Haircut day - NOT amateur radio

In an earlier post, I showed one of our grandsons "helping" me many years ago. He is now 13 and today he got his very long hair cut. 

I think he looks much better and more good looking. He quite likes it too.

10GHz

 As I have mentioned in the past, some take 10GHz operation very seriously, with big dishes, high power and receivers with really low noise figures. Well equipped stations can operate moonbounce on 10GHz.

Others "play" at 10GHz, for example with low cost HB100 Doppler radar modules. With these low cost modules really no microwave engineering is needed. Some have covered 5km with WBFM with just these modules. Placed at the focus of a dish, over 100km has been covered on ATV with these modules. 

The modules contain 4 PCB antennas. 2 are for RX and 2 for RX.

They can even by bought on Amazon. They are even lower cost on eBay. Their main application is Doppler radar, but they have been repurposed. 

I think there are similar units for 24GHz. These 24GHz units are on sale on Amazon, but I have not looked for WBFM designs using these. Just imagine, a very low cost microwave station!

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/homebrew/10ghz .

Dead bodies - NOT amateur radio

When I was a teenager at university in my first year of Electronics my white lab coat was pristine. 

I got one of the medical students to take me into the medics dissection room full of dead bodies : they each had one to dissect. This would have been 1967.  Years later I saw my dad's dead body. That was 1987.

All these had one thing in common. What made them "them" was no longer there.

Views on life after death vary widely. Some people believe something of "us" survives whereas others think we just cease to be. Nobody is really sure. 

Help?

This photo was taken in 2012 and shows one of our grandchildren "helping" me in the lab. 

He is now 13.

Muntjac deer - NOT amateur radio

These are small, introduced, deer. They get in gardens and eat plants. Imagine my wife's face when she saw this one at the door the other day!

365project - NOT amateur radio

As some of you may know, I have taken part in 365project since 2013. This has no connection at all with Microsoft's 365. 365project is absolutely free unless you want more albums and privacy. 

I love it and it is great to look back over the years.  Some use it to show off their talent. Mine are definitely not in this category! I use it as more a visual diary.

The following shots of mine have been popular: https://alexisbirkill.com/365project/popularpage/getuserdetails.php?username=g3xbm

10m FT8 RX (Saturday)

Since before breakfast, I have been on 10m FT8 RX with the homemade 10FT8R RX and 50cm indoor loop. No spots yet at 0754z.

UPDATE 0835z: No spots.

UPDATE 1645z: No spots.

At first, I just thought this was a bad day. Then I looked at G0LRD's spots. He has a better antenna, but he had 333 spots, whereas I have none at all!! I have closed the program and restarted it and re-synchronised the time. If it is not this, I am puzzled. I did a Windows update yesterday. Just going to retune the loop in case someone knocked it off tune.

UPDATE 1650z:  Just swapped to the FT817ND RX.

Sunspots - Saturday May 29th 2021

Solar flux is  77 and the SSN 28.  A=3 and K=1.

Shack yesterday

The photo shows the shack yesterday. 

I was monitoring 10m FT8 with the homemade 10FT8R RX on the left connected to the indoor loop which is about 50cm across and sits on the windowsill.

8m beacons

As I have mentioned before, I expect we will see this band (or small part of it) allocated to the amateur service eventually. For several years, I expect certain amateurs in certain countries to apply for limited access, possibly with spot frequencies and low power for limited time e.g. just for the Es season. 

My prediction is that 10 years from now the 8m band will be widely available.

An interesting recent posting on a Facebook page mentioned this is an ISM allocation. The question is there a legal way to get on the band very soon?

There is a new beacon in the west of Eire EI1CAH on 40.016MHz. This is the second Irish beacon. There is also a beacon in Slovenia S55ZMS (40.670MHz) and the South African 8m beacon ZS6WAB (40.675MHz) has been copied in Europe more than once.

A dipole for 40MHz is easy to make.

See https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/p/40-mhz.html .