The Almonry, Ely - NOT amateur radio

This is the cathedral cafe. They've been serving food here since the 1200s. 

Thankfully the cheese scones are not that old! 

The undercroft has vaulted ceilings and looks very, very old!

See https://www.elycathedral.org/plan-your-visit/eat-drink-shop/the-almonry-restaurant.

Sub 9kHz amateur radio

At one time I was very active monitoring amateur radio below 10 kHz. Stations from all over Europe were decoded. I also used to regularly run a website dedicated to amateur experiments at the very low frequencies. Some remarkable distances were spanned. 

To TX, very big antennas are needed. For RX an E-field probe, which is tiny, is very effective. Extremely accurate frequency control is essential. This is usually achieved by GPS locking or locking to a VLF MSK signal, which is what I did. Bandwidths are measured in uHz. Timescales are measured in hours or even days! Casual listening is extremely unlikely to result in success, except perhaps by earth-mode over much shorter ranges. 

Since my 2013 stroke, I have not been active below 10 kHz. Experiments continue and keen amateurs are still knocking on the boundaries and achieving what many thought was impossible.

The photo shows my reception of DK7FC in 2011. In more recent times he has been testing on ever lower frequencies and with earth-electrode antennas.

Sunspots - Monday February 5th 2023

 Solar flux is 144 and the SSN 53. A=5 and K=3. 

Ely cathedral - NOT amateur radio

Ely Cathedral today. Just how did they make this in medieval times without modern tools?

DX soundbiites 2022

Although I do not actively seek DX these days, you may like to hear the DX soundbites recorded in Ohio last year.

See http://hamgallery.com/dx2022/ .

8m FT8 (Sunday)

For the last few hours, I have been on 8m (40.680 MHz) QRP FT8. At 1206z, no spots on TX or RX. 

UPDATE 1956z:  No spots.

10m 500mW WSPR TX (Sunday)

My 10m WSPR beacon has been on much of the morning. So far, 4 unique stations have spotted me. 

UPDATE 1735z:  25 unique stations have spotted my QRP today.

23cm aircraft scatter

It looks like my best chance of copying beacons on 23cm is via aircraft scatter. This is reflection off aircraft in the correct part of the sky. I have not tried this yet. 

I am told that using software like Airscout allows one to predict when paths might be possible. 

Of course, this is no guarantee of success, but at least tells you when it is worth a try. I have no idea how strong such signals might be. Based on lower frequencies, I would expect such signals to be quite good. I expect there would some Doppler as the plane is moving across the sky. I guess how much depends on the path and plane direction.

This should be interesting. I wonder which beacons I can see? From here, I hope I can see the beacons on Dunstable Downs and at Martlesham Heath.

Dropbox (nasty) - NOT amateur radio

Just received an email from Dropbox saying my free account is over limit. The page is very intimidating and almost forces you to pay an extortionate £95 plus a year for extra space. All their stuff seems designed to take money off you or send you emails you really do not want. Even cancelling is made difficult.

I think I have deleted my account. I do not like their approach at all.

For information, Google offers all the file storage that I need for far, far less.

Sunspots - Sunday February 5th 2023

Solar flux is 139 and the SSN 66. A=6 and K=2.