These snowdrops give us the promise of spring to come.
8 Feb 2022
Quantum mechanics - NOT amateur radio
One advantage of being near Cambridge is we have a vast choice of courses for our University of the Third Age. Often we can tap into the knowledge of some very clever people.
I go into Cambridge to learn about Medieval History on Fridays and attend a course on Quantum Mechanics at home on Zoom on Tuesday mornings. The course on quantum mechanics is given by a Cambridge Ph.D man. He is a very good communicator, but it is hard.
The important things are the "take away" remarks. Repeated experiments seem to prove that quantum mechanics is right and our "conventional" view of reality is flawed. Indeed, our whole beliefs about space and time may be wrong.
This is as much about philosophy as physics.
10m FT8 QRP (Tuesday)
After a brief period with 2.5W TX, I am RX only. So far today (at 0924z) just G6TUS (18km) spotting me and 15 stations spotted on RX with the furthermost 4I1EBC (10661km).
UPDATE 1217z: 261 stations spotted today on 10m FT8 RX with the furthermost VK8NSB (13781km).
UPDATE 1350z: 333 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX from all over the world.
UPDATE 1935z: 494 stations spotted. QRT soon.
160m FT8 overnight
307 stations spotted on RX on 160m FT8 overnight. The antenna was the 10m end fed.
Sunspots - Tuesday February 8th 2022
At the moment the usual site I get my solar data from seems to be offline. I shall add numbers as soon as I can.
UPDATE 0930z: This site is still not responding. I shall try again later. If it still fails, I shall have to find a new source of data. See https://dx.qsl.net/propagation/index.html . It seems the host site dx.qsl.net is not working at the moment.
UPDATE 0938z: It looks like the NOAA site (where the data comes from?) is undergoing maintenance.
UPDATE 1214z: Well, the dx.qsl site is now working, but the best data is 2115z yesterday, not today. This is what follows.
Solar flux is 127 and the SSN 83. A=8 and K=2. Remember, this is late yesterday, not today.
7 Feb 2022
160m FT8 QRP (Monday)
The 10m antenna turns out to have quite a reasonable SWR on 160m.
Just for fun, I tried a few CQs on 160m FT8 TX with this antenna and was spotted by 2E0VDS (30km) and G0BNR (37km).
On 160m FT8 RX 32 stations spotted by 1955z, after about 15 minutes!
UPDATE 2118z: 157 stations spotted on 160m FT8 RX.
10m WSPR TX (Monday)
As usual, I am on 10m WSPR TX with 500mW and the W5OLF beacon. So far just local spots of me by G4KPX (14km).
When not in use for other things like FT8, I use the 10m antenna for WSPR TX.
UPDATE 1235z: 4 unique stations have spotted me today so far.
UPDATE 1923z: 5 unique stations have spotted me today. Now QRT.
6m FT8 QRP (Monday)
After a very brief period on TX with 2.5W and the V2000 vertical omni antenna, I am now on RX only.
So far, just one spot on TX by G0PQO (50km) and nothing yet on RX at 0957z.
UPDATE 1326z: 5 stations spotted so far with the furthermost OZ5TG (738km). Judging by the strength (huge!), I suspect this was aircraft reflection.
UPDATE 1925z: QRT.
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