10m QRP WSPR TX (Saturday)

Since about 0818z, I have been on 10m WSPR TX with my 500mW W5OLF TX beacon. No spots of me yet today.

UPDATE 1155z:   4 unique stations have spotted me, with many multiple times.

UPDATE 1323z:  7 unique stations spotted. Yesterday, FY5KE (7110km) in South America spotted me an incredible 78 times! What I find amazing is just how strong signals can be. For example DL2JA (919km) was getting my 500mW at +2dB S/N. This suggests he could have copied my if I was running less than 1uW.

UPDATE 1801z: 12 unique stations have spotted me.

UPDATE 1939z:  29 stations have spotted my 500mW with an incredible +15dB S/N from DK6UG.

UPDATE 2024z:  30 stations have spotted me with the furthermost FY5KE (7110km). QRT soon.

Pasties - NOT amateur radio

One of my memories was the taste of certain pasties in Plymouth. These were made by Ivor Dewdney. 

They do pasties by post - very tempting. However, this service is currently unavailable probably as a result of the pandemic.

Pasties were the food of miners in Cornwall. One half was savoury and the other half sweet. The format allowed miners to hold their whole meal in their hands.

Lovely!

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/non-amateur-radio/pasties .

Concentration - NOT amateur radio

This photo shows one of our grandsons concentrating on something. 

I have no idea what it was. It looks like he was on granny's iPad. I think one of the reasons he likes coming here is so he gets fewer nags! 

"What happens at granny's house stays at granny's house".

Sunspots - Saturday July 31st 2021

 Solar flux is 76 and the SSN 0.  A=6 and K=1.

10m beacon list

These days, I prefer to look at FT8 and WSPR activity, but some still prefer to monitor beacons. 

This link was on John EI7GL's blog. It shows 10m beacons as well as other HF and MF beacons.

See http://dl8wx.de/BAKE_KW.HTM

Budding musicians? - NOT amateur radio

Two of our grandchildren yesterday.  Budding musicians?  

This granddaughter is very keen on ballet and is very good.

6m FT8 RX (Friday)

Most of the morning I've been on 6m FT8 RX with the V2000 vertical omni antenna. So far today 54 stations spotted at 1245z with the furthermost HZ1SK (4759km) in Saudi Arabia.

UPDATE 1742z:   271 stations spotted here so far. Mostly EUs via Es.

10m WSPR TX - 500mW (Friday)

Spots of me at 1732z

Most of the morning I've been on 10m WSPR TX using 500mW. It is now 1235z and so far I've been spotted by 6 different stations. 

UPDATE 1416z:   21 stations across Europe have spotted me.

UPDATE 1732z:    40 stations have spotted me so far. one South American has spotted me 10 times!

21MHz (15m) QRP CW - my homebrew "Pipit"

Many years ago I designed and made this QRP (800mW) CW rig of 15m. 

It worked remarkably well and worked some impressive DX. 

For several months it was the only rig I used, out of choice. Every QSO was so satisfying. It appeared in GQRP SPRAT. It was in the days before schematic drawing packages, so the schematic was hand-drawn. I used Neosid toroids as these were at hand, although I am sure Amidon ones would be suitable with turns adjusted.

Values are on my webpage. As with all my designs, please use this as a starting point for your own ideas and do not be afraid to change things if this makes the design better! The SBL1 mixer can certainly be replaced by similar double balanced mixers or a homebrew version.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/15m-qrp-cw-pipit .

IC202 and similar

After the Liner-2 made 2m SSB popular in the early 1970s, the IC202 was introduced by ICOM. This had less power, but was cleaner. It had a wide coverage VXO, but it behaved like a VFO. 

To this day, the IC202 and its successors are used to drive transverters. In the past I had the IC202 (2m) and the IC402 (70cm).  There were later S versions with a number of improvements. These were nice simple rigs with no frills. They had no memories or sythesisers.

I used my 2m IC202 with a homemade transverter on 10m. With 1W pep SSB and a low wire dipole the world was worked.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/vhfuhf-commercial-rigs/icom-ic-202 .