The Hack Green rally, due this Sunday, has been cancelled. I presume this is as a result of Covid.

70cm FT8 QRP

Last evening there was a 70cm FT8 contest. For most of the time I was on my V2000 vertical antenna with 2.5W. Quite a few UK stations were spotted and I worked one. I wonder if some were spotted by aircraft scatter? 

Clovelly, N. Devon - NOT amateur radio

In 2012 we went on a holiday to North Devon. Remember holidays 😉? The photo shows the village of Clovelly. 

Sunspots - Thursday April 15th 2021

 Solar flux is 74 and the SSN 17.  A=7 and K=3.

Grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

For the first time in many months our grandchildren met up together, socially distanced. 3 of our 4 are in the photo. One is just off the photo.

I shall be glad when they can all meet properly again inside houses.

IC-705 software bug?

Until this evening my IC-705 has been superb. It has firmware 1.12 and needs upgrading to the latest version. 

This evening it went on DV and seemed to freeze. I have no idea what I did. I recently bought a copy of the "Radio Today Guide to the IC-705" which went through how to do a reset if the rig "froze". In the end I did a full hardware reset which seems to have done the trick. Luckily, nothing of mine was yet stored in memories.

I have ordered a micro SD card and hope to upgrade the firmware as soon as I can. I hope this fixes the software bug. I think the latest firmware also adds some new features too.

As a professional RF engineer, I was used to software bugs especially with early releases. Often later releases fixed these. Often bug cures were hidden alongside new features. Most punters did not realise that these releases were primarily to fix the bugs!

Granddaughter, Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

 

The photo shows one of our granddaughters yesterday in Cambridge. I think that swan looks puzzled!

10m FT8 RX with the improved indoor loop

At about 0800z, I went on 10m FT8 RX with the indoor loop antenna. Unsurprisingly, no spots at 0810z.

70cm activity contest (April)

Last evening, I went on the 70cm UKAC activity contest organised by the RSGB. I was on for 1 hour with 10W and the 144MHz big-wheel omni. It is great fun, but more than an hour is impossible with my voice.

Sunspots - Wednesday April 14th 2021

 Solar flux is 73 and the SSN 16. A=5 and K=1.