Sunspots - Saturday May 1st 2021

 Solar flux is 73 and the SSN 35. A=6 and K=1.

Buttercups - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows the buttercups near our post office yesterday. A few weeks there were lots of daffodils.

First cuckoo heard - NOT amateur radio

At one time we heard cuckoos every spring. These days they appear far rarer. 

On our visit to Anglesey Abbey after lunch we heard one. 

They often lay a single egg in a reed warbler's nest. I suspect the one we heard was beside the water. It was very clear.

See https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/cuckoo/ .

10m FT8 grabber

Before long, I would like to add a grabber on my website to show the stations I am spotting on 10m FT8. The page is already there, but I don''t yet know how to do this! 😁

As a PC novice this has to be really, really simple.  Steve G1KQH is also after the answer.

If you know a very easy way to do this, please let me know! 

What I really want is to be able to show the PSKreporter map screen that I can see.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/10grab .

At the moment, the grabs are being manually uploaded.

Where I come from - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows where I come from in South Devon. This is the Kingsbridge Estuary with Salcombe in the distance. 

Early start on 10m FT8 RX

At 0555z I turned on my 10m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop antenna. The 10FT8R RX is again being used. No spots yet. 

UPDATE 0906z:  3 spots so far today with the best OZ (Denmark).

UPDATE 1520z:  42 stations spotted so far today with the 10FT8R 10m FT8 RX on the tiny indoor loop. See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/10grab .

Sunspots - Friday April 30th 2021

Solar flux is 77 and the SSN 37. A=6 and K =1.

Dangerous SPAM - NOT amateur radio

Recently in my SPAM folder I received this. The important thing is these scammers have a way of detecting passwords. So have unique passwords and ones that are hard to crack and change them often. Should you receive anything beware!! 

"I am aware $$$$$$ (password hidden but visible in the original SPAM to me)  is one of your pass. Lets get directly to the point. Not a single person has compensated me to check about you. You may not know me and you are most likely thinking why you are getting this email?

Well, i actually placed a malware on the adult videos (pornography) web-site and there's more, you visited this web site to have fun (you know what i mean). When you were watching video clips, your web browser started out working as a Remote control Desktop with a key logger which provided me accessibility to your screen and also webcam. after that, my software collected every one of your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook, as well as e-mail. after that i created a video. 1st part displays the video you were viewing (you have a fine taste rofl), and second part shows the recording of your web cam, and it is u.

You get two different options. Why dont we take a look at the options in details:

1st alternative is to ignore this e-mail. in such a case, i will send out your very own video clip to all your contacts and then consider concerning the humiliation you will see. and definitely if you are in a romantic relationship, just how it will certainly affect?

Second option would be to compensate me $2743. Lets refer to it as a donation. Then, i most certainly will straightaway erase your video. You could keep daily life like this never happened and you would never hear back again from me.

You will make the payment through Bitcoin (if you don't know this, search 'how to buy bitcoin' in Google search engine).

Bitcoin address to send to: 16G7Lwom3tnKJ9nMpwcQzDJd4rrYvcrs2s

[case sensitive copy and paste it]

in case you are curious about going to the authorities, well, this email cannot be traced back to me. I have taken care of my actions. i am not trying to charge a fee very much, i would like to be compensated. in order to make the payment if i do not get the bitcoin, i will definately send your video to all of your contacts including relatives, coworkers, and so forth. Having said that, if i receive the payment, i will destroy the video immediately. If you want evidence, reply Yup! & i will send out your video recording to your 11 friends. it is a nonnegotiable offer, therefore don't waste my personal time & yours by responding to this email message."

10FT8R Schematic

I am sorry this is hand drawn for now. With my addled brain it is much harder to learn new schematic drawing packages. I thought it better to put up a hand drawn sketch than nothing.  Even doing the schematic by hand was hard.

The inductor next to the crystal was added to pull low cost 14.040MHz crystals down to 14.037MHz. In my case I used a T37-6 core with about 6uH inductance. I DC isolated the connections to the PC mic input.

I use the shack 13.8V PSU, but it will probably work with batteries with lower voltage although I have not tried this. Some resistors may have to change in value.

The Polyakov mixer diodes could probably be replaced with matched germanium ones.

If you can improve it please let me know!

OFCOM changes

 OFCOM has changed some licence exemption conditions for short range devices. See the OFCOM website for details.