My new QRP radio

A photo of my next QRP radio? 

Cosy - NOT amateur radio

One of our grandchildren loves staying here. He is with us quite often. I think he likes it as we are pretty even tempered and the house is cosy. We know he will change, but I hope he has good memories which he can enjoy all of his life.

Sunspots - Tuesday October 12th 2021

Solar flux is 89 and the SSN 35. A=13 and K=5.

University of the Third Age - NOT amateur radio

One of the joys of being retired is learning purely for the sake of learning. No exams! 

We are lucky in Cambridge having a huge range of courses on all sorts of subjects. Some are in Cambridge and some are on Zoom. Often they are given by ex-university people and are excellent.

Today, I had my first lecture. It was on Zoom and called "The Pale Blue Dot" about all aspects of the Earth. It was good to have this from an ex-university lecturer whilst drinking coffee at home.

On Friday I go on the bus into Cambridge for my course on Medieval History. As an engineer, this is a subject I know little about! Learning can be fun.

See https://www.u3ac.org.uk/ .

10m FT8 RX

Since about 0910z, I have been on 10m FT8 RX. So far, 39 stations spotted on RX with the furthermost ZS1J (9744km) in the Western Cape, South Africa.

UPDATE 1809z: 124 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX. Interestingly, nothing from North America. Furthermost was VP8LP (12773km) in the Falkland Is.

More King's College - NOT amateur radio

About 200m from the world famous King's College Chapel in Cambridge are some of the rooms. 

Years ago I went to a weekly meeting in room X6. 

The river is the Cam. 

Antennas for 10m

10m is waking from its slumber: after several years when it has been more like a VHF band, it is again a great F2 DX band. In recent days it has opened well to North and South America.

One of the great things about this band is antennas are small and even a short distance above ground is significant in terms of wavelengths. CB half wave verticals can work well on 10m and a dipole is very small.

In the past I used a small wire halo which I called the Homebase-10 as most parts could be got from the local hardware shop. It has been on the blog before but with 10m "waking up" now might be a great time to have a go.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/antennas/homebase10-10m-halo .

Scones - NOT amateur radio

Four years ago I first made these savoury scones. I must make some more. 

Intelligent life "out there" - NOT amateur radio

As far as I am aware the SETI project has been looking for intelligent life in the universe for almost 60 years. As far as I know, nothing has been detected. Maybe our methods are flawed?

What seems probable, but not certain, is that "out there" somewhere intelligent life does exist. Even with pessimistic estimates there are 10s of intelligent civilisations in our galaxy. There are trillions of galaxies in the observable universe, so the probability of intelligent life existing somewhere goes up. They may be so far away that we cannot interact with them, but with time we may detect some of them.

All this makes me puzzled. All religions seem too small and too human-centric.  Life is a total mystery.

See https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-many-alien-civilizations-are-out-there-new-galactic-survey-holds-clue .

Sunspots - Monday October 11th 2021

 Solar flux is 85 and the SSN 38. A=9 and K=3.