10FT8R 10m FT8 RX

This design is over a year old. It is very simple, but works well. It allows monitoring of 10m FT8 without tying up the main rig. You will not miss much.

See the 10FT8R webpage for details. 

I am sorry that the link was initially wrong. Hopefully it is now correct!

Old photo - NOT amateur radio

This photo appeared as a FB memory today. It must be well over 40 years ago. I have hair! 

OFCOM - money?

 OFCOM has made it easier for mobile operators to trade spectrum around 3.6 GHz. See the OFCOM website for more details. Me a cynic? Surely not!! 

Greek food - NOT amateur radio

 

This was our "snack" yesterday in Corfu! Excellent.  Well, we all have to help the Greek economy.

Ferrite rod TX antennas

W5OLF 1 inch 10m ferrite rod antenna

A few people have experimented with transmitting antennas made with ferrite rods. 

As long as the ferrite is suitable for the frequency and does not saturate it should work. This usually means very low power.

With modes like WSPR great distances can be covered with very low power.

Looking back at past blog posts I saw that Jay W5OLF achieved good results on 10m WSPR with a 1 inch ferrite rod antenna and 500mW RF.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/antennas/ferrite-rod-tx-antennas.

Sunspots - Tuesday May 24th 2022

 Solar flux is 158 and the SSN 132.  A=5 and K=1.

1970 university photo - NOT amateur radio

It seems hard to believe that this photo is 52 years old. It was taken in 1970 in my final year.  In those days I had hair!! 

Corfu Beer

So far this week, we have had blue skies and warm sunshine and a very pleasant heat. A cold beer has been very welcome.

8m beacons

There is a growing interest around the world in the 8m band for propagation research. 

The band is between 10m and 6m, at the transition between HF and VHF. Sadly, the few beacons there are there are on different frequencies and modes.

In my view, they would be far more use if they all included an FT8 sequence and were all on a single USB dial setting (different audio tones so they are not on top of each other). They could be on 24/7 and widely monitored with ease by many.

Personally, I think we would all benefit from this. Propagation research would be greatly advanced.

FT8 works with weaker signals than CW, WSJT-X software is free, and even very brief openings get spotted.

Sunspots - Monday May 23rd 2022

 Solar flux is 165 and the SSN 138.  A=11 and K=2.