Shetland sunrise - NOT amateur radio

This photo appeared on 365project earlier and was posted by a friend on the Shetland Islands in the far north of Scotland. The days are long in summer, but short in winter.

Yaesu FTDX-10

As readers will know, I have been strongly considering one of these. 

At the moment MLS is offering a very good deal, but I am still undecided. I am probably not buying one, although it is very highly rated in the Sherwood RX tests. With the £100 MLS gift voucher and Yaesu £85 cashback, now is probably the very best time.

It has a very good receiver, 4m and an auto-ATU, but not 2m or 70cm. At 100W on HF it has about 20 times the power I would ever use!

8m experiment (Saturday)

Yesterday, my 40.680 MHz QRP USB dial FT8 was spotted by 2 Iberian stations with 1 "QSO". The gear was turned on this morning at 0737z.

UPDATE 0959z:  No spots.

 

Sunspots - Saturday August 27th 2022

 Solar flux is 119 and the SSN 88.  A=5 and K=1.

Wedding bells - NOT amateur radio

Our elder grandson loves to ring bells. He has now rung in 40 towers and, as I write, is ringing locally for a wedding. 

Deleted by mistake?

If you have recently written to me and have not got a reply, it was probably my mistake. 

I just emptied my bin and, too late, noticed something that I think should not have been there. Write again please. I try to respond promptly. Please accept my apologies. Writing again is probably the best thing to do if you got no response.

WISPY 10m WSPR receiver

It is amazing to believe that this design of mine is 10 years old!  These days, many have gone on to FT8 instead, but there is a good following on 10m WSPR as well. This used very low cost 14.060 MHz crystals that were pulled, making this a very low cost design. It worked well.

Rye, Sussex - NOT amateur radio

 

This is Rye in Sussex. It is a beautiful place. 

10m QRP WSPR TX

My 500mW WSPR TX gear was turned on at 0939z. At 0949z, no spots.

UPDATE 1240z:  Several spots from just Sweden. Limited Es opening?

UPDATE 1325z:  Now spotted in Spain.

UPDATE 1335z:  Now spotted in Norway.

UPDATE 1720z:  Copied by 5 unique stations today.

8m experiment (Friday)

My QRP 8m FT8 gear on 40.680 MHz USB dial was turned on at 0939z. No spots yet. 

UPDATE 1325z:  No spots today on 8m.

UPDATE 1729z:  HC02 (1808km) in Portugal has spotted my 8m FT8 QRP TX today.