Wicken Fen lunch yesterday - NOT amateur radio

 

This was our lunch at the cafe at Wicken Fen on our walk yesterday.

4m FT8 (Friday)

 At 1140z, I turned on my 4m FT8 with my compromise antenna of the 2m big-wheel and coax tuned via the auto ATU in the FT-710 So far, no spots of me.

UPDATE 1235z:  I decided to go back to 6m FT8 as I was getting no spots on 4m. Clearly few come on 4m outside the Es season.

6m FT8 (Friday)

At the moment I am on 6m FT8 with the FT-710. Several UK spots of me on TX, but no RX spots.

UPDATE 1056z: F4EGZ (668km) has spotted me.

UPDATE  1242z:  Back on 6m FT8. 16 stations have spotted me.

UPDATE 1300z: Spotted by 17 stations on 6m FT8 so far today.

Stations spotting me
today on 6m FT8 TX

UPDATE 1856z: 56 stations in 10 countries have spotted me today on 6m FT8. It is not even the Es season yet! Very few spots (4) on 6m FT8 RX.

Brave New World?

 As an experiment just now, I asked Chat GPT4 to generate me an essay about amateur radio. GPT4 is a form of artificial intelligence.

The essay looked remarkably accurate and was just as if a human being had written it. I stopped after about 30 lines. I also asked it to create a couple of poems about places I knew. These were amazing.

You can see both the good and bad here: the good is getting AI to do what humans find boring and hard. The bad is where does this stop?

Although I do not want to sound like a Luddite, I can see dangers ahead.

Wicken Fen walk - NOT amateur radio

 

Yesterday we walked to Wicken Fen. It tried to rain (briefly) on the way back.

19 set

Back in the 1960s these were quite common WW2 surplus radios often used on 80m AM. These days they are more difficult to get. At one time these were made by Pye Telecom. 

Sunspots - Friday March 31st 2023

Solar flux is 140 and the SSN 99.  A=17 and K=4.

Red-legged partridges - NOT amateur radio

Only a few days ago I was saying how we had seen none of these for a while. This evening, one appeared in our front drive and then perched on the bird table in the back!  

I heard it first. It is probably after a mate!

10m QRP FT8 (Thursday)

 So far, 38 stations have spotted me and I have copied a lot more!  2 QSOs so far.

Stations spotting me
 today on 10m FT8 QRP

UPDATE 2110z:  156 stations have spotted my QRP 10m FT8 today. 3 QSOs. It seems the world is there with QRP on 10m FT8. It is too easy! Currently not trying for QSOs. More like FT8 beaconing.  

Death - NOT amateur radio

We have just heard of the death of the husband of my wife's old work colleague. They live in Australia. Although expected, it must be such a shock when it actually happens. 

I guess it is also a wake-up call to our own mortality. I am reminded of this poem.

See https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44400/spring-and-fall .