Es season well and truly over

Although Es can occur at any time, the late spring and early summer are the best times. Often bands up 4m can bring DX to up to 1500km, sometimes more. Rarely, Es occurs at 2m.

Today, for example I saw no evidence of Es propagation on 10m WSPR. The only stations spotting me were probably via F2 propagation or local. The nature of Es is it is sporadic, so the bands can suddenly come alive, which is why FT8 especially can be so useful.

When DX is not around, bands like 10m and 6m can be seriously under-used. This is a pity as they make good bands for club nets and local chats. Antennas are small and local noise is often much better than 160m or 80m, where antennas can be big.

Summer visitors - NOT amateur radio

In the spring and summer, we get bird migrants from Africa. 

In recent years there have been far fewer swallows, although here, surprisingly, swift numbers are not too bad. Swifts mostly go in August to central Africa, whereas many swallows end up in South Africa. 

Most swallows go about now, although a very few may try to over-winter.  As our climate gets milder, some may succeed. It will be next spring before the swifts and swallows, hopefully, return. They have being doing this journey for thousands of years.

Bee-eaters

We are seeing some birds that would have been rare here 50 years ago like little egrets. Even bee-eaters have bred here this year. I have only seen these near the Mediterranean Sea.  

Over the winter we see birds from the far north, who think our climate is mild! Don't tell them otherwise! In this part of the UK we get swans from Iceland and Siberia over the winter.

Shadows - NOT amateur radio

Today is a lovely sunny day here. It feels much colder than a few weeks ago. Inside our church, there were long shadows, as the photo shows.

Amateur beacon on the moon?

 Amateur Radio Weekly reports that the Japanese hope to put a UHF beacon on the moon.

See https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/omotenashi/JHRCweb/jhrc.html .

If successfully deployed, this could be a good test for receivers. I am not sure what it will send or when the launch is planned.

23cm transverter

This was ordered this weekend. Hopefully it will arrive early November. Not sure what import duty or VAT is payable. I am sure someone will tell me!

10m QRP WSPR TX

The only spots of me today look like F2 and local, with no Es.  EA8BFK (2880km) and G4KPX (14km) have spotted my 500mW.

Ripening? - NOT amateur radio

This year our tomato plants have been a failure with very few turning red. The green ones are on the windowsill to ripen. If this fails it will be green tomato chutney!!!

Sunspots - Saturday September 17th 2022

 Solar flux is 131 and the SSN 64. A=4 and K=1.

Still no luck here with the EI1KNH 8m beacon

Although Keith in Lincoln has been successful, I have still not decoded the beacon. We are at similar distances from the beacon, I think. It would seem my low horizontal dipole is not as effective as Keith's long wire. I note that the beacon has a vertical dipole whereas mine is horizontal. With scatter and MS this probably does not matter, but with WSPR and tropo it could make all the difference. I shall keep trying!! 

I must check the screen during a WSPR slot to see if it is there at all. It sends WSPR every 20 minutes.  If I can detect it at all, I might briefly try my other antennas just in case these are better in that direction and with  vertical polarisation.

Otherwise, it is MSK144 in a meteor shower.

UPDATE 0936z:  In the last WSPR slots absolutely nothing on the screen with the 8m dipole or 10m end fed antennas. 

UPDATE 1410z: In view of Paul's (G9PUV) comments that he has never spotted WSPR from this beacon, I have switched back to 8m FT8 RX. You never know! It will be monitored all weekend.

Yaesu FT-710 MLS price

Puzzled. 

MLS has just announced the price of the new 100W SDR transceiver, that seems to have a very similar spec to the FTDX-10. It seems the price is lower than the FTDX-10 and the rig a little smaller. What I cannot understand is why Yaesu has done this.

Was the FTDX-10 not quite right? Where is a proper FT817 replacement? It still seems to me that Yaesu is in a muddle and trying to find its way.

See https://www.hamradio.co.uk/top-deals/ft-710 .