Windmill renovation - NOT amateur radio

They are repainting the windmill next door, so it is currently closed. 

They have put a working model in the museum entrance. 

Sunspots - Friday October 1st 2021

 Solar flux is 95 and the SSN 46. A=9 and K=2.

Museum duty - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows some of the things on sale at our local museum next door. We volunteer to help there. 

Season of mists... - NOT amateur radio

Even though I am old, I still get pleasure from seeing conkers at this time of year. The ones in the photo were seen a few days ago.

Rally cancelled

The 48th Welsh Radio Rally, due to be held Sunday October 3rd in Newport, has been cancelled, presumably over Covid-19 fears. I have no further information. 

Let's hope things are OK for next year.

10m FT8 RX (Thursday)

Since about 0825z I have been on 10m FT8 RX. So far today, 2 stations have been spotted after 5 minutes. One did not appear on PSKreporter.

UPDATE 1511z: 35 stations spotted today on 10m FT8 RX including a clutch of east coast USA stations. Is this a taste of what is to come? See map.

UPDATE 2122z:  QRT.

Improving HF conditions

We know conditions can vary day-to-day (some days can be bad), but on the whole things are getting better. We are now well on the upslopes towards the peak of sunspot cycle 25 and we can expect generally improving conditions for some years. Certainly 10m seems better. 

8m NoV (getting the latest draft)

The latest draft NoV is on my website. Some cannot see the embedded document, so I have added a link to the shared document. If your browser prevents seeing the embedded document click the link instead. 

The document should be shared for viewing. I do not think you can edit it, but if you can please do not change it. Instead save a copy for yourself and amend/improve this. Tell me how it could be improved. We all want applications to succeed.

This is the webpage:   https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/8m-band

Sunspots - Thursday September 30th 2021

 Solar flux is 102 and the SSN 74.  A=5 and K=2. 

8m TX permit - a reminder to self!

Well before the next Es season, I intend to apply for an NoV to allow me to TX experimentally on 8m.  I have no idea whether or not this will be successful. 

At the moment, I want to be able to TX FT8, WSPR or CW between the months of March 2022 and the end of October 2022.   All these are narrowband modes, which helps.  The most I can run is 10W, so I shall apply for this. With Es I am sure 2.5W would be enough to be copied all over Europe.  All this depends on my FT817ND being able to TX on 8m!  I have not tried this yet. 

DraftD (not yet submitted) is linked. I propose to send the final version to OFCOM and the RSGB. If you can think of ways to improve it, please let me know as soon as possible.

Anyone care to join me? You may want to amend it as identical submissions might look odd! Hopefully some of us will be successful.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/8m-band .