Wicken near Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows the village of Wicken not far from Cambridge, UK.  

This morning we walked to the National Trust cafe at Wicken Fen from Burwell Lode and back, stopping for a break at the cafe.

Enjoying the Australian winter - NOT amateur radio

One of our sons with his children in Queensland, Australia visiting his inlaws. 

5m recording from the 1940s?

In the late 1940s a recording of the very last night in the UK on 5m was made by Jack Hum G5UM, who lived in London, I think, at the time. I wonder if copies of this historic recording still exist?

Updated solar data

As we are early in the month, my favourite site for solar data gets updated with the latest figures.

At the moment, the peak of solar cycle 25 is expected in November 2023 with a peak of 141. I cannot recall what way of averaging was used. If this peak date is the case, HF conditions could be good for several years to  come. 

I recall spotting South Americans at the very minimum on 10m FT8. This is why FT8 could be so useful. I like FT8 as it allows easy monitoring of even short openings.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy good conditions! When conditions are good, SSB, FM and AM QSOs can be had with low power on 10m.

Fewer 10m F2 openings?

When I am on 8m, I use WSPR on 10m as this does not tie up the PC and the 10m antenna is available. 

Now this may be as a result of more people now using FT8 rather than WSPR, but I am getting fewer F2 10m WSPR spots than during the last solar cycle. Sunspot numbers have been quite high and I would have expected to get a few reports from further afield on 10m. Most stations are European. Maybe it is just that E layer reflections block the way up to the F layer?

Is it just me?

Time sync

In the shack I have an Asus laptop that is several years old, so I would expect the battery to be losing capacity, In the past I used an online time server to sync to internet time when using WSJT-X. I have found this a waste of time. 

Every morning, I resync the PC clock using the facility in Windows 10. I find that this is perfectly fine. Occasionally, I resync the clock "just in case", but get the feeling this is overkill.

So, I do not think anything special is needed.

Sunspots - Tuesday August 2nd 2022

Solar flux is 95 and the SSN 32.  A=8 and K=1.

Forgotten!

Since I released my free G3XBM Project Scrapbook, I have already thought of some things that I have left out! 

In the early 1970s, when still living in Cambridge, I made a 2m AM rig based on the Pye PF2AMB. It had a RX that I could tune and, I think, 6 crystal controlled TX frequencies. It was in an aluminium box covered in wood effect Fablon.  In the photo taken in the 1970s (when I had hair) it is the rig with the black and white meter to the right of the EC10 receiver,  I used to have a weekly sked on CW with G5UM in Leicester. Jack used to write the VHF column in RadCom. He was a really nice man.  The rig produced 500mW on AM.  It was also used once in the PW QRP contest, with some amazing results. 

I also made a 100mW AM transmitter with very pre-emphasised speech and heavy clipping. This was extremely punchy and effective.

In the photo, the rig on the bottom right was a 10m 1W CW TX. It was my first experience of HF, with a loft dipole. Later, I made a 10m PA to increase the power. I think this was to 25W. It was far too much for me!

At the time, my 2m antenna was a hand rotated, 2 element, HB9CV in the loft, that I could turn from the operating position.

Sadly, I no longer have schematics for these rigs, but I shall add reference to these in the next edition, by which time I might remember more, HI.

ICOM prices going up

Steve G1KQH tells me that ICOM is raising prices from September 1st.  I have no idea of the prices in future, but they are all suffering.

Wild blackberries - NOT amateur radio

 

Yesterday we went to our local museum across the road with some of our grandchildren. On the way, they ate quite a few blackberries as the photo shows!