Me in 1967 - NOT amateur radio

One of my Facebook memories today was this photo of me in 1967 when I had hair and most of my life was ahead of me. 

I lost most of my hair a few years later! 

Sunspots - Monday September 6th 2021

Solar flux is 94 and the SSN 66.  A=6 and K=1. 

630m (472kHz) WSPR RX using the indoor active loop

 At the moment, I am on 630m WSPR RX with the Wellgood active loop. So far no spots.

UPDATE 2136z:  Still no spots this evening. I have to turn things off soon too and go QRT.

160m FT8 RX with the indoor active loop

At about 1435z, I turned on 160m FT8 RX with the indoor Wellgood active RX loop. It is still very clearly daylight here for several hours, so I am not expecting much until darkness falls. 

Last night, it was quite late in the evening before much European DX appeared.

UPDATE 1735z:  2 Gs spotted so far. Furthermost is G3VAO (229km).

UPDATE 1952z:  It is dark now, so plenty being spotted! 28 stations spotted with the furthermost R5DT (2541km).

The Wayback Machine - NOT amateur radio

This is an incredible resource that archives billions of old pages that no longer exist. They even have a website of mine from the 1990s! Needless to say, things have changed a bit. I think my very first website was on Compuserve in the early 1990s - not found this yet!

See https://web.archive.org/web/19981111190213/http://www.lapr.demon.co.uk/ .

Abbey Gardens - NOT amateur radio

These gardens in nearby Bury St Edmunds are often a riot of colour, as they were recently. We often go there whilst shopping in Bury St Edmunds that is a charming East Anglian town.

Optical 481THz line of sight

It is some years since I seriously worked on optical communications. My main "thing" was over the horizon, so called non-line-of-sight (NLOS) beaconing. I was surprised that with very simple, homemade gear I could get well over the horizon, with no clouds to help. If my poor health had not got in the way, I am sure far greater ranges would have been possible. The record (in Australia I think) is an incredible distance.

I only had one speech contact over 11km line of sight and that was with G4HJW. All my gear was made in the back of the garage and it was very simple. The optics used low cost PVC drain pipes and the lenses were made from magnifying glasses obtained from a local Poundland store. The electrical gear was very simple and low cost. It was not worth making PCBs. Test gear is very simple. Optical experiments are low cost and fun.

My main G3XBM website has much more on my gear and experiments including NLOS tests.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/optical-nanowaves/line-of-sight .

Lincoln meal - NOT amateur radio

Last week, we had a few days in Lincoln, UK. 

On the second evening we ate at Wildwood. I had the burger as shown in the photo and a red wine.

On the first night we ate at the famous pie shop. We ate here some years ago.

10m WSPR TX with 500mW (Sunday)

At 0806z, I turned on my tiny 10m WSPR beacon designed by W5OLF.  Although 100% TX, this changes frequency randomly every slot to prevent being clobbered by a mega-station. 

So far just spots by local G4KPX (14km).

UPDATE 1030z:   A single spot by OH6BG (1718km).

UPDATE 1140z:  Now spots by 3 unique stations (see photo).  G4KPX has spotted me 101 times!

UPDATE 1748z:  Still just 3 stations spotting me.  This is not a good day.You get the impression there is very little Es and just occasionally it appears for a few seconds and then is gone again. Unless things radically change in the next few hours, I shall put this down as a day best forgotten!

Sunspots - Sunday September 5th 2021

 Solar flux is 87 and the SSN 68. A=5 and K=2.