Operating on 10m

At the moment, 10m is again in great shape. Most days DX from across the world may be copied.  Come May, June, July and August we see the peak Es season in the northern hemisphere which will allow DX up to about 1500km almost daily and some times further. F2 is currently very good. 10m is usually best for DX in the sunlight hours.

There even some single band multi mode 10m rigs available. These are based on CB radios, but can be very good as 10m radios.

There is little doubt that 10m (28MHz) is my favourite band of all. In the past I have used these with CB verticals very successfully on 10m.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/10m-operation .

OFCOM

 A reminder than OFCOM usually updates the data it holds on licences weekly. It has also published several documents this week.   See the OFCOM website for details.

8m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)

At 0955z my 8m FT8 was turned on.  I am not really expecting any spots. Currently, no spots!

UPDATE 1455z:  No spots.

Italian food - NOT amateur radio

My son and grandson are away on different school trips to southern Italy. This is an example of the food.  

Amateur radio black humour

 

Seen earlier today.

Sunspots - Tuesday March 28th 2023

Solar flux is 158 and the SSN 128. A=3 and K=0.

630m transverter

This was designed some years ago, but has appeared in QST and the RSGB book "LF Today". 

I wanted a simple way of getting on this MF band and this was the result. Several have since been successfully built. 

It produces about 10W into 50 ohms, but the ERP will be considerably lower depending on the antenna used. In my case, my "antenna" was just an earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground with the electrodes about 12m apart with the wire back to the shack along the fence not very high. I tried the wire on the ground and it made little difference. My theory is this forms a loop in the ground. The actual loop diameter will get larger as frequency is reduced. Such an antenna has been used for far field amateur TX tests (successfully) at well below 10 kHz.

Most nights my measured 10mW ERP was spotted in Norway on WSPR. It used the FT817ND in split mode TXing on 80m but receiving directly on 630m.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/630m-472khz-transverter .

630m WSPR RX (Monday)

At the moment I am on 630m WSPR RX. So far, just PA3GSH (396km) spotted. 

Cambridge Backs today - NOT amateur radio

This was the view towards King's College chapel this morning. Spring is on its way with several trees bursting out.

Spain on 8m?

Recently, a station in the Caribbean has reported a sudden increase in contacts on 8m with Spain.  He wonders if the authorities there have granted access to 8m to radio amateurs. 

It would be good if more countries were granted legal access, if only for a limited time. This next year or so, around the solar maximum, a great deal of useful research could be done.

Does anyone know the legal situation in Spain please?