15 Jun 2022

Memory costs - NOT amateur radio

It is amazing how far memory has come. Not many years ago we were amazed by CF cards with 1GB of memory. These days you can get 512GB on a micro SD card. I think you can even get 1TB micro SD. In 10 years time I wonder what will be the norm?

Sunspots - Wednesday June 15th 2022

Solar flux is 146 and the SSN 121.  A=8 and K=4.

14 Jun 2022

Window display - NOT amateur radio

This was seen in a shop window in Barnsley, Yorkshire earlier. I suspect this is a display from LAST year's Halloween display!! 

Elderflower - NOT amateur radio

 

This is abundant at the moment. People use it to make homemade wine. 

Guess who forgot?

Last Sunday was the annual PW QRP contest that I totally forgot!! The 2m and 70cm UKAC contests I set alarms for, but this one was overlooked. Doh!! 

8m experiment (Tuesday)

Yesterday my QRP TX on 40.680 MHz USB dial FT8 was spotted by 4 stations. I am unlikely to be active for the next few days. 

10m WSPR (Tuesday)

 Yesterday was fairly quiet here on 10m WSPR TX with just 14 stations spotting my 500mW QRP.  Most of these were via Es. 

Sunspots - Tuesday June 14th 2022

Solar flux is 146 and the SSN 96. A=8 and K=2.

13 Jun 2022

Propagation mode?

Both yesterday and the day before, I had over 70 reports of my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon. Today I have had just a few reports and these could be by F2. Es can be very localised with strong signals somewhere and nothing a few kilometres away.

On 8m I am frequently spotted by EI9KP (649km). This happens so often that I suspect some other form of propagation other than F2 or Es is involved such as random meteors or aircraft scatter. 

The period of FT8 makes me think random meteors or aircraft unlikely. It is far too far to EI9KP for tropo. 

Am I missing something? 

OFCOM

OFCOM has updated the data it holds and has proposed a new licencing regime for commercial drones. See the OFCOM website for details.