Activity levels

Today was an interesting experiment. I tried 6m and 4m FT8. The difference could not be more stark. On 6m I got plenty of spots, whereas on 4m none at all. Many modern transceivers in Europe include 4m, yet activity on this great band seems very poor. 

I guess people are more interested in working new DX than chatting, not that you can chat on FT8!  There is no doubt amateur radio is changing. In many ways this is for the worse. 

Putting a RX on 6m FT8 is more likely to have something "new" than 4m FT8 outside of the Es season. Even so, I am surprised how bad 4m seems to be. I was expecting some activity!

Unless things change, amateur radio will be gone before 2040. At the very least, it will be radically different.

UPDATE 1336z: What will the future of amateur radio look like? The short answer is I do not know! I can see national agencies like the FCC and OFCOM tiring of amateur radio. Instead I can see the allocation of callsigns being delegated to the ARRL and the RSGB. I can see this spreading across the world. I can see a time when the amateur bands that remain become a free for all, without licences, as long as no interference is caused. I can see a merging of licence free bands and amateur radio.

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.