23cm beacon hunting

Last night I went beacon hunting on 23cm with my tiny indoor 2 element beam. I monitored GB3DUN on Dunstable Downs for several minutes. This is probably my best chance of copying a 23cm beacon.

Just occasionally there was a very brief signal that may have been this beacon. It was there for (at most) a second, then was gone. The direct path is very obstructed and my only real hope is by aircraft scatter. The impression I got was this was not aircraft. I have no idea if you get MS on 23cm.

Other beacons I also looked out for on my waterfall, but nothing was seen.

Sunspots - Friday January 27th 2023

Solar flux is 151 and the SSN 104.   A=11 and K=1.

Assembled QDX status?

 The status of the queue of assembled transceivers from QRP Labs has not been updated since late last week.

See http://qrp-labs.com/qcxmini/assembled.html .

Rally

 The following rally has been notified to me: -

Sunday January 29th - Lincoln Shortwave Club Winter Rally, Market Rasen, LN8 3HT. Contact m5zzz@outlook.com .

As always, it is worth checking before going a long way.

8m QRP FT8

My 8m FT8 on 40.680 MHz was turned on at 0952z.

UPDATE 1625z:  Just G0HVQ (181km) spotting my QRP and nobody spotted on 8m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 1925z:  QRT. No further spots.

10m 500mW WSPR TX (Thursday)

My QRP 10m WSPR beacon was turned on at 0952z.

UPDATE 1000z:  Just local G4KPX (14km) spotting me so far.

UPDATE 1610z:   17 stations spotting my QRP (see table).

UPDATE 1922z:   18 stations spotted me today. QRT soon.

10m FT8

 

With sunspots again good, 10m is again coming into its own. It is quite easy to copy stations on every continent in daylight now on 10m. More people are using FT8 now. This is a digital modulation that is even better than CW, handling and decoding very weak signals. It has already shown that the 10m band is "open" when many leave it.

If you are after a simple 10m FT8 RX that is effective and does not tie up "the big rig" how about my 10FT8R receiver? This is very simple and low cost, but works well.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/10ft8r-rx .

Plans (Thursday)

Later, I hope to go on 10m WSPR QRP TX with my 500mW beacon and 8m FT8 QRP. I may also see if I can detect any 23cm beacons with my 2 el beam indoors.

Kingsbridge Estuary - NOT amateur radio

This photo of where I come from in Devon was on social media a little while ago. This not actually an estuary. It is actually a ria, a drowned river valley. One of my favourite walks was between Salcombe (bottom left) and Kingsbridge (top). It took me about 90 minutes then. It would take me hours now, if at all!

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ria .

Sunspots - Thursday January 26th 2023

Solar flux is 172 and the SSN 140. A=7 and K=3.