Sunspots - Thursday May 27th 2021

Solar flux is 88 and the SSN 34. A=13 and K=4.

Quiet Life - NOT amateur radio

This snail, minding its own business on a leaf at Anglesey Abbey, was photographed this morning.

We have had a very dull and wet May, so we saw quite a few toadstools. These are more common in the autumn. 

10m FT8 RX with the 10FT8R RX and the tiny indoor loop antenna

 For the last few hours I have been on 10m FT8 with the tiny indoor loop antenna and the 10FT8R RX. It is now 1143z and so far today just 4 stations have been spotted on RX. 

UPDATE 1251z:  7 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX so far.

UPDATE 2105z:   37 stations only spotted today with the tiny loop. QRT shortly.

Angry sky - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows the windmill next door to us with an angry sky behind. 

This was taken last evening.

Website issues

It has been brought to my attention that when I link to my Google drive to embed clearer schematics on my G3XBM website it only works for me. I need to make where I get the files from "open". I shall try to fix this soon.

UPDATE 1315z: As I cannot see an easy way to make a certain Google drive file public, I am putting a link on each page as David shows in the comments. This will take me a while, so please be patient! 

Sunspots - Wednesday May 26th 2021

Solar flux is 84 and the SSN 36.  A=3 and K=1. 

HackRF One SDR transceiver

Elector has a special offer on these SDR transceivers that go from 1MHz to 6GHz!! I do not know what power they put out but I guess mW only. They sell for 249 Euros with a free book.

See https://www.elektor.com/hackrf-one-sdr-transceiver .

Dayton Hamvention (Virtual)

For the second year, because of Covid-19, this was a virtual event. They are already selling tickets for the 2022 event, which they hope is not virtual!

Usually this is a showcase event where new products are shown for the first time. Often these are rushed, pre-production products. We may have to wait a long time before production starts and bugs are ironed out. I have not heard of great new products being announced, although I may have missed this. 

This, outside Japan, is where we first heard of the IC-7300 and IC-705 from ICOM. I was wondering if Yaesu was going to announce a real successor to the FT817 (I don't count the FT818)_......zzzzz wake up Yaesu!!

10m FT8 (Tuesday) - late start!

At 1457z, I turned on the 10FT8R 4 transistor RX with the tiny indoor loop antenna. After under 10 minutes, 20 stations already spotted!

UPDATE 1711z:  191 stations spotted so far today on 10m FT8 RX with the 10FT8R RX and the indoor tiny loop (see map).

UPDATE 1840z:  235 spots so far today on 10m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 2110z: 240 stations spotted on RX today.  QRT soon.

10 years old already! - NOT amateur radio

It is hard to believe that one of our grandchildren is 10 years old today. 

The photo shows her 9 years ago.